What is the Beautiful Life Collective?
We are a self-care collective of women* committed to practicing cyclical living and embodied activism.
What You’ll Get From The Collective:
The Collective will develop you as a woman and human being. Our work will help you recognize your connection to overpowering societal forces in our world and recognize how those powers influence your self-care and self-worth. In our community you'll learn how to channel your power and vulnerability to dismantle inequities and create the world we want to pass on to future generations. Specifically, you’ll receive:
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A weekly Collective Self-Care Newsletter that will redefine your self-care perceptions and help you create a nourishing, energizing lifestyle that extends into your job, your family. and your community.
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Season-by-season Ayurveda lessons to help you find balance in your busy modern life. As a Collective, we break down this fascinating healing art into workable habits that you can begin practicing immediately.
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Community-wide Collective Connection Calls where we share our stories, workshop self-care and community care blocks, and together, connect as a community of compassionate, self-caring women.
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Powerful Sensual Self-Care Calls where we unravel our blocks to pleasure in a supportive and joyful environment. Watch your whole self emerge as you engage in this powerful layer of self-care work.
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Ongoing Breakout Groups to discuss systematic, personal, and internalized racism and practice the self-care that furthers an equitable, antiracism paradigm in our lives and our world.
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Collective member-led Self-Care Breakout Groups where we engage in discussion of important self-care topics like: "Self-Care and Parenting Young Children," "Self-Care and the Workplace," "Self-Care for Single Ladies," and much more!
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A Seasonal Collective Book Club where we read and discuss works that ask us to dig deeper in our self-care and social justice work.
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A private Facebook forum for us to share ideas, gather inspiration, and find real support within a community of amazing women.
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And much more!
Also, we have a new ongoing BIPOC-only Self-Care Support Circle
Starting this November 2020, there will also be an ongoing support circle only for women in the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) community. The participants in this Circle will meet monthly as safe space to address the self-care needs of the BIPOC community. Additionally, members can move in and out of the work in the larger Beautiful Life Collective, choosing what self-care resources feel necessary and helpful. If you are in the BIPOC community and sign up for the Beautiful Life Collective, you will be automatically signed up for the BIPOC-only Self-Care Circle as well.
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From Reba Thomas, the BIPOC-only Support Circle facilitator:
For many women in the BIPOC community, our self-care is essential to helping navigate the systems designed to oppress us and our growth. Join me and other women from the BIPOC community for a conversation where we’ll share our own self-care journeys towards self-healing. We'll also discuss how to use our self-care to navigate the stress of this moment in our world and ways to create our own thriving. This will be a space for us to be our whole selves and build relationships with each other by creating deep platonic intimacy and sharpening our abilities to hold space for each other and ourselves.
How You’ll Access The Collective:
All of The Collective resources will be hosted in an online monthly hub.
“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” - E.B. White
What's Coming Up in the Collective
Transform Your Self-Care Through our Monthly Themes and Seasonal Self-Care Focuses
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January 2021 - We'll focus on creating more boundaries and intentional practices in our online lives, learn more pleasure-based power during our Sensual Self-Care Call with Reba, and participate in a 2021 personal self-care visioning session with Gracy during the January Collective Connection Call .
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February 2021 - We'll focus on the self-care that helps us show up as our most authentic selves in relationships, discuss how to have a healthy balance of empathy and boundaries during our February Collective Connection Call with Gracy, delve into the power of self-care and ancestral healing in separate Self-Care Breakout Groups for the BIPOC and non-BIPOC communities, and share another community "Co-writing" session to journal/write alongside each other.
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March 2021 - We'll focus on making a mindful transition from winter to spring by revamping our exercise routines and attitudes, practice cleansing pranayama (breath work) together, learn more about accessing pleasure during our Sensual Self-Care Call with Reba, and discuss the difference between a scarcity and abundance mindset with Gracy during our March Collective Connection Call.
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And much more to come in 2021!
Please note:
A big aspect of our community is to create boundaries around our online world.
Sliding Scale Pricing for the Beautiful Life Collective
The asking price for a month in the Beautiful Life Collective is $38 a month. This is the true value of the program. This is your price if you have access to financial security, can take vacations, and generally have access to income at the end of the month. If this describes you, you don't qualify for sliding scale pricing. Thank you for honoring this!
Or, you can sign up for a full-year of the Beautiful Life Collective for $395, which gives you almost two free months in the community!
The final price is $7 a month and it reflects a more substantial discount from the true value of the program. If you have little access to income and spend considerable time/energy worrying how you will meet your survival needs (housing, food, healthcare, child care), this price is for you. Thank you for honoring this!
Sliding Scale Pricing for the Beautiful Life Collective:
(See description above to choose your price)
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Sign up now!
Free
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Sign up now!
$395.00 / year
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Sign up now!
$21.00 / month
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Sign up now!
$7.00 / month
Bonus Self-Care Gifts
By signing up now, you'll receive these additional self-care resources
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Self-Care 2.0: Unstick Your Life Using Self-Care Webinar
$37 value
Do you feel stuck in your life, like you don't know how to move forward? Learn the biggest misconception about self-care (and how it’s keeping you stuck), the three self-care practices that will move your life forward and the super easy way to make sure you’re getting enough self-care, every single day.
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Create Your Dynamic Morning Routine Webinar
$37 value
In this workshop, we cover how to use Ayurvedic daily rhythms for healthier sleep, the basics of simple AM detoxification, and the meditation and yoga practices that can give you more energy than coffee (although I'll never ask you to give up coffee!)
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Turning Self-Care Into Visionary Leadership Webinar
$37
Do you wish you could do more to help our world? This dynamic workshop will help you leverage your current work/life situation into one of authentic leadership based in self-care. Learn the practices and perspectives that will further your trajectory of self-care leadership. This is how we can create unprecedented change in our world!
Need more self-care support in your running your own business?
By signing up for the Beautiful Life Collective, you'll also receive access to this dynamic self-care mini-course.
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Self-Care for the Righteously Self-Employed
$197 value
Are you making your own paycheck and need help handling the ups and downs of self-employed life? Or, do you dream of starting your own venture, but fear the uncertainties of running your own business? If so, this is the self-care short course for you! These four energizing self-care and lessons that are packed with the practices and wisdom that have helped me run my own business for over ten years. Specifically, I'll share: my hard-won lessons on bookkeeping, budgeting, and keeping financial sanity; ways to market from the heart and find amazing clients who want to keep working with you; the self-care Jedi secrets of daily and weekly routines (no more 4pm freelancer showers!); ways to keep growing and expanding in your work, even when you don't have a boss to tell you what to do and much more!.
Wait, There's One More Huge Free Bonus
If you sign up for the Beautiful Life Collective, you'll also receive my four-part Revolutionary Ayurveda Course. This series will demystify Ayurveda and show you how to use it's wisdom to TRANSFORM your self-care. From there, you'll learn how to apply Ayurvedic principles to become a visionary leader in our world (yes, I mean you!). If you've ever wanted to learn more about Ayurveda, this is the easiest, most enjoyable way to learn this ancient self-care tradition.
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The Revolutionary Ayurveda Course
$297 value
Lesson #1: Digesting Your Life and Balancing Pitta; Lesson #2: Coming Back to Your Senses and Balancing Vata; Lesson #3: Cultivating Connection and Balancing Kapha; and Lesson #4: Putting Revolutionary Ayurveda into Practice with Visionary Leadership
The Beautiful Life Collective is for you, if:
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You know that caring for yourself without caring for the world and examining power and privilege is incomplete.
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You need help setting boundaries so you can feel authentic and whole in all parts of your life.
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You feel compelled to change the status quo, but need more support and inspiration when it comes to taking action.
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You know that in order to feel successful, you have to surround yourself with other amazing women who are taking risks in their lives while upleveling their self-care.
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You value learning within a community and would like to tap into more meaningful conversation about self-care.
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You want to show up as the gracious, effective manager/parent/leader that you know you truly are, but need more support.
Hi, I'm Gracy!
Get ready for a different kind of self-care...
I've created the Beautiful Life Collective because I was tired of feeling alone in my desire for a more socially-conscious perspective on self-care.
After years of coaching and helping hundreds of clients, I know the magic that happens when powerful women join forces and support each other.
We are here to learn a different kind of self-care - the kind that makes you feel more like yourself while helping you show up to serve others. I hope you'll join us!
Learn more about my work at www.selfcarewithgracy.com
Questions? Please email me at [email protected]
Meet Reba Thomas, aka Reba the Diva
Reba will be leading the monthly BIPOC Women's Self-Care Circle and supporting our pleasure activism journey in the Beautiful Life Collective.
Reba is CEO and Founder of Sexpert Consultants LLC as well as member of Women of Sex Tech. She also serves as an ambassador for the American Sexual Health Association (ASHA) and Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington (PPMW).
Reba attended Howard University and received sexual health education training through Indiana University's Center for Sexual Health Promotion.
Married to her best friend and soulmate, Chef Gari Thomas, Reba belongs to a beautiful blended family with several kids. Learn more about her work at: www.rebathediva.com
The Beautiful Life Collective FAQ
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Who is welcome to join the Collective?
The Collective is open to all people who identify as women.
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I haven’t spent much time exploring social justice and community. Is this program for me?
Yes! The same way you don’t have to already be a yogi to go to yoga class (you just need to have a desire to feel better and a sense that yoga might help), you don’t have to know anything about social justice to grow within the Collective. The Collective is for you if you believe something essential has to change in our society while also sensing that your self-care has a powerful effect on your life. The combination of self-care + social awareness is all you need to get started in this work.
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Why is it important to do this blend of self-care/social justice work in a community?
Just as we learn that self-care work is SO much more effective while doing it within a supportive community, practicing self-aware social justice (yes, we see it as a practice) is also much more effective when done within a supportive group of like-hearted individuals. Going into our own social justice blocks (just like our self-care blocks) can bring up a lot of feelings! Working within a group that normalizes and supports these feelings makes sure that we don’t get stuck in them, which doesn’t help anyone. Together, we learn how to channel our authentic selves and inspired self-care into real service for our community and world.
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If I don’t sign up by the closing deadline, can I join later?
Yes, you can, but you'll have to wait. In order to keep strong boundaries around our work, we're only opening the Collective for new membership a few times a year.
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Want if I want to cancel my membership?
You can cancel at anytime through our online hub and not be charged for the upcoming month. (Although we hope you stay for a good long while!)
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I don’t want to spend very much time on FB. Will I still get a lot out of the Collective?
Yes! You will still receive all the weekly newsletters, can participate in all the monthly calls, workshops, and Self-Care Breakout Groups, and much more!
From the Self-Care Community...
“The Beautiful Life Collective is just awesome. I can't say enough great things about how much I've enjoyed being a part of the collective and working with Gracy. I've loved joining the monthly calls and have gained so much from being a part of a community of women focused on self care. Gracy has encouraged me to just do the things I love, and to be truly gentle with myself along the way. Because of her support, I've started a weekly solo hiking and writing self care ritual that has deeply nourished me as I've explored career changes. I'm grateful for the gentleness, the insights, being alongside others on the journey, and abundant resources that are offered.”
“By doing this kind of self-care work, you will learn or deepen your understanding of self-care practices that you will use throughout your entire life. You will have the chance to join in community with an inspiring group of women and have a non-judgmental circle of support. You will have access to all kinds of self-care resources - books, blog posts, podcasts, meditation practices - and a chance to delve into some topics that you might not be comfortable discussing with your family/partner/friends. Finally, you'll get to go on a retreat with great people and food. ”
“Being part of the Beautiful Life Collective (BLC) has helped me continue my self-care habits that make me feel healthy and grounded. What’s more exciting though is the way this nurturing community has moved me forward in understanding social justice and my role in affecting positive change in my community. I’m also realizing that the work I’m doing through BLC is helping me to deepen my spiritual life. It’s a lot like yoga: being connected with Gracy’s group is good for my body, mind, and spirit.”
“I really prefer to learn through reading and listening, so the online resources have been great. I also like the monthly rhythm and how the themes help give my months some shape and ritual. I've been surprised to realize how helpful the discussion group is. I generally shy away from posting and responding in forums, or talking in calls, but I've been surprised at how dang useful it is for my learning when I do. This makes me feel grateful to all the people in the community who engage and offer me opportunities to learn, and it makes me want to help reciprocate. Honestly, I think that taking the risk of paying something--actually investing some money and time in care work--has been important for me.”
- Aubrey K.
“The benefits of this self-care work are a structured time and place to build yourself, reading the self care and self help books that matter and creating routines that focus and support you. You learn that you can create the success that you want for yourself and are supported through and through. ”
“I feel particularly inspired by two things about the Beautiful Life Collective: 1) Gracy's ability to create a space where it feels safe to be vulnerable and 2) Gracy's teachings about incremental change, which she refers to as kaizen. I feel hopeful that vulnerability and kaizen (practiced in community) are the keys to manifesting a culture of care.”
“Gracy’s work unites a community of self-aware, compassionate, and amazing women who hold space for each other in a unique way. The vulnerabilities and ups and downs that we share make me feel less alone and more understanding of the different and complex realities we all go through. ”
“I think it’s easy to go through life on cruise control and get so busy that weeks and months pass without checking in with yourself. For me, the fruitfulness of this work is the reminder to take a pause and be part of a collective discussion about my self-care so it can help me be who I want to be. This space is so rare and so helpful! ”
Sign up in time!
The Collective won't open it's doors again until 2021!
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We can't do this alone. We are on this journey together.
I advocate that every woman be a part of a circle … a group of people, women - smart, wise, can-do women - who are in the world doing their work, and you need to meet with them as often as you can, so that they can see what you’re doing, and who you are, and you can see the same. …. It is crucial for our psychological health and our spiritual growth – it’s essential. - Alice Walker
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I found the collective when my life was chaotic, misaligned, and unraveling -- with no sense of home or peace. I feel heard and understood by the collective members and comforted that they are often or have already experienced what I may be going through. The conversations and practices Gracy and the group encourage help nudge and remind me to be kinder to myself, to slowdown, and how to reset --- often coming at the exact moment I need them. It's been wonderful to connect with women on so many topics I may not have otherwise and Gracy is an amazing facilitator. - Claudia
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The Beautiful Life Collective has provided me with a strong framework and structure to create space for my self-care in the midst of a busy life with competing priorities. As a natural caretaker, I struggled to make time for myself alone at the expense of family members or professional responsibility. The Collective allows me to make that space, but also makes it easy to fit that into the time I have available at the odd hours of the day that I can find it. It has been an especially valuable resource during the pandemic with support structures feeling so upended. - Ellie