Group coaching, workshops and training

Group processes create a different space and dynamic than individual coaching.

Group programs or workshops are for you if…

  • You value community care: experiencing compassion for others can be a starting point for practising more self-compassion.

  • You appreciate how groups provide you with the normalising perspective that you are not alone, flawed or in any other way not enough.

  • You prefer being part of the group dynamic over being the focus in 1-on-1 coaching.

  • You like the dynamic, energetic, caring, sometimes fun ways of shared inquiry.

  • You appreciate the sense of belonging we can get from shared experiences and celebrating each other’s progress, shifts or insights.

A visual journal page with an array of pencils arrange in a circle

Upcoming online programs

Upcoming workshops

These monthly drop-in sessions are ONLY for current and past participants of any Sensemaking Studio program.

We meet online for 75 minutes.

In collaboration with the Map of Meaning International Trust, I offer my annual end-of-year and beginning-of -year reflective workshops.

You can find out more about each workshop and register on the Map of Meaning website by clicking on the buttons below.

I offer two dates for each workshop to cover as many time zones as possible.

Each workshop is 2 hours and delivered online (but not recorded).

No prior knowledge of the Map of Meaning is required. These workshops are in fact a good introduction to this valuable sensemaking framework.

Mapping 2024

As we reach the end of the year, this reflective workshop invites you to look back over 2024 and capture how you have created meaning in your life and work this year. In this 2-hour online workshop, you’ll be using writing prompts and images to support your reflection and elicit deeper insights on what this year has brought you.

Dates: Thu 12 December 2024, 7:00-9:00pm AEDT and Sun 14 December 2024, 10:00am-12:00pm AEDT

2025 Imagined

Are you ready to launch yourself into a New Year with fresh energy, hopes and plans? This two hour workshop invites you to envisage and imagine a meaningful 2025. You’ll be using writing prompts and images to spark your intentions for the New Year, and begin to imagine what might be possible.

This process will take you beyond goal-setting or new year’s resolutions which we often abandon within a few weeks… Instead, this experiential process will elicit deeper intentions that can guide you over the next twelve months.

Dates: Thu 7 January 2025, 7:00-9:00pm AEDT and Sun 12 January 2025, 10:00am-12:00pm AEDT

This is the fourth year that I’m running these reflective workshops and here’s what previous participants have said:

“It came at just the right time for me as I process what gifts and opportunities for growth this year has brought me and turn my attention to how I would like to build on this with a clear vision for 2022.”

“The simple process made me review my year with a deep appreciation for all the challenges I had faced and how powerfully and successfully I had worked through them. I was left viewing the year feeling victorious not just exhausted. This acknowledgment of myself and what I had accomplished prepared me to move into the next year with a sense of strong personal power.”

“Conny designed a great process for quickly accessing a lot of valuable insights - I am truly grateful for her gentle yet focussed facilitation.  An excellent way to start the year. Many thanks.”

“It went very deep very quickly, and Conny was also good at a deep but succinct dive into the Map of Meaning. I came away with thought-provoking things to ponder.”

“It gave me the discipline, time and space and a fresh lens to consider really important things.”

I bring my 4 signature qualities to how I design and facilitate groups

  • A map made out of collage to explore resilience

    Arts-based

    All my group offers include experiential elements where we engage with some creative processes and materials.

    But they aren’t art classes and don’t require specific skills, materials or prior experience.

  • A mixed media collage of fragmented areas filled with patterns

    Trauma-informed

    I always consider how people experience safety in group processes.

    Depending on the topic of the event, I’ll integrate educational materials and resources linked to trauma-informed practice and mental wellbeing.

  • A visual journal page showing handwriting and a mixed media artwork

    Reflective

    Reflective writing is a go-to ingredient in my group offers. It’s accessible, works well online and meets each participant’s need for privacy or sharing. We might use imagery, poems, stories, or write letters. The sharing and witnessing that happens in a group is another rich source for reflection.

  • Meaning-focused

    My understanding of the universally experienced sources of meaning and tensions in life shapes how I design group processes. When I bring the Map of Meaning® into my workshops, it provides a structure that’s intuitive and relatable and makes talking about meaning and other complex experiences easier.

All my group offers are hosted live online.

One-off events & workshops

Workshops on a range of themes and topics. Some recent ones include: exploring resilience, reflective writing sessions to review and envisage a year, mapping meaning or cultivating compassion.

Small groups. Not recorded to keep it a rich and personal experience.

Group Coaching Programs

Sensemaking Studio is a series of four-month online programs to cultivate a reflective practice in a small group of 6 like-minded Sense Makers.

In each Studio group, we’ll focus on a specific modality, theme or framework to shape and cultivate a personal and sustainable reflective practice.

My upcoming program for 2025: RISE from burnout.

We’ll discover the underlying burnout dynamic without simplifying it to more self-care or less yes-saying.

A well-paced yet deep exploration of how to understand and shift your patterns around working, caring and giving.

You can find out more and sign up for the waitlist (and a discount code) below.

Training

I’m a lead trainer with Map of Meaning International and facilitate some of their professional trainings.

The course dates I’m facilitating are listed in my upcoming events. You can explore the full range of courses that suit different time zones at Map of Meaning International.

Coming up: 2025 online group coaching

RISE from burnout

For 2025, I’m developing an online group coaching program on decoding (cyclical) burnout, exhaustion, compassion fatigue or a perennial imbalance of giving more than you receive.

Burnout is not a problem exclusive to people-pleasers, yes-sayers and over-committers. Focusing entirely on self-care or resilience puts the responsibility back on the individual.

While early programming experiences shape how we see and navigate the world, we cannot ignore the role of systemic factors, chronic stress and toxic workplace culture.

You’ll explore your personal burnout dynamic in four phases and get clear on the contributions of your outer and inner world:

  • Rest – build the stability you need to plot your way forward.

  • Insights – gain insights about external and internal contributors to your burnout experience.

  • Sensemaking – connect the dots to understand your unique burnout pattern and ensure lasting change.

  • Emerge – emerge with practices that help you cultivate vitality, meaning opportunities and relationships to thrive in the context of your real life.

My interest for this area comes from my own experience of working at the edge of collapse. How we end up exhausted is unique to each of us. Without understanding your distinct patterns and responses to stress, improvements could be fleeting.

If you worry about the impact work has on your health, relationships, and emotional wellbeing, and are interested in a well-paced yet deep exploration of how to RISE from burnout, click the button below to join the waitlist — I'll email you (with a discount code!) when registration opens.

Mixed media collage depicting burnout with the words working no air

Kind words

  • Landscapes & Stories Workshop

    “What a powerful way to start the year with creative provocation of random images that stimulate the imagination to make connections that may otherwise be elusive or stay hidden.”

    “The simple process made me review my year with a deep appreciation for all the challenges I had faced and how powerfully and successfully I had worked through them. I was left viewing the year feeling victorious not just exhausted. This acknowledgment of myself and what I had accomplished prepared me to move into the next year with a sense of strong personal power.”

  • A Map for Tough Times

    I was inspired to attend A Map for Tough Times because I thoroughly appreciate the work that Conny does. She combines sensitivity with intelligence, instinctive empathy, her inspired creativity, and the trust I have in her wisdom and capacity to hold a group process in warm and wonderful ways. (JH)

    I attended this workshop to more fully explore for myself where I go when facing tough times; to learn from these reflections; and to know what might help me ease myself back to a more resilient frame more quickly and effectively (and with more insight and self-compassion). The sessions exceeded my expectations, and I really liked the discussion and inputs around "what is resilience"; the use of APA references and the refreshing "take" on where we go when in the Shadow Side of the Map of Meaning. (Christine Hamilton)

  • Sensemaking Studio

    "Conny's facilitation style and skills inspired me to join this program: her clear skill in forming really significant questions; her ability to encourage the use of a range of art modalities in those who feel very unskilled and self-conscious about their abilities and lack of confidence in ability to convey any sort of message to themselves using art; and her listening and observation skills.

    I really enjoyed making art together and seeing and showing what we humans have created and made of the prompts and questions offered."

Filtering by: “writing practice”

Past workshops

  • Tackling uncertainty & creating your own support kit

  • A personal Map to meaning

  • A Map for tough times – exploring resilience

  • Self-inquiry through collage

  • Habit, Routines and Rituals

  • Vision Cards

  • Keep going with compassion

  • Unlock your creativity

  • Creative mindfulness with words – found poetry

  • Landscape & Stories: reflection and visioning workshops

They can all be facilitated for private communities, teams or friendship groups – contact me to discuss your needs.

These group processes can be tailored to an organisational context

  • Team alignment – what drives people’s sense of authenticity, belonging, achievement and impact

  • Leverage your team's creative potential

  • Build resilience for uncertain times

  • Reflection and visioning sessions

  • Emotional skills at work

  • Preventing burnout and compassion fatigue

Workshops are held online in response to remote and hybrid workplaces.

In-person options can be discussed for the Greater Melbourne area.