By Marianne Hartley, Leader of ConsciousCafe Basel.
Hosting the first ConsciousCafe Basel was such a joy! We came together with open minds and hearts, sharing a little about ourselves and creating new connections.
We were a very international group. Two of us were in Basel. Three people were in the UK, one person in France and another in Norway.
The theme of our first meeting was 'Acknowledging Ourselves'. We asked what has changed in the past months for us and the world around us? The things we discussed included:
- What have we learned? What have we missed? What have we let go of?
- What have we cherished and been grateful for?
Being able to connect with like-minded people in different countries and sharing what is in our hearts and what is on our mind really is a beautiful gift of our times.
We looked at what these past months had taught us, the challenges we went through, the things we missed, lost, let go of, what we were grateful for and the unexpected gifts we received along the way.
A lot of de-cluttering took place, of wardrobes and email lists. There was more appreciation of our time and the realisation that we need very little to live a happy life. There was more conscious buying and counting our blessings and being grateful for things we may have taken for granted before. Acknowledging how privileged we were and the responsibility that comes with this in making a positive and constructive difference with our time and resources.
It was a beautiful, open hearted evening of conscious conversations and seeds of new international friendships being sown. I can’t wait to host the next event on 29th October 2020. Find out more on our Basel Group page.
I hope to see you there!
With love, Marianne
What a fascinating evening we had at ConsciousCafe Canterbury - and it also generated a lot of discussion both immediately afterwards and in the proceeding days.
Our three speakers all came from very varied and interesting backgrounds. Louise Cox Chester came from a career in investment analysis and fund management but decided to leave this high flying world to set up Mindfulness at work ten years ago. Her organisation supports global corporations through designing and delivering mindfulness based training that brings focus, clarity and calm to people. Mindfulness at work has worked with over 250 organisations ranging from Cisco and Savills to Unilever and UBS. They also deliver mindful self compassion programmes in the NHS, teach in schools and run a not for profit organic retreat centre in Wingham.
Viv Moore is a Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) teacher with a background in nursing and psychology, she has been a University lecturer with a PhD in Psychology. She runs 8 week MBSR courses and she has specialized particularly in helping clients with severe chronic pain. Emma Slade or Ani Pema Deki came from the banking world and the story of her transformation from high flying banker to Buddhist nun is told in her popular book Set Free which she sells in aid of the charity she set up Opening your Heart to Bhutan. As a practicing Tibetan Buddhist she says that in Tibetan there is no word for “Mindfulness” which seems curious as the practice has come out of Buddhism!
It was surprising to hear that it is not easy to even define exactly what mindfulness is despite the word being in such common parlance these days.
Louise felt that mindfulness could be defined as loving connected presence either towards self or others or towards an object; it is about being present. Viv felt that the practice dealt with the fact of life being suffering and is about addressing pain in our lives. Louise felt that mindfulness helped people make better choices in their lives, it would enable them to have a pause between stimulus and response, it would help them to communicate more effectively and to give their full attention to colleagues in meetings.
We discussed the fact that the practice may not be suitable for everyone, if someone was recently bereaved then a mindfulness meditation would make them more acutely aware of their grief, also people with mental health problems might find it painful or difficult to practice mindfulness. Everyone agreed that yoga practice can be extremely beneficial for everyone as it was mindful practice that made people aware of their bodies.
It was felt that some people got benefits similar to meditation from running or other sports or even from playing a musical instrument. We were able to experience two short meditations and in the feedback one person who had never meditated before and was surprised that in a guided short meditation they were able to clear their mind.
This is just an overview of what we talked about and I am sure that many of you found other nuggets of interest which I have failed to mention. Do let me know your thoughts on the evening.
Cora
ConsciousCafe Canterbury Leader
There were cheers and applause at the ConsciousCafe Geneva launch last night when I announced that the evening marked the first International ConsciousCafe. What followed was a great night in the spirit of ConsciousCafe’s everywhere in the UK … twenty-two likeminded people coming together to enjoy thoughtful discussion; deep connection with other people; and, from the happy atmosphere and immediate feedback, leaving energized and positive.
We took as our theme ConsciousCafe’s aim to raise global consciousness one conversation at a time asking the question “what does this mean and how can conversation achieve it?” It was apparently a good starter question and from the beginning everyone engaged in animated discussions. We talked and shared at tables of four or five with people moving around after 20 minutes to make new connections and conversations. We have a beautiful collection of illustrated table mats which reveal how broad and deep the discussions roamed.
This was an uplifting start to ConsciousCafe Geneva, proving that one can have profound discussions with new acquaintances in a very enjoyable and heartening way. I particularly relished the fact that we were from a wide range of age groups and life experience.
The next ConsciousCafe Geneva will be Wednesday 26th April and personally, I can’t wait.
Debbie King, Geneva Organiser.
ConsciousCafe is a not-for-profit organisation, a friendly and welcoming community, a place to live life consciously.