Discover how a full-house WRISE SF Purpose Portfolio workshop helped women explore purpose through personal symbolism, meaning, and regrets and why purpose is a living practice.

Last week’s WRISE SF Purpose Portfolio Building workshop was full, with thirty women gathered. The room was alive with curiosity, creativity, and honesty. What struck me most was not only the depth of engagement, but the shared sense we could have used more time to hear one another. That, to me, is always a sign something meaningful is unfolding.

Each time I facilitate this workshop, I learn more about what truly lands. Three areas continue to stand out as especially impactful, not because they offer answers from the outside, but because they help illuminate what is already alive within us.

Shedding Light on Our Uniqueness

We began where purpose often quietly lives in our distinctiveness.

I invite participants to imagine themselves as a tree, not metaphorically correct or poetic for poetry’s sake, but intuitively true. What kind of tree are you? Why that one? What does it reveal about how you grow, adapt, contribute, and endure?

One participant beautifully drew a majestic redwood, sharing how she has been moving through a profound cycle of change and flux. For her, the redwood represented resilience and the need to create new foundations, strong, grounded, and deeply rooted before reaching upward again.

Another participant spoke about her deep connection to the Saguaro cactus (pronounced suh-WAH-roh), which fascinated her during years living in the Southwest. She described how the Saguaro sends one powerful taproot deep into the earth, protects vulnerable desert creatures with its sheltering presence, and blooms magnificently once a year. For her, this tree embodied the importance of staying rooted in what is meaningful, no matter how many times life requires relocation or reinvention.

My own tree is an apple tree. Its blossoms have five petals, like an old-fashioned rose, and it carries rich spiritual symbolism for me. The apple tree nourishes others, humans, animals, ecosystems. That generosity mirrors how I understand my own contribution: cultivating beauty, nourishment, and growth in service of others.

Our uniqueness is not something to manufacture. It is something to remember.

Names as Carriers of Meaning

From trees, we moved into another deeply resonant doorway: our names.

One participant had a true “aha” moment, discovering her name means Light. She realized, perhaps for the first time, how naturally her life’s orientation has been toward illuminating paths for others, caring, guiding, and bringing clarity where it is needed.

Another spoke tenderly about her son’s name, Felix, meaning happy, lucky, or fortunate. She reflected on how her deepest intention is to help him live a joyful life and how that longing connects directly to her own evolving sense of purpose.

Another participant shared that her name means early day sun, and how that sense of hope, warmth, and gentle care perfectly mirrors how she shows up in the world.

My name, Glenna, is Celtic for Dweller of the Glen, and spiritually it is often translated as Spiritual Warrior. The dweller speaks to my love of Mother Earth, gardens, and the slow cultivation of beauty. The warrior grounds my commitment to helping others — particularly women — thrive with courage and clarity. Together, they reflect two expressions of the same devotion.

Our names are not labels. They are invitations.

Regrets as Guides, Not Failures

The third area that consistently opens something powerful is our relationship with regret.

We explored insights from Daniel Pink’s work, The Power of Regret, which identifies four universal categories of regret. These include foundation, boldness, moral, and connection regrets. Far from being something to avoid, regrets point directly to what we value most.

I shared when I imagine myself years from now, I don’t want to regret neglecting my physical well-being. Nor do I want to regret staying small or silent because I fear judgment or ridicule. That clarity helps me take action now, even when fear is present. Fear tends to soften once we begin moving.

Participants were invited to reflect on regrets they carry or ones they want to avoid and to reframe them as values calling for expression today. What emerged was not heaviness, but motivation. Regret, when held wisely, becomes a compass.

Purpose as a Living Practice

Throughout the workshop, we reframed purpose not as a singular thing to “find,” but as something we practice.

Purpose, when treated as a noun, can feel immense and external, a pressure-filled quest that creates anxiety and self-doubt. When we treat purpose as a verb, it becomes dynamic, relational, and alive. It emerges from our values, meanings, regrets, intentions, and lived experience.

As Richard Leider reminds us, purpose is “our deepest belief within us, where we have a profound sense of who we are, where we came from, and what we’re here to do.”

Purpose fuels our choices, helping us prioritize what matters. It acts as an inner compass when life gets complex. And research shows women who live with purpose are more resilient, experience less loneliness, and age with greater vitality.

Articulating a purpose portfolio truly pays dividends.

The Tree of Life as a Map

Using the Tree of Life framework, participants explored:

• Environment — what and who supports them
• Seeds — beliefs, values, meanings, and regrets
• Trunk — the core areas of life (personal, professional, family, community)
• Branches — the actions that express purpose
• Fruits & Flowers — the outcomes they wish to experience and contribute

This is not a one-and-done exercise. It is a living map, one that can be returned to, revised, and deepened over time.

And judging by the richness of the conversations, drawings, and reflections shared in our limited time together, there is much more still unfolding.

Continuing the Conversation

I’m deeply grateful to everyone who showed up with openness and courage, and to WRISE SF for creating spaces where this kind of inner and outer leadership work can take root.

I’ll be sharing the slides so participants can continue cultivating their Purpose Portfolios in their own time. And I’m excited about what’s next including our upcoming February workshop and a pilot offering I’m exploring called Audio Mirror, designed to help embody goals through deep listening and visualization.

If this workshop stirred something in you, I’d love to hear what’s still rippling. Purpose, after all, is not meant to be carried alone.

Next Up – February 26, 2026 – Workshop 3 in this 3-Part Series

If you’re leading a team, or are part of one navigating change, join me as I facilitate this in-person workshop, presented by the WRISE San Francisco Bay Area chapter.