Our online support group – a sangha of the heart
Welcome to our sangha of the heart! The Growing Humankindness community is an online gathering space, a soul discovery group for heart centered seekers who self soothe with food and who want to nurture wholeness, connect with soul, and deepen healing.
If you overeat to care for stress, suffer from body shame, or have a compulsive relationship with food and want gentle, healing support, we invite you to join our community of soul divers.
Our members are seekers and mystics, poets and elementary school teachers, ministers and yoga teachers, healers and therapists, artists and parents, musicians and writers, nurses and doctors, midwives and doulas.
What they share in common is a desire to deepen presence, mindfulness, and compassion in their relationship with food and themselves.
What’s included in the community
The community is structured around a monthly Healing Focus that explores a particular area of challenge to nurture healing in your relationship with food. These are our topics for the next six months:
- July – Bringing rest and play to the healing journey
- August – Inner listening
- September – Connecting with the body’s grace
- October – Softening pursuit
- November – Self forgiveness
- December – Birthing your healing story
Webinar gatherings
Then we meet twice a month for zoom webinars where you can ask questions, share your experience, and connect with others around these topics.
One of the monthly webinars is a ‘Soul Circle’ where we explore the month’s theme in a creative way – through collage, journaling, writing, drawing or some other artistic way – with the option to share your creations with others. No artistic skill is needed to participate.
Webinars are from 3 to 4:30 pm central on one Thursday and one Saturday a month and are recorded if you can’t make it.
Here are the dates when we’ll be meeting:
- Thursday, July 11th and Saturday, July 27th
- Thursday, August 15th and Saturday, August 31st
- Thursday, September 12th and Saturday, September 28th
- Thursday, October 10th and Saturday, October 26th
- Thursday, November 7th and Saturday, November 23rd
- Thursday, December 5th and Saturday, December 14th
The commitment and cost
The community is a 6 month commitment and is a closed group with a limited number of spots, up to 24 people. You sign up for six months at a time and are charged a monthly tuition of $125 USD a month.
Other community resources
The community also includes these resources:
- Unlimited online access to our library of courses – Align: Heal the Battle with Your Inner Rebel, The Book of Love, Emerge: Create a New Habit, Listen: Gentle Ways to Support Your Healing with Food, Nurturing the Inner Mother, our year long intensive, Soften a Sugar Habit with Presence, Compassion and Grief, and When Food is Your Mother
- A warm, private forum (not Facebook) where you can share your experience and connect with others
- The option to have a Listening Partner, where you meet regularly to give and receive emotional support. (Learn more below.)
The forum, webinars, and Listening Partners are here to support your healing and the month’s healing focus. And the library of courses is here to support you if you want to go deeper.
Listening partners
In the Growing Humankindness community, you have the option to pair with a listening partner or two. Listening partners came about through the work of parenting coach and Hand in Hand Parenting founder Patty Wipfler.
We’ve adopted listening partners here because we’ve seen how they soften isolation, nurture healing, and grow courage. People love having a regular place where they can connect with another, be heard, and receive emotional support.
How a community differs from self study
If you spend a lot of time reading, studying or listening to podcasts about healing, and yet struggle to have these ideas ‘take root’ in your daily life, joining a group of like minded souls can help you cross the divide.
In 15 years of facilitating group spaces, I’ve found that having a safe, warm, regular container of support is essential for your healing to unfold.
Whether this is a therapist, listening partner, support group, or community, these nurturing spaces are the foundation of healing, growth and transformation. We need safe spaces to stretch, take risks, and face vulnerable feelings.
In a community, you’re also joining others in a group intention. The energy of the group intention supports everyone and amplifies our individual efforts.
Practicing with others also helps us implement new practices into our daily lives. These practices become living rituals that ground into our bodies and beings.
An intentional group container creates more nourishing and powerful effects than self study. It’s easier, and more fun! By joining forces, your labor is eased and nurtured by the group.
About me, your guide
I’m Karly Randolph Pitman, the founder and facilitator here, and this topic is close to my heart. Food – especially sugar – was my constant companion, my primary way of caring for myself. I turned to food when I felt overwhelmed by my feelings, experiences, or by life itself. As a sensitive person, this happened a lot!
Unraveling my bond with food has been my life’s journey, reconnecting me, year by year, with my heart, strength, and wholeness.
What helped me – and what we’ll practice together – is turning towards our vulnerabilities rather than pushing them away, shaming, or fighting against them.
I created my first course in 2008 and love weaving the compassionate insights of relational neuroscience, attachment theory, and spirituality into a place of safety and healing where the painful places in our being can unfold.
Along the way, I’ve had the honor to sit alongside many sensitive, caring souls as they spoke their food stories aloud. One woman said sugar was her “nice girl’s addiction.” Another said that junk food was the only thing that helped her feel safe and warm.
Over the years, as people joined classes, people naturally wanted to continue to meet and connect after the class had ended. This group is an answer to that longing.
Nurturing the ‘spiritual embryo’
Image from The Three Ages of Woman by Gustav Klimt
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it – and to embrace them.” – Rumi
If there’s anything I want you to take away from the community, it’s trusting your capacity to heal. The ruptured places within us yearn for safe spaces where they can be witnessed with warmth and curiosity.
As these places are held in wholeness, we come home to ourselves. We peel back painful stories. Our compulsive habits soften and come to rest.
We rest in a greater sense of who we are, something greater than the ruptures, hardships, and separations of our lives. I call this Living Your Deeper Story – and the Growing Humankindness community is here to help you write that story into being.
As education pioneer Maria Montessori said, “We’re here to nurture the spiritual embryo.” The community is here to support this unfolding.
Do you feel moved to join us?
If you feel led to join us, and if this group feels like a good fit for your needs, we’d love to have you. And if you have any questions, please reach out. We want you to get the help you need, whether it’s with us or with another.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to be a member?
Membership in the Growing Humankindness community is $125 USD a month for 6 months. (If you’re in Texas you also pay sales tax.) It’s a 6 month commitment, payable in 6 monthly installments, and we don’t offer refunds. If you choose to leave the community, you will owe your remaining tuition.
We also take checks if you prefer to pay by check. To pay by check kindly contact us here.
How many people are in the community?
The community is designed to be intimate and nourishing with a minimum of 12 and maximum of 24 people.
Is this a therapy group?
The community is a place of warmth, connection and safety where we come home to ourselves, a soul discovery group. It offers some things that may feel similar to a therapy group, such as a place to share. But it’s not group therapy.
In the community you’ll receive:
- Psychoeducation – you’ll learn some basic principles of relational neuroscience and healing to soften anxiety and orient you
- Support – you’ll get lots of warm emotional support, listening and a place to be heard
- Creative play – we use creativity and play to safely explore and care for those places inside that hold pockets of fear, aloneness, pain, and suffering
- Soul nurturance – you’ll receive poems, images, and stories to nurture your connection with soul, inner wisdom, and inner guidance: that place of richness that’s deeper than any loss or trauma you experience
You won’t receive:
- Private coaching
- Trauma support (so important but not something we can safely offer)
- Individual or group therapy (again important but not what we’re offering)
- Nutritional support about what to eat, meal prep, or food guidelines
While this help is worthy of care, it’s not our area of expertise and it’s best to seek this support elsewhere.
How do I know if the community’s for me?
The community is for you if….
- You enjoy the company of other soulful, heart centered beings and want to engage and connect with others
- You have a painful relationship with food and long for peace
- You’re comfortable in an online learning environment
- You enjoy exploring your ‘inscape’ and the domain of soul
- You have a meditation practice or are open to meditation
A few more signs that the community might be especially helpful…
- You do best with warm, gentle support
- You like using art, journaling, imagery or inquiry to go within
- You have good intentions but struggle to implement changes on your own
- You want to emerge more authentically and fully in your life
- You want to use your relationship with food to deepen self knowledge, self compassion, and forgiveness
Here are some signs that the community isn’t a good fit for you:
- You dislike zoom or an online environment
- You’re uncomfortable with meditation or contemplative practices
- You want personal or group therapy – therapy’s wonderful, but not what we’re offering
- You’re looking for nutritional advice, meal plans, or suggestions on what to eat – helpful support, but not what we’re offering
- You want to dip in and out. A home study course is a better option if you want to come and go
- You’re looking for trauma healing. We offer suggestions to find a trauma therapist here.
What if I don’t want a community?
A community isn’t the only way to receive help, and may not be the best fit for you. We continue to offer home study courses and small group cohort classes for those who don’t want to join a community.
What’s your refund policy?
The Growing Humankindness community is a six month commitment, and we don’t offer refunds. If you choose to leave the community, you will owe your remaining tuition.
Will I have access to the community library after I leave?
One of the primary benefits of the community is that you have unlimited online access to the library of courses, webinar recordings, Healing Focuses, and more. We don’t offer continued access to these materials after you leave the community.
When can I join?
We open the community twice a year for new members. The group runs from January until June and then from July until December.
What if I want help elsewhere?
If we’re not the right fit for you, we sincerely hope you find the help you need elsewhere. You’re welcome to ask us for referrals. If we know someone else who might be a better fit, we’ll gladly share this with you.
Any other questions?
If you have any questions on whether or not the community is right for you, please reach out to us by email or call us at 888-297-7076. We want you to have all the information you need so you can make an informed decision.