Building LIVES, Birthing HOPE through Restorative Experiences
S.A.G.E.
Standing And Guiding Experiences
Safety Self Accountability Grief Empathy
The S.A.G.E. Experience: A Transformative Path to Healing and Growth
The S.A.G.E. Experience is a powerful 10-week holistic program focused on life skills and rehabilitation. It leads participants through a transformative journey by exploring their past, honoring their story, and reshaping the narrative of their future. Grounded in the values of relationship, redemption, and restoration, the experience nurtures self-awareness, emotional resilience, and healing, while deepening one’s understanding of their impact on humanity. Through creative and mindful practices, individuals are supported in reconnecting with their purpose, rebuilding trust in themselves and others, and stepping into a more empowered and intentional way of living.
Community Building: Quilting & Owning One's Story
In the S.A.G.E. Experience, quilting is more than an art form — it’s a transformative practice that lays the foundation for community, healing, and identity work.
Here’s how this activity supports participants:
Identity Formation:
Each participant begins by creating a quilt square that reflects their personal story. This creative expression invites self-reflection and affirms the unique identity of every individual.
Honoring Life Experiences:
Quilting becomes a medium to acknowledge and give voice to past experiences, not with shame, but with dignity and truth. Each piece represents a step toward reclaiming one’s narrative.
Healing Through Creativity:
The rhythmic, hands-on process of defining themselves and their experiences provides a therapeutic effect. It provides space for inner stillness, emotional release, and integration of past wounds into something whole and meaningful.
Building Empathy and Connection:
As individual squares come together to form a collective quilt, participants witness how their stories are both distinct and interconnected. This shared creation fosters empathy, compassion, and a deep sense of belonging.
Symbol of Restoration and Unity:
The finished quilt serves as a living testament to the strength, wisdom, and transformation within the group. It becomes a visual metaphor for being “stitched together",not in perfection, but in purpose, care, and community. The quilt serves as the community center piece until graduation.
Creative Expression as a Path to Transformation
The S.A.G.E. Experience incorporates a range of creative practices: including painting, collage-making, and other forms of art, to deepen self-understanding, emotional processing, and human connection. These modalities allow participants to engage with their inner world in ways that words alone often cannot.
Key Benefits and Focus Areas:
Knowing the Self:
Through guided art activities, participants explore core aspects of their identity: beliefs, values, and life experiences, helping them build a clearer sense of who they are and what matters to them.
Accountability:
Creative exercises provide space to examine choices and patterns without judgment. Art becomes a mirror, encouraging honest reflection and the courage to take responsibility for one’s growth and change.
Grief Work:
Collage and painting offer gentle yet powerful ways to process loss, trauma, and unmet expectations. By externalizing pain through creative expression, individuals begin the healing process in a safe, supportive environment.
Developing Empathy:
Group-based art projects allow participants to witness and honor each other’s stories, fostering compassion and mutual respect. These shared creative experiences help cultivate a deeper sense of community and shared humanity.
Integration & Expression:
As participants move through the program, their art becomes a visual timeline of their inner journey — giving form to transformation and allowing space for both individual and collective meaning-making.
Poetry as Insight and Expression
Within the S.A.G.E. Experience, poetry is woven throughout the journey as a powerful tool for reflection, emotional insight, and personal expression. Carefully selected poems are integrated into various lessons to make complex topics more accessible, relatable, and emotionally resonant.
Purpose and Impact:
Enhancing Palatability:
Poetry softens the entry point into deep or challenging topics, allowing participants to engage with emotional truths in a more digestible, meaningful way.
Expanding Perspective:
Poems offer new lenses through which to view personal experiences, often revealing wisdom, beauty, or clarity that might otherwise be overlooked.
Supporting Emotional Regulation:
Through rhythm, metaphor, and language, poetry provides alternative coping strategies — helping participants name their feelings, process emotions, and find a sense of calm or release.
Encouraging Self-Expression:
Participants are invited not only to read and reflect on poetry but also to create their own, giving voice to inner experiences that might be difficult to articulate otherwise.
Fostering Connection:
Sharing poetry within the group builds empathy and deepens understanding. It becomes a shared language of healing, transformation, and humanity.
Mindfulness with Intention and Truth
In the S.A.G.E. Experience, guided mindfulness is more than quiet meditation — it is a dynamic, intentional practice rooted in truth, presence, and self-inquiry. These sessions are designed to meet individuals where they are, offering space for reflection, awareness, and personal exploration.
Core Elements and Benefits:
Self-Reflection and Awareness:
Participants are guided to gently turn inward, becoming more attuned to their thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations — learning to witness rather than judge.
Naming the Experience:
Through intentional practices, individuals build the capacity to identify and label what they are feeling, sensing, and thinking — a foundational skill for emotional regulation and self-understanding.
Exploring the Present Moment:
Mindfulness becomes a lens for discovering what this moment means — helping participants connect more deeply with themselves and their environment.
Beyond Traditional Meditation:
These sessions go beyond stillness. Movement, storytelling, sound, and somatic tools may be incorporated to make the practice more accessible, embodied, and relevant to each participant’s journey.
Truth as a Guide:
Rather than bypassing discomfort, this approach honors truth — creating a safe space for individuals to be honest with themselves and explore what needs healing or attention.
"You only UNDERSTAND people if you feel them in YOURSELF."~John Steinbeck
~Teresa "Tree" Moses
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