Group Practices

Introduction

Meditation practice is vital for helping you slow down, come home to your body and wake up to what is here in the present moment. Shared practices are equally vital to helping you to wake up to your life and to become an embodied expression of your true self.

The practices that I have shared in this section are designed to help people feel safer in relational contexts, increase a sense of belonging, engage everyone with practice, and encourage people to go deeper into their experience.

One of the most important things with group practice is that there is space for people to show up with their full selves; they feel they can be somewhat authentic in their expression, including when that is dissonant with the rest of the group. When people feel they can be authentically present, profound transformations are much more likely.

Introducing relational practices also means that people will be more likely to take insights back into their day-to-day experience in a meaningful way and make changes that impact their lives in positive ways.

Facilitating

With all of these practices the role of facilitator is really important.

As the facilitator, whether it’s in a formal practice setting or with a friend, you will be holding the space for the practice to happen in.

The aim is to create a space that people can show up and be themselves in; one that is welcoming of all aspects of their being, rather than a space where people feel like they have to adopt a persona to fit in.

It’s important to make the space physically and psychologically safe. People should feel that they can share fairly openly without being attacked or judged.

In practice space, problems or challenges don’t need to be solved in the same way that they do in the outside world. You can trust that creating space for things to come to the surface and be seen is enough.

Why Shared Practice is Important

I believe that spiritual practice needs to change. We are at a tipping point in the development of humanity. We need to learn how we can take care of each other better and harness the force of human ingenuity and compassion.

Using practice space as a way for people to learn to connect with each other in more meaningful ways is one of the best ways to change your life and benefit the world. It also makes practice itself a lot more fun and rewarding.