I’m here to help you increase your clarity, courage, and compassion by offering spaces for learning, growth, and self-awareness. We cultivate moments of clarity, insight, and transformation while opening and softening hearts.
Please read through these shared beliefs and practices for our community. If you decide to join any of my programs, I request that you follow these principles to make it a space that is safe, nurturing, and healthy for all participants and members.
- This space is for you.
This community aims to be kind, inclusive, self-responsible, and compassion-based. We look for the good in one another. We assume that whatever is happening is here for our learning and growth. We do not expect external conditions to be perfectly aligned with our personal preferences, but instead, we use whatever comes our way for our own capacity building, expansion, healing, and insight development.
The quality of this online space depends on the quality of your participation. This is a place to share skills, knowledge, empathy, and interests through ongoing conversation. It’s a space to connect, create, share, and inspire. It’s up to us to keep this community a safe, accepting, positive, and inclusive space for everyone, so the following policies and guidelines will help us ensure we’re all on the same page.
The primary goal of our group is to focus on personal development and human relationship-related discussions within a safe and inclusive environment. We strive to show up in constructive, productive ways that contribute to our collective learning and education. Our primary intention is to stay connected to other participants and fellow journeyers, share ideas and support, and form genuine connections.
This community is about self-reflection, self-transformation, and self-development; you are not here to teach, educate or advise others.
This is not a space to recruit people to your own programs or groups or to advertise on behalf of other organizations.
This is a learning-focused group. The goal is to help you implement the strategies and tools you learn through my programs, which are designed to help you “do your inner work,” become a more compassionate and empowered human being, and have thriving, meaningful, connected relationships with yourself, others, and your work or purpose in life.
- Speak for self.
The single most basic principle of this community is to speak from your subjective, first-person experiences.
Share about yourself, including what you find meaningful, what questions are you asking, how do things impact you personally, and what are your next steps. Avoid speaking for other people or groups as a whole (even though the tribal part of your identity will want to!) because it dilutes attention from the primary area of direct influence, which is ourselves, and tends to lead to abstract intellectualizing.
Take ownership of and responsibility for your triggers, reactions, judgments, interpretations, memories, feelings, needs, desires, boundaries, limits, and capacities. This can be empowering, liberating, and supremely creative.
When in doubt, default to expressing your observations, feelings, needs, and requests while containing your evaluations, judgments, interpretations, strategies, or demands until you feel more clear and less charged.
- Be what you want to see.
Keep your attention and energy on what you actually have control and influence over, which is your way of being and how you show up in the collective space. Be discerning between your circles of control, influence, and care/concern.
- Be kind.
Encourage and support people. Treat everyone with love and acceptance.
If you disagree or have an opposing viewpoint to share, start by trying to understand the other person’s point of view. Ask questions, summarize your understanding of what he/she is saying, and gather information before responding.
When and if you do respond, speak in the first person about yourself. Share the impact that things have on you. Show up with respect, honor, and compassion.
Spirited debate about ideas or concepts is awesome; personal attacks are not welcome.
As you share, use the acronym THINK and ask yourself, is it …
True?
Helpful?
Inspiring?
Needed?
Kind?
- Be generous.
Give more than you ask. Be “for” one another.
Share what you’re working on in yourself and also keep sharing empathy, wisdom, and encouragement with others on the same journey.
With that being said, please only share and disclose at your personal level of comfort. You are 100% responsible for your own boundaries, level of transparency, and well-being.
- Improve the conversation with your participation.
Join existing conversations that are already happening and build upon them. You can do this through listening to what people are saying and building upon their ideas and experiences.
Practice mirroring, reflecting, synthesizing, and restating what you hear others saying before you respond with your own perspective. This practice contributes to a deeper level of feeling “received” by everyone. When you respond with your own perspective, keep it constructive and oriented around the question, what is the impact on you personally?
Try to leave this community better than you found it.
- Be willing to be uncomfortable.
The content and ideas presented through online courses and calls may be controversial. In addition, people’s thoughts, ideas, perspectives, biases, and judgments often emerge during the content of a program, and that may be triggering to you. Not all activities, experiences, and feelings are known or foreseeable, and you may find yourself uncomfortable, stretched, challenged, or unsettled at times. That’s okay. However, if you get flooded or reactive, please draw on your personal support systems to help you work through whatever is coming up for you.
Use moments of discomfort as an opportunity for self-examination, self-soothing, and self-resourcing. It’s always a good idea to examine and update our beliefs or to recommit to them with even more insight and depth.
Practice just being with it. What if nothing is wrong? Notice what defenses and habits arise within you in reaction to these feelings.
Try to stay with yourself for longer before trying to change things, express yourself, or exert influence in the outside world. Waiting may help you to do two important things: 1) neutralize the emotional charge naturally; and 2) find clarity and compassion before bringing things into the relational space.
Remember that some people may find the things you say or share offensive, triggering, or upsetting, and they may reach out to let you know about this. Use this as practice for staying in a place of care and learning, not wrongness, shame, or blame.
- Be thoughtful when offering feedback.
To be most helpful, offer feedback directly and privately to the person involved. Focus your feedback on what you want, what would help, and what you are reaching for. Lead with clear requests.
Please refrain from correcting people publicly, and also keep in mind that negative comments bring down the energy of the group. Publicly, we stay focused on what is good, inspiring, and working. If anything needs to be changed or addressed, we talk about those things privately with the people who are in a position to do something constructive with the information.
- Welcome diverse perspectives.
This group is diverse and we welcome and celebrate that diversity. While I know some people want to engage in online discussions around polarizing topics like politics, gun control, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, disability, sex, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, economic status, weight, etc. — exploring those topics is not the focus of this group or program, per se.
I understand and respect that many people feel passionately about these important issues, and you are more than welcome to bring situations and conversations up that include and reflect these issues, but our purpose is to remain focused on your personal skill-development, feelings, needs, insights, and growth around these topics, not on coming up with one right answer or a single perspective for the group as a whole.
- This is not a space for harassment and hate speech.
Bigotry, racism, incendiary comments, sexism, and harassment either personal or cultural toward anyone is hurtful, divisive, and out of alignment with our purpose and intention. Violations of this guideline are taken seriously for the safety of the whole.
If a comment or direction of conversation is not serving the spirit of the group, or if it is harmful to the group and/or individuals, I may redirect someone or reach out to them afterwards to discuss it further. If we cannot come to an agreement, I may choose to remove that person or people from the group.
If someone is removed from the group, it is not because I am judging the “validity” of their position, thinking, morality, or developmental capacity. Rather, it comes from a practical consideration about what best serves the safety of the whole, what is in alignment with our purpose and intention, and what behaviors therefore interrupt or actively work against the purpose and intention of the group. People who are asked to refrain from returning are not being “blamed” or “made wrong,” but rather are being seen and acknowledged as a catalyst for ongoing unproductive and publicly distressing comments and behaviors.
If you ever have a question or concern about general or specific interactions between community members that are impacting the whole, please contact me with detailed information so I can address the matter at hand. Each instance will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
- Be ethical and original.
Don’t copy, steal, or share any intellectual property. Don’t post anything digitally that belongs to someone else without permission, including descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images) or for breaking any other law. Don’t reuse or re-purpose another member’s content or any of the content created and provided by Yvette Erasmus.
The access you have purchased for course and membership materials is for your own personal use. If you’d like to share with others, please encourage them to register for that program. (You can provide them with this link.) If finances are an issue, particularly with international access issues and exchange rates, please contact me for more information about opportunities for financial aid.
- Be choiceful.
You are encouraged to think critically and creatively, only taking in that which serves you and leaving the rest.
Any concepts, notions, ideas, suggestions or recommendations that you accept or try out in your life, you do from your own free will and ability to assess and choose what you’d like to explore. Stay in a place of freedom, choice, and co-creation. Watch for how you might sometimes slide into younger, child-states, victim-states or power-over states. If you’re a student of Human 101, use the Roadmap to find a “next step” that feels right to you.
You may not agree with all the content, and you accept responsibility for deciding what works for your particular situation and what doesn’t. Nothing works for all people or all situations. You need to listen and learn with a discerning, questioning attitude. While I believe that the content of these courses and calls is valuable, I do not guarantee that it will always apply to your exact situation, nor that it will solve any particular problem or issue that you’re facing. You alone decide and accept responsibility for how and for what purpose and in what situation you apply the concepts from my programs.
There is no dogma, no belief system, no rituals, and nothing is mandatory. Each person is free to chart their own path and explore their own meaning-making systems. The only thing necessary for feeling a sense of “belonging” or experiencing this work as a good fit for you is to have an earnest desire to connect with the deepest and most soulful part of your being and to let it guide you and transform your life.
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About My Group-Learning Programs
I offer group-learning programs as a teacher and not as a therapist, healer, mediator, or advocate. These programs do not provide an environment for deeper psychological counseling; they are not providing a professional support group, therapy, or psychological services. They are designed to teach, educate, explore, and entertain, not to heal or treat any conditions that you may have. Educational and supportive programs are not a substitute for personalized help from a licensed psychologist or professional health care worker.
If you are currently struggling with any psychological or physical health problem, condition, or limitation, please make sure that you are currently receiving help and support from a qualified mental health provider, doctor, or professional.
You are responsible for your own emotional, mental, and physical well-being. Participating in these programs assumes that you have assessed yourself and decided that you both want and are able to participate freely, choicefully, and responsibly.
By moving forward with activities within this community, you are agreeing to the following:
- You do not suffer from any psychological, physical, or other conditions that could pose a threat or harm to course leaders, guides, facilitators, staff, or any other course participants.
- You understand and agree that there are emotional risks associated with participation in these offerings.
- You bear sole responsibility for your well-being, your participation, and your engagement with this content, these courses, and online programs and offerings.
Your participation in the Yvette Erasmus community indicates that you have read and accepted these general guidelines and that you will do your best to live up to them.
This mutual understanding is a pledge we all make to each other to engage and live up to the highest, deepest, best, brightest, clearest, most caring Self that we can.
This is our promise to each other, because we are not here merely to share but to grow.
