Wisdom Workshop with Sean Waters
A relational approach to positive psychology, world philosophy, and creative expression.
Five small groups. Five phases. One year of practice. Part graduate seminar, part contemplative practice, part creative lab. We write, we listen, we gather. The PERMA framework provides the structure. Your life provides the material.
The Practice
Creating the most intimate learning experiences on the internet since 2021. To support our work promoting intergenerational flourishing, share some loving kindness with a stranger who might become a friend.
We begin with the blank page. Mindful writing prompts rooted in positive psychology open doors you didn't know were there. No performance. Just presence and paper.
We practice the SLOW model: listening to Self, Life, Others, and World. Not to fix, not to respond, but to honor. Something changes when you're truly heard.
Small groups build trust, shared vocabulary, and genuine connection. The people in the room become the curriculum. We call it spiritual jazz.
2026 Schedule
Join any one small group, or journey through all five across the year. Each lab runs five weeks with ten sessions.
| Group | Dates | Phase | Element |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kindle | Feb 9 – Mar 11 | Seed (P) | Fire |
| Ground | Apr 13 – May 13 | Experimentation (E) | Wood |
| Connect | Jun 22 – Jul 22 | Crafting (R) | Earth |
| Deepen | Sep 14 – Oct 14 | Completion (M) | Water |
| Grow | Nov 9 – Dec 9 | Returning (A) |
Curriculum
On generating a creative culture. Each five-week lab moves through the full PERMA framework with two sessions per week plus optional writing workshops.
Monday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
Writing for Presence: Cultivating Positive Emotions
We begin where all good things begin — with what's already here. Through mindful freewriting and Barbara Fredrickson's Broaden-and-Build framework, we practice noticing and amplifying what's working: joy, gratitude, awe, equanimity. We'll explore the difference between constructive emotions and toxic positivity, and write our way toward presence. Expect notes of loving kindness, sympathetic joys, daily gratitudes, and savoring exercises you can carry into your week.
Wednesday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
Bridging Positive Emotions and Engagement
How do positive emotions open the door to deeper engagement? We'll design writing processes that invite emergence rather than force outcomes, and begin building the psychological safety that makes honest creative work possible. Writing prompts draw on interpersonal awe, shared joy, hope, and the quiet power of equanimity.
Monday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
Writing to Engage: Experiments in Emergent Education
What happens when we stop planning our experiences and start listening to them? This session explores engagement through the lens of flow states, time architecture, and design thinking applied to the ethical and existential dimensions of happiness. We write to discover what absorbs us, what stretches us, and what makes us forget the clock.
Wednesday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
The Art of Collaborative Creation
Engagement deepens when it becomes shared. We practice co-creative meaning-making — writing alongside each other and discovering how ideas cross-pollinate in real time. We'll explore synchronicity mapping and cultivate the kind of curiosity that transforms a room of individuals into a living conversation.
Monday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
Writing to Relate: Resonance and the Art of Listening
Relationships are the center of everything. This session introduces a Third Generation coaching approach to resonance and riffing — writing and responding as an act of care. We practice the SLOW Relationship Scan (Self, Life, Others, World) and explore what it means to really listen: to loop back, to honor what someone has offered, and to let their words change us.
Wednesday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
The Cross of Relationships and Meaning
Where does relationship become meaning? We go deeper into Third Generation Coaching and the idea that you are the medicine — that healing happens not through techniques but through the quality of our presence with each other. Riffing, resonance, and the right relationships as a path to wholeness.
Monday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
Writing to Make: Mortality, Morality, and the Pursuit of What Matters
Meaning often arrives when we stop trying to produce it. This session sits with the big questions — mortality, morality, synchronicity — and explores how the "pursuit of happiness" deepens when we let simplicity and humility lead. We write toward mastery and momentum, not as achievement, but as a patient willingness to stay with what matters.
Wednesday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
Bridging Meaning and Accomplishment: What Truly Matters
A contemplative session at the hinge of the course. What do you want to have meant? What are you already making that you haven't paused to recognize? We bridge the inner life of meaning and the outer life of accomplishment, holding both with care.
Monday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
Writing to Attend: Aligned Action and Upward Spirals
Accomplishment isn't just what you've done. It's what you've attended to — awareness, acceptance, aligned action, and the willingness to examine the assumptions that shape your life. This session activates insights from the full five weeks and asks: what upward spirals are you ready to launch?
Wednesday · 1:00–2:15pm MST
Awakening: Happiness Endings as Beginnings
We close the way we opened — together, with presence and care. This final session celebrates your commitment to continued practice, uncoils the spring of everything we've built, and offers a chance to write letters to the future: to yourself, to each other, to whoever you're becoming.
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." George Bernard Shaw
Enrollment
Every person who enrolls creates a scholarship for someone else.
or
Scholarships are open. If cost is a barrier, reach out. We will make it work.
Small-group graduate seminar style, with recordings and summaries for every session.
Mindful writing workshops every week, no recordings — just the practice of presence.
Writing prompts designed to launch new happiness habits and keep the practice alive.
Connections with curious artists who offer feedback and support. Private Discord community.
Happiness guarantee: full refund if you don't leave better than when you arrived.
Our small handful of sustaining members make this possible. Full access to every learning group plus 1:1 opportunities with Sean and other members. $200/month · Cancel anytime, full refunds available.
Suggested Readings
Flourish
The PERMA framework that anchors our work. A visionary understanding of happiness and well-being.
Stumbling on Happiness
How we fool ourselves — what we think will make us happy is a kind of optical illusion.
Play
The fundamental role of play in human flourishing across eight distinct play personalities.
Happiness Is an Inside Job
Buddhist wisdom on restoring the mind to kindness through wise effort, concentration, and mindfulness.
Transcend
Maslow's hierarchy reimagined — with transcendence as the highest need for unity with humanity.
"For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself." Viktor Frankl
What People Say
100+ participants from 9 countries, aged 22 to 74. Here's what it's like to be in our community.
"This has been the most educational thing I've done outside of my education, and the most therapeutic thing I've done outside of therapy. The group was truly special."
"Your workshops are like nurturing grounds and launching pads. Every one planted a seed in me to write a really meaningful Substack. It's a synergy, in a sacred space."
"I can not believe how much I've changed in seven weeks. I started thinking I would fix my life and career… and it turned out that I got back into a relationship with myself."
"This course gave me what I didn't know I needed: permission to boldly make choices. I turned in my resignation for the job I was stagnating in and got a voice coach."
"I've grown more in the last two months than I have for years, and I feel more hopeful about the future than I have for even longer."
"I have never not-wanted to miss class so much in my whole life. I learned I can create this kind of community in my own life, with intention."
"This course has made me feel so much more free and so much more calm. I used to think I needed answers to my life, but now I'm more OK with uncertainty."
"Having this group was like re-entering the world itself. It was powerful to see different personalities and hear different stories… has given me a whole new faith in people."
About the Facilitator
Sean teaches writing at Colorado State University, where he has been a full-time faculty member since 2014. He holds master's degrees in both Philosophy and English Education, and has taught college courses in Comparative World Philosophies, Introduction to Philosophy, and Logic and Critical Thinking.
A proud Fort Collins, Colorado native and Poudre High School Valedictorian (class of 2000), Sean founded the Wisdom Workshop in 2020 to bring his vision of contemporary philosophy education to life in small, intimate learning groups. He is also a performing musician who has played over 1,000 shows across the Front Range since 2004.
Sean has a gift for warmth, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard.