For more than 15 years, hundreds of people have welcomed the New Year at Pendle Hill with the gift of this retreat designed to rest, reflect, renew, and restore. At these times of high stress and high anxiety, we need now, more than ever, to exhale deeply and feel fully nourished through resilience-building, heart-opening, and peace-making practices. We can’t do this alone. We need a caring and supportive community and space and time to be nurtured and supported.

This retreat includes periods of silence, reflection, group discussion, creative arts, walks in nature, deep relaxation, and mindful movement. Savor guided meditation and extended periods of silence to deepen discernment about how to live your best self as you close the year and enter the New Year.

You will learn how to:

• Choose bravely when conditions are uncertain and ambiguous.
• Reflect on what matters most with soul-amplifying questions.
• Align your values with your work for a greater sense of purpose and meaning.
• Cultivate body intelligence and body awareness.
• Show yourself real kindness through self-compassion.

Surrounded by a supportive and caring community, you will restore balance and calm, and feel uplifted toward the best version of you. Return home with tools to create greater peace and hope in your life.

This year’s retreat is based on Valerie’s latest book, Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way toward Awakening, Simplicity, and Peace (Broadleaf 2022).

Leader

Valerie Brown is an author, ordained Buddhist-Quaker Dharma teacher in the lineage of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village tradition, facilitator, and executive coach specializing in leadership development and mindfulness practices with a focus on diversity, social equity, and inclusion. A former lawyer and lobbyist, Valerie transformed her high-pressure, twenty-year career into serving leaders and nonprofits to create trustworthy, authentic, compassionate, and connected workspaces.

Her forthcoming book is Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way toward Simplicity, Awakening, and Peace (Broadleaf, 2022). She has authored several popular Pendle Hill pamphlets, including Living from the Center: Mindfulness Meditation and Centering for Friends (PHP #407) and Coming to Light: Cultivating Spiritual Discernment through the Quaker Clearness Committee (PHP #446). She is a member of Solebury Monthly Meeting (PA).

An accredited leadership coach, Valerie is  also the Founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Lead Smart Coaching, LLC, supporting leaders to apply and integrate leadership and mindfulness for greater resilience, clarity, and creativity, and is a co-director of Georgetown’s Institute for Transformational Leadership. She leads an annual pilgrimage to El Camino de Santiago, Spain to celebrate the power of sacred place and is a certified Kundalini yoga teacher, engaging leaders to embody somatic wisdom and creativity. She lives in a converted barn and tends a lively perennial garden in New Hope, PA, traditional lands of the Lenni Lenape Nation. Learn more at www.valeriebrown.us.

Financial aid may be available. If you are seeking funds to participate in this program, click to review and complete our Financial Assistance Application and a Pendle Hill staff member will follow-up with you shortly (please do NOT register online). Thank you for your interest.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill.