THE YEAR OF
THE BIG SHIFT

Video-based Training +
12 Live Zoom Meetings + Online Community with Ann Weiser Cornell

Are you satisfied with where you are in this life? Or do you need a big shift?

Whether you have a clear sense of what needs to change, or you have more of a vague sense that something needs to change, you can find your inner sense of what’s right for you and forge a new way forward.

Register Here
How This Helps

Let’s make this your year to give yourself the life you long for!

You might think you have to give up on your life dreams.

Yet what you want to create with your life could be closer than you think.

That’s because times of change and uncertainty also hold opportunity. And that opportunity isn’t so much to follow a conventional road of achievement and goals — but it’s about finding a way forward that’s unique to who you are.

This program isn’t about a big goal. It’s about a big shift.

That means a big shift in your inner sense of who you are and how you show up in the world… more in alignment with your deepest longings.

This could be exactly the right time to reinvent yourself and step up, into the life you were born for.

Join me for a year-long video-based program, starting January 2025.

Sign Up & Start Creating Your Big Shift!

“In the midst of winter, I suddenly learned that there is in me an invincible summer.”
-Albert Camus

I’ve been there…

I remember a time when my whole world was in ashes.

My marriage had ended, my brother and sister were both dying of cancer, and I was handed an eviction notice on the safe cozy cottage where I’d been living. I had no savings. I didn’t know what to do.

One year later, I was a first-time homeowner at age 50, and I was starting a new relationship that has now lasted 24 years.

And truly, if I hadn’t been thrown out of my cottage, and if I hadn’t been in an altered state of mind because of my brother and sister dying, my new life would not have happened. Not then. And maybe never.

And that wasn’t the only time that kind of total crash followed by surprising positive growth has happened to me!

So I do know something about how the phoenix can rise from the ashes. How to find the new way forward within the shock of loss and change.

This course, The Year of the Big Shift, brings together everything I know about how change happens. I’m ready to take you through it and be with you every step of the way.

Ann Weiser Cornell

If you got your fortune told, and it said, “This year you will have a huge positive breakthrough…” — what would be your first thought?

With The Year of the Big Shift On-Demand Program You’ll:

  • Discover true clarity about what it is you really want to create with your life
  • Move beyond your (previous) limits because you’ll uncover and explore the parts of you that hold you back
  • Learn how to ask for and receive support from other people, so you get the priceless benefit of having others on your side as you move forward
  • Access your energy and momentum by learning how fears and anxieties can shift to being skills and strengths
  • Learn about your rhythms of rest and regeneration so that changing your life doesn’t mean pushing yourself beyond your body’s capacity
  • Get in touch with the larger vision and sense of mission that your goal is part of so that larger vision carries you forward with a sense of passion and purpose
See the Full Curriculum here.

If you were 101 years old and looking back on your life, what is one big thing you would regret not doing if you hadn’t done it by then?

What You Can Expect from this Program

  • Clarity about what you really want
  • Knowing how to revisit and even change your intention — from your inner sense of rightness
  • Taking the next step without knowing all the steps
  • Learning how to not be crushed by the inner critic… in fact, how to use its energy to carry you forward
  • Being able to ask for help and receive it
  • Overcoming seemingly insurmountable barriers
  • Shifts in the areas of “do I deserve it?” and “is it OK to want it?”
  • Holding an intention without becoming rigid
  • A greatly expanded sense of who you really are and what is possible for you
Sign Up & Start Creating Your Big Shift!

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

–Mary Oliver

The Structure of the On-Demand Program

12 monthly themes

that make up a journey of exploration and transformation. Each month we concentrate on one aspect of exploring and creating your big shift.

48 Weekly Video Modules

with a different guided exercise each week, accompanied by a written protocol so you can do the exercise with a Focusing partner if you like.

An online community space

where you can share your process every week (if you like) and get group support whenever you need it. (Note: This is a private, password-protected space, not “on the internet.”)

12 Zoom Meetings

Ann will meet with the group every month to offer supportive guidance, answer questions live and let you connect with and get to know the other participants on this journey with you. Mondays, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Time.

This program may be for you if…

  • You long to change your life in a big way… and feel frustrated about not having been able to do it till now
  • You thought that for various reasons you had to put your dreams on hold.
  • You’ve tried to change on your own and struggled enough to know that having support and structure could make all the difference.
  • You know deep down that now is your time to make a Big Shift.

Want to know more?

Join Ann for a Free 45-minute Mini-Course

You’ll learn:

  • How to get in touch with what brings you alive… and take your first steps to living your dream
  • How to make friends with the parts of you that are in the way of making a big life change
  • How it’s possible to not know everything about where you are going and move forward anyway

 Ready to Make This Your Big Year?

Join us and start taking the small steps that make a big difference!

Enroll for Your Course Here

Registration is closed and will reopen next year. Please email us to be notified when the course opens again.

What People Are Saying…

A year with Ann is a gift for life…

“I grew up with the perception: ‘I’m not okay — and everyone else is fine.’ This perception made me feel small, incapable and put me in an inferior position in relationships. Now, I can express myself more. I feel more present and even radiant. A full year with Ann Weiser Cornell, focusing step-by-step on your change for the year makes a profound difference in your whole being. It’s a gift for life.”
Roni Frost

The magic is back and I can really create

“Before The Year of the Big Shift, it was a struggle to keep going, to keep striving because I felt disconnected, discouraged, and alone. It was a fight just to stay focused, a fight to follow through, and a fight to realize the outcomes I wanted for my life. Now, life feels like it flows. The magic is back and I can really create and experience my creation. I am eternally grateful to Ann and the whole class for the support and inspiration they provided. This is life-changing stuff!”
Sarkis D.

I have more spaciousness and ease when I approach big changes…

“I’ve been taking courses with Ann Weiser Cornell for over 10 years. Knowing what a great teacher she is was a big draw. And I was not disappointed. There are so many special things about Year of the Big Shift. One of the big ones was a strong sense of support from the other participants. We formed a community very quickly and that was very important to me. Now that I’ve completed Year of the Big Shift, I can see how it helped me get in touch with hidden parts of myself that held limiting beliefs. Encountering them in new, deeper ways was transformational. Now, I have more spaciousness, compassion, and ease when I approach big life changes.”
Cielle Backstrom
Cielle Backstrom

The way this course works is so empathic…

“I came to The Year of the Big Shift to embark on a more creative, whole, happier life. What’s so different about this course is that the way of working is so soft and empathic. I realized that making friends with the warring parts inside me means I love myself more and feel happier. I’m appreciating the tools from this course and how they help me move forward as a more empathic leader of my whole self.”
Linda Lid

I live with a sense of excitement about doing my projects…

“I started Year of the Big Shift as a hopeful skeptic. I believed a Big Shift was possible. But I was a skeptic in the sense of “Maybe it’ll happen–and maybe it won’t.” The amazing thing is that I have indeed experienced a Big Shift, not as a one-time event that occurred in the past, but in the way I am now living in the present. Tangles are no longer blocks, but exciting opportunities. Life flows more freely. Living unfolds. I live with a sense of excitement about doing my projects. I feel happy.”
Charles Herr

Can’t offer you a better way to get where you want to go…

“Before The Year of the Big Shift, no matter how nice my life was, I wasn’t able to enjoy it all. I seemed to have everything I wanted but I had an on-going feeling of discomfort and discontent. That felt tragic. Inside I asked myself, “How could I be unhappy? What is the matter with me?”

Through the course, I came to see that I’d been holding on “for dear life” to regrets, possessions, and bodyweight that were unhealthy, didn’t serve me well and made me miserable in an on-going way. So I set out to let go of all this, even though I didn’t know how in the beginning.

Now, I’m growing both personally and professionally. I am mindfully, carefully, and responsibly living into the life I have. I’ve made new friends, traveled a lot, worked on writing projects (have 3 in the pipeline for publication), have pets I love, adopted healthy routines and habits, and am feeling proud and grateful as I share this. I’ve also let go of most of the unnecessary stuff I was keeping around me. All I can say is, “Wow!”

If you’re clear that you want to make a big shift in your life – if you want to move forward instead of being stuck (or worse, moving backward) – take this course. I’ve tried so many other things and cannot offer you any better way to get where you want to go in your life.”
Barbara Dickinson photo
Barbara Dickinson

About Your Teacher

Ann Weiser Cornell

Ann Weiser Cornell struggled with painful addiction, anxiety in social situations, and an inability to do the thing she most wanted to do – write.

Ann created Inner Relationship Focusing with her long-time colleague, Barbara McGavin, to help alleviate the thinking and feeling cycles that kept her stuck in hard places. It changed her life, and it became her mission to help others create quiet miracles in their lives too.

For over 35 years now, Ann’s been teaching this practical, revolutionary process to people all over the world.

Monthly Themes, Bi-Monthly Meetings & Weekly Exercises

January: Clarity

Week 1: What do I want… the first formulation
Week 2: The Wanted Feeling
Week 3: If it happens… and if it doesn’t…
Bonus: Inner Critics and Doubts
Week 4: Why?

February: Commitment

Week 5: The Promise
Week 6: The Gifts of “Failing”
Week 7: Moving Beyond Your Comfort Zone
Week 8: How Will You Show Up?

March: The ‘Adversaries’

Week 9: Shifting the Critic
Week 10: “I Don’t Really Want It Anyway”
Week 11: What Your Critic Wants for You
Week 12: Becoming Unstoppable – One Step at a Time

April: Other People

Week 13: Exercising the “Asking” Muscle
Week 14: Healing the Wounds Around Asking for Help
Week 15: Selfish or Selfless – Or…?
Week 16: Woven Into the Web of the Larger System

May: Your Heart’s Desire

Week 17: Can I Want What I Want?
Week 18: Healing Our Wounds Around Wanting
Week 19: You as a Creator
Week 20: What Is Wanted

June: Take One Big Step & Then Celebrate

Week 21: What Is the Best that Could Happen?
Week 22: Receiving the Steps No Matter How Small
Week 23: Your Big Step… How to Love the Resistance
Week 24: Sensing Back and Sensing Forward

July: New & Sometimes Harsher Critics

Week 25: Calming the Terrified Inner Critic
Week 26: How to Not Believe What We Think
Week 27: When It’s Hard to Feel Compassion for the Harsh Critic
Week 28: Becoming Your Own Protector – or Starship Captain
Week 29: Emerging on the Other Side – The Protectors Give Their Gifts

August: Rhythms of Rest & Self-Care

Week 30: Trusting Your Body
Week 31: The Difference Between Being Blocked and Resting
Week 32: Discovering New Pleasures
Week 33: Your Ideal Day of Work and Rest

September: The Bigger Context

Week 34: “I was sent here to…”
Week 35: What Kind of World?
Week 36: How Others Benefit from Your Shift
Week 37: The Human Need to Contribute and Be Received

October: Who Am I Now?

Week 38: Role Models and Inspirations
Week 39: The Sky’s the Limit – Really?
Week 40: Being… Becoming… Being…
Week 41: Embracing Incompleteness
Week 42: Daring to Grow Beyond My Limits

November: Harvest

Week 43: What is Clear and What is Still Unclear
Week 44: Comparing Yourself to Yourself (and Not to Anyone Else)
Week 45: Taking Action Without Knowing It All
Week 46: How You Have Surprised Yourself

December: Momentum

Week 47: Sensing the Next Steps
Week 48: Next Year…

Additional Information

How Online Courses Work

We use Zoom, an online video conference platform, to connect you to other students and the teacher. Before the class starts you will receive a Zoom link to use each time the class meets. You can join us via your camera-equipped computer, tablet, or smart phone. Prefer not to be on video? You can turn off your camera. Don’t want to call via computer? You can call in by phone. Zoom is free and easy to use. You will be able to sign on in advance to make sure you can access it, but we’ve had very few problems with it. Students also receive access to a private webpage where course materials can be found.

Prerequisite

This program is open to anyone who feels ready to make the commitment.

Continuing Education Credit& Record of Completion

CE Credits are not available for this course.

Got Questions? We’ve Got Your Answers…

Your course comes with a 100% money-back guarantee. If you let us know within 60 days of your purchase that we didn’t deliver what we said we would, just ask and we’ll cheerfully refund the full course fee.

Not exactly. Year of the Big Shift is an application of Focusing – a way you can use Focusing processes in a specific area of your life. You don’t have to know Focusing already… but if you do, the exercises will go even deeper for you. If you’d like to learn the entire process of Focusing so you can use it with anything, we invite you to take our Path to Lasting Change courses.

Time and again, I’ve watched people transform their lives with these simple processes you can access whenever and wherever you need them. You’ll find the steps are really clear and straightforward. I’ll give you everything you need to get started. If you do the practice part, then you’ll watch your relationship to life shift towards more capacity to pursue your dreams.

The great news is that you can take this course whenever it works for you. You get new content each month, plus lifetime access so you can move through the material at a pace that fits your schedule. The lessons are set up so that you can do them in a way that works with your learning style and your availability.

There are 48 weekly videos. Most videos are less than 18 minutes long and each video contains an exercise you can use  to practice, practice, practice.

The calls occur once per month on Mondays from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific on the following dates:

January 13 | February 10 | March 10 | April 14
May 12 | June 2 | July 14 | August 11
September 8 | October 6 | October 27 | December 8

No. You’ll have access to the first Module of the course as soon as you sign up. Every month, you’ll get a new module released to you. We provide the content in ‘small bites’ like this because we really want you to get the shift that’s possible each month. Taking time to practice the material and move forward in small, consistent steps supports you in making the kinds of changes you really want to make.

You’re certainly welcome to bring what you’re learning to your other Focusing partnerships outside the course. And feel free to bring the new skills to your clients if you’re a healing professional—it’s meant to be shared!

Sure. The classroom is virtual and taught in a learning platform called Ruzuku. Each month you’ll find new content available. Materials are provided via a combination of video and written content. There is a forum so you can connect with other program participants and be part of a dynamic learning community. And you get lifetime access to all of it. Go through it once and come back anytime you need some extra support to handle life!

Thanks for asking. Each course is licensed to a single user – you! While we can’t authorize you to share the materials, we’d love to have your friend participate too. You can invite them to join the program by sending them this link: https://focusingresources.com/learning/year-big-shift/

Can’t find an answer?