OFFERINGS
I offer two areas of services, each with several options. Scroll or click to find what I can offer you.
Spiritual Companionship
Circles of Care
Rituals for Renewal
Become More Racially Conscious
Be the Change
MacLeod & Schmitz Racial Equity Training & Consulting
Racial Healing Circles
Deepen Your Spirituality
Multiple ways to engage meaning-making into all the facets of your life. Individual and group processes to respond to your longings for connection to self, others and what you hold as Sacred.
Spiritual Companionship
A companion to walk with side by side as you explore a closer relationship to what is meaningful and sacred to you.
Working with a Spiritual Companion is a process of discovery. What is a spiritual life for you? How is what you name as Sacred and Holy calling to you in your daily life? What do you do when you feel disconnected or disillusioned with that?
During sessions, the Spiritual Companion guides the conversation with deep listening, respect, and care, asking meaningful questions and inviting you to try helpful spiritual practices.. You will discover and deepen what speaks to your soul and decide how you want to respond.
Processes that may be accessed in sessions include the following:
Multiple prayer styles from a diversity of traditions
Artistic play and imaginative use of imagery
Journaling
Poetry, music, and stories
Body awareness and movement
There are multiple paths to what people consider Sacred. Whether responding to a specific transition or crisis in your life or wanting an ongoing way to deepen your spiritual focus, this is a supportive and encouraging place for you.
Details:
In-person and virtual sessions available.
Sessions are typically once a month for an hour
More on How It Works
Circles of Care
Using a Circle process to gain insight into the multiple ways we experience impacts in our lives.
“Diane Schmitz has been a wise, deeply caring and creative spiritual guide for me both personally and as part of a women’s group that she created and has led for many years.
I appreciate Diane’s remarkable talent at using a variety of ways to support and help others create a more meaningful spiritual life, including the creative arts, body awareness, grief support, contemplation, rituals and healing in nature.
Diane has been an amazing gift to me and to many others. ”
In a reflective type of workshop, we gather in a circle to better understand and respond to themes present in our lives. Information is shared and hands on activities may occur followed by reflective questions posed by the Circle Keeper. A talking piece is passed around the circle and each person has an opportunity to respond uninterrupted. Clarity and meaning come in unexpected ways as we give voice to what we’re thinking and feeling. As we hear other people’s stories, we gain wisdom and insight that help us make sense of things in our own lives.
Circles are initiated by Sophiasongs and also by specific requests. Circles of Care can be used for:
Transitions: Loss and grief, relationship changes, aging, career/job changes.
Spiritual Topics: spirituality & justice, Celtic spirituality, sabbath practices, finding joy, cultivating courage, expanding our images of the Sacred, befriending our bodies.
Processing challenges: Engaging conflict, seeking consensus on a difficult decision, restorative justice when harm has occurred.
Details:
Circles happen in single and multiple session formats of 1.5-2 hours and as half-day and full-day retreats. Generally 8-15 participants.
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Rituals for Renewal
There is value in intentionally marking life's transitions as a way to integrate what is happening externally in our lives with the impact and changes occuring internally.
Spiritual rituals are a focused set of actions and words that create a physical and emotional environment of openness, presence, and gratitude around a specific intention. Participating in a ritual deepens your sense of connection and meaning to what matters to you.
Rituals can be intentional focus on areas such as:
Transitions: Loss and grief, aging, shifts in relationships or work
Seasonal: Cycle changes in nature, religious and pagan holidays, cultural celebrations.
Celebrations: A new birth, a new partnering, a significant birthday or new home blessing.
Details:
The preferred format for rituals is in-person
Sophiasongs creates rituals for the public and co-creates private rituals as requested
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Become More Racially Conscious
Strengthen your ability to develop personal and collective accountability for interrupting and dismantling racism in its many forms
Be the Change
Increase racial awareness, knowledge, analysis and action of what it means to be white identified and anti-racist within systemic racism.
Areas addressed in coaching and affinity/caucus groups include these and more:
Complicate Your Perspective: Examine how socialization to behave in a "one right way" dominant cultural value has caused harm to self, others and communities. Recognize the value in embracing complexities, cultural differences, and a spirit of curiosity.
Connect Historical Roots to Today's Realities: Know the untold and dismissed racial histories of how the United States and its institutions developed. Understand how what happened then is impacting what is happening now.
Be Part of the Collective: Understand the power of cross-racial relationships and coalitions to create and sustain change. Learn how to be part of them.
Take Action: Strengthen your ability to do racial analysis and be accountable. Expand your commitment and courage to show up as a trustworthy partner with people of color to interrupt and dismantle racism.
Details
Caucuses/affinity groups arranged by organizational need, situation, experience
Coaching happens virtually over Zoom in hourly sessions. Packages offered.
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Personal & Professional Coaching
Whether navigating how race shows up in your personal relationships or how you can be more racially conscious and effective in your professional life, coaching sessions move you foward.
You can bring your whole self and know it will be respected in a coaching session. A coach invites you to be curious as you self reflect about your concerns, your struggles, your impact, and your hopes. You will be given resources for learning and reflective questions that help you to gain clarity about how to live in a way that aligns with your values.
White Affinity/Caucus Groups
Racial affinity groups provide an ongoing brave space for white identified people to unlearn behaviors that cause harm and replace them with anti-racist ways of being that bring clarity, commitment and care for themselves, others and their communities.
“Testimonial from Beth?”
MacLeod & Schmitz Racial Equity Training & Consulting
Facilitating racial equity work as an African American woman and a white European American woman, MacLeod and Schmitz provide training and consultation with a racial equity focus in public and private educational, religious and non-profit organizations.
Our Approach
The outcomes of our trainings and consultations are twofold; first we aim to create or deepen the racial awareness of individuals and second to increase the capacity of individuals in organizations to identify, interrupt and mitigate the impact of racism. We believe that when individuals engage in personal work an understanding of their racial identity development occurs. We have learned that when people have opportunities to listen and talk to each other, in an environment of mutual respect, perspectives on the impact of race in society can change. When racial equity is a focus, social justice becomes possible.
Our Services
We train and consult virtually and in-person; often using a combination of these settings with an organization. We facilitate experiential learning that is relevant to peoples’ lived experiences while encouraging them to remain curious about what they don’t know or have not experienced.
Details:
There are multiple related sessions lasting a half-day, a group of days or regularly over the course of several months to a year or more.
All of our trainings are created anew to align with the needs of the organization.
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“At PixelSpoke, we’ve long been committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in principle, but we weren’t walking the talk. Cynthia and Diane were instrumental in helping us build out a more intentional DEI program and facilitate team-wide conversations around difficult topics. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made but don’t know where we’d be today without their insight, guidance, and expertise! ”
About Us
Cynthia and Diane have worked together for over eight years and are passionate about creating and normalizing conversations about race that matter. Within a supportive and honest environment, we connect the dots for people from awareness to analysis to action and accountability.
Racial Healing Circles
Healing from the cumulative effects of racism; both individual and societal using the Peacemaking Circle Process. Circle Keepers Pamela Taylor, Ph.D. and Diane Schmitz, Ed.D.
The Process
Racial healing circles are a relational and proactive process where connections deepen and individuals feel enough trust and freedom to share openly about their experiences with race. The Circle Keepers share concepts and pose reflective questions that lead to personal insights and paths for healing. Attentive listening makes the wisdom of the group accessible to all.
The Content
Some of the many topics that can be addressed include:
Exploring Racial Identity
Truth-Telling: Conceding what LIES Between Us.
Recognizing Racial Privilege
Managing Unconscious Bias; Dismantling Anti-Black Bias
Decoding Racialized Microaggressions
Framing New Narratives for Racial Reconciliation
Details:
Racial Healing Circles are typically 4-6 sessions long, in person, virtual or a combination.
Sessions are generally are scheduled for 2 hours, depending on number of participants which ideally ranges from 8-15.
More on How It Works
Racial healing recognizes the need to acknowledge and tell the truth about past wrongs created by individual and systemic racism and address the present consequences.
It is a process and tool that can facilitate trust and build authentic relationships that bridge divides created by real and perceived differences.
Dr. Pamela Taylor, Founder of The Circle Works