Philosophical Consultant
Moral Clarity, Political Courage, Creative Capacity
I approach my work in the spirit of moving toward a future where everyone thrives. I share connections among critical concepts and everyday practices that show how to align our values and actions with visions of freedom and liberation.
We practice as we learn - We learn as we practice
Learning how to be who we need requires self-awareness, honest dialogue, deep listening, and an openness to change and be changed. These are fundamental skills for being in community and standing in solidarity with others.
LEARN HOW
TO BE
WHO WE NEED
These experiences foster cultures of learning and support while offering more robust opportunities for engagement.
The series format enhances what we learn with each other. An extended group process offers consistency and continuity, which generates more opportunities for discussing content, building rapport, applying new ideas, and making critical connections between sessions.
As practice spaces, they demonstrate how to learn with others. With structured content and facilitated dialogue, groups develop skills in clarifying critical questions and applying their shared understanding to better solve problems together.
Learning Experiences
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Looking for something meaningful and transformative? Depending on your needs and goals, we can develop an experience that is specifically designed for your group!
Cadence: weekly, monthly, or quarterly sessions
Duration: about 60-90 minutes each
Supplemental sessions can also be added to provide strategic support for the learning process. These often include:
separate spaces for leaders and managers before and after content delivery to increase buy-in and follow through
additional facilitated, discussion-based processing spaces in between content sessions
midpoint check-ins with designated groups or affinity spaces to provide feedback and share insights on the process
supportive sessions to help leaders, individuals, or small groups apply learning to specific roles or projects
All of my previous series were designed to support the needs of specific groups. I can customize an existing series, and I welcome opportunities to develop new experiences that cover additional topics! There’s more to learn together, and these experiences are an especially rewarding way to go about it.
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Examples of Previous Extended Series
“From Equality to Liberation” - developing shared understanding of necessary concepts for liberation and how they relate to each other while practicing how to critically think, learn, and work together for radical change (10 weeks)
“Learning Love in Action with Community” - aligning collective actions and group-based efforts in a shared sense for how and why to move with love in community (10 weeks)
Special Series Designed for Black & African American Youth in partnership with the Cultural Enrichment Center of Fort Collins
“Make Your Voice Matter” - developing critical skills and liberatory foundations to strengthen student voices through creative expression as activism (8 weeks)
“How We Know Who We Are: Self-Definitions of Blackness” - focusing on the importance of self-definition and creative expression across generations by engaging with texts from Black leaders, writers, artists, musicians, and poets; simultaneously developing skills in how to critically think, read, write, speak, and listen with each other to build community (10 weeks)
“Choosing Me: How to Show Up While Protecting Your Energy” - student-guided process exploring how to stay true to one’s values, advocate for change, and show up better for one another while coping with everyday racism (10 weeks)
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Examples of Previous Short Series
“Foundations of Equity” - providing shared language, vision, and values for organizational change initiatives; understanding equity through a liberatory lens; how to shift, share, and build power within systems; and addressing white supremacy in equity efforts (3-6 sessions)
“Transformative Frameworks” - radical conceptual and values-based frameworks to inform critical decision making, leadership models, and cultures of solidarity; grounded in love, freedom, and emergent strategies of love/power dynamics (3-6 sessions)
“Liberation Through Our Relationships: An Anti-White Supremacy Series” - understanding what liberation (and love) looks and feels like as a way to demystify how white supremacy operates on an interpersonal level through our relationships (4-5 sessions)
“Knowledge is Power” - introducing a critical lens for continued learning; conceptual tools around ignorance, power, and privilege that inform how to advocate “from within;” understanding the functions of an industrial complex (2 sessions)
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If a series isn’t feasible for your group but you still want a rich learning experience, it is possible to condense my content into intensive workshops or half-/full-day retreats.
Alternatively, maybe you’re looking for a one-time event more like a speaking engagement or an experience container.
Pretty much anything is possible, so let’s connect!
Series: “From Equality to Liberation”
“Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, knowledge, and presence with our team. We're in such infancy as an organization with this work and I never felt judgement or criticism from you. Your intentional rapport building with your audience was notable and led to a wonderful learning environment--even for those who had the most guard up when we kicked the series off!”
- Executive Director
“You are so great at connecting with everyone in the room. You're not afraid to say the hard thing, which can catch people off guard who might be used to a more subtle approach. But I think directness is needed when discussing these topics. Also, trust the process. At the beginning I was worried it would be too high level, but everything came together through the weeks.”
- Senior Leader
Series: “Foundations of Equity”
“A note of thanks for all the work you put into our session today! I really appreciate the energy and level of engagement you bring into every space you’re in…it helps make the information feel a little less daunting. It’s also not lost on me how exhausting that probably is, so thank you, again, for helping us create better and more equitable ways for us to do our work.”
- Manager
“Thank you. This is amazing and I’m grateful to learn!”
“Thank you so much - one of the best presentations I’ve ever attended.”
“These trainings are so great! Thank you for being here! I look forward to them every time!
Philosopher Friend
Supportive Sessions
(Not therapy. Not Coaching.)
Supportive sessions are a unique mode of reflective practice. They provide space for personal and professional development focused on learning, growth, and liberatory change.
Together, we move toward stronger alignment in your values, meaning, purpose, projects, politics, and interpersonal dynamics. In just a few virtual sessions, we develop your skills and capacities to authentically be who we need.
These dialogues are one of my favorite ways to work with people. Since they are held virtually over Zoom, we can think and learn together no matter where you are.
Let’s chat to make sure supportive sessions are right for you!
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Someone once said, “Talking with you is like talking with a wise friend, who is also a philosopher.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. These sessions are ideal when you catch yourself thinking, “I need someone to offer candid feedback and support as I work through this issue!”
Through reciprocal, two-way dialogues, we explore insightful connections, ideas, and experiences that are sometimes really hard to clearly - and critically - understand and navigate.
Big thoughts and deep feelings matter. As do the conditions we live within and the larger systems that shape our identities, choices, and all sorts of power dynamics. The ability to account for these factors through supportive sessions is what makes them so helpful and transformative.
Supportive sessions are also perfect for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding and practice of the ideas, concepts, and values I present through my other offerings (i.e., keynotes, experience containers, learning series, pages, even stand-up philosophy). It’s all related!
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Every client I work with consistently reports deep learning and meaningful transformation in a matter of hours together. Not weeks or months or years. We do impactful work in just a handful of sessions.
There isn’t an upward limit to how many supportive sessions you can do, but the greatest learning comes from at least a few.
I strongly recommend scheduling 3-4 weekly or bi-weekly sessions in advance. Committing to protect your time allows for continuity and enables a more fruitful process where we build upon each session.
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Small group supportive sessions are powerful spaces for deepening personal bonds and connections while learning together.
Imagine organizing a group of friends or colleagues to dig in and unpack topics that are most important to you. Think “mini-retreat” meets “intentionally connecting” by explicitly learning with and about each other.
We nurture a space for shared learning and support while practicing skills in how to think, learn, and communicate with each other. It’s an incredible practice that strengthens relationships and mutual understanding.
They are also valuable for strategizing, building power, and getting aligned in your organizing efforts (however that looks, whether informally at work or in your communities).
Small groups of 2-4 people offer a more cost-accessible option per hour than individual supportive sessions. I recommend we connect first to explore time and availability since it may be more effective to plan fewer sessions that last longer than an hour.
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I don’t “prescribe” philosophical texts to answers your questions, but I am biased. My background is in feminist, queer, and anti-racist theory that is critical of colonization and all systems of oppression. This informs how I show up and make meaning of our world, which I bring with me into supportive sessions.
Nothing about engaging with others or doing philosophy through supportive dialogues is new for me (or philosophy as an ancient discipline, really). In fact, over a decade ago, I published one of the first YouTube videos about philosophical counseling.
Following the world-changing events of 2020, a writer for Oprah’s magazine found my video and reached out. She was curious about philosophical counseling thanks to the sudden uptick in people searching for meaning during such “unprecedented times.”
We spoke for well over an hour, but since I don’t use language of philosophical counseling, she featured me and Positive Philosophy Consulting in a sidebar*next* to that 2021 article, situated above quotes from Nietzsche, Epictetus, and Beauvoir!
A digital version of her article was republished in 2023 (though, unfortunately, it doesn’t include my featured sidebar). Nevertheless, it may still be helpful context for how others approach similar practices.
Reflections on Supportive Sessions
“You have questioned everything in a good way! Nothing is surface level or just to “check the box.” You helped me uncover the layers and tools to keep doing that on my own.”
“Cori you created an AMAZING space for us to really explore race. I liked the way you facilitated a flow that allowed our group to open up about a difficult subject. You are very knowledgeable, and you have the ability to guide us to questions and answers rather than just give it to us. I am so excited for others to experience what we did – power to change and the space to do so. Truly inspirational.”
“You are truly creating spaces for folks to reflect while also growing into who they want to become.”
“Cori cultivated a safe and supportive environment where I could flourish professionally and personally. Her deep listening and insightful questions challenged me to reframe my thinking, which ultimately helped me break down barriers to growth, such as identifying and connecting to my values to ground myself.”
What It's Like to Learn with me
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What It's Like to Learn with me 〰️
“You are incredibly relatable, approach your consultation as a co-learner (AND are somehow also magically a content expert!). You've dialed in how to bridge content from week to week and find that sweet spot between people absolving themselves from their responsibility to address oppression and just talking about equity and justice until we're blue in the face.”
“Dr. Cori Wong is thoughtful, considerate and incredibly smart – she has an abundance of conviction in her efforts to pursue a more equitable world.
She creates a space that is welcoming to anyone who is there to learn and grow, but does not hold much space for willful ignorance, or contradiction for the sake of being contrarian.
My experience is that this approach fosters an environment of safe, if sometimes a little uncomfortable, learning — which may be the only way to learn about difficult topics. Cori balances hope and realism to create room for ideas of what could be.”
“I imagine some people who may initially feel defensive can sense that, were they to allow their defenses to fall, you would lead them through a process so rich it might change everything for them. Because where there's vulnerability, trust, and deep care, there's space for learning and growth to drive immense change in themselves and the world we collectively create.”
“Our first conversation together is already shifting the way we approach our work in significant ways.”
“Each class is wonderful, and that was the best one yet. It’s been so [%$*#!] cool to live and learn along with you.”
“All of our certification training was necessary, but it wouldn’t have made sense without the lens of knowledge and power that Cori provided us.”
“Your philosophy and way-of-being continues to move me and change me in subtle and powerful ways.”