Today many of our participants couldn’t get into our zoom room due to a technology fail. This meant that instead of starting our day with calm – we started with frustration and disappointment! Our apologies for those who tried and couldn’t find a way in. And our thank you to the ever gracious Katrien for her humour and lightness around ‘missing’ her session.
We have two offers for those that missed this morning (and anyone else who could do with Calm, right now.
The first is this recording of a short mindful session with Jo Kaye. Jo is a facilitator on She Leads Change and these mindful session is one of many beautiful things she brings to the world.
The Second offer is an invitation to take a brief moment to pause and ask yourself – what is it that you would like to breath into the day? Our participants said: presence, compassion, understanding, calm, enjoy the sun on my face, beautiful nature, gratitude for life and hope.
May your day be calm, your technology work and your breaths out into the world bring joy and peace to yourself and others….
We look forward to seeing you on a Cup of Calm tomorrow morning. Please join us via: https://zoom.us/j/8044531372 and, if asked, the password is LeadChange. Do invite others – everyone is welcome!
This event is free to join. If you would like to, please donate as you are able – with no obligation and no upper or lower limit. The link to donate is: paypal.me/weleadchange. All profits will go towards supporting our community of freelancers, small business owners and independents during this time. We suggest the price of a cup of coffee – £2.50 per day or £40 per month.
Forgiveness has the transformative potential to grow cherry trees from our scars…
This mornings ‘cuppa’ was led by Elizabeth Stopford. She is a story-teller and filmaker who has a special interest in forgiveness as a way to resolve trauma. She began today by reading a short passage from Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a haunting lyrical response to the legacy of slavery.
“Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name. Disremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if they were, how can they call her if they don’t know her name? Although she has claim, she is not claimed. In the place where the long grass opens, the girl who waited to be loved and cry shame erupts into her separate parts, to make it easy for the chewing laughter to swallow her all away. It was not a story to pass on.They forgot her like a bad dream.”
Elizabeth says: “Beloved is about the ways we can be haunted by what we “look away from”. There’s one image in the book that has never left me. Sethe is a slave woman on the run. A young girl describes her lying there before her, with a “chokecherry tree” blossoming out of her back. We come to understand that Sethe’s is a back riddled with wounds from being wipped, the seeping pussing scars of slavery. but that those same scars, through this lens, become roots for a tree. New, hopeful life, blossoming out of scars. When I first read this 20 years ago it ‘blew open my understanding of trauma and the transformative potential of forgiveness in my own life. It made me wonder whether our diverse but universal experiences of trauma, in themselves so isolating, have the potential to unite us, to transform us. New, hopeful life, blossoming out of scars. For me it is an image of forgiveness; of what might be possible if we together our scars to become our roots, with a spirit of forgiveness. There is a spiritual quality to this image for me. It feels timely – akin to the resurrection”.
Elizabeth suggested: “Offering this image up I invite you to reflect on something that has scarred you, or your community, that has become (or might become) the roots for new life.”
What cherry trees can you notice and nurture this week that have grown in the fertile soils of deep harm? We welcome you to reflect today and bring this beautiful imagery and sense of possibility into the week ahead.
Please do join us for a Cup of Calm each morning.
Please join us via: https://zoom.us/j/8044531372 and, if asked, the password is LeadChange. Do invite others – everyone is welcome.
Please donate as you are able – with no obligation and no upper or lower limit. The link to donate is: paypal.me/weleadchange. All profits will go towards supporting our community of freelancers, small business owners and independents during this time. We suggest the price of a cup of coffee – £2.50 per day or £40 per month.
We had a reflective Cup of Calm this morning with participants from the UK, South Africa and Dubai! We focused on the fascinating topic of resilience – a skill that we are needing to use a lot at the moment. The dictionary describes resilience as “the capacity to recover from difficulties; toughness” and other definitions include “knowing how to cope in spite of setbacks, barriers or limited resources” and “a measure of how much you want something and how much you are willing and able to overcome obstacles to get it”.
We discussed in groups how we have dealt with resilience in the past and shared wisdom. Some nuggets shared were the clearing process – writing everything down and categorizing – what can I control, what do I need help with? Thinking of resilience as a survival technique and the test of emotional rather than physical strength really resonated with us.
Resilience – Elizabeth Anna don’t look away from these issues you know,
the ones that make you uncomfortable –
the ones you would rather turn your head to –
that you don’t believe apply to you,
until they do.
look steadily at them –
longingly learn to bear the unbearable
to feel discomfort gazing back at you
for those are the people you must love
into your empty spaces
and that is the view which will eventually make you whole.
the time to look ahead and not away, is now.
We look to seeing you next Tuesday. Please join us via: https://zoom.us/j/8044531372 and, if asked, the password is LeadChange. Bring your friends and family to join us for a moment of calm in the morning.
Please donate as you are able – with no obligation and no upper or lower limit. The link to donate is: paypal.me/weleadchange. All profits will go towards supporting our community of freelancers, small business owners and independents during this time. We suggest the price of a cup of coffee – £2.50 per day or £40 per month.
Wishing you a wonderful Easter weekend. With love, all of us at She Leads Change
“Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.” – Anton Chekhov
How can you connect with nature today? Will it be through taking a short walk or a run? Walking in a direction that you haven’t walked in before? Maybe going ‘off road’ and walking a more unconventional route?
During our Cup of Calm today, Stephanie read us an extract from the beautiful book ‘Delight’ by JB Priestly which reminds us of where we can find joy in the simplest of things such as walking in a pine wood, opening our eyes and observing what’s around us.
Tomorrow we will be joined by another wonderful guest facilitator, Gina Gleeson who will be taking us through some self-soothing practices. Perfect if you’re feeling at all anxious. Please do join us and, as always, feel free to invite others. The link to join is here.
Please donate as you are able – with no obligation and no upper or lower limit. The link to donate is: paypal.me/weleadchange. All profits will go towards supporting our community of freelancers, small business owners and independents during this time. We suggest the price of a cup of coffee – £2.50 per day or £40 per month.
Bring to mind a time when you thought good thoughts about yourself. Where you had an internal ‘well done’ or ‘that’s great’ or even ‘I’m brilliant’.
Move into that feeling and amplify it. Turn up the volume on this good feedback and let it drown out all the ‘must’s’ and should’s’ and ‘have to’s’. Focus away from the relentless self-flagellation. Fill up on self-praise. Let the appreciation of self permeate through you and turn up the corners of your mouth.
At a time when the world has shifted on its axis, we need to be kind to ourselves. And be clear what that kindness looks like – for some its creating boundaries, for others its outdoors and exercise and for some its changing their expectations. What does being kind to yourself mean for you?
Love After Love The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
Tomorrow we will have a guest facilitator, Stephanie Heath. Please do join and feel free to invite others. The link to join is here.
Please donate as you are able – with no obligation and no upper or lower limit. The link to donate is: paypal.me/weleadchange. All profits will go towards supporting our community of freelancers, small business owners and independents during this time.
