Turning toward each other, turning toward ourselves
I’ve been resting, recovering from a little virus that caught up with me after The Weekend of No-Requirements. And as I’ve lain here watching the rain fall on the autumn leaves, I keep returning to something I witnessed during those days together.
It felt as though we’d stepped into a portal of kindness and attention, care and connection. People listened deeply. Truths were spoken as they rose, as they asked to be spoken.
And I watched each person there turn toward themselves in the very same moment that they turned toward each other.
Outward and inward
I find this endlessly curious.
You might expect that when our attention is on the people around us, there’s less of it available for ourselves. And sometimes, I think, that’s exactly what happens. I know there have been times, on retreats and in circles and gatherings of all kinds, when I’ve found myself far more aware of what was going on in the group than of how I was actually feeling. Something a little performative would start to creep in - a sense that I should show up a certain way, join in with things even when I didn’t really want to. I recognise threads of that from growing up the youngest in a big family, always lots of people around, not having much say.
And I suspect there’s something more universal in it too.
In a space that is held with real care - and I say this gently, because it isn’t always available to us - something else becomes possible. As our attention expands outward, it seems to expand inward at the same time.
Hearing someone else speak their truth, we can hear our own a little more clearly. Watching someone meet themselves with kindness, we find it a little easier to do the same.
What makes it possible
I’ve been wondering what allows this to happen.
I think part of it is safety - enough of a sense of being held that we can loosen our grip on how we think we should be. Part of it is permission, which is why we called the retreat the Weekend of No-Requirements, so that people could keep returning to the question of what feels good for them now.
And part of it, I think, is simply the human contact of being with others who have also chosen to turn toward this work.
That feels especially precious right now, when so much of life is lived through screens and so many of us feel more isolated than we’d like. And yet, perhaps paradoxically, I see it happen in digital spaces too. In The Field, in IMMERSE, in the short courses that run for just four or five weeks, a bond forms between people who actively choose to turn toward themselves, and somehow, in doing so, toward each other.
Changing my mind
For a long time I thought one-to-one work was where my work truly lived. I think I was quite up in my head about that. As I’ve grown and changed, it’s become clearer to me that group work holds something equally - and powerfully - important. Even as the space holder, I’m doing my own inner work alongside everyone else.
My attention is moving outward and inward too.
And so, this sparks a question:
When have you found yourself more able to hear yourself because you were listening to someone else?
And perhaps, too: is there a group or gathering where you’ve noticed your attention slip away from yourself altogether?
None of this is with judgement of others; simply compassionate self-enquiry to discover what might it feel like to gently bring your attention home?
>> If you’re curious about what this kind of group work might feel like, see what’s coming up here or message me to find out more.