Course curriculum

  • 1

    Introduction to An Invitation to Celebrate

  • 2

    Surviving and Affirming Life

    • Surviving: Celebrating your life
    • Affirming life: Celebrating the life of a loved one
    • Stories of survival and affirming life
  • 3

    Creating

    • Creating: Celebrating your life
    • Creating: Celebrating the life of a loved one
    • Stories of creation
    • Gatekeeping and Creativity
  • 4

    Contributing

    • Contributing: Celebrating your life
    • Contributing: Celebrating the life of your loved one
    • Stories of contribution
  • 5

    Connecting

    • Connecting: Celebrating your life
    • Connecting: Celebrating the life of a loved one
    • Stories of connection
  • 6

    Sharing

    • Sharing: Celebrating your life
    • Sharing: Celebrating the life of a loved one
    • Stories of sharing
  • 7

    Building

    • Building: Celebrating your life
    • Building: Celebrating the life of a loved one
    • Stories of building
  • 8

    Healing and Responding to Pain

    • Healing and Responding to Pain: Celebrating your life
    • Healing and Responding to Pain: Celebrating the life of a loved one
    • Stories of healing
    • Justice and Healing
  • 9

    Changing

    • Changing: Celebrating your life
    • Changing: Celebrating the life of your loved one
    • Stories of growth
    • Discourses of Growth
  • 10

    Learning and Unlearning

    • Learning and Unlearning: Celebrating your life
    • Learning and Unlearning: Celebrating the life of your loved one
    • Stories of learning and unlearning
  • 11

    Resisting

    • Resisting: Celebrating your life
    • Resisting: Celebrating the life of your loved one
  • 12

    Persisting

    • Persisting: Celebrating your life
    • Persisting: Celebrating the life of your loved one
    • Stories of resisting and persisting
  • 13

    Integrating

    • Integrating: Celebrating your life
    • Integrating: Celebrating the life of your loved one
    • Acknowledgements
  • 14

    Adapting (bonus chapter)

    • What would you like to celebrate?
    • Daria Kutuzova's 'Hijacking the New Year'

Testimonials

by S.O.

The opportunity to reflect and celebrate

by S.O.

I greatly appreciated the opportunity to be involved with the Invitation to Celebration project last year. At the time that the project was happening, I had been preoccupied and absorbed with some events in my own life (recovering from some medical issues) and given the struggles I had been through as well as the often bleak social tone of the world that many of us experience these days, the opportunity to reflect and celebrate felt very important. I wound up going through the prompts during a date with someone I'd been seeing for about 8 months. We shared a drink and reflected on the past year, so much of which we had spent together. It was a really beautiful way to engage and share reflection with someone who also tends to be very thoughtful and reflective, and who had witnessed some of my struggles while I had witnessed theirs. I absolutely intend to engage with these prompts again in the future!
by Crystal

An ongoing reminder

by Crystal

During this course, it was so helpful to shift my focus to things I am grateful for in my life. I am also thankful for the ability to look back on the document as an ongoing reminder of things I have celebrated, and notice how these reflections have affected the choices I have made over the past year.

Created by:

Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany Sostar is a bisexual, non-binary, disabled and neurodivergent narrative therapist, community organizer, writer, editor, and unabashed nerd. They have facilitated writing workshops and courses for over ten years. Tiffany is a white settler on Treaty 7 territory.