Our transition: The Learning Well is here

We can choose to be
a voice of courage, calling
the world to kindness.

s. frank

This is it; we’ve been talking about our transition to The Learning Well for months, and this week our new home is live at https://thelearningwell.org. It is interesting and auspicious for me to be making this transition in April. It was in April of 1999 that I began my relationship with Wings Seminars, leaving my old job that year for one I never could have imagined when I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. And yet, here I am 23 years later living the question of what it means to live an authentic life, one that feels profoundly and beautifully human. Yes. 

As I have been working with others in this creative effort of remaking Wings into The Learning Well, I found and was touched by this quote from Margo McLoughlin:  

“Remaking the treasure for another,
I rediscovered the treasure for myself.” 

I understood how this was happening for me. I was tasked with reading over our web pages and thinking deeply about the beauty of this personal development work and how to communicate this beauty in a way that would meet and be understood by the people of this time and this generation. These tasks invited me to rediscover the treasures I took away from my Wings experiences. 

I looked at the workshop photos, now in the lobby of The Learning Well in Medford, and found my PES and CrossOver pictures. I took in the faces of those who journeyed with me and remembered the hands that cradled me and hearts that accepted me. I recalled the stories they courageously shared, that communicated to me that I was not alone in my fears and that the world was much kinder than I had believed. As I write this, I know many of you are reading and nodding your head saying “yes, me too.” You and I are the next generation to take this work into the future. 

I hope you’ll spend time on our new website. As you visit it, you may take a peek at something and think, “that doesn’t look like what I’ve known.” And when you think that thought, you may feel some emotions come up and feel some loss for what you’ve loved and associated with as a part of your experience. That’s OK. I’ve had a few of those moments, too. You may also love it! What is important to recognize is how we foster and support this change will be important to the success of this work growing beyond us. So, I invite you to join us in launching this well and to share the website link with friends, work colleagues, family, and on your social media sites.  

I also invite your patience and goodwill toward the good and earnest people tasked with this process. We have done our best, and we are open and eliciting feedback now from you to help us in this final stage of transformation. As we go live, registration for classes and workshops will still be by phone and email rather than online. That, we hope to fix within the next few months. We will also be making a few more modifications and changes that weren’t necessary to complete before the launch. If you find typos, wrong information, or malfunctioning links, issues common to website launches, let us know immediately by emailing thelearningwell@thelearningwell.org. If you have opinions on the look or navigation of the site, please share them as well, knowing these types of changes, if made, will take a little longer. 

Thank you again for being a part of the journey of this good work. I hope to see you online or in person over the coming months. Until then, let’s be champions of kindness and warriors for peace. 

Much love and appreciation, 

xo sherrie