While You Wait For Seen in the Wilderness:

Three Things to Practice Right Now

Integration does not begin in the two day live experience. It can begin in this moment.

†  Notice your body before you try to think.

Before Seen in the Wilderness begins, find a quiet place, even two minutes between responsibilities, and place one hand on your chest and one on your stomach. Take three slow breaths. Not to compose yourself for what comes next. Simply to notice what is already there. Tension? Tightness? A low hum of exhaustion you have learned to move past? You do not need to fix it. You are simply practicing something most women in ministry were never taught: paying attention to what your own body is carrying, before you pour yourself out for someone else again.

This is the beginning of attunement, not just to your congregation, but to yourself.

† Name one reaction from this week without judging it.

It does not have to be dramatic. It rarely is. Think of one moment this week where you were present for someone, performing steadiness, holding the room, while something in you was quietly fraying. Write it down in one sentence. Do not explain it. Do not justify it. Just name it.

Example: "I sat with her grief and came home and could not speak." Or: "I led worship and felt nothing and told no one."

That sentence is not a confession of failure. It is the beginning of honesty. And honesty, held in the right container, is where formation actually starts.

† Think of one relationship where you have been on guard.

Not to resolve it tonight. Just to see it clearly. Where have you quietly stopped believing that anyone would show up for you the way you show up for everyone else? Where have you adjusted your expectations downward, told yourself you do not really need it, convinced yourself that this is simply what the role requires?

That place, the one where you stopped expecting, is exactly where we are going in Seen in the Wilderness.

Simply naming it before we gather is an act of courage. Bring it with you.

These are not exercises in self-improvement. They are invitations into the kind of honest, unhurried presence that most women in ministry spend their entire careers offering to others and rarely receive themselves. That is what Seen in the Wilderness is for. We will see you there