A New Community
It has been difficult to leave my community of practice at the Mindfulness Association, which I was at the heart of for 16 years. My final day was last Friday 19th June.
Then on 20th June, Tracy and I held our first Holiday Retreat Day at Bridlington Links and it felt like coming home. It was a coming together of friends and it felt like the joyful emergence of a new community of practice.
At the end of the retreat participants were asked to sum up their experience of the day in three words, and this is what they wrote:
Contented, safe, joyful
Love, reawakening, connection
Spacious, relaxing, peaceful
Joy, sharing, connection
Nourishing, encouraging, supportive
Calm, content, space
Security, acceptance, joy, companionship
Joy, reflection, purple glittery
Felt at home
Life enhancing, empowering, full of love and joyousness
The theme of the day was ‘Habits of Happy People’ and the main habits we covered were presence, resilience and gratitude.
Tracy led a wonderful session on decorating a here and now stone. The creations were varied and beautiful. We were sent away with a little box, with our decorated stones in them, some varnish and a brush, and instructions on how to varnish our stones. We will place them around the house or carry them in a pocket as a reminder to be here and how.
I led a session on presence, emphasising that when we are present we are able to experience the richness of everyday experiences, as opposed to being distracted, often in negative thinking patterns.
In the mind energy follows focus, which means what we focus on grows. If we focus on being present, our habit of presence grows. If we focus on thinking negative thoughts, our habit of negative rumination grows and the associated emotions of anger, sadness or anxiety grow.
The only real moment is here and now. The past is just memory and the future is just imagination. Presence is the portal to aware being. When the mind is present our true nature can reveal itself - aware being, happy and peaceful, never impacted by the troubling thoughts or challenging emotions moving through it.
I led a session on resilience, where we explored the three circle emotional systems model from evolutionary psychology, which are the threat, drive and soothe systems. We learned how we can stimulate the soothe system to bring the three systems into balance.
The soothe system is stimulated by meditation, relaxation, connecting with friends and laughing together. All the things we were doing together during the day.
Then we used our imaginations to cultivate a resilience ally, with the qualities we need to face life’s challenges, such as qualities of calmness, empowerment, safeness, proactivity, openness, etc. Then we breathed in these qualities from our ally and breathed them out around the whole mind and body. In this way and with practice we can come to embody these qualities.
Then I led a final session on gratitude, explaining how we can bathe our being in those things we are grateful for as a way of balancing the negativity bias, which is part of the human condition. Then we practiced gratitude and relaxation together.
If you would like to join our community in-person on the East Coast of Yorkshire, you can join our 18th July Holiday Retreat Day on Restoring Rest and Sleep, where we will be sewing a lavender bag. Or you can join our 5-6th September Holiday Retreat Weekend on Enjoying Life Fully, where we will be zentangling a gratitude journal, dancing together at a disco and walking a labyrinth. If you would like to join our community online, then you can subscribe to A Year of Meditation, where we explore a theme every month through meditation and reflection and meet weekly.
I hope to see you there.