My experience of Mindfulness for Change hui
Reflections from a mindfulness-in-tertiary-education practitioner and teacher.
“This gathering blows my mind” was my general feeling about attending two of three Mindfulness for Change (MfC) Hui, the first in August 2016 and the most recent in May 2017. I have had to sit with my experience for a while to try and articulate what makes this so different to any other (mindfulness) retreats and gatherings I have participated in (and there have been quite a few over many years). I am a lecturer in occupational therapy in Auckland. I have a longstanding mindfulness meditation practice and have purposely been bringing this into my work in the last six years, in a variety of ways. I completed a MHSc(MindBody Healthcare) exploring the experience of teaching mindfully in a tertiary education setting, and have started facilitating mindfulness courses for colleagues and students since the middle of last year.
In 2015 I attended a NZ mindfulness gathering in Dunedin. It was good to connect with others who were bringing mindfulness practice into their own professional contexts in NZ and I felt inspired. I thought the first MfC hui was the follow up from the Dunedin gathering. Checking the MfC Hui website, I found none of the faces or names I was expecting to see. There was information about “Enspiral” , “Open Space” technology, social change, “exploration into ways to collaborate”, and a “not-for-profit” event. I really had no idea what to expect, but was keen to continue to connect with the NZ mindfulness practice community. And it was good that there seemed to be a follow up on the Dunedin gathering…
What I found was a total surprise. I believe something profound is happening in this MfC space and with the group of people (many of them young) who are driving this initiative. It seems to me that this is ‘the next generation’ of mindfulness (practice), which goes beyond adding mindfulness practice to existing contexts (such as in a health or education settings), or to interpersonal relating (such as in personal relationships, the healthcare relationship, the educational relationship).
The MfC community are starting from a new paradigm, and from the bottom up. The core people in MfC (the “shared holders” of the group) put mindfulness practice and compassion front, back and centre in the way they approach their own lives, in the way they interact amongst themselves, in the way they want to develop the organisation, in the way they facilitate the gatherings, and in the way they provide support to people who want to make a change in society through mindfulness practice.
The MfC community are people of mixed age, gender, and backgrounds, who come together with a common interest and with the sole purpose of supporting and inspiring others and themselves to take mindfulness and compassion into grass-roots community initiatives. They are committed to using mindfulness practice in action, in everyday life and for facilitating change: individual change, interpersonal change, social change, global change. Additionally, as I experienced it, they are committed not to have economic gains as the bottom line, but to have the wellbeing of people within the organisation and within their own local communities as the bottom line.
This community has already generated three gatherings, with approx. 40 people each hui, in the space of less than one year, with talk about a fourth hui already started; it has spawned and supported a number of community initiatives particularly in Wellington, but also in other centres in NZ. As a direct result of participating in two of the huis, I have personally felt supported and encouraged to make a start with some of my community mindfulness offerings.
I believe the group’s strength is their active interest, drive and commitment firstly to mindfulness practice in action, and secondly to stay anchored in philosophies and theories that will support the ongoing life and development of the organisation itself and the widening circles of “contributors” in the service of mindfulness for social change. Part of this is the ‘horizontal structure’ of the organisation: a structure that is about collaborating, about sharing energy, knowledge and resources for a common good (see Nick Laurence’s story on this platform from Dec 2016) . Another part is the importance of compassion in action that is underpinning their vision.
It goes beyond my knowledge and experience at this point to write about the other underpinning philosophies and theories. However, I get the sense that the mix of all the elements I have pointed to above is much greater than the sum of their parts.
Why have these gatherings blown my mind? Because I experienced something so different from my everyday work and societal context, so different from the current political climate we live in, so different from the mindfulness retreats, interest groups and conferences I have participated in. This group seems to “live” the willingness to pause and create a space, to relax into that space, to open to what may be occurring in the shared space of whomever is present, to listen deeply to what may be arising for individuals and within the group, to trust what emerges, to speak their truth (adapted from Kramer, 2007), with curiosity, compassion and other attitudinal qualities of mindfulness, as described by Kabat-Zinn (1996), in his seminal work “Full catastrophe living”; and then to encourage, support and act on what materialises. And what’s more, there seems to be a deepening awareness and commitment that is gathering momentum to support people to create mindful change in their lives, communities and organisations. Watch this space!
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1996). Full catastrophe living: How to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation (new ed.). New York, NY: Bantam Doubleday.
Kramer, G. (2007). Insight dialogue: The interpersonal path to freedom. Boston, MA: Shambala.
