ConsciousCafe Canterbury hosted a brilliant evening this week on the theme on "Altered States of Consciousness". Host Cora shares her thoughts:
 
"Afternoon meetings do have a different energy and this one felt particularly bright and lively as the sun flooded into the studio and I was delighted to have a brilliant turnout of people, there were 18 of us in all. This was a lovely surprise especially after so many people had said they couldn’t come because it was an afternoon session!
 
It was difficult to give a clear definition of what an altered state of consciousness was. It implies a different way of seeing and feeling reality. Andy Wood described it as dreaming while still awake which is the level that the Shamans work at. Helen felt that we needed to shed layers of trauma and stress to find our true state of consciousness which was a state of peace and stillness. Everyday living created a less desirable altered state when there was too much stimulation.
 
One of our participants recounted how she had reached an altered state of consciousness through holotropic breath work which had been developed by Stanislav Grof. This work sounds fascinating and well worth looking into in more detail.
 
We can reach altered states through drumming, breath work, chanting, yoga, meditation, hypnosis, dreaming and with drugs like ayahuasca. Andy gave us an experience of drumming as we relaxed with the intention of finding our power animal. Julie recounted how she can go spontaneously into an altered state and within this state she can access other people’s reality which she can describe to them with stories, symbols and archetypal characters. She can use these visions to help a person to gain more self understanding and healing.
 
In our summing up of the afternoon we concluded that altered states can help people to heal, to gain self knowledge, to deal with traumas, to access their creativity and to become generally more complete and whole as a human being.
 
Thank you so much to Andy Wood, Helen Porter and Julie Stocker for sharing with us the healing work they are all doing.
 
Someone said as she was leaving that it was the best ConsciousCafe meeting she had been to so far!"
 
ConsciousCafe Canterbury is hosted by Cora Kemball-Cook and meets once a month on a new topic. You can follow the Canterbury page for updates all the latest events.

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 panel

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!

Definition of mindfulness

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.

Mindfulness may not be suitable for everyone

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

ConsciousCafe is a not-for-profit organisation, a friendly and welcoming community, a place to live life consciously.

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