Over the last two weeks, my calendar has been busy with Zoom calls talking with women about being part of Turned-On Living 2023, the new yearlong group coaching adventure that I will be leading starting in January.

It’s been a journey that I have enjoyed!

I’ve realized and newly appreciated that being both a writer and a life coach means I get to talk with people who have read my books. This is a gift.

For me, writing is about creating connection, and I love to further the connection by getting to know readers in coaching experiences.

I want to share with you some of the reasons that women have told me they want to be part of the Turned-On Living cohort. First I will tell you about who they are.

Most of the women I’ve been talking with have been following my work for years and many are longtime Quirkyalone readers. Others have been attracted by pussywalking, Wet, my work with tango, exploring intimacy and connection, and joy pleasure as a path of personal empowerment. They are mostly in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. I’ve had one chat with a very mature thirty-year-old woman.

There are all women who want to be part of an intentional group of women who want to make the most of life.

With their permission, I am sharing with you what they told me.

Maggie said, “Ever since meeting you and watching your journey through newsletters, I have wanted to engage in coaching or something else.

I want to center myself in pleasure and intention. I hope that this journey can help me live and act on the things I have been learning from books, mentors, and therapy.

By doing this with a group of other women in similar positions and different world views, I want my desires to evolve.”

Melissa told me, “I’m drawn to the idea of meeting and sharing with other women who are on the same wavelength.”

Another woman said, “I’m solid on my ability to do hard things, deal with challenges, get shit done. I am much more unsure how to feel embodied, sensual, easeful, and joyful.

I am freaked out about being single for the first time in five years. I vaguely want to start dating again but I am feeling disconnected from that part of myself. I would like to feel like the fun, sexy version of myself more often. She exists but has made relatively few appearances in the hard slog of the last few years.

I really appreciate the emphasis on pleasure and adventure, since those are two things I am hoping to create for myself.”

Kimberly said, “I live in my head. I want to live in my body and heart. The ‘kids’ at work call me badass, yet I lack perspective on my accomplishments and belittle them. (I should have an MFA and a couple novels under my belt by now, bangs the monkey in my brain.) Then I judge that, too. The pandemic made alienation and distance feel that much further.

In the whirl of my days, selfing (deserves to be a verb) is the first thing to go. Yet it is also the cushion that centers me and makes me feel alive. I’d like to upend this equation, then slice it up and see what’s inside.

I need accountability/camaraderie/new conversations. I feel like so often I’m catching up with friends and we are scratching the surface, telling family/work/health stories by rote. I want real connection, inner peace and outer freedom.

I want to feel like the days aren’t just rolling by one after the other without depth.”

Kate told me, “I feel like I’ve lived most of my life from a place of turned-on living. I’ve tried to live a passionate authentic life. I’m missing a community to share that with.

I’m single with no kids so I recognize that it may be easier for me to live this way. But I have hope that there are other people in the world who have chosen to live their life this way and want to share that and experience that with others.

So I guess I’m looking for community. And also for support in continuing to live this way and maybe inspiration and guidance to help me to expand.”

It’s been a beautiful experience to talk about the power of being part of such an intentional group. I’m excited about the adventure we will be co-creating.

Turned-On Living will be an opportunity to practice being open and vulnerable, to be known by others, and to learn how to both give and ask for support.

If you want to read more about what we will be doing, read this curriculum that lays out the topics we will be focusing on month-by-month.

A year is a long enough time to really get to know each other and form bonds. Who knows what lifelong friendships will be formed? What adventures will be had?

There is a possible retreat that will happen in the last quarter of the year. I am leaning toward doing an optional “Dancing in the Woods in Rhode Island” weekend during the foliage season.

There are a few more spots open.

I am taking these conversations seriously by talking in depth with each person.

Creating a group is an art… we are going to be together for a year! So I want this to be an amazing group.

I am wrapping up the final interview/application calls by the end of November.

These interviews need to be booked by the end of the month.

If being part of this cohort for 2023 is intriguing to you…

Go ahead and fill out this form to tell me about you.

We can begin the getting-to-know-each-other process to see if it’s a fit for Turned-On Living 2023.

May we connect in one way or another!

Sasha