Leaving the

Ghost Light Burning LIVE

A Six-Session Live Virtual Course on

Illuminating Fallback in Embrace of the Fullness of You

Throughout this 6-session course, we will turn on the ghost light within self and in so doing we will illuminate our own experiences of fallback—when despite our optimal developmental capacities, what we often refer to as our developmental center-of-gravity, we make meaning, feel, and act from a smaller, less complex, less capable form of mind. In short, when we fall back, we don’t show up our best self for a period of time.

Through this intimate, small group, experiential offering we will identify our scenes of fallback, of grace, and the characters that show up on stage; invite these characters to reveal their origin stories; identify the roles in our lives in which our characters have been cast; discover the story lines that have been written for us and that we have written for ourselves; experiment with becoming the director of our own play; and make it known that all spirits of self are welcome here.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

  • ✶

    RUN TIME

    Six, 2-hour sessions through which you will be guided to more deeply know the multitude of characters that comprise your ensemble of self

  • ✶

    SET DESIGN

    Curated, multimodal resources for accessing your inner knowing and understanding it in the context of broader theory

  • ✶

    SOLO, DIALOGUE, FULL COMPANY

    Illumination through self-reflection, paired exploration, and larger group sense-making

  • ✶

    CHARACTER RESEARCH

    Optional between session reflection and practice in small group troupes

  • ✶

    DOCUMENTARIAN

    One private coaching session w/Valerie Livesay

    (plus additional, optional add-on coaching sessions at reduced workshop rate)

  • ✶

    ICF CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS

    This program has been accredited by the ICF for 14 Core Competency & 22 Resource Development credits

The Process

  • Six 2-hour, live, interactive, intimate group sessions guided by leading fallback theorist and practitioner, Valerie Livesay

  • Multi-modal learning assignments (videos, readings, podcasts, guided exercises) through the online course platform with tools and exercises for coming into relationship with your fallback guided by leading thinkers and practitioners in the adult and leadership development fields

  • One, individual coaching session with Valerie Livesay (Book up to three* additional individual coaching sessions at discounted workshop participant rates)

  • Live office hours every 4-6 weeks

The Practice

  • Gain a theoretical understanding of fallback and its implications for adult development

  • Integrate experiential knowing and self-awareness, putting theory into action

  • Learn the steps of coming into relationship with your fallback: Noticing, Reflecting, Identifying Triggers, Recovering, and Growing

  • Identify the scenes in which some of the most complex and most compressed characters in one’s ensemble of self take the stage in leadership and in life

  • Understand the motivations, behaviors, fears, and values of self

  • Discover the necessity and gifts of all of the characters in one’s ensemble

  • Cultivate new characters and welcome back those that have been banished

  • Expand one’s repertoire of behaviors, responses, and options

  • Increase confidence in helping others explore their fallback behaviors, work towards integration of the full self, and unearth opportunities for more consistently meeting their intentions

The Gifts

  • A safe, playful, and profound space to explore the theater and characters of self

  • The capacity to own all parts of self, with self, and with others

  • Increased capacity to make what you have been subject to, object

  • Increased awareness of your own fallbacks and ability to integrate them to reflect, recover, and grow

  • Enhanced consciousness about old scripts that need updating

  • Recognition of the gifts in your full repertoire of characters

  • Tools for allowing more grace and fullness to emerge

  • Ability to notice, name and bring other characters into the dialogue – generously…in the moment

  • Leading with humanity, welcoming self and others more fully into greater wholeness and integration

  • Community, companionship, connection with others on this messy, beautiful human journey

  • A more complete and nuanced understanding of the theory and process of adult development in its journeys both forward and back

  • NEW - International Coaching Federation Continuing Coach Education credits (14 hours of Core Competencies and 22 hours of Resource Development)

  • NEW - Upon completion, invitations to join the community of Ghost Light Alumni at quarterly, live, virtual events as we continue the practice together

Reviews

  • I highly recommend the Ghost Light course to anyone working in coaching or leadership development. It gave me a playful and powerful metaphor for talking about shadow selves with my clients, which has given access to new depths in our work together. Under Valerie’s skillful facilitation, the course was as much about my own inner exploration as it was about bringing this work to others. This is, of course, essential for all of us in the helpful trades. I imagine I’ll take this course again in a few years and will keep returning to its content, as we are all infinite in our complexity!

    Laurelin Whitfield, Coach & Facilitator, Founder of Mine the Heart, The Netherlands

  • If you want to connect with like-minded adult-development people from across the globe, while exploring your own stories through the ‘characters’ of your persona, you have to join Valerie’s Ghost Light program. Not only does Ghost Light offer meaningful learning opportunities on a personal level (thank you, Valerie!), but also deep listening opportunities to understand others’ perspectives and gain a window into others’ sense making. That people were from different cultures and in different parts of the world helped me listen even more curiously and carefully; my world was opened as a result. If you want to go deeper yourself at the same time as going broader with your perspective-taking with others, sign up!

    Kristen Cooper, New Zealand-based coach and leadership development specialist

  • Valerie Livesay has composed a most insightful workshop to explore our innermost dynamics and how they shape our personal and professional lives. Through the use of stage and theater metaphors, Valerie's approach helps to illuminate our myriad personas--all our internal characters vying for stage time. Every day we are confronted with an array of situations and scenes. Through Valerie's framework, we examine those aspects of self through different contexts and have an opportunity to cast our own play, asking, "Who will land each part?" I enthusiastically recommend this workshop to anyone wishing to explore these dynamics and more through a focus on calling on our internal ensemble in the betterment of ourselves.

    Tom Cesarini, CEO Convivio, United States

  • I highly recommend joining Val Livesay at the ‘Leaving the Ghost Light Burning’ learning theatre, a deep and at the same time, creative and playful space to explore adult development and fallback. I am grateful for the many gifts that arose from this thoughtful and skillfully curated experience. Through the course of this journey, I have developed a greater capacity to: notice and name which parts of self are arising and to consciously choose who is best suited to come on to the stage in a given moment; value the skills my fallback characters have developed over the years and to understand how to better leverage these strengths in a conscious way; connect more openly and vulnerably; love and accept myself and others more fully in the whole of who we are; recognize and appreciate our shared humanity. This has been one of the most transformative and enduring adult development opportunities I have had the privilege to be a part of. I am grateful to Val and my fellow castmates.

    Heather Worosz, MCC, Executive Coach, Canada

  • My experience with Val’s Ghost Light work is more than just metaphor, it’s meeting the old friends that walk in our lives with us and making sense of their comings and goings. It is both a joy and a challenge to meet these characters and to gain some intentionality, learning to invite them into our day. Val wonderfully plays audience, coach, and co-participant in the character exploration that opens up space for reflection and action.

    Tom Draffen, United States

  • I really don’t think Val’s Ghost Light course could have come at a better time in my life to help me navigate the crazy chaotic world we now live in. Digging deep inside and looking at how I show up instead of controlling how others show up is 1) seriously hard for me! (Lol) and 2) priceless and so needed to help me cope better! Ghost Light touched my soul and I don’t foresee it ever letting go!

    Keri A. Dattilo, MPA, Entrepreneur/mom/financial services/advocate/curious adventurer, United States

  • With her Ghost Light offering, Val gave me the opportunity to discover parts of me that I hadn’t previously identified. I found the program most helpful because the theatre metaphor allows for a rich and safe exploration of my inner cast, those parts of me that have been reacting to life experiences without my noticing. Val helped set the scene for these characters to appear so I could see them more clearly, understand their contours and subtleties, and how they play out in my daily encounters. The Ghost Light offering allowed me to give them a voice and find more helpful alternatives. Val’s unique way of providing gentle guidance and her masterful facilitation are a catalyst to discovery. I would recommend this program to anyone seeking to broaden their self-awareness.

    Mark Harling, Organisational Transformation Consultant, France

  • I found the Ghost Light/Fallback offering to be a deeply rich and valuable experience. The depth of exploration was valuable and the container for doing this exploration was built beautifully on a foundation of truth and caring. It was a wonderful opportunity to explore and gain very helpful insights into my own cast of characters and to gain insights through both Val's input and other participants’ journeys and insights. This work is applicable to a number of settings both personally and professionally.

    Dr. Dan Kaufman, Developmental Consulting, United States

  • Really important work for all of us who want to grow (up) to do. This workshop helped me learn about all of my many selves and how to be more generous and self-compassionate with the selves that I feel can trip me up.

    Jennifer Abrams, Educational Consultant, United States

  • Val sets the scene for us to welcome onto our own stage the characters in our lives, to see them, acknowledge them and thus to redefine their roles. Offering her own characters with honesty and humility, Val creates the space for us to show up and share in a safe and trusting environment. Her style of eloquence, deep understanding and lack of judgment are key to the experience. I recommend this program for anyone working on self-development.

    Jane Upton, Leadership Coach, Spain

  • Making sense of one’s fallback journey is delicate and profound work. It requires a capability for self-reflection and considerable persistence, clarity, and empathy, for oneself as well as for others. Fallback navigations also include both structured problem solving and unstructured creative expression. Through the journeys we took in our classes, Valerie was masterful, as both a teacher and as a facilitator, helping each of us make sense of and find meaning from those integrations and differentiations that we extracted from an intertwining of our castmates and lived-experiences.

    George Sharp, Ed.D., Founder, Cultivating Vertical Connections, United States

There are no Ghost Light LIVE individual enrollment programs currently scheduled. Interested in learning when a program is added to the calendar? Or putting together a cohort of your own?

Be in touch!