Bringing Mindfulness to the Bossladies Conference

When the founder of Bossladies Chelsea and I first met, I knew we were in for some future friend dates with long conversation over tea. And I was mostly right, except it’s sometimes tea, sometimes coffee, and more often wine. We can talk for hours. It’s not often you connect with someone in adulthood who on your first friend date together you laugh, you cry, and you dream together all in the first 5 hours. The best part is, all this happened after Chelsea and I had met, after she asked me to lead a meditation at her first ever Bossladies conference. The reason this is the best part to me is because Chelsea and I knew right away that sparks were flying. We had some magic to discuss, magic to share between us, and magic to share with the world.

Bossladies has a successful women’s magazine featuring women that are changing the world, a massive social media following, sold out co-working sessions and new groups launching all over the world. Women everywhere are intrigued by this simple, inquisitive, and powerful brand Chelsea has created. So, when we talked about her vision for her first ever conference and she mentioned her energetic intentions, I wanted to be a part of it.

The day of the conference was beautiful. An hour past Malibu, at a beautiful home in the canyons, ~100 women gathered together for a day of inspiration, connection, and authentic networking. As I met and hugged (because hand shaking is too formal for this group), fellow women creators from designers, to artists, and curators a plenty, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the work we’re here to do on this planet.

We sat through a day of speakers who had created business in their garages, who had been turned down time and time again by white, male venture capitalists who didn’t believe in a woman’s vision, who had been unemployed and desperate for money. As the day went on, we became clear with new ideas on future gifts for women, clearer on how to show up in the world, and full of thoughts on scalability. When I stood-up to wrap-up the conference, the group was fried, full, and one bite away from being too full. We had been holding space for ourselves to be ourselves, holding space for our dreams, and the group had reached their cap on the information they could receive.

I asked everyone to wiggle out there bodies, stretch, change seats, then close their eyes. Get focused on their breathe. Feel the earth supporting them. Feel the insides of their bodies full, complete. Acknowledge that they’re one bite away from too full. Then I asked everyone to focus on a future moment in their life, a moment they’ve been wanting to do, create or change about their life. I asked them to hold space for themselves to be themselves, to let the dream be expansive, let it be bite size, let the dream be the size that it is.

As I lead them through a breathe meditation focused on visualizing, truly being in this future moment, in this dream of theirs, I reminded them that the body, the brain, doesn’t know the difference between reality and a hyper-focused visualization. I guided them to expand beyond the dream, to see themselves in the moment so clearly that they could see the colors, the people, hear the sounds surrounding them in this future moment. When we were done and opened our eyes, the glimmer was brighter than before. The gleam was uplifted because they were uplifted, they had held space for them to be themselves in this very moment. To believe it was possible, to know that it was already happening. In this moment, every woman there knew that their future gift to women was the gift of themselves and their creations.

This is the work we are here to do on this planet. We are all artists of life. We are all just trying to create a life we want to be living, and maybe even get to share some of our hopes and dreams with one another. We are here on this planet to be the Life Artist we were meant to be. We are here on this planet to evolve beyond our stories, our patterns, our comparison syndromes. We are here on this planet to create a loving life together, and to leave this world a better place than when we came into it.

And before we knew it the day was over, and we took our full spirited selves to our homes for rest, self-care, and to get ready for the next creation to be built.

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This conference was one of the best conferences I have ever taught at. Not only were the women receptive to the work, they were hungry for healing, open to guidance and interested in learning more about themselves. We can often talk at one another, especially at networking events, or conferences, and there can be extreme power in presentation, in talking at. But on this afternoon, the power was in coming together and feeding the energy of our visions. The power was in the group’s ability to push beyond insecurities, self-doubt, old stories and patterns, and to simply show up as the Life Artist that they are. It’s such an honor to speak, and teach at conferences, and to be a part of Bossladies first annual conference was no exception.

Mindfulness and Healing work are powerful when we step into it alone, and they’re even more powerful when we step into it together.