Free introduction webinar April 14th at 9 - 9:30 CET
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RITES OF PASSAGE
Transitioning your Leadership to the next level
Based on ancient traditions of ritual transition and proven science and tools to build awareness, authenticity and senior leadership presence, this program will propel you into a seasoned and grounded leader.
The program prepares you to take up a leadership position one or several levels above your current responsibilities depending on your career plan and ambitions.
Successfully taking up a new leadership position is challenging! Often you’ve got less than 90 days to proven you’re the right fit for the role.
The Rites of Passage program shows you the way to transition from a place of deep authenticity, compassion, connection and courage.
An ancient practice of human transition
“Rites of Passage is a ritual, event, or experience that marks or constitutes a major milestone or change in a person's life”.
Rites of passage celebrate the social movement of individuals into and out of groups or into or out of statuses of critical importance to the individual and to the community”
Throughout humanity, Rites of Passage have functioned as an essential tool of individual renewal and cultural cohesion. In contrast, modern western society provides little to no structure for transitioning from one life phase to the next. Without access to healthy rituals, many leaders feel lost, confused and stressed out about how to move consciously and confidently into the responsibilities the next leadership level.
The 7-day “Rites of Passage” program is a blend of Native transformation rituals and proven Leadership development models, tools and practices, that stems from our +15 years of experience of growing leaders to take on leadership responsibilities one or several levels above their current level of responsibility. The program is a unique opportunity of experience truly sacred and powerful ancient practices from the tribes of Sami and North American native people.
At their most basic, all Rites of Passage are characterized by three distinct phases:
Separation (leaving the familiar, what no longer serves you well),
Transition (clarifying your goals and testing, learning and growing), and
Return (incorporation and reintegration).
First Rite: Separation
The separation phase begins with leaving the familiar, known world, and the comforts of your current position. This separation results from either external pressure from your organization and/or from your own internal desire arising from deep within. This stage is defined by the courage to heed the call to adventure and step into the unknown.
On the Rites of Passage program, separation means detaching from familiar organizational structures and being immersed in nature. The challenges and hardships of living outside provide the first and essential step from the known to the unknown. Inherently unpredictable and inspirational, being immersed in the natural world provides a powerful setting for the journey of self-discovery. Managing stress and overwhelm, and staying focused in difficult and uncertain times.
Second Rite: Transition
The heart of the Rites of Passage program experience takes place in the transition phase, known as the “road of trials”. You’ll cross the threshold into the wilderness of the outer nature as well as your inner nature. You’ll face tasks and ordeals that must be overcome. The program’s developmental model, The Circle of 7 Directions, provides the structural and symbolic pathway for growth.
In the transition phase, you’ll build deep connections with yourself, nature and fellow peers. Trust is forged in yourself, this new community of peers and the natural world. You’ll face fears, doubts and insecurities and you’ll develop a greater understanding of yourself and our new role within your organization and what is needed for you to succeed.
You’ll learn to listen to and feel your heart and discover what truly matters to them, enabling you to experience authentic connections with yourself and others.
Breakthroughs and transformation take place in the transition phase. Awareness and awakening arise through self-reflection and the metaphors of nature. You begin to experience yourself as capable, competent and powerful in your new role.
Third rite: Return
The final and pivotal step of the Rites of Passage is to integrate the lessons of the transformational experience. The world outside has not been fundamentally transformed. Thus, the challenge for you is to retain the wisdom gained on your journey, integrate that wisdom into your life beyond the program, and, ultimately, share that wisdom with the rest of the world.
The weeks leading up to the 3rd Rite you’ll be given a series of challenges and experiences to prepare you for a successful return. A small Quest can be a key part of the Return phase, a sacred time for you in solitude to integrate the wisdom from your journeys into your work.
The final step of the Return phase is a graduation council and ceremony in which you are honored by peers and the Trainer community.
Intentionally celebrating and acknowledging your journey revitalizes the learning and growth that has taken place over the previous months. It also serves your fellow peers by reinforcing the ideals, values, and identity of the collective.
The 7 Core Elements of the Rites of Passage
1. Solitude
Solitude has been a part of the mystical and initiatory path throughout human history. It puts us in touch with ourselves and our world, inviting us to discover our own deepest nature and to open ourselves to the richness of our inner soul life.
4. New and Old Teachings
We apply practices and teachings drawn from Native rites of passage rituals in nature mixed with our +15 years of experince with contemporary Leadership Development. We also teach and model ceremonial practices, such as the all-night vigilance ritual on the final night of the solo, and personal ceremony for Rites of Passage participants.
2. Immersion in Nature
Immersion in nature takes us back to the truth, that we are part of a Great Mystery and not separate. We return to our place in the natural world with respect, humility, awe and gratitude, finding renewal and reflection in the wonder of constant creation and symbiose.
5. Courage
A Rite of Passage takes courage, just like taking up a Senior Leadership position does. You’ll expand your courage significantly when embracing both the comfort of the wilderness and the discomfort, unpredicability and what does to our body, mind, heart and soul.
7. Community
Traditional Rites of Passage always take place in the context of community. On the program, we create a community of participants and guides in the field, so that group members feel safe to speak from the heart, knowing that the container of community will safely hold them. This allows for deep connection, sharing and witnessing.
3. Fasting
Fasting is another ancient cross-cultural practice, one that opens the mind and heart. Most people are able to fast during the solo period of the Rites of Passage, generally 2-3 days. This practice can be modified for people who cannot fast.
6. Connection
Connection to yourself, your values, beliefs, capacities, potential, mind, body, emotions and soul become evident during the Rite of Passage, so does the connection to fellow peers and all living around you. This expands your capacity to connect to others and the unknown, highly needed in todays business environments.
The Rites of Passage provides a ceremonial space for conscious transition
Program outline
1. Preperation and Orientation
About 3 months in advance, you’ll start to prepare for the program. Preperation is individual and may consist of diet and sleep changes, meditations, nature time, journaling, physical training and readings.
On day 1 you’ll be introduced to the terrain, local flora and fauna, and weather conditions we may experience during the solo. Each step of the process helps us gain familiarity and trust in the land under our feet and the sky above our head.
We begin at a campground near the wilderness, where we will get acquainted and begin preparations. Teachings that help us build a strong bridge between the nature that surrounds us and our human nature will be shared.
We shift location, which will be home for a few days, offering community meals, company, shelter, and a safe container for preparing for the solo. You’ll venture out to look for your solo site, going in the direction you feel called to explore. Safety concerns are addressed again in the field. The next morning, there will be a ceremony at sunrise to send you off.
2. Going Solo
During the wilderness quest solo, you enter a different time and space, living by yourself in the wildness of nature. In the weakness of fasting, you become more open and transparent. You may be visited by loneliness, boredom, fear, and regret–among others. You engage them with your heart and spirit, recognizing them as worthwhile opponents. They push you into your depths.
Time can slow down on a Solo Quest, and the stillness can be very powerful. As your thoughts begin to empty out, you can look into the pool of your own being, noticing how you are, what your dreams are made of, what you need to let go of and what you want to welcome into your life and leadership.
3. The Night of Vigilance
During the last night, you can sit, stand, dance, sing, pray, or just huddle from the cold. Your intentions become clear: What is important to carry into your new life, and what needs to be left behind? You ask for help to find your way. With the presence of the first rays of sunlight pierce the darkness, it’s time now to come down off the mountain and begin the journey home.
4. Return and Integration
The return from the solo is often a time of great energy, joy, and celebration. Once returning to base camp, we’ll start exploring the teachings of the solo, reflecting the beauty and meaning of each story–and the challenges posed for the return. The task here is to re-enter your life, bringing your unique gifts and opened heart forth.
As Mirabai asks, “Without the energy that lifts mountains, how am I to live?” How can I bring my vision and purpose into my world–the world of work, relationships and ordinary life? The modern Rites of Passage participant returns to our de-mythologized society powerfully moved by having lived close to the healing power of nature and to his or her own living spirit.
Program highlights
Find resiliency
The ability to handle adversity is important when we are in transition. The Rites of Passage program allows us the time, space and support to:
Identify the voices that guide us in our lives
Accept that which cannot be changed and practice self-compassion
Through self-discovery look for opportunities for learning and growth
Nurture a sense of perspective
Find hope and take decisive action
Connect with nature
The Rites of Passage brings us into a deep relationship with the natural world that ordinary outdoor team building, camping or adventure travel cannot. The entire 7-day program is held in nature, from campground, to base camp, to the solo wilderness site. In the mirror of wild places we learn about our inner stillness and storms, our strengths and vulnerabilities, and our place as human beings in the circle of life. In the intimate experience of nature’s majesty and power, we are invited to let go and trust in something bigger than ourselves and brings in “new” perspectives for the next level of personal leadership.
Embrace life’s changes and flourish
Consciously embracing and enacting our life changes and transitions allows us to confirm the innate strength and capacity, we carry for the challenges that lie ahead. We find the courage to stretch beyond our current boundaries and to walk toward a new future. There is time to review and release what no longer serves, to gather the inner and outer tools needed for the journey ahead, and to celebrate what is to come. When we claim and confirm our changes, we open to the flow of life. Transitioning into a senior leader when embraced with respect and honor—afford us the opportunity to act in the role with our highest purpose and fullness.
Ditch the distractions. Experience solitude.
The Wilderness Quest allows us to drink deeply from the well of stillness. A time apart for inner reflection, and paradoxically to become more attentive to the world around us. Without interruption, without the distraction of “too much, too fast, too often,” we begin to find the spaciousness of the wilderness reflecting the inherent spaciousness inside of ourselves. Dormant senses begin to awaken our creativity, our wonder, our capacity to receive true nourishment for our lives. We return from the Rites of Passage having discovered gifts hidden in silence and solitude. We bring these gifts into our lives and leadership.
Lead a purposeful life. Challenges help us find our calling.
The 7 core elements of the Rites of Passage remove us from our routine, our safety zone. The program challenges us to wake up, to consciously engage, to go to our edges, to push our boundaries, to become bigger, to find courage in our vulnerabilities, one step at a time. Completing a Rites of Passage in the wilderness is a significant accomplishment that cannot be easily dismissed. Living alone and fasting for three days and nights with minimal shelter changes how we experience ourselves and life. Taking strength from the sunrise at the end of a night-long vigilance marks a new beginning. Inside that sunrise lie the seeds of new hope and the rebirth of a purposeful life.
The Rites of Passage is the starting point for authentic change.
Throughout the program we pay our deepest respect and humility for and admiration and acknowledgment of our ancestors and the land upon we temporarily occupy.
Free introduction webinar May 14th 3 - 3:30 CET
Ready to become the next Rites of Passage fellow?
When and where:
Next program is August 24th - 31st 2025 at the heart of pre-historic iceage landscape of Vrads Sande Jutland, Denmark.
Price:
14.995 DKK, which includes 3 simple and light meals pr. day excluding times of fasting and indoor accomondation for 2 days at Vrads Sande Heartfulness Meditation Center.
Number of participants:
8 - 12
