Doors open at 10:30 am for coffee and conversation.
Sunday program begins at 11 am.
Childcare is provided. Everyone is welcome!

Featured Speaker: Merritt Benz, LCSW, CDWF, “Self Compassion & Connection”
Community Moment: Tricia Crowder & Oleh Kovalchuke
Musical Guest: JJ Cantrell

***Potluck to follow Sunday program. Bring a dish to share!

“Self-Compassion & Connection: The Key to Getting the Love You Want.”

Love, belonging, connection … we are all searching for it and want more of it in our lives. The path that leads us to finding it is often is filled with both disappointment and joy. We can easily lose our way at times and wonder why fulfillment in our lives and relationships is so elusive and hard to find. Join us as we explore how our own beliefs about ourselves are the key to unlocking a more wholehearted and authentic life, filled with connected and meaningful relationships.

Learn more about our presenter:

Merritt is a Kansas City native but calls Brooklyn, New York her “true home.” Merritt Benz is a licensed clinical social worker and the owner of the Bedford Therapy Group. She is a certified Daring Way facilitator. The Daring Way™ is a highly experiential methodology based on the research of Dr. Brené Brown and focuses on shame resilience skills and developing daily practices that transform the way we live, love, parent and lead.

Before private practice, Merritt was the program director and helped open Gilda’s Club Kansas City, where she provided individual and group counseling to people living with cancer and their family members and friends. Before moving to Kansas City, she participated in a postgraduate fellowship at the Child Study Center at Yale University School of Medicine, where she provided both individual and family counseling in a community-based setting. In New York she worked with various high-risk teen population groups as program director for the Juvenile Justice Initiative, a new clinical evidenced-based treatment program (called Multisystemic Therapy) that provides intensive in-home family therapy for adjudicated teens and their families, as an alternative to incarceration. Although her work brings her great satisfaction and joy, Merritt’s ideal day is being knee-deep in a spring-fed trout stream casting flies, hoping for a fish to rise, and celebrating with a cold beer on the river afterward.

Certified Daring Way Facilitator – (http://thedaringway.com/)