Community Leadership – It Takes a Village!

The culture women navigate is not easy…

Socialization and confusing media messages train women to aim to be number one at all costs. We simultaneously receive never-ending messages telling us we’re not enough.

In our attempt to survive and “succeed” our norms are driven by comparison, competition, and exclusion.

The result is conflict, with ourselves and each other.

Our community says enough!  We ARE enough and there IS enough. 

We are stopping the destructive cycle that separates women.

“We” are leading the way to ensure that women have the opportunity to discover they are naturally beautiful, inherently brilliant and there IS room for each of us to succeed.

It takes a village to lead a healthy vibrant community…

Community leadership is a shared experience for Together We Rise, a women’s group launched to provide a safe and uplifting space to be celebrated and supported in all aspects of life. 

We lift each other up. 

We do this by creating a safe space to get real…. we discover we are not alone. We elevate and celebrate each other exactly as we are.

We make space for each woman to share wisdom and leadership.

Why? Because every person on the planet has a gift to share that is valuable. We choose to cultivate those gifts by making room for those gifts to be shared. We learn from each other, network, support each other in business, and learn just how much every person in our community has to offer.

In our model of shared leadership, we choose to let go of competition, comparison, and exclusion. It’s healthy. It’s a relief and, it’s powerful.

Together we ARE stronger.

Meet two of our wise women leaders… they’re amazing!

Debbie Stein and Kylie Oliver step in this month to share their gifts and expertise at our Autumn Equinox Celebration.

DEBBIE STEIN is an educator, master communicator, and a soulful healer.

She’s worked with the Kumeyaay people for the past 10 years. During this time she was gifted the knowledge of the Kumeyaay language by an elder. She is a deep soul with a valuable ability to facilitate communication and create community.

Debbie has spent years learning the Kumeyaay language, culture, stories and traditional ways of being, thinking and living. Revitalization of indigenous language and cultural teachings has become her life’s work.

She will lead us through a traditional group experience of the Apache called a story web, showing us that our stories matter. Her offering will be the foundation of our journey together.

Debbie believes community is essential for healthy living, “We rely on community to hold us up when we don’t feel strong, to motivate us when we think we can’t, to laugh with us and to share all of life’s joys and sorrows.”

She believes communities are strongest when the relationships are reciprocal… when individuals go to the community to receive strength and support they then naturally choose to give back to others who are in need. “Yet, modern living has shifted our relationship to each other and community…we are pushed to acquire material goods as a symbol of success, it has become a sickness.

We are conditioned to believe independence and personal success, at all costs, will somehow bring us happiness. Possessions are not things to acquire in order to achieve success or status, in fact, the opposite is true.” In her culture and within indigenous communities she works with, those considered leaders are the ones selflessly taking care of those who have nothing to offer in return. “

We’ve also become so busy “doing” we have forgotten we are “beings”, not doers. In our fast-paced society, we’ve forgotten the simple pleasures of life… our connections to nature, our common bond to all life as we know it.

To thrive we need authentic, vulnerable human connection’s.

As human beings, we just want to be heard, seen and accepted. Somehow we’ve disconnected from this truth and collectively perceive vulnerability as a weakness. It is, however, what makes us human.”

Debbie has dedicated her life to helping us remember, to reconnecting with ourselves and each other through teaching and facilitating. In addition to her work with the Kumeyaay people, she offers Sweat Lodges, a cleansing, and renewal practice that allows for connection with Spirit and fellow beings. Trust Circles are also something she facilitates which came as a result of her work with indigenous communities and seeing the need to heal generational trauma inflicted upon native people by colonization.

“When people can be seen, heard and allowed to “be” without judgment true healing occurs. I think this is essential to our survival as human beings.” Learn more>

KYLIE OLIVER an artist and sound healer, her music is heart medicine.

She’ll be offering music for meditation and as we light candles to honor the transition from summer to fall at the precise moment of the equinox.

“As a teen, I played a silver flute. Wherever I went, it came with me… even on my travels to the other side of the world.

I have always been mesmerized by the sounds of the Native American flute. About 3yrs ago I was gifted a flute and I absolutely fell in love with it. Not long after that, I was gifted my dream flute, a bass D. The big deep one that takes you calmly away to be in your visions.

Flutes have become part of my journey.

I have many flutes now but mainly play my bass D and an F key flute. I love how my heart and my environment comes through my music.

Letting the music flow through as I play the flute is a breath meditation for me.

I feel especially honored when others receive this music, it fills my heart to hear how they feel as they listen.

Making music opens peace within me.

Playing in and to nature is where I started. I live by the ocean and play pretty much every Sunday morning at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. The sound of the waves with the flute magical.

Kylie is a busy single mom with a 14-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter. She works at a local organic market and is starting two jewelry businesses with onyx and jade jewelry and “any wear angels.” She’s also launched a community project called Empowered Postpartum providing access to education, assessment, and support for moms and families who are experiencing or have experienced postpartum depression. Learn more>

Together We Rise is a village and there is room for you!

We believe that it’s time to rise into new definitions of beauty, strength, sisterhood, and success for women… and men.
We practice this in community, consider joining us on the journey.

Together we ARE stronger. Together WE rise.