Core Program Offerings
The following programs form the core of Third Act’s “Spiritual Journey of the Heart.” You may take the whole journey or enjoy shorter excursions with one or two offerings. Register to join a group or form your own group. We have designed our offerings for small groups of ten to encourage easy connection and meaningful sharing. All programs can be experienced as a weekly or monthly series or in the form of weekend retreats. Click here for other Offerings for Individuals and Couples or here for other Offerings for Congregations.
Discovering Your Gifts and
Discerning Your Calling In Life
“If life is a three act play, I am chronologically in my third act. But I am in the first act of my life in terms of the feeling I now have about my own worth, my talent and my gifts.” -Dustin Hoffman, actor
Together, we identify our gifts, our core values and our spiritual purpose in life. We will explore images of God and examine their influence in naming and being named by the Sacred. We will identify where our gifts have taken us and where we want to go with them. We will look at what it means to be called to a specific task or vocation and what it means to pay attention to blessings in the common things of daily life. Participants will complete a Life Map that may serve as a spiritual guide for the third act of their lives.
Exploring Your Spiritual Genealogy
Who are your spiritual forebears and where have they come from? What experiences shaped their worldview, their occupations, their relationships and their core values? How have you been influenced by them? What spiritual role models do you now have in your life? If you could interview someone living or dead to ask them something of importance to you, who would that be and why? We will create a spiritual family tree and scrapbook of those we are related to and those whom we have chosen as spiritual family to us. We will examine what we have inherited, what we would like to pass on and what we would like to leave behind.
Creating Spiritual Home Makeovers
“Does your heart lift when you return home each night? Do you leave home in the morning feeling refreshed, comforted and confirmed in your innate worth? Whether you live in an efficiency apartment, a home, or a manse on a hill, your home should be a sanctuary for repairing hurts and celebrating joys.”
There’s no place like home, but every home deserves a little help. Meeting in a home-like environment over light refreshments, we help each other figure out how we want our home spaces to function so as to enhance the activities, interests and relationships that take place in them. We assess the obstacles that get in the way of having our homes function the way we want them to and support one another in devising solutions to them. We consider basic principles of space design and how to create sacred space to help us in our home makeovers. Available upon request: Ritual of Blessing for your home, a home visit and customized assessment of your space by the Third Act Team.
Cultivating Gratitude As a Spiritual Practice
Reduce anxiety, dissolve resentments, and raise your happiness quotient through a daily discipline of gratitude. Watch how that changes your heart, your relationships and how you view life. Learn how to incorporate journaling, meditation, prayer and ritual into your daily practice of gratitude. Study the remarkable relationship between health, happiness and gratitude and use gratitude to improve your quality of life.
Forming Families
of the Heart
There are many ways to define and create family. We will reflect on how our families of origin have influenced positively or negatively the way we form primary relationships today. We will examine how to choose family relationships that support our vision for how we want to see ourselves and live in the world. We will develop family rituals that honor our spirituality, mark important life events, and help us see our blessings. Through a process of storytelling, ritual making and shared hospitality, we will learn how to deepen the relationships we already have and create new relationships we can invite into our family of the heart.
Finding Families of the Heart In Film
To assist in cultivating your own “family of the heart,” take this film series as a companion piece to Forming Families of the Heart. Suggested Films: Places of the Heart, Big Eden, Leaving Normal, I Am Sam, Chocolat, and The Secret Life of Bees. All movies deal with the formation or strengthening of families and communities. Unlikely or unpredictable combinations of people find one another, sometimes with the help of a divine nudge. These movies also demonstrate the role of community as a support to loving relationships. Popcorn and pop provided.
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