A Year of Authenticity
Finding Ourselves Together
How will you spend 2026?
What if you gave yourself a year
to listen more closely
to what is quietly alive within you?
Beneath the surface of our daily lives,
there is a deeper current—
wise, creative, longing to be known.
The vision for A Year of Authenticity is a small, committed group that meets weekly over the course of a year. Together, we’ll slow down and create space for reflection, conversation, silence, and shared inquiry—listening carefully to ourselves and to one another.
This is not a program for fixing or improving yourself. It’s an invitation to become more fully present to who you already are, including the parts of you that are uncertain, tender, unfinished, or quietly calling for attention.
Our time together will include journaling, dialogue, ritual, creative practices, and relational exercises that support deep listening and honest self-understanding. Over the year, participants often find that clarity emerges organically—not through effort or striving, but through presence, relationship, and care.
This group is for those who feel drawn to depth, reflection, and shared human experience—and who are willing to commit to showing up, week after week, with curiosity and respect for themselves and the process.
Interested in
A Year of Authenticity?
Set up a video appointment to see if it’s the right fit for you!
Scroll down
for more information and for answers to frequently asked questions.
Prudence Tippins, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the founder of Inner Connections Counseling and Wild Geese Retreats. Her work is rooted in the belief that we are not broken but often disconnected—from ourselves, from one another, and from what gives us life. She creates spaces where people can slow down, listen more deeply, and reconnect with their innate wisdom and vitality.
Meet the Facilitator
Prudence brings a relational, systems-oriented approach to this work, drawing from Internal Family Systems, the Enneagram, Circles of Trust, and Family Constellations, alongside poetry, myth, nature, consistent meditation, and shared storytelling. A Year of Authenticity reflects her conviction that real change unfolds over time and in relationship. In a culture of quick insights and solitary striving, she offers a steady, communal rhythm—an invitation to become more fully ourselves, together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is this group for?
This group is for people who are longing for depth, connection, and a truer sense of aliveness—especially those who sense that insight alone isn’t enough, and that something meaningful unfolds in relationship over time.
There is no expectation to be a certain way, only a willingness to show up with honesty and care.
Why a year?
Because some things can’t be rushed.
Authenticity unfolds in layers, and trust—both with ourselves and with others—takes time. A year allows space for relationships to deepen, for insights to ripen into lived experience, and for patterns to be noticed gently rather than pushed aside. Over time, the group becomes a steady presence—one that can hold both change and continuity as life unfolds.
Rather than aiming for quick breakthroughs, this year-long rhythm supports something quieter and more durable: a sense of becoming more at home in yourself, in relationship, and in the world.
Why meet weekly?
Consistency creates safety.
Weekly meetings offer a reliable container—something you don’t have to recreate each time you arrive. The regularity helps build momentum without pressure and allows what emerges one week to be carried forward, reflected on, and integrated over time.
The group becomes a place you return to, not to perform or fix, but to remember and reconnect.
Do I need experience with IFS, Circles of Trust, the Enneagram, or Family Constellations?
No prior experience in any of these modalities is necessary.
These frameworks are used as ways of listening, not as systems to master. They serve as gentle guides that help illuminate inner patterns and relational dynamics, always in service of curiosity and compassion rather than diagnosis or self-improvement.
You’re welcome exactly as you are.
Is this group therapy?
This is not group therapy, though it is facilitated by a licensed therapist and informed by therapeutic perspectives.
The focus is on shared exploration, reflection, and relational presence rather than treatment or pathology. Many people find that the group complements individual therapy or other personal growth work, but participation does not require being in therapy.
What are the expectations for participants?
This group asks for a wholehearted, respectful engagement with the year as a whole.
Participants are invited to approach this experience with a sense of reverence—for themselves, for one another, and for what it means to orient one’s life toward authenticity. While we gather together each week, the work does not begin or end at the group’s edges. Insights, reflections, and invitations from our time together are meant to be lived with, explored, and gently tended throughout the week and across the year.
This includes a willingness to engage with suggested reflections or experiential practices between sessions—not as “assignments” to complete, but as ways of staying in conversation with what is unfolding.
Equally important is a readiness to trust the process: to allow uncertainty, discomfort, and not-knowing to be part of the journey, and to remain open to outcomes that may differ from what was initially imagined.
Above all, participants are asked to show up with honesty, care, and a commitment to staying in relationship—with themselves and with the group—as the year unfolds.
What if I’m not sure I can commit for a full year?
That uncertainty is understandable—and worth listening to.
Committing to a year can feel both inviting and daunting. You’re encouraged to reach out with questions and to consider your own pacing. The intention of the year-long container is not obligation, but steadiness—a support rather than a demand.
That said, the intention is to have the selected group remain together for the duration.
If at some point you decide the group is no longer the right fit, you’re asked to first meet with the facilitator and then, if it is still your choice, to attend one final meeting to say goodbye. This is not about pressure or persuasion, but about honoring relationship. It helps prevent reactive exits in moments of challenge and offers closure to both you and the group.
Part of the work of authenticity is noticing when we want to pull away from discomfort, and discerning whether something meaningful might emerge if we stay present a little longer. Many people find that experiences they initially want to flee become moments of unexpected insight, connection, or growth when held within a caring community.
Will this group be like The Wheel of Initiation?
Years ago, Prudence offered several rounds of the year-long experience, The Wheel of Initiation, based on the work of Julie Tallard Johnson. There will be elements of this year’s group that echo the Wheel, particularly the reverence with which the group and each member is held. Over ten years have passed since the last Wheel ended, and Prudence has had a good deal of training and singular life experiences in the interim, giving this new group a more seasoned feel and a name that reflects the emphasis on living authentically.
When will the group begin?
The group will begin once a sufficient number of participants have committed, with the (rather ambitious) goal of starting by the last week of January. We will be meeting on Thursday evenings, 5-8pm.
Because this is a year-long group, the starting point matters: we will begin with a full, committed circle and will not be adding people later. Once the group is forming, start dates and logistics will be confirmed with participants in advance.
If you’re interested and curious about timing, you’re encouraged to reach out. Your inquiry helps shape when the group comes together.
Do we meet every single week of the year?
The group meets for approximately 48 weeks over the year, to allow for some jointly chosen built-in breaks.
How many people will be in the group?
The group is expected to include between 8 and 12 participants.
This range allows for both depth and diversity—enough voices to enrich the group, while still remaining intimate and relational. The intention is to keep the group small enough that everyone is known; large enough to garner the benefits of diversity.
Final group size will be determined once the group is forming and commitments are in place.
When and where will we meet?
Thursdays from 5-8pm is our meeting day and time as of now, though this may be flexible, depending on group needs. Our meeting spot will be within the city of Viroqua, but the option we choose will be based on group size. To be announced.
How much will it cost?
A Year of Authenticity is offered on a sliding-scale monthly tuition, making the group both accessible and sustainable.
Monthly tuition options
$200/month — Supported
$300/month — Sustaining
$400/month — Supporting
Participants are invited to choose the rate that best fits their financial circumstances and their appreciation for the depth of this work.
How do I learn more or see if it’s a good fit?
You’re warmly invited to reach out. A conversation can help clarify whether this group aligns with where you are right now and what you’re seeking. The most efficient way would be to schedule an appointment for a video chat using the button below. You are also welcome to leave a message on my phone or write an email. You should receive a response shortly.
📞 541-517-0244
prudence@innerconnections.me
The Ethic of the Year
A Year of Authenticity is an invitation to slow down and listen more deeply to yourself, to others, and to what is quietly alive within you.
This year is not about fixing yourself or striving toward a better version of who you are. It rests on the belief that nothing essential is broken. Instead of pushing for change, we make room for presence, curiosity, and honest attention.
Authenticity, as we understand it here, is not something to achieve. It emerges when we stop abandoning ourselves—when we listen with kindness to what is already here, including the parts of us that feel uncertain, conflicted, tender, or unfinished.
Early in the year, you’ll be invited to name an intention. This isn’t a goal or a promise. It’s a place in your life where something is asking for attention—perhaps a longing, a question, a grief, or a desire you haven’t fully listened to yet. There is no expectation that your intention be fulfilled or resolved; it simply helps orient your listening.
Some moments in the year may feel light and spacious; others may touch grief, shadow, or uncertainty. All of this belongs. Difficulty is not treated as a problem to solve, but as part of being human—something we learn to stay with, together, with care.
We’ll work with reflection, journaling, conversation, silence, ritual, and creative practices. Poetry, myth, and metaphor will be companions along the way, offering ways of knowing that don’t rely on explanation or certainty.
This is not therapy, though it may be meaningful and healing. It’s a shared human process, grounded in respect, consent, and care for one another.
Above all, this year honors slowness and trust—the trust that when we stop forcing ourselves forward, something honest and alive has room to emerge.