Our dear MindTerra community,

 

Can you believe it’s been just over a year since we started Writing Veranda? For some of you, you may remember coming to the first iteration of the program. You may even remember coming to our space before it was called Writing Veranda.  

 

While you may recall us being put together and confident as we welcomed you to the space and guided you throughout the session, we were both petrified. Fair was so, so nervous the first time she hosted a Writing Veranda session to the point where she got feedback from Toffy and a friend that she didn’t sound like herself at all. She was so worked up on getting all the transitions and timing right that she forgot to be herself. 

 

But she hosted another session. And another. And another. We all did - we kept going despite the scariness until our empathetic, understanding, and inquisitive selves shone through in our sessions and became a big part of who we are. We’ve all grown so much from hosting these sessions that it’s hard to remember who we were before then. And we owe this growth to all of you.

 

Whenever we attend our space as a participant, we both feel loved and heard by our community and our host, whether it's Sabrina or ShanShan. It’s always a space that we return to when we feel lost or tired. Every person’s presence and stories never fail to teach us something new. We’ve learned to listen. We’ve learned to be comfortable and confident in our voices. We’ve learned to trust in the community and the generosity of others. And we are so inspired to continue to create this change and empowerment for other women who are like we were.

 

We’re so invigorated by our mission that our ultimate goal is to work on MindTerra full-time. But in order to do that, we need to find a model that can make MindTerra sustainable, a model that will allow us to make that leap. 

 

Writing Veranda has been such a wonderful and uplifting space, but to work towards a business model that is accessible, we need to say goodbye to the space and embark on a new chapter of MindTerra - a chapter that moves us closer to sustainability. With that, weekly Writing Verandas will be coming to an end at the end of July 2021, after which, we will drop to a once a month cadence until we find our new direction. 

 

To be honest, we’re not quite sure what the future of MindTerra looks like and what we’ll come up with. We’re currently talking to lots of folks and the ideas are still brewing, so we can’t promise you what we’ll look like when we come back. 

 

But we promise you that our vision of creating a world of women who feel empowered, seen, and heard and who can take care of their mental well-being is what anchors us. We hope you’ll still be with us as we make our pivot, but if not, thank you so incredibly much for the immense support you’ve shown us. We can’t thank you enough for making MindTerra what it is today.

 

Lots of love,

Toffy and Fair (on behalf of the MindTerra team)