Women Who Lead

Where your self-healing is an act of leadership and your restoration strengthens the whole system you serve.

The Light We Cast™

The Neuroscience of Attuned, Relational Power

Women who lead are often socialized to sacrifice first and restore later...if at all.

But like Mother Trees, sustainable feminine leadership depends on regenerative self-care, boundary-setting, and inner resource replenishment. The forest needs Mother Trees strong, rooted, and well; not depleted.

In The Light We Cast™ Women Who Lead, this becomes a core principle:

Your self-healing is an act of leadership.

Your restoration strengthens the whole system you serve.

At the heart of TLWC | Women Who Lead is the powerful metaphor of the Mother Tree;

a symbol of feminine leadership rooted in wisdom, reciprocity, and self-sustaining care.

In the forest, Mother Trees thrive because they intentionally rest, restore, and revitalize themselves. Their strength is not constant by accident. It is cultivated through intentional cycles of renewal that allow them to nourish the entire ecosystem.

Rooted in the matriarchal leadership pillars of

Guiding | Co-Creating | Collaborating | Celebrating

The Light We Cast™ Women Who Lead equips women leaders to renew their energy, lead with grounded Presence, and self-heal amidst stress to lead in ways that foster thriving team cultures.

Through this inner alignment, you expand your capacity to Guide, Co-Create, Collaborate, and Celebrate with clarity, empathy, and purpose. In resonant leadership, a leader’s emotional and relational presence sets the tone for the entire system. When you lead from a regulated, grounded state, you become the steady presence others orient to—the external nervous system that helps teams feel safe, supported, and inspired to do their best work.Just as Mother Trees sustain the forest through their vitality and connection to the network around them, an integrated and well-resourced woman sustains the communities she leads—helping them grow, connect, and thrive in the light she intentionally casts.

Inspired by Suzanne Simard’s research, Women Who Lead embraces the Mother Tree as a powerful metaphor for feminine leadership. Mother Trees self-heal not to retreat from their role, but to restore the strength that sustains the entire forest. They slow down during stress, repair their inner systems, and reconnect to their networks so they can continue nourishing the ecosystem around them. In the same way, women leaders thrive when they honor rest, renewal, and nervous system repair as essential acts of leadership. When women restore their inner resources, they lead with greater clarity, compassion, and presence—becoming steady anchors who help their teams feel safe, supported, and capable of flourishing.

Mother Trees survive storms, drought, disease, and disruption — not by hardening, but by repairing themselves from the inside out. They use their inner resources to regenerate damaged tissues, re-route nutrients, strengthen their root systems, and restore their vital capacity. This self-healing allows them to stay deeply connected to the network around them. Because they can heal, they can sustain. Because they can sustain, they can nurture. Mother Trees: Redirect nutrients to their own damaged roots first so they can stay anchored Slow their energy output during stress so they don’t burn out Regenerate tissues and roots, literally rebuilding themselves Strengthen their fungal networks, keeping communication lines open Stay connected even when weakened — because connection is their medicine Return to nourishing the forest once their resilience is restored Their self-repair is an ecological truth: A depleted Mother Tree cannot feed the forest. A restored one can regenerate the entire ecosystem.

Women leaders must reinforce their core, not abandon it Must repair the inner system — mind, body, nervous system — to stay steady Must slow down during stress to prevent burnout Must stay connected, because relational networks are a source of resilience Must nourish themselves so they can co-create thriving communities

Your resilience is communal medicine. Your restoration is a catalyst for collective thriving.

Replenish your energy through Rest, Restoration, and Revitalization practices
Lead with integrated presence—mind, body, intuition, and relational attunement
Prevent burnout and sacrifice syndrome with practical, science-based tools
Apply IPNB principles to co-regulate and create emotional safety for your team
Strengthen feminine leadership capacities that elevate trust, connection, and collaboration
Model resilience and relational intelligence that help others thrive

Replenish your energy through Rest, Restoration, and Revitalization practices
Lead with integrated presence—mind, body, intuition, and relational attunement
Prevent burnout and sacrifice syndrome with practical, science-based tools
Co-regulate and create emotional safety for your team
Strengthen feminine leadership capacities that elevate trust, connection, and collaboration
Model resilience and relational intelligence that help others thrive

Improve their capacity for co-regulation and relational connection with students

Learn classroom-ready strategies that support student mental health, self-regulation, stress management, and social-emotional learning in everyday teaching moments

Prevent the onset of burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury while strengthening retention, improving school stability and community health

Flow through the attitudinal phases of teaching from regulation and grounded Presence rather than survival-based stress responses.

Participants will receive a copy of Resonant Leadership by Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. In our work together, we center the practices of REST, RESTORATION, and REVITALIZATION to cultivate the internal conditions that make resonant leadership possible. Resonant leadership is the “doing”—the way leaders guide, co-create, collaborate, and celebrate with clarity, compassion, and emotional intelligence. Women Who Lead focuses on the “becoming.” Through nervous system regulation, renewal practices, and relational attunement, participants learn how to embody the inner steadiness, awareness, and vitality that sustain resonant leadership over time. By strengthening these internal foundations, leaders develop the presence and energy that allow their leadership to resonate—creating environments where people feel safe, connected, and empowered to thrive.

"These groups served as a nurturing space of mutual support. Our sessions equipped me with practical tools to navigate the challenges of teaching and also instilled within me a profound sense of purpose and interconnectedness."

Middle School Teacher

The Grounded {NEW} Teacher Cycle

A Regenerative Leadership Rhythm

1. Root (REST)

Cycle of grounding and self-regulation

Leaders begin by anchoring themselves. Like Mother Trees strengthening their roots, this phase focuses on nervous system regulation, reflection, and reconnecting with inner wisdom.

Practices

nervous system regulation
stillness and reflection
reconnecting to purpose and values
honoring limits and boundaries

Resonant Leadership Link: mindfulness and emotional self-awareness

2. Renew (RESTORATION)

Cycle of healing and energy restoration

This phase restores emotional clarity and prevents sacrifice syndrome. Leaders metabolize stress, repair inner resources, and renew vitality.

Practices

Burn Balanced™ stress metabolization
emotional repair and integration
restoring perspective and hope
reconnecting to meaning

Resonant Leadership Link: renewal and resilience

3. Reveal

Cycle of insight, intuition, and vision

When leaders are restored, insight emerges. Vision, creativity, and intuition become clearer.

Practices

listening deeply to inner knowing
integrating logic and intuition
clarifying purpose and direction
sensing emerging opportunities

Matriarchal Value: Guide

Resonant Leadership Link: inspirational vision

4. Relate

Cycle of connection and co-regulation

Leadership becomes relational. Trust and psychological safety are cultivated through attunement.

Practices

co-regulation and relational presence
empathy and deep listening
cultivating psychological safety
strengthening belonging

Matriarchal Values: Co-Create + Collaborate

Resonant Leadership Link: empathy and relational intelligence

5. Rise (REVITALIZATION)

Cycle of shared action and empowerment

Energy is now directed outward toward meaningful action and collective progress.

Practices

empowering others
shared leadership and innovation
encouraging agency and growth
amplifying collective strengths

Matriarchal Values: Guide + Collaborate

Resonant Leadership Link: inspirational leadership and influence

6. Rejoice

Cycle of celebration and renewal of community

Celebration reinforces belonging and resets the cycle of energy.

Practices

recognizing growth and effort
honoring contributions
reinforcing shared identity
cultivating joy and gratitude

Matriarchal Value: Celebrate

Resonant Leadership Link: positive emotional climate

Feminine leadership is not about constant output. It is about regenerative presence. When leaders honor these cycles, they embody resonant leadership and cast a light that allows communities to heal, connect, and thrive together.

Friday, July 24 10 am-1pm

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1 | Embody Healing

New teachers engage in somatic, evidence-informed practices designed to build nervous system awareness and groundedness in the early years of teaching.

Through intentional movement, breath, and sensory awareness, participants learn how to recognize stress signals in their bodies and respond in ways that restore balance rather than push through overwhelm.

2 | Learn the Science

New teachers explore how the nervous system responds to (healthy and toxic) stress, gaining insight into the science of resilience and how stress shapes thoughts, emotions, behavior, learning, and teaching. Through a trauma-responsive perspective, educators learn to recognize and respond to mental health needs in students, while also identifying early signals of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress in themselves

3 | Practice Relational Empowerment Skills

New teachers learn how to stay grounded, calm, and compassionate in the midst of stress or conflict while building the relational skills that create healthy classroom climates. New teachers learn practical strategies to respond to students in ways that strengthen trust, safety, and connection while learning to apply high-leverage social, emotional, and culturally sustaining teaching practices and mindfulness interventions that honor students’ identities, lived experiences, and ways of relating.

4 | Thrive in Community

Engage in relationally attuned, peer-based learning communities that help new teachers feel supported, grounded, and connected in the early years of the profession. These shared spaces foster psychological safety, mutual regulation, and invite educators to process challenges together rather than in isolation.

Through collaborative reflection and shared experience, new teachers build social connectedness that reinforces long-term sustainability in the profession.

We draw from the sciences of

Trauma-Responsive

Approaches

CASEL Social Emotional Learning

Competencies

Nervous System Health

Practices

Stress Metabolization

Interventions

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Practices

Healing Centered Engagement

Principles

Restorative Practice

Approaches

Mindfulness

Interventions

Our Signature, Interdisciplinary Curriculum

Customized specifically for new and early career teacher dispositional development, Social Emotional Learning, and mental health.

FOCUS

Each of the six core circle topics in The Grounded {NEW} Teacher™ curriculum is delivered through interactive learning experiences intentionally designed to support new teacher dispositional development and high-leverage instructional practices that foster student engagement.

The research-backed curriculum leverages high-impact social, emotional, and culturally sustaining relationship and teaching practices that cultivate classroom climates where students feel safe, engaged, and ready to learn while new teachers develop confidence, self-efficacy, and alignment with professional teaching dispositions.

“Put Into Practice” handouts translate key concepts into concrete, role-specific strategies, ensuring new teachers can immediately apply new skills in their classrooms, collaborate effectively with colleagues, and grow into grounded, reflective educators within their school communities.

OUTCOMES

Build a restorative SEL foundation that strengthens emotional intelligence, nervous system regulation, well-being, and a sustainable professional identity aligned with core teaching dispositions.

Channel stress into renewed clarity, purpose, and relational strength by applying the five CASEL SEL competencies in ways that support grounded decision-making and effective classroom practice.

Apply attunement practices, including co-regulation, reflective listening, reading emotional and behavioral cues, and responding rather than reacting, to strengthen student belonging, classroom engagement, and readiness to learn.

Create classroom climates of safety, belonging, and learning readiness through high-leverage, culturally sustaining rituals and routines that support regulation, connection, and consistency, even in high-stress or high-demand environments.

CIRCLE 1| Grounding in Core Competencies

We start at the source of all stability in teaching (and at the base of the self-healing cycle) -- grounding into one's core competences. This first session helps new teachers learn how to respond from alignment rather than urgency. Teaching is a calling rooted in care and relationship, yet without this inner alignment, that same care can quickly lead to depletion and burnout.

Rooted in Korthagen’s Core Reflection approach, this session emphasizes that lasting professional growth begins from the inside out. Rather than focusing only on skills or behaviors, Core Reflection helps educators surface and align their inner drivers, identity, mission, values, and strengths, so that external practice flows naturally from inner coherence.

This session supports early-career educators in identifying their core teaching competencies, values, and “why,” laying the foundation for grounded decision-making, self-healing, and sustainable practice. Participants explore the difference between slow burn and burnout, learning how aligned action fuels steady energy, clarity, and motivation over time.

STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Create your "Anchor Before Action" Plan

CIRCLE 2 | Nervous System Basics for NEW Educators

Teaching places constant and often invisible demands on the nervous system. These demands are especially intense in the early years of the profession. This session introduces new teachers to the basics of nervous system functioning so they can understand how stress shows up in their bodies, thoughts, emotions, and behavior, and learn how to respond early, before stress compounds into burnout or compassion fatigue.

Participants learn to recognize their personal stress appraisal patterns and how the nervous system moves through fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses. With this awareness, new teachers develop practical strategies to restore balance, regulate stress, and return to a state of flow during the school day to protect both their energy and effectiveness in the classroom.

This session also helps new teachers learn how to notice nervous system cues in students, such as escalation, withdrawal, shutdown, or people-pleasing, and respond in ways that support regulation rather than react to behavior. As educators learn to create internal safety for themselves, they strengthen their ability to remain grounded, responsive, and emotionally present and lay the foundation for sustainable teaching and classroom environments where students feel safe, supported, and able to access their "learning brain" state.

STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Get Back Into the Groove Action Steps

CIRCLE 3 | Making Stress Work for Teaching and Learning

The early years of teaching place new educators in constant contact with stress as they learn to manage classroom demands, relationships, and professional expectations all at once. This session reframes burnout and compassion fatigue as protective signals rather than personal failures while learning the difference between safe and toxic stress, explore the 4 E’s of the stress and trauma response, and develop skills for recognizing early signs of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress in themselves and their students.

Using CASEL’s five SEL competencies, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making, new teachers learn that they are the primary SEL intervention in the classroom. Rather than suppressing stress, educators learn how to metabolize it through their own regulation, reflection, and relational choices.

As they practice moving stress through their own bodies and experiences, they simultaneously strengthen core teaching dispositions of emotional regulation, reflective practice, relational attunement, and ethical decision-making. As teachers embody these competencies in real time, they support their own well-being and professional growth while making social-emotional learning visible, teachable, and transferable for students through their daily presence and responses.

STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: The H.E.A.L. Path to Completing the Stress Cycle

CIRCLE 4 | Teacher Flow
& Co-Regulation

This session supports new teachers in learning the foundational skills of co-regulation and relational attunement, essential dispositions for creating safe, healing, and supportive classroom relationships.

Through guided practice, new teachers develop relationship-centered strategies for co-regulating from a place of flow rather than reactivity. As teachers learn how to regulate themselves first, they strengthen their ability to stabilize the classroom climate and respond with clarity instead of urgency and compassion instead of criticality.

Participants learn how to recognize when they, and their students, have moved into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, and how to intentionally return to the social engagement zone, where connection, learning, and collaboration are possible.

Grounded in healing-centered engagement, this session emphasizes the “what happened to you?” perspective, cultivating core teaching dispositions of empathy, curiosity, and reflective practice.

STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Signal Before Solution - 3 Step Co-Regulation Strategy

CIRCLE 5 | Restorative Rituals & Routines

In the early years of teaching, sustainable classroom rituals and routines are essential for student behavior and learning and new teacher well-being and longevity. This session supports new teachers in learning how to design and facilitate restorative, relationship-centered rituals and routines rooted in SEL practices that create emotional safety, predictability, and belonging without adding to overwhelm.

This session introduces the foundational elements of restorative practice circles, including establishing emotional safety, co-creating shared norms, modeling reflective listening, and using compassion-centered language that supports voice, accountability, and repair. Participants learn how social-emotional learning instruction is naturally embedded within these rituals and routines, allowing students to practice regulation, empathy, communication, and responsible decision-making in real time rather than as a separate curriculum.

New teachers leave with practical strategies for embedding restorative rituals and routines such as check-ins, transitions, community circles, and repair conversations into daily classroom life.

STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Restore Before You Repair Pause

CIRCLE 6 | Teacher Presence Creates the Teachable Moment

This session helps new teachers understand how their calm, regulated Presence is one of the most powerful tools they have for shaping classroom climate and supporting student learning.

Drawing on the science of relational attunement, educators learn how small shifts in Presence, tone, timing, and response help students feel emotionally safe and regulated since these conditions that make learning possible. When teachers remain grounded, students borrow that calm. Behavior softens, trust grows, and curiosity returns, allowing moments of challenge to become moments of teaching rather than disruption.

This session highlights how a new teacher's calm Presence precedes instruction. When students feel safe, instruction lands. Participants learn how to recognize micro-moments throughout the school day, during transitions, corrections, and check-ins, and use simple relational practices to turn these moments into opportunities for regulation, connection, and engaged learning.

STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: The 10 Second Shift to Create the Teachable Moment

How can we best serve you in serving your new teachers?

Option 1 | SINGLE EVENT

Mini-Master Class Style, Professional Development

Great for back-to-school professional development week

FORMAT | Designed for IN-PERSON engagement

Choose ONE Topic Focus | 1 - 3.5 Clock Hours
Choose TWO Topic Foci | 2 - 4 Clock Hours
Choose THREE Topic Foci | 4 - 6 Clock Hours

CUSTOMIZED & COMPLEMENTARY

Already have a new teacher orientation theme or focus?

Jen will customize a session that integrates the core pillars and practices of The Grounded {NEW} Teacher and align them to your current new teacher professional development theme, focus, and desired outcomes.

Option 2 | SUSTAINED, ON-GOING

Ideal for district offered new-teacher professional development the entire academic year

FORMAT | Can be offered IN-PERSON, ZOOM, or HYBRID

Monthly or Weekly | Full Curricular Experience
- Six consecutive weeks or Six months
- All six topics covered
- 1.5 - 2 Hour Sessions per session | 9 - 12 Clock Hours

Monthly or Weekly | Full Curricular Experience
- Three weeks or Three Months
- All six topics covered
- 3 - 3.5 Hour Sessions | 12 - 14 Clock Hours

Option 3 | IMMERSIVE

Ideal for district or building offered new-teacher professional development that fits your district's professional development days

FORMAT | Designed for IN-PERSON

ALL DAY Immersive Event |
- Condensed Curriculum Covered
- 6 hours | 6 Clock Hours

TWO Day Event |
- Condensed Curriculum Covered
- (1/2 day) | 2 - 3 hours per day | 4 - 7 Clock Hours
- 4 - 6 hours per day | 8-12 Clock Hours

THREE Day Event |
- All Six Topics Covered
- (1/2 day) | 2 - 3 hours per day | 6 - 9 Clock Hours
- 4 - 6 hours per day | 12-18 Clock Hours

FOUR or FIVE Day Events available

*We work with you to customize a unique offering that fits your PD schedule. All sessions can be offered virtually on Zoom, in-person, or a mix of both!

The Light You Cast™ | ON-DEMAND

Choice-Based, Self-Paced, Ongoing Support and PD

Are you looking for a comprehensive, engaging, transformative, and fully ONLINE and self-paced teacher mental health and SEL well-being research-backed curriculum?

The Light You Cast™ | ON-DEMAND for New Teachers is a flexible, fully online professional development experience designed for the realities of early-career teaching. New teachers can engage the 8 module video-based training when they want, how they want (phone or desktop device), and as often as they need, building relational resilience and mental health capacity at their own pace while earning 4.5 Continuing Education Clock Hours in mental health, relationship science, and social-emotional (SEL) competencies.

26,000 +
views of video content

19,000 +
hours of engagement

7,000 +
school staff impacted

25 +
school districts served

SELF-PACED | Eight self-paced modules (35 minutes each) translate the latest science on mental health, stress metabolization, and nervous system regulation for new teachers into quick, practical tools for real-time relief and renewal.

LOW-BURDEN, HIGH-IMPACT | Offered through the district as an optional, on-going professional learning pathway for new teachers (and the mentors who support them).

INSTANT & SUSTAINED | A sustained, instantly accessible resource educators can return to (over and over again) during high-stress moments, key transition points, and the most demanding phases of the school year.

RETENTION FOCUSED | Supports retention and relational effectiveness Strengthens teacher well-being, presence, and connection over time—key factors in teacher sustainability and effectiveness.

CEU CLOCK HOURS | Participants earn 4.5 clock hours of professional development in SEL, mental health, and stress management while building daily practices that support long-term health and impact.

COMMUNITIES of PRACTICE | Optional in-person or online The Grounded Teacher Communities of Practice designed to foster shared reflection, co-regulation, and collective growth; helping early-career educators stay grounded, connected, and supported as they navigate the realities of teaching together.

Experience TLYC | ON-DEMAND now (for free!)

TLYC | Pillars of Practice

In every session, we embody the three core pillars of nervous system health and mental health proven to create the foundation of resonant, restorative relationships while also ensuring staff retention, effectiveness, and well-being.

REST

NERVOUS SYSTEM HEALTH

Relax and Regulate the Body

Engage body-centered, trauma-responsive practices that gently regulate your nervous system, relieve patterns of tension and overwhelm, and replenish internal energy reserves. These practices invite your body out of survival mode and back into balance.

RESTORATION

MENTAL HEALTH

Making Meaning

Learn our signature, evidence-based Burn Balanced™ stress metabolization practice designed to sharpen clarity, counter the anxiety story, restore emotional balance, and rebuild a healthy sense of agency that helps you direct your energy toward what you can control while releasing the tight hold on what you cannot.

REVITALIZATION

RELATIONAL HEALTH

Connect with Others

Build the social intelligence and relational skills to respond with intention, create connections where others feel deeply seen and valued, and amplify your impact while staying peaceful and present.

Every session is highly experiential and includes:

Direct instruction on current, evidence-based knowledge and research about the 5 core capacities of mental health, burnout awareness, stress resilience strategies, and adaptive approaches staff can immediately apply at work or at home.

A simple, yet effective, trauma-responsive exercise that strengthens the parasympathetic nervous system's relaxation response, soothes a busy mind, and reconnects your staff with their body's intelligence.

Beautifully illustrated Put Into Practice handouts that outline detailed integration practices they can immediately apply to their professional and personal lives to extend and deepen the keynote conversation.

Engagement and interaction! Every keynote will get your staff connecting to themselves, each other, and to the collective mission that drives their work.

Let's Connect!
Book a Free (and enjoyable) Consultation

I would love to chat.

We can schedule a 15 - 45 minute discovery conversation where I learn more about your needs and offer ways I am potentially able to support you or your staff's development. This is a no obligation, no risk discovery conversation.

Schedule a Discovery Meeting

Email Jen.presentwellbeing@gmail.com

Dr. Jen Clifden

Educator | Relationship Researcher | Retention Specialist