Stop F'ing Around: Build Your Best Way to Be
Stop F'ing Around: Heal. Focus. Thrive.
When you Stop F'ing Around, it makes your everything better.
Stop F'ing Around is how you get clear about what you're here for.
How you are going to spend your time and energy.
You know the concept of mindfulness. Stop F'ing Around brings mindfulness to every aspect of your life.
Even if we recognize a good idea--a time-tested idea with tons of evidence that it works--most of us have a hard time practicing the thing.
True mindfulness lets you:
* Say what you want to say effectively.
* Train your mind so that you can have more command with your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions.
* Be an effective and compassionate leader and/or psychotherapist.
* Bolster and sustain your open heart, your clear mind, your solid backbone, and your intuitive gut.
These are incredibly powerful skills required for all leaders and for psychotherapists. And that's who this group is for.
Using a dynamic, immersive, interactive and fun group process, Stop F'ing Around gives you the practical skills and capacity to help you build what you want:
* in your body,
* your mind,
* your relationships,
* your work, and
* in the very essence of who you are becoming.
The most-true you.
You'll reach to the depths and emerge with the practices, the motivation, and the community to keep becoming who you want to be.
I'm Anne O'Connor, MSW, LGSW, a group coach who designs experiences of practical transformation.
Stop F'ing Around is exactly what it sounds like--a brash, great idea to fire complacency and do something different: something better.
Stop F'ing Around is a loving and supportive kick in the pants. It's a small, powerful group that together says: "Yes!" to a meaningful life of contribution.
It's about building a foundation of self-love and respect and making the world a better place from there.
It's about you. And isn't it about time?
Check out more below and then, let's hop on a call. Spaces are few and we start soon. Let's go!
Book a call with AnneStop F'ing Around: Heal. Focus. Thrive.
This is the big one: The deepest course I offer to build your clarity, purpose, mindfulness, and connection.
Stop F'ing Around: Heal. Focus. Thrive. starts the second week of November, 2024 and runs every week through November, 2025.
That is commitment, friend. Because you're ready, right?
There are two groups available, limited to eight participants each.
Leaders:
* Start Sunday, November 10, 2024 and runs through November 2, 2025.
* Sunday mornings from 8 am until 11 am.
* In person in South Minneapolis or online: TBD.
Practicing Therapists:
* Start Tuesday, November 12, and runs through November 4, 2025
* Tuesday evenings from 4 pm to 7 pm.
* In person in South Minneapolis.
Sign up for an info session00
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A Specific Note to the Psychotherapists
Stop F’ing Around: Heal. Focus. Thrive. is the deep dive into self-knowledge, supportive community, unparalleled group work, and healthy-practices development that many of us thought we would get in grad school.
I first ran Stop F’ing Around (SFA) almost a decade ago. And it has only gotten stronger and more relevant since then. For the first time, I’m tailoring the course to meet the specific needs of psychotherapists.
I’m Anne O’Connor, MSW, LGSW, and I’ve been coaching groups for more than 13 years. SFA is the most beloved, most intimate, and most committed work I offer.
SFA is a curriculum-based cohort course that uses 10 pillars of well-being. All focused on your personal development and growth—so you can be a better psychotherapist. And a better everything.
This year-long course meets weekly to help you—once and for all:
- Fully face and heal the past,
- Learn to live in the present, and
- Skillfully forge your future.
This course is for the psychotherapist who:
- Wants a safe, rigorous space to dive into self-growth practices.
- Is ready to fully adopt healthy practices and make real changes that last.
- Sometimes feels unsure, inadequate, or like they have no business giving guidance.
- Holds the heart space for others and wants someone to hold it for them.
- Needs to reprioritize their own well-being and vibrancy.
- Is creating something new needs to strengthen their decision-making skills.
- Has been unable to soften grief’s cutting edge.
- Is feeling burned out, resentful, and uncertain about their path forward.
- Wants to become a skillful group facilitator.
- Wants to become part of a secular, intentional, and reverent community.
- Wants to have fun, laugh, be creative, and playful.
Because you're ready to make life the beautiful thing it can be.
Because you’re done—finally done—feeling defeated, resentful, cynical, and scared.
Because old habits are now kicking your ass a little bit—or a lot.
Because you’re ready to build community committed to growth.
Because you want to feel your outward success in your bones.
Because you’ve got unique gifts that you aren't yet fully giving.
Because you recognize that inner work is done better together.
For all these reasons and more, it is time to Stop F’ing Around.
You're invited.
You are invited to join a beloved group process of becoming who you want to be. No more meager attempts, no more half-tries. This is the before-and-after course of your life, a defining decision. The process that helps you build on the wisdom of your experiences and dilute the poison of past injury. This is the course that helps you create the most strong, clear, focused, compassionate, and creative parts of yourself. The most-true you. You know her. She’s the you that you’ve caught glimpses of—she’s waiting for you to unfold, unwind, and be who you are. To get real. To let her shine with all she is.
She’s waiting for you to Stop F’ing Around.
If this sounds like you—
- willing and able to commit to a deep process and to be coached
- ready for whatever it takes to shed what is no longer yours to carry
- so you can create your most vibrant life—
Let’s do this thing together! This is a small group--if you are interested, get on it to secure your spot.
Get on my calendar for a free, no-obligation call.Mindful thinking➡️mindful feeling➡️mindful desire➡️ mindful action.
Mindfulness is not easy—try reading the next paragraph! Life is often full of distraction--convincing and important distraction--let alone all the fun and fascinating distraction. To build the life we want takes focus and embodiment of the change we want. When we can chose our thoughts and skillfully acknowledge our feelings without letting them be in charge, all the rest of life gets more clear. And we learn to cultivate equanimity and joy.
Over the course of a year in Stop F'ing Around, we’ll use many evidence-based tools to develop mindfulness:
Contemplation, 💡experiential exercises, brain-training, 🧠 role-playing, body appreciation, 🍉communication skills development, 📧 grief work, dialogue and questioning, ❓exploration of social justice and our role, ✊🏽 explicit commitment to contributing to a better world, ☮️ yoga--asana--breathwork--mediation, 🪷making the unconscious more conscious, ongoing assessment and evaluation, journaling, ✍🏻 keeping track of progress, somatic learning, relationship-building, 🧑🤝🧑 celebrations and recognitions, 🎈 emotional regulation, agreements, taking action, 🎬 accountability pacts, f'ing around, poetry, 🌓 art, 🎨 ritual, retraining our nervous systems,🌎nature’s rhythms, 🌅 and more.
You will be immersed in the work—this is not a lecture that you sit and listen to: expect to make progress through action. 🏃🏻♀️💃🤸
Yes, I'm serious and committed…and this work has to be a joyful, life-giving time too. Otherwise, who could rouse themselves every Sunday for a three hours for a year? Or give their Tuesday evening over for a year? So, yes, we have a blast. I design the work to engage humans--it's fun. We laugh and shake our heads in recognition and surrender, we hold each other up, we help each other see what needs seeing. We create a community unlike any other. What my clients have consistently said is that it's worth getting up and staying up for--it's the best part of their week. 💚💚💚
⏰You Have One Life--fill It With Wonder And Purpose!
What will be different after the year of this immersive, experiential work? Well, that, my friend, is largely up to how much you take up the work. Every past participant has had significant, transformative outcomes. And, every participant has also known that the work continues even after a year of dedicated, structured, and brilliant focus. One of the differences post Stop F'ing Around is *how* you face that work: You will develop trust and skill in how you come to life's navigations. Life isn't a cake walk; we need to cultivate wonder and joy and purpose. And cake, we definitely need to cultivate cake. 🎂
You have the opportunity and process to experience mind-blowing, life-changing, body-affirming, heart-opening gorgeousness from this process: that's what I'm committed to you having. When we have our Check-Each-Other-Out interview (Don't you want to contact me now?) , I'll ask you how committed you are to taking up the work as if your life depends on it. Haha: As if. Of course your life depends on what you do with it. Stop F'ing Around is not the whole world--but it will change your whole world if you let it. If you want it. And if you work the work. The Stop F’ing Around course and community will give you everything you need to:
- Build your life from a deep well of self-knowledge and love
- Increase your aliveness and energy and engage fully in life
- Practice less reactivity, irritability, anxiety, and longing
- Experience more joy, contentment, and clarity
- Train your brain to choose better thoughts and actions
- Be more confident and steadier facing any situation
- Align your actions more closely with your values, even under pressure
- Help build a more just, more equitable, and better world
- Create, communicate, and hold clear boundaries
- Understand and feel your inherent value
- Care for your whole self in practical ways
- Model a vibrant, connected way for younger people
- Vastly improve your ability to communicate
- Build your clarity and compassion
- Know how to deeply connect with others and create community
- Develop your personal team and create support for yourself
There are a thousand good things you'll get from the Stop F'ing Around course that you'll discover along the way. But the tangibles are pretty great, too.
Stop F'ing Around is a significant investment of resources--time, energy, and money. I'll talk about pricing during our 1:1 calls or during the live info sessions. I honor your investment by giving you my best--which is pretty great. That includes human-focused design, a curated community of engaged practitioners, substantial live time together, and skillful facilitation, support, and coaching. Every aspect is considered to give you the most customized, engaging, profound, and effective training of your life. And fun---did I say fun? Stop F'ing Around goes deeper, is more personalized, and stays with you while you incorporate the practices. It's different--it's yours and ours together and it blows group work out of the water--in the best way, like a fun blow-up unicorn floaty on a gentle winding river. 🦄🫧 So be assured: You are in good hands. This process will be worth everything you give it and more.
Stop F'ing Around includes:
Live + online weekly
Virtual 3-hour workshops facilitated by me, Anne O'Connor, MSW, LGSW.
1:1 progress check-ins
Quarterly, 30-minutes with Anne for Q&A and reflections unique to you.
Course-lifetime access
Complete online course materials, including main-lesson replays.
Looks great on paper
Because it is. Keep track with your beautifully-designed workbook.
Grow your community
Private, curated online community for discussion outside of class.
BeLightful Boxes
Treats: delivered monthly! To help you practice the work. And be delighted. And be light.
Certification available
Certificate of "I Don't F Around Mindfulness Training" upon completion.
Continuing Education
Anne is an approved CE provider in MN (pending), offering 40 hours of continuing education.
Here's what past participants of Stop F'ing Around Say.
"Get off the fence."
"Anne is a wonderful facilitator of women's groups...If you are on the fence about committing this time to the work of improving your physical and emotional health, get off the fence. It's never too late, you are never to old...you are never too young. You can feel better. You can feel happier. You can feel more in control of your life and your health...You won't regret it."
Mari
CEO/Executive Director and SFA Graduate
"Wise investment"
"Two and a half years later, I draw on the work that I did with Anne every day, multiple times…Working with Anne is a really wise investment. It enhanced many of the relationships I have, it helped me be able to set boundaries better and learn how to be more present in relationships."
Robin
Development Director and SFA graduate
"Truly transformational"
"Being a part of Anne O’Connor’s workshop was truly transformational to me in my life. Stop F'ing Around provided me the support I needed to take the steps and do the hard work and hold myself accountable to making the choices that were best for me to move my life forward in a way that feels amazing today."
Michelle
Marketing Manager and SFA graduate
✅✅✅Here's how to know you're ready to Stop F'ing Around. ✅✅✅
Well, you've read all the way through this website page. Oh, wait, that's not enough. It's interesting though, right? Look at all this grey on the page!
Still, if you're like most of us, you've got decades of patterns and habits that you probably want to change. That kind of change takes serious commitment and perseverance. It takes stamina. It also takes trusting me and the process. Being ready for this work does not mean that life has to stop--your life is your laboratory where you'll practice your new ways. Usually, when you go digging around in your heart and soul (lovingly! carefully!), big things start to move around.
The group helps you with the big things--that's one of the points. Life can have big things, but you do have to commit to three hours a week in class and a couple hours outside of class to do the work anyway. I expect people to show up every week. I expect people to be willing to be coached directly. You have to commit to the significant financial investment. Also, you have to want to change yourself more than you want to change other people. This work is your work. Even though the SFA group is amazingly supportive, we really don't get in each other's business much. Weird, I know. But it will make more sense as we go along if you get in. It would be ideal to have support outside of the group for your work in the rest of your life. But you don't have to--I can show you how to build your own support team--everyone needs their team.
It's not really a very clear answer, is it? And this too, is a good thing to consider. I'm not here to give you clear and easy answers for your life. I lay things out, ask a bunch of questions focused on you and what you want, and give you good information, time-tested practices, support, and inspiration. You've got to do the hard part--to make the change. That's kind of the whole year, right there in the three previous sentences. But the actual year is more fun.
You have to want to do this work because you feel like your life depends on it. You have to want it that badly. For me, this work is a no-brainer. Our good lives do, in fact, depend on good work like this. But I don't know you. Can you take this on? Maybe think about it like a puppy. Someone who wants a puppy has to want a puppy so badly in order to take on all that work. The getting up in the middle of the night, the chewing on every single thing--the evidence on your poor hands. Teething doesn't last forever--but it is sometimes hell going through it. And then, after all the work, that little puppy comes and curls up at your side and you get that amazing oxytocin love-hormone wash through your body...phew. Aren't puppies great? Yeah, that's our new puppy Goose on the next screen. Someday, she'll be more relaxed, she'll be easier, and she'll be a wonderful companion for my kiddo. He wanted that puppy like life depended on her. But it's still not easy to pick up the poop.
Anyway, you get the point. You are the only one who knows if this is your time. Maybe try not to get distracted and discouraged by the same old excuses--you'll never change anything that way. And feeling better in your mind and heart and gut is such a good idea. But this course is a big commitment. Maybe have a little process and make a decision that you can explain and understand. Then, commit. And write down the process and commitment thinking. That way, you can remind yourself when you're clearing away the excrement, so to speak, on your way to becoming the more relaxed, easier, and wonderful companion to yourself.
⛔⛔⛔And here are some good guesses that this work isn't for you right now. ⛔⛔⛔
There are a million reasons that taking on a year-long, weekly commitment to deeply explore your life has to be timed right. You'll be happy to know I don't plan to list them all here. Mostly, I want you to be in a position to be able to take full advantage of the work for yourself. And I want to create a group that has a level of functionality and flow so that we can go to deep places safely together. That doesn't mean you can't have big life stuff--we expect big life stuff. With this in mind:
- If significant substance use is a part of your life, this work isn't for you right now.
- If you can't show up consistently for any reason, this work isn't for you right now.
- If you are looking for therapy--this work isn't for you right now. I am a licensed therapist--I've got the goods--but we're not doing therapy in this group. We're exploring a different kind of deep exploration called biopsychosocial education--holistic learning, basically. If you're seeing a therapist, that's great. We just need to be clear that this group won't meet the legal definition of therapy in which people are diagnosed with a disorder and then treated for that disorder.
- If you want to fight with people, this work isn't for you right now.
- I think that's it. You'll probably know pretty quickly if this isn't your work right now. You probably aren't even reading this, tbh. The person reading this, on the other hand? Well, you may need to figure out how to say yes. 😉
Ready to apply? Here's how it works. If you want one of the few spots, maybe stop f'ing around and make the call?
1. Sign up for a Check-Each-Other-Out interview with me, Anne, to see if we want to work together for a year. You can also join an info session about the course. The info session will meet on a virtual video call. I'll give an overview of the course, we'll hear from past graduates, and there will be fun discounts and bonuses for showing up. I love when people show up. Register for an info session here.
2. Sign up to the course.
3. Become who you want to be.
4. Change your world.
5. Change the world.
It really is like that. It really is your time to Stop F'ing Around. Apply now and I'll see you soon to take the next step!
Oh...and that amazing photo of the King Protea? Just my favorite flower. Or, could it be a preview of things to come in the Belightful boxes?...hmmm...
2024-25 Scholarships Available!
Part of the remedy is that these communities must be not only represented, but also centered in the important work of becoming and community-building, I strongly encourage applications from people with these identities and backgrounds.
The deadline for turning in a scholarship application is October 4, 2024. I will announce scholarship awards October 14, 2024. Please note that most scholarships are partial and don't cover the whole cost of the course.
If you have any questions, you can email me, Anne O'Connor at [email protected] with "SFA Scholarship" in the subject line.
Hey, are you still here? Maybe we need to talk, hey?
You've made it to the puppy picture! That's Goose, our incredibly adorable pup. Isn't she something?
But what about you? It seems like you want to know more. You know that you can sign up for a free, no-obligation call, right? Or sign up for an info session here. We'll chat. We'll figure it out. Talk to you soon.
Scenes from previous Stop F'ing Around groups
And here are some glimpses of previous Belighted Boxes and Stop F'ing Around gatherings.
