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Girls Third Step™ Empowerment Summer Camps by Living Your Gifts

Girls
Third Step™ Empowerment Summer Camps


















Living
Your Gifts
, a Laguna Beach
Company that applies ancient indigenous wisdom to modern times, through its
workshops, ongoing groups, and individual and group coaching, announces its
2014 Girls Third Step™ Empowerment Summer Camps, that will be offered Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday, during the weeks of July 14 (for girls aged 9-12), and
July 21, 2014 (for girls aged 13-15), in Laguna Beach, CA.



 



The Third Step™ Workshops “are designed to
put support around girls who are navigating a damaging culture without healthy,
mentored, guided support,” said Co-Founders, Susan Hough, and Jen Hutchinson, “and
as a means of empowerment, we connect ancient wisdom, in this case of the
Dagara of West Africa, that ‘every child brings a necessary gift into the world,’
with the modern movement that is recognizing girls gifts ‘as the most powerful
force for change on the planet.’ The Workshop guides girls to find their value within, and to realize how important their
gifts are in the world now, which is something different than they are being
shown and taught in the media.”

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What
is meant by the Third Step™? The Co-Founders explain, “the author Karla McLaren writes that ‘ancient and indigenous
cultures used initiation as a ‘container’ to overseen an individual’s growth,’ and
that it usually has three steps- separation from the known world, enduring an
ordeal, and being welcomed back as an initiated adult.” She describes it
perfectly when she says, “in our society,’ without guided mentored growth
experiences, ‘initiation occurs whether we want it to or not,’ and ‘when we
don't understand this, we create unrelieved suffering.”

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“We
see this happening to girls as they navigate what we call ‘The Self Esteem
Epidemic’ in the US. Women and girls ‘get initiated’ into a culture of manufactured,
unrealistic, damaging images by the Media. They suffer from the ordeal of the
Self Esteem Epidemic,” studies show that even though girls
talk, read, and count earlier than boys, are ready for formal schooling at earlier ages, and
earn higher grades in elementary school
- by Junior High,
they suffer a drop in self-confidence that leaves them twice as likely to
be depressed
. “And then there is no
third ‘healthy welcoming back’ step. At
LIVING YOUR GIFTS, we create a ‘welcoming-back community’ based on the
empowering concept that girls are 'the
most powerful force for change on the planet.'  In
this way, our THIRD STEP™ workshop, welcomes girls into a community that
recognizes their ‘gifts’ as vital for
the balance and sustainability
of our global village.”



 



“We hope this
allows girls to transform beliefs that their value and identity comes from more
than their appearance. We connect them to their inner selves, and allow them to
begin to experience and live as who they really are, instead of who they are
told and shown they are supposed to be.”



 



About
Living Your Gifts



Living Your Gifts, is a Laguna Beach based social
enterprise that seeks to connect all individuals to their gifts as a means to
transform limiting beliefs, and dysfunctional patterns. We use indigenous modalities
that go beyond self-help, into the realm of lasting and profound healing. The
Co-Founders Susan and Jen have over 30 years of experience mentoring and
guiding children and teens in various therapeutic, and program related
settings. For more information on groups, workshops and coaching for men,
women, teens, families and individuals, visit: www.livingyourgifts.com, or contact Susan Hough @ susan@livingyourgifts.com or 703.505.5152.



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