Sunday Gathering: Merritt Benz - Empathy, Courage & Connection: Building community one conversation at a time

Doors open at 10:30 am for coffee and conversation. Sunday Gathering begins at 11am. Childcare is provided. Everyone is welcome! Featured Speaker: Merritt Benz, The Bedford Therapy Group Community Moment: Tim Rix Musical Guest: JT Eberhard All of us have a desire to be known; for our true and genuine selves to be seen and appreciated. We desperately want to have ‘real’ and honest conversations with others and find deep connection within our communities, relationships and families. Yet most of us feel as though we are moving though life hidden, as if the person others see in us is just a shadow of ourselves. In this presentation, we will identify the barriers we put up that prevent us from being seen for who we really are, and discover the tools that unlock connection for our communities and ourselves. It’s not easy (in fact, it can be truly terrifying); it takes courage, risk and exposure; but in the end we find what we longed for all along – connection and hope. -- Merritt is a Kansas City native but calls Brooklyn, New York, her “true home.” She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the owner of the Bedford Therapy Group, a private counseling practice that focuses on individuals and couples, kids and teens. Before private practice, Merritt was the Program Director and helped open Gilda’s Club Kansas City, where she provided individual and group counseling to people living with cancer and their family members and friends. She is a Certified Daring Way Facilitator. The Daring Way™ is a highly experiential methodology based on the research of Dr. Brené Brown and focuses on shame resilience skills and developing daily practices that transform the way we live, love, parent and lead. Before moving to Kansas City, Merritt participated in a postgraduate fellowship at the Child Study Center at Yale University School of Medicine, where she provided both individual and family counseling in a community-based setting. In New York she worked with various high-risk teen population groups as Program Director for the Juvenile Justice Initiative, a new clinical evidenced-based treatment program (called Multisystemic Therapy) that provides intensive in-home family therapy for adjudicated teens and their families, as an alternative to incarceration. Although her work brings her great satisfaction and joy, Merritt’s ideal day is being knee-deep in a spring-fed trout stream casting flies, hoping for a fish to rise, and celebrating with a cold beer on the river afterward.