Elizabeth Lesser

Five Things I've Learned About

How the Hero’s Journey Changes When Women are the Storytellers

Presented in partnership with Book Passage

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Join New York Times bestselling author and Omega Institute co-founder Elizabeth Lesser, and discover the Five Things She’s Learned about what happens when women trust their instincts, dignify their values, and speak their truths — and redefine what it means to be a hero.

Online Event Details

  • 120 minutes

Price

  • Single-Class Ticket - $60.00

View the archive of my two-hour class and discover the Five Things I’ve Learned about what happens when women trust their instincts, dignify their values, and speak their truths — values and truths that redefine what it means to be a hero.


Humans are storytellers. That’s how we learn, create culture, and determine shared values. I’ve been a story lover, story creator, and story gatherer throughout my life — as a voracious book-reader and movie-watcher, an author, and a curator of conferences. As a student of history and mythology, I know that most of humankind’s origin stories, hero’s tales, novels, and films have been created by men. Embedded in those stories are the beliefs we live by — beliefs about women and men, power and war, sex and love. There’s much to enjoy in the old stories and hero’s adventure tales. But even as a young girl I longed for stories I could relate to. Where were the tales that celebrated the experiences and dreams and visions of women? Why were women painted as fickle and weak — second in creation yet first to sin? Why were men described as white knights with superior minds and values? And why were men always the heroes? 

For more than twenty years I have been organizing conferences for women that question and defy our culture’s prevailing definition of what it means to be a hero. I’ve come to see that it’s up to us to tell new stories that balance out millennia of one-sided storytelling. And I’m not talking about Wonder Woman or other outdated shoot-‘em-up tales of winners and losers. I’m interested in stories — on the page and in our real lives — that celebrate a different kind of hero. I’m ready for women to dignify some of our best qualities and give muscle and clout to leaders and creators who value caretaking, champion compassion, and choose communication over vengeance and violence. We all can conjure, tell, and teach these new stories. We can live them out in our own lives. This class (open to everyone), is based on my new book Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes.

During our time together we’ll:

1.    Dig deep for our truest voice.

2.    Explore what it means to do power differently—at home, at work, in the world.

3.    Learn some ways to overcome the imposter syndrome.

4.    Practice what I call the “Do No Harm and Take No Shit” meditation.

5.    Map next steps on our own hero’s journey.

Throughout the class there will be time to ask questions and to engage in meditation and writing exercises.

I hope you will join me.

Elizabeth Lesser

Elizabeth Lesser is a bestselling author and the cofounder of the Omega Institute, the renowned conference and retreat center located in Rhinebeck, New York. Elizabeth’s first book, The Seeker’s Guide, chronicles her years at Omega and distills lessons learned into a potent guide for growth and healing. Her New York Times bestselling book, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, has sold more than 300,000 copies and has been translated into 20 languages. Her Marrow: Love, Loss and What Matters Most is a memoir about Elizabeth and her younger sister, Maggie, and the process they went through when Elizabeth was the donor for Maggie’s bone marrow transplant. Her newest book, Cassandra Speaks, explores what happens to our culture's values and priorities when women's voices, stories, and experiences are trusted, respected, and followed.

Elizabeth is one of Oprah Winfrey's SuperSoul 100, a collection of one hundred leaders who are using their voices and talent to elevate humanity. Today, besides writing and her work at Omega Institute, she lends her time to social and environmental causes, and is an avid walker, cook, and gardener. She and her family live in New York’s Hudson River Valley.

Growth and Change

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Frequently Asked Questions

Your ticket entitles you to ongoing access to this class — even after the live session concludes.

If you purchase a ticket in time to join the class live, you can view the archive as soon as it’s posted, as often as you like. Look for an email with information about how to access the course archive within 48 hours of the end of the live class. Once you get it, you’ll have all the information you need to access it as you like across any and all devices you own.

If you purchase a ticket after the live class takes place, you can view the archive immediately, and you can return to it as frequently as you like

If you’d like a refund, we can happily credit the card you used to register for the session. Please send a note to pre.event@extendedsession.com , and we’ll confirm receipt as soon as we see it (We don’t need your credit card info – just your email address and date of purchase.)

There are two things to know:

  • Unfortunately, we can only accept cancellations and refunds up to 48 hours before a scheduled session.
  • There is sure to be a lapse in time between the time we refund your order and the time a corresponding credit appears on your credit card statement. So that you’re not left waiting and wondering, we’ll contact you as soon as we’ve processed the credit in our system.

For reasons we hope you’ll understand – the biggest of them the fact that we make a point of compensating the folks who host Five Things I’ve Learned classes as quickly as we can – we can’t accommodate refunds for tickets purchased within 48 of the start of a scheduled live event. We can also accommodate refund requests for the purchase of an archived session only within 24 hours from the time of purchase.

If you’ve purchased a ticket for this online class and you find that for some reason you can’t make the live session, you have two choices:

  • The first: View the session archive. You can view the session archive as soon as it’s posted – or any time, as often as you like. We’ll make an archive of this class available within 48 hours of the live session, and we’ll send every ticket holder details on how they can view it. As a ticket holder, you’re able to view this full session archive any time– as often as you like.
  • The second: Request a refund. Just send a note to pre.event@extendedsession.com, and we’ll help sort things out. Please keep in mind that we can only accommodate refund requests made more than 48 hours from the start of a live session.

We take data security and the need to protect your privacy as seriously as you do. That’s why we use Stripe to process your registration transaction. They take your credit card and secure your data – in fact we don’t even have access to your credit card number. Which is just the way we like it!

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Want to know more? Read the ExtendedSession Online Privacy Policy Agreement.

Still have a question? We’d be pleased to hear from you. Send a note to: pre.event@extendedsession.com.

The receipt you receive via email immediately after you register is all you need to confirm you’re set for the upcoming session.

About 48 hours before the live class is scheduled to begin, we’ll send you a personalized email confirming that everything’s on schedule and containing easy instructions for accessing the class.

We’ll send another reminder on the day of the class itself, and we’ll be available online just before the class begins to make sure you have no problems joining when the time is right.

Have a question in the meantime? We’d be pleased to hear from you. Send a note to: pre.event@extendedsession.com.

If you’ve not received confirmation of your purchase, it’s not because we haven’t sent it. In fact, we send an immediately confirmation to the email address you share with us to ensure that we can reach you with class details.

If you don’t receive a confirmation within 10 minutes or so making your purchase, please first check your “junk” or “promotions” email first — some people’s email programs group unfamiliar emails in these types of folders. The email date and time should match closely the time you purchased your ticket online.

If the confirmation email is not there, there’s a small possibility that your email address wasn’t entered as you intended when you registered. (You’d be surprised, but this happens.)

In any case, we want to make sure we can reach you. And we want to make sure you’re registered for the class you want. if you can’t find your confirmation email, please send us a note at pre.event@extendedsession.com. We’ll get back to you right away.

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