How to Navigate Major Life Transitions

We all go through experiences that turn our lives upside down. 

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Research by Bruce Feiler, author of "Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age" found that most people go through a big life transition every 12-18 months. 

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But in his research, Feiler also discovered a category of transition that he calls a "lifequake" -- an experience so intense that it threatens our physical, emotional, psychological and/or spiritual wellbeing. Lifequakes might occur when we undergo several transitions at once, or when our safety is threatened by circumstances outside our control. They can are defined by a sense of powerlessness, anxiety, fear, and paralysis.  

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As a facilitator at TED Courses, Center for Ritual Design's Betty Ray taught several cohorts of Bruce Feiler's course on managing transitions, as well as host of NPR's TED Radio Hour, Manoush Zomorodi's course on career transitions, and "How to Be an Adult" author Julie Lythcott Haims' course on how to transition to adulthood. 

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Integrating the work of these experts with her own research and experience working with clients, Ray  created this course to support people of all ages through any life transition.  

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Dates and Times 

Five Thursdays

May 11-June 8, 5:00-6:30p via Zoom 

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We encourage you to set aside an hour a week or more outside of class time to devote to your inner work. There will be a modest amount of homework for discovery and reflection. 

 

Course Fees​

This course is open to people in all economic circumstances and is priced on a sliding scale.  Contact us if you need additional assistance and we can work something out. 

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Course fees: $222 

Benefactor rate: $333 (helps subsidize the course and materials for others!) 

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What is included?​​

• Five weekly live 90-minute sessions

• Expert and evidence-based content

• A supportive community of colleagues  

• Downloads and other resources 

• One week money-back guarantee 

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Registration closes May 9, 2023.  Please submit payment (below) to hold your space. Questions? Contact us. 

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About Betty Ray 

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Betty is a teacher, coach, group facilitator, modern ritualist, and ceremony celebrant. 

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Her work centers on helping individuals, families, and organizations to navigate through major life transitions, incorporating meaningful personalized rituals and rites of passage to make meaning and strengthen resilience.   

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Most recently, she facilitated several groups through major transitions at TED Courses. 

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She leads presentations and interactive workshops on Thriving Through Major Life Transitions, Family Rituals: Meaningful Practices to Deepen Connections, and The Empress: A Rite of Passage for Heartful Badasses.  She is the author of the Resilience Through Ritual Toolkit, a 5-step process which she researched and produced with the generous support of the Mira Fellowship in 2020.  In spring 2019, she received her MA in clinical psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University’s Spirituality Mind Body Institute. Her research focused on how we might integrate evidence-based psychology and educational practices with ancient traditional ritual forms to design personalized initiation rites of passage, imbuing today’s young people with the skills and dispositions they’ll need for the uncertain future they face. 

 

Before her transitions leadership work, Betty was blessed to spend a decade in senior editorial leadership at the George Lucas Educational Foundation where she saw first-hand the incredible benefits of engaging the inner lives of young people and the adults who care for them. She has consulted on youth rites of passage with the Institute for the Future, TRAILS Carolina, and many individual clients. She has published several articles on Better Humans, Edutopia, the Greater Good Science Center, Education.com, and appeared twice on the Shame Pinata podcast. She has presented keynotes and workshops at conferences including The Hero Round Table, Learning and the Brain, Wisdom 2.0, Maker Faire, and SXSW EDU. Betty loves cooking, dancing, knitting, DJing house music, and exploring the Bay Area. She lives in Emeryville, CA with her teenage daughter and a massive orange tabby named Sparky.