Your Heart Was Made for This
Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love
by Oren Jay Sofer
A yearlong book journey with Evolving Enneagram
December 29, 2023 - December 31, 2024
Start your journey at ANY point throughout the year!
Come when you can.
Pay what you can.
Your Heart Was Made for This is a practical roadmap to cultivating the heart’s capacity to face and transform our greatest challenges—like the climate crisis, oppression, anxiety, and burnout.
Written by meditation teacher and best-selling author of Say What You Mean, Oren Jay Sofer, this book is a guide to living a life of meaning and purpose in a time of great social, environmental, and spiritual upheaval.
Through touching stories, insightful reflections, and concrete instructions, Sofer offers powerful tools to strengthen our hearts and nourish the qualities that can transform our world.
Each chapter guides you to cultivate a quality essential to personal and social transformation like mindfulness, resolve, wonder, and empathy.
You’ll learn ways to . . .
Find more choice and freedom in lifeStrengthen focus, sustain energy, and accomplish goalsIdentify burnout and take steps to renew yourselfImbue your daily activities with clarity and vitalityRespond more effectively to collective challenges
What to Expect
Weekly brief reflection and discussion prompts by your facilitator, Evolving Enneagram Adjunct Faculty Macha Greenleaf-Maple, for your active engagement. These will be posted to a private Facebook group for pre-approved book journey participants only. You are encouraged to share your own insights, reflections, and questions throughout the year! See Topics (tracking the book) and schedule below.
Gather via 1.5 hour zoom calls. We'll open with a brief contemplative practice followed by community sharing. Dates are below.
Schedule
Live Zoom Discussion Groups
Mark your calendars. The Zoom link will be posted to our private Facebook group a few days before the call.
Note that these dates and times are based on Central Time and we observe Daylight Savings time. Please be sure to check the dates/times based on your Time Zone!
Wednesday, Feb. 7, 6:00-7:30 pm CST
Saturday, Mar. 23, 10:00-11:30 am CDT
Wednesday, May 1, 6:00-7:30 pm CDT
Saturday, June 15, 10:00-11:30 am CDT
Wednesday, July 31, 6:00-7:30 pm CDT
Topics by Date
We will explore each of the 26 topics in Sofer’s book for two weeks. We will post a reflection on that topic to our book journey private FB group on the dates provided below. The journey will begin December 29, 2023 and end December 31, 2024.
Starting Dec 29: Attention
Starting Jan. 12: Aspiration
Starting Jan. 26: Energy
Starting Feb. 9: Mindfulness
Starting Feb. 23: Concentration
Starting Mar. 8: Wisdom
Starting Mar 22: Curiosity
Starting April 5: Courage
Starting April 19: Renunciation
Starting May 3: Kindness
Starting May 17: Ease
Starting May 31: Patience
Starting June 14:Equanimity
Starting June 28: Empathy
Starting July 12: Integrity
Starting July 26: Resolve
Starting Aug 9: Joy
Starting Aug 23: Rest
Starting Sept 6: Wonder
Starting Sept 20: Gratitude
Starting Oct 4: Generosity
Starting Oct 18: Devotion
Starting Nov 1: Play
Starting Nov 15: Compassion
Starting Nov 29: Contentment
Starting Dec 12: Forgiveness
Questions? Check out our FAQ
What does it mean that this is a book JOURNEY not a book STUDY? We’ll read and cognitively digest the book together, yes — but we’ll also focus on integrating the concepts into our felt emotional and physical responses to the invitations Oren J. Sofer has so generously offered in this book. It’s our hearts and our bodies that often get left out of our lives, and while how we conceptualize our worlds is immensely impactful, we need the whole of our beings — mind, heart, and body — to fully empower the action of our souls within this lifetime.
I'm new to the Enneagram. Is knowledge of the Enneagram mandatory? In our private FB community and on our Zoom calls, we will welcome Enneagram-informed insights and questions, as well offer some of our own. Note, however, that Enneagram knowledge is NOT mandatory for participation. We welcome anyone interested in journeying together based on the themes in Sofer's book.
What is the registration fee? This book journey is being offered on a Pay What You Can - Pay It Forward basis. The recommended "love offering" (voluntary contribution) is $5-$15 per week.
Voluntary contribution to Evolving Enneagram program
Meet Your Facilitator
Macha Greenleaf-Maple, MSW (she/her/hers) began studying the Enneagram in 2016 and quickly recognized the potency of this tool to help herself and others! Bringing over 40 years of experience joining with individuals and small groups to facilitate exploration and connection in a variety of circumstances, Macha currently serves as adjunct faculty for Evolving Enneagram. Her personal journey includes transforming the experience of a painful childhood and multi-generational patterns of trauma, healing from addiction, embracing authentic sexual identity, and overcoming clinical depression and debilitating chronic pain. She bears witness not only to the profound capacity of the individual to remember and embrace wholeness, but also to the ripple effects this personal work can have in one’s family and community. Using the practices of contemplation (internal communion), connection (interpersonal communion), and consciousness (by awakening the inner observer and engaging behavioral choice), she continues to transform her own experience and to welcome the opportunity to meet others where they are along the road.
