Tabletop scene with a notebook, pen, smartphone, and drink on a patterned tablecloth.

Held & Becoming

A creative journaling series for women ready to listen to their lives.

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Three Gatherings
Thursdays · August 6, 13, and 20, 2026 · 6:30-8:00pm CT
Live · Virtual · Limited to 15 women

Early bird $225 (through June 30) · Standard $325

The Invitation

Something in you has been asking for attention.
Not loudly. Not urgently. But clearly.

You feel it in your body. In the questions you've been carrying. In the quiet sense that something in you is ready to be named.

You do not need a longer to-do list. You do not need another book. You need protected time to hear your own life, with women who will not let you rush past what matters.

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Held & Becoming is three weeks of guided practice for women ready to slow down and listen to their lives.

You will listen. You will name what is true. You will come back to yourself, in the company of women practicing alongside you. Not rushed. Not performative. A grounded, intentional return.

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Two guides who bring complementary depth will lead you through a clear three-week arc designed to open something, name something, and let you move forward with it.

This is small on purpose. Fifteen women. Three sessions. Live and not recorded. Presence is part of the practice.

Your Guides

Two guides. Two distinct streams of practice. One whole experience.

Spiritual Guide

Brenda Bertrand sitting on a beach with ocean waves in the background.

Brenda Bertrand

For more than thirty years, Brenda Bertrand has been teaching women how to hear their own lives clearly. An ordained minister, spiritual director, and retreat leader, she works in the long tradition of contemplation, liberation, and women's becoming. Her teaching invites women to slow down, listen deeply to what is true beneath the surface, and release what is not theirs to carry. She is known for creating grounded, spacious environments where women can be fully themselves, respond to their lives with honesty and courage, and encounter.

Creative Guide

Two images of Dea Jenkins; one of her weaving on a large loom and the other of her smiling.

Dea Jenkins

Dea Jenkins is an interdisciplinary artist, entrepreneur, and creative liturgist working at the intersections of art, spirituality, and healing. She helps women create from the soul, accessing and expressing what lives beneath the surface through practices that are embodied, intuitive, and honest. Through her work creating interactive installations, designing creative workshops, and cultivating spiritual formation, she invites women to go beyond traditional journaling into forms of expression that allow their inner life to take shape on the page and in their lives.

What Makes This Different

Most spaces ask you to choose between your creativity and your spirituality. Held & Becoming weaves them together.

Creative expression. Spiritual direction. Somatic awareness. Honest witness inside a small circle.

The Gatherings

Three Sessions
Session 1 · Noticing You are invited to slow down long enough to hear your life beneath the busy and the overwhelm — to pay attention without judgment, without pressure to name anything yet. What has been present all along, in your body, in your life, in your spirit, is welcome here. Through guided practice, personal reflection, and creative expression, you are gently invited to begin separating what is true from what you have been carrying.
Session 2 · Naming As trust deepens, you are invited into the work of naming — the patterns, assumptions, and quiet forces that have been shaping your choices and your voice. What was vague becomes clear. Through reflection, creative practice, and shared witnessing, you are welcome to give language to what you have been carrying, and to begin seeing what no longer fits.
Session 3 · Reclaiming You are invited to move forward with intention — not by bypassing what has surfaced, but by honoring it. In this final gathering, you are welcome to claim what is yours to carry and to release what is not. Through integration, creative expression, and participating in a collective space, you are invited to respond to your life with clarity and to give that clarity form.

 

What You Will Experience
Spiritual practices that help you listen to your life and tend to what is asking for your attention
Body awareness and somatic practices that reconnect you to your instincts and inner knowing
Journaling prompts and creative practices that help you express what is true through words, images, and embodied reflection
Honest conversation and witnessing within a circle of women doing real inner work together
Clear, steady leadership that helps you see what is true without rushing to fix it

 

Tabletop scene with a notebook, pen, smartphone, and drink on a patterned tablecloth.

This Is For You If

You've been moving through this year — work, family, obligations, the pace of everything — and something in you is quietly asking for your attention.

You sense that something in your life is shifting — ending, beginning, or both — and you haven't had space to sit with it.

You want community with other women, but not the kind that requires you to perform being okay.

You're spiritually curious, but not looking for doctrine — you want depth without dogma.

You've never thought of yourself as a journaler or a creative, but something about this feels like it might be for you anyway.

FAQs

Open notebook on a textured surface with candles, flowers, and clear drinking glasses.
Do I need to be an artist or consider myself creative?

No. Most of the women who come into this practice have never called themselves creative.
Dea is a later-in-life artist herself. Her approach does not ask you to bring a creative background. It asks you to come open and curious. The practices are simple, intuitive, and accessible. You do not need skill. You need willingness to let what is true take shape outside your head.

Do I need to have a particular faith or spiritual practice?
What if I do not like journaling, or have been journaling for years?
What is the refund policy?

What You Will Carry With You

You will leave with something you didn't arrive with: a practice of slowing down on purpose — not as an idea, but as something you've already begun to inhabit.

You will have language for what has been shaping your life beneath the surface, and a clearer sense of what is yours to do next.

And you will leave with your personal creative expression, shaped from your own words, images, and guided practices across the three weeks. Not a collection of pages, but a distilled expression of what became clear to you — something that holds both what shifted within you and what you created from it. A visible form of your life, seen and heard with honesty. Something you can return to, again and again.

Held & Becoming

$225.00
$225.00
Shipping calculated at checkout.

August 6 · August 13 · August 20
Thursday · 6:30-8:00p CT

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Format: Virtual · Live sessions
Session length: 90 minutes each
Materials: A dedicated journal and pen. Full materials list sent upon registration.
No creative or journaling experience required. Sessions will not be recorded. Full presence is part of the experience.

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Early bird — ends June 30th: $225
Standard rate: $325

We want this experience to be accessible. A small number of reduced-rate spots are available for those who need them — reach out directly for more information.

All sales are final.
Open book with photos on a wooden surface
Person drawing in a notebook with a red marker.
Person holding a marker with a cup of coffee on a table
Person writing in a notebook with a pen.