Reflection: Write a few notes in your Joyality Journal in answer to these questions:
What is on the other side of your river?
Practically speaking, what might your first couple of stepping stones be? (Think about how you can use or apply what you’ve gained from the Joyality Program.)
What or who could help you take your first few steps across the river? (Remember, you already have access to everything you need.)
Any other thoughts or feelings?
[Download MP3Stepping Stones, then do the Reflection above. Or use the transcripts below to guide others.]
Process: Closing your eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths, settling back into your body and your feelings.
With your eyes closed, activate your imagination.
We invite you to imagine a beautiful river in front of you. Sparkling with the light and the cool breeze. Making little ripples on its surface, the current flowing down. This is the river that the three streams have formed into. It is a beautiful early morning and you see the sun rising on the other side of the river.
Stretching out in the pathway along this beautiful golden light between you and the sun on the surface of the water, you suddenly see a whole series of beautiful stepping stones. They are round, they’re solid, they’re stable. And on the other side of the river we invite you to imagine the positive future that you see for the world, or you passion action or your passion project, in as much detail as you can.
So that future on the other side of the river that you can see, it might be you living your own life in a new way, or it could be you finding an existing project or a group of people to work along side to co-create with, or it might be something that you have initiated and gathered a group of people together to co-create with. It doesn’t really matter, just imagine something that makes sense to you on the other side of this beautiful river.
Just spend a minute or so focusing on that….
Now have a look at those stepping stones in your minds eye…. And notice all of the beautiful clear shining water flowing past those stones and know that this river contains all of your experiences, connection with nature and other people. It contains your ability to stay awake and hold all of the “good” and the “bad” things that are happening in the world. It contains all of your experiences and insights about acting, creating positive action, yourself and with others. Know that as you walk along those stepping stones, you are able to access all of those experiences, all of those insights, all of those abilities and ways of being, so that as you walk along those stepping stones you have access to everything you need to reach the other side, to reach the vision for your life and your passion action.
Imagine yourself taking one step after another across this beautiful river to the other side. Just allow yourself to walk towards the sun… how does that feel? Just see yourself walking slowly, confidently, beautifully, across this flowing river. Knowing that you have everything that you need.
Reflection: Write a few notes in your Joyality Journal in answer to these questions:
What is on the other side of your river?
Practically speaking, what might your first couple of stepping stones be? (Think about how you can use or apply what you’ve gained from the Joyality Program.)
What or who could help you take your first few steps across the river? (Remember, you already have access to everything you need.)
This guided meditation brings you into the here and now to relax into each moment of your Joyality journey … wherever you are, right now.
Process
Reflection: Write a few notes in your Joyality Journey about what you have to celebrate, without taking any further steps than where you are right now:
your vision for the world and your “passion action” or “passion project”
your fellow travellers
your self
your connection with the Earth and all existence
[Download MP3 : Celebrating the Journey, remember to do the reflection above or use the transcript below to guide others.]
Just allowing yourself to rest down in to your body. Feeling the natural world around you and within you. Bring your attention to your heart area. Imagine a beautiful small golden light starting to glow in your heart. Imagine that golden glow getting bigger and bigger until it envelops your whole being.
Now bring your attention to your own journey through the Joyality Program. Just recalling your own journey travelling from the very start of the program until now. And just appreciate where you are right now. No need to achieve, no need to strive, just resting in this very moment. In this moment as you breath in a really relaxed way. See if you can bring into your attention your vision of a positive future for the world, imagining it in as much detail as you can. Now bring into your mind your vision of your passion action or your particular project that you feel inspired by. Imagine that passion action or project coming to fruition, imagining as much detail as you can. With both of these visions, feel the reality of these visions as if they are already happening, as if they are already true. Just allow yourself to rest in that space. Allowing some time away from the voices of doubt or cynicism, just resting in the realm of possibility and positive intention.
Now bring your attention to your fellow travelers, the other participants in your joyality group, the joyality team, the J-team and really revel in these other people who you have been travelling with. What is it that you appreciate about them. Allow yourself to rest in those feelings of joy and appreciation of other like minded souls, allies, collaborators, co-creating a positive future with you.
Now bring your attention to yourself. See if you can really revel in and appreciate yourself. No need to be perfect, just offering what you have, who you are, in celebration, humility and strength. And just for a moment, in your heart, see if you can celebrate who you are.
Now bringing your attention your connection with the Earth and all life and just resting in the shear amazingness of existence. Realising that you cant actually fall out of this interconnected web of life. In this space you are actually always connected to everything. See if you can just feel that experience in your heart. Appreciating your self, appreciating this moment, exactly as it is, just as much as you are able to right now in this moment, connecting with the feeling of appreciation for all of life. No need for things to be different in any way, with a sense of integrity and wholeness.
See if you can bring all these experiences together. Focusing on that light in your heart, allow it to grow, see if you can breath it into every cell in your body… Just sitting for another couple of minutes, breathing in… and out..seeing if you can feel that light… with every in breath and out breath, glowing through your whole being and radiating out into the world…. Nothing to do…. No one to be… just resting in this beautiful light…
When you’re ready.. and ONLY when you’re ready opening up your eyes.
Reflection: Write a few notes in your Joyality Journey about what you have to celebrate, without taking any further steps than where you are right now:
your vision for the world and your “passion action” or “passion project”
Process: Take a new page in your Joyality Journal and answer this question:
“Who am I?”
Write whatever comes to your mind. It can be simple free association single words or phrases, or it can be full sentences – whatever comes to you. Just make sure you start a new line for each new thought, maybe using a dot point or a star each time. Start each line with “I am…”. Do you remember doing this the first time? (Don’t peak, just do this as if it was the first time …)
For the full instructions, you can go back to Who Am I?, or simply write in your journal now.
Reflection:After you’re done writing, take a deep breath. How do you feel? Energized? Exhausted? Excited? Scared? Notice what feelings come up and try not to get attached to them. Simply let yourself feel them and breathe, letting them pass through you.
Now look back at what you have written. Try not to pass any judgment about your writing or about the impressions you get of the person you have created through this exercise. Simply notice the kinds of things you have written down. What have you focused on about yourself? Physical appearance? Relationships to others? Roles you play in life? Mental and emotional characteristics? Your place in nature? Is there a balance between these aspects or are some much further developed than others? Notice what parts of yourself you know well and what parts of yourself you don’t have much to say about. You may notice, looking back over it, that there are aspects of your person you have left out completely. That is fine. Just notice.
Also take notice of how you feel about all of that.
Just like the first time we did it, the purpose of this exercise is not to pass judgment or assign value, but simply to familiarise and connect you with who you perceive yourself to be …
However, the next part of this process is beautiful. Look at your list a choose three things you’ve written that make you feel really great, things about yourself which radiate a sense of specialness and joy. Write them out again in a different colour, perhaps on a separate page, and decorate them with colour and drawings or symbols.
This is a page worth revisiting from time to time.
Feedback: The very last part of this process is to compare your first Who Am I? with this one! Look back at both sets of notes in your journal and compare them. Do this in whatever way works for you …
Notice the things that have changed, the things that have stayed the same. Notice how you feel about this “new you” …
Now, even though we told you “no one else will read this”, we would be really interested in finding out how you have transformed through the Joyality Program. So … if you feel comfortable about this, could you take a photo of each of your Who Am I’s, label one as “before” and the other as “after” and email them to the Joyality Team? (Just reply to one of the emails we sent you.) Your words will remain totally anonymous, but will form part of our research and evaluation of the program.
We also ask you to fill in ourfeedback survey, which will help us improve the Joyality processes and circles, as well as give you your end-of-program Joyality Score!
Ecopsychology tells us that, like three streams converging into a larger river, by cultivating our abilities to connect, stay awake andact, they can converge into an experience of joyality … creating psychological and planetary health.
If you go back through your Joyality Journal, try tracking your journey along each of these streams. You might like to grab some crayons, textas or highlighter pens and colour code each process according to the stream it’s on.
This table might help you colour code and track your journeys.
Process: When you’ve tracked your 3 streams, read through and reflect upon each journey … one stream at a time. We suggest you spend about half an hour doing this (that will keep you inside the 2 hour session, but if you feel to, go right ahead and spend more time reading!). So, you could spend 10 minutes on each journey, at least to start with.
Starting with your journey of connection, consider your experiences connecting with nature around you; the parts of nature you feel drawn to; what it is like to feel the nature within you, etc … right through to the challenge of connecting with nature in the middle of a busy soul-less city environment. You might want to use your colours to highlight particular things you wrote along the way … Add to the Harvesting the Gifts notes in your Joyality Journal as you feel drawn to.
Now do the same thing reading through your journey of awakening, of staying awake to the “good” and the “bad” things happening in the world. Consider what it is like for you to seek out the positive sides to the disturbing stories you are confronted with; to delve more deeply into the investigation of topics you want to shy away from; to discover and transform some of your limiting beliefs about who you are and what is happening in the world, etc. … Again, use colours to highlight your original journal notes, and add to your notes in Harvesting the Gifts.
And finally, consider your journey of action, or activation, of discovering and refining your “passion action”. Consider what you discovered about communication; about how social change happens; and how you feel about organising as a community and stepping up to create systemic change on a larger scale. Reflect on how your “passion action” evolved through the program, if it did at all. Again, use colours and add to your notes in Harvesting the Gifts.
Reflection (optional): Taking a new page in your Joyality Journal, consider each journey separately and write or draw where you started and where you are right now … and possibly where you would like to be in the future on this journey. What is your trajectory, your personal vision??
Tune into yourself, your body and emotions, for a few moments … Perhaps you’d like to listen to the Focusing audio, or Elemental Being … just to drop down into a deep, whole place. Or, go for a walk and find yourself a beautiful natural place to be. Or, simply take a few deep breaths and pay attention to where your body is interacting with the environment around you.
Cast your mind back over your journey through the Joyality Program, and ask yourself these questions:
What were the highlights for me? Perhaps these are your biggest “ah hah” moments, realisations, learnings… or positive experiences and sensations … or discovering some things about yourself that you love or appreciate. Whatever they are, start a new page in your Joyality Journal with the heading HIGHLIGHTS at the top, and write a few dot-points on that page (you don’t need to fill the page though).
What were the hardest parts … the challenges for me?These could be the difficult realisations … painful experiences … the struggles, the inner resistances that you encountered along the way. Whatever they are, start a new page in your Joyality Journal with the heading CHALLENGES at the top, and write a few dot-points on that page (again, you don’t need to fill the page just make a start with whatever flows).
Are there any gifts hidden within these experiences? The gifts you’ve received from the program are probably fairly obvious when you look at your “Highlights” page, but let’s focus on your “Challenges” page instead for some hidden gifts. Start a third page with HIDDEN GIFTS at the top, divide the page into FOR ME and FOR JOYALITY TEAM. Ask yourself:
Do the challenges I’ve listed show me something about myself? Perhaps they give you insight into what you need and want .. or they might inspire you to feel compassion and loving care for yourself.
Do I have any suggestions for the program? Perhaps things could be made easier by some changes to the online processes or Joyality circles.
the quality or state of feeling deep and encompassing joy; a feeling of wholeness, oneness and exuberance for life
Joyality is that feeling you get when every cell of your being is joyful, peaceful, and alive. It is that feeling that you can’t quite put words to, because they could never do it justice. It is deeply related to beauty, love, and the pure exuberance for being alive, but exactly what it is will always be something of a mystery.
Joyality is different for everyone as we are all unique individuals whose souls are sparked by a diversity of people, places, and activities.
Process: Consider for a few moments … “What brings me joyality?”
Write a list or draw a mind-map in your Joyality Journal of the people, places and activities that give you this experience … they are likely to be simple things, and perhaps sensory experiences (sights, sounds, tastes, smells, touch).
This is your very own treasure map! It will remind you how to find joy in the moment … and leave yourself with an ‘afterglow’ you carry with you. No matter what else is going on in your life.
Even looking at your list can make you feel good!
Reflection (optional): Ask yourself:
How can I integrate these experiences into my daily life? (Notice how many of these are free, and how many are nature-based).
How can I integrate these experiences into my change-making?
“Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you’ll look back and realise they were the big things.”
– Robert Brault
Source: Dr Eshana Bragg, inspired by the nature guided therapy of ecopsychologist George W. Burns.
Purpose: By focusing on beauty, we transform the way we see the world. What we search for, we tend to find … so try this experiment.
Process:
1. Look around you right now and search for beauty … what makes your heart sing when you look at it?
Switching to your other senses and doing a bit of scan … beautiful sounds, beautiful smells, beautiful tastes, beautiful textures?
Jot a few notes down in your Joyality Journal … sensory pleasures!
2. Now think about people in your life. What about them is beautiful, what makes your heart warm when you think of them? A quality, an event, something they’ve done or do regularly, just the person as a whole … whatever comes to mind. Write a few notes about some key people in your life. (If other feelings come up, just acknowledge them, let them be, and focus back on the beauty!)
3 (optional). If you are enjoying this process, keep going … focusing on experiences, activities or places …
4. Always end with yourself. This beauty you see around you is, of course, also inside you … although sometimes it’s the hardest to see! What about you is beautiful, what makes your heart warm when you think about you? A quality, an event, something you’ve done or do regularly, just “you” as a whole … whatever comes to mind. Write a few notes. (If other feelings come up, just let them be, acknowledge them, and focus back on the beauty!)
5. Focus on your heart, then do a body scan for emotions and sensations (Focusing), and notice: how do you feel? Draw or write to express this feeling.
Reflection: Take an attitude of gratitude. You can “turbo-charge” this experience of beauty and joy by acknowledging your appreciation for each of these experiences or elements in your life. Inwardly or outwardly. Try it. 😀
Notice that this is something you can do wherever you are … waiting in doctor’s surgery, on the beach, walking along a city street, at a family gathering, during a political demonstration… It’s like exercising a muscle, the more you practice this, the more beauty you will experience in your life. So over the next week, try practicing this in a few different places.
By searching for beauty, you are also answering the question “What brings me pleasure and joy?”. At any one moment in time, see how much pleasure and joy you can experience by focusing on the beauty in each moment.
(If you’re finding this process interesting, ask yourself: Are any common themes emerging? How many of these things are free? How many are nature-based?)
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
– Melody Beattie
Source: Dr Eshana Bragg, based on the many gratitude practises currently circulating through online media including the Attitude of Gratitude communities on Facebook.
Write a few notes down in your Joyality Journal about the feelings in each of these body centres … reflecting but not judging.
You might also ask yourself:
>Was it easy? Or hard?
>Was it frustrating?
>Did you find it hard to remember to do this exercise? How do you feel about that?
>Where are you feeling that?
Remember all these feelings and thoughts are relevant. They are simply telling you something important about yourself. Remember to be gentle on yourself.
Are you judging yourself? If you find you are, what are the emotions that come with this judgment? What are the thoughts? We invite you to write those down in reflection in your Joyality Journal.
By doing this, we are practising releasing the grip of tension, “shoulds” and judgments in our lives on ourselves first, so that we can be more open to self-love, self-acceptance and therefore be better available to share our fullest potential with the world.
Joyality is not just about feeling happy and good all the time. It is actually about embracing and being able to face the real emotions we feel in the moment, in any moment. In our culture, we often deny ourselves access to our real emotions in a given moment. Think about it, have you ever told yourself “I shouldn’t be angry..” or “I should feel happy right now”… ? Essentially many people on this planet have grown up thinking that feeling bad, sad, mad, socially awkward or just uncomfortable in life is a “wrong thing”. This has perhaps been because many of us were told not to feel so often … “don’t feel sad” “don’t feel bad” “be happy” as if that is the only ultimate goal of life. Of course, “not feeling” was never the intention of those that said these things to us, it was simply a misinterpretation.
We at Joyality, inspired by many compassionate healing and awareness practises, know that feeling all our emotions is a very useful thing. In fact our emotions are a gateway to personal awesomeness! Emotions can help to open us to a deeper knowing of ourselves and our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. They are signs that something is not quite resolved or sitting right within us or that something is blocked and may be pointing to a belief that is self limiting. When we are able to face our emotions or just practice sitting with them instead of pushing them away, suppressing them, being ashamed of them then we provide ourselves with a great opportunity to be able to connect with the core of ourselves. By being with and expressing emotions in a safe and personal way without projecting onto others, emotions can be more easily processed and transformed. Remember, what we resist persists and what we face and embrace given the chance will change.
There are so many ways to feel and process your emotions. You may already have some useful practices for this … some people write a journal, draw, do sport and exercise, do some yoga, meditate, go for a walk in nature, scream, cry, punch into a pillow, sing, dance, have a warm bath, just to name a few! What do you do? Reflect on this and write your answers in your Joyality Journal.
Our thoughts, emotions and body sensations all feed in together to create our world experience.
A physical feeling or sensation in the body, when you stubb your toe on the pavement, will provoke a thought “ouch that hurt” and may lead to an emotion; sadness hurt. Or if someone just said something nasty to you, you may have an emotion first, anger perhaps, which will have a thought behind it “that person is mean”, and a physical sensation tied in with it, a pain in the heart perhaps. When we can observe our thoughts, sensations and emotions as they arise we can better learn to know ourselves, our motivations and act consciously rather than re-actively in our lives.
Preparation: Thought Stream Meditation (Source: adapted from Naomi Goodlet)
These meditations help you to focus, and to get in contact with your own body and the sensations within. Know that throughout this meditation you are completely in control of yourself and you are free to slow down or pause this focusing session at any point if you feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed, simply by opening your eyes and stopping the podcast. If this happens, we invite you to just sit with anything that comes up and journal about it if you feel to.
Find a comfortable place to sit, either on the ground or in a chair, where ever feels good. Adjust your sitting position until you are completely comfortable….
Now I invite you to close your eyes. You don’t need to keep your eyes closed throughout this session, but doing so might keep you in closer contact with your imagination and the sensations within your body.
Start by taking some deep breaths ..
Relaxing your body, sitting comfortably..
Now visualising that you are sitting on the bank of a gently flowing creek
Hearing the trickling sounds of the water as it cascades over the rocks….
Effortlessly making its way on the journey…
Noticing any thoughts that are trying to hook you in.. trying to distract you
You notice next to you there is a small pile of leaves, all different colours, resting on the ground…
Pick up one of the leaves and hold it out in front of you
Next time you notice a thoughts hooking you in, just place that thought on a leaf and send that leaf floating down the stream…
Just visualize and imagine what ever works for you
Watching the leaves and they float away…
And bringing yourself back to the water endlessly drifting along…
No need to worry about anything…
Just effortlessly observing the creek…
As you notice thoughts popping into your mind..
Notice the temptation to give into them and get caught up in them…
Instead softly stay in observation and place the thought on a leaf and send it sailing away.
Now it is time to observe your thoughts, not to engage with them..
There may be an endless supply of thoughts… that’s ok…
The leaves are never ending, so every time you notice a thought just placing it onto a leaf and watching it float away out of sight, again and again bringing yourself back to the stream and the sound of the trickling water.
As you watch the stream you also allow yourself to watch your mind, choosing to observe your thoughts rather than becoming them…
As any memories, judgments, worries or ideas come into your mind as they will, just place them on a new leaf and watch them float away…
By observing your thoughts you become pure awareness, by letting go of the trouble with your thoughts you become peaceful…
Letting go of any self judgment when thoughts arise to distract you from your focus, this is the way of your mind, it cannot be control, by simply allowing your thoughts to come and go you become a master..
Even if you are constantly sending thought after thoughts off down the stream you are perfecting the act of observing and allowing, allowing your thoughts to drift in and out… letting them come in placing them on a leaf and letting them drift on by….
Peacefully observing…
And gently bringing your attention back to your breathing..
Focusing on the breath…
Becoming aware again of your surroundings
Opening your eyes
And moving your body when you’re ready…
Taking a break, maybe writing a few notes in your journal about how you’re feeling right now after that experience. How is your state of consciousness different from “normal”? Bringing yourself back to this practice whenever you feel to make the time.
When you feel ready, sit back down in your comfortable spot, ready for the next part of the process. Closing your eyes again, if that feels good.
Process: Focusing on Sensations (Source: Phoenix Institute via Rita Gyoffry)
In your own way, take a few moments to feel your body relaxing….
Take a deep breath in and as you breathe out, let your weight settle down onto the surface you are sitting on….
Feel the muscles softening a little…. And loosening… relaxing and releasing…. Just simply letting go…. Perhaps a deeper breath or two helps…. And that feeling of letting go a little more on the out breath….. Just feeling the ease of it all quite effortlessly ….. effortlessly…
With your eyes gently closed, become aware of the space before your eyes.. Relax your eyes.. just simply resting your attention there… Now pay attention to any sounds outside the room.. just listening… with a gentle curiosity… Letting the sounds come and go…. No need to judge…. Now bring your awareness to any of the sounds inside the room….letting the sounds come and go…. With simple curiosity… now bring your attention to the sound of your own breathing…. Letting the sound come and go.. with gentle curiosity…
As you bring your awareness to your breath, notice what sensations there are as you breathe in … and as you breathe out…. Feeling the air touch your nostrils… Feeling the slight movement of your chest and your tummy… Listening to the gentle sound of your breathing……
Allow your breath to take up whatever rhythm feels natural for you at the moment.… quite effortlessly..
And now bring your awareness to your centre… the feeling centre-line of your body… with the intention to check in with how you are feeling and with a willingness to include body sensations, gently ask yourself, ‘How am I feeling?’.. Bring your awareness to your throat… feel into it.. with a gentle curiosity, explore the sensations in your throat.. subtle or strong.. comfortable or uncomfortable.. any sensations… and as you feel into your throat, feel the flow of your breathing….
Bring your attention to the centre of your chest, feeling for any sensations.. a slight pressure, an ache, a tightness… a hardness or resistance to the breath.. or perhaps it feels soft and comfortable.. explore the body sensations free of any judgment… and as you feel into your chest, feel the flow of your breathing…
And now bring your awareness to your upper abdomen, above your belly button, but below your rib cage and ask yourself ‘How am I feeling?’ Notice any sensations in the upper abdomen.. a softness.. a tightness… a shakiness… a numbness… whatever sensations you find there… as you feel into your upper tummy, feel the flow of your breathing…
Now bring your awareness down to your lower abdomen… around and behind the navel…. There’s no need to analyse whether the sensations come from a physical cause or an emotional cause at this stage simply explore all the sensations in the lower abdomen… and feel the flow of your breathing…
Now open your awareness to include the whole feeling centre-line of your being.. your throat, chest, upper and lower tummy… keep the feelings company.. with curiosity and compassion… just sitting with whatever feelings are there… and as you notice the feelings in your centre, feel the flow of your breathing…
When you are ready slowly become aware of your surroundings again…
Begin wiggling your fingers and toes…
And when you are ready … in your own time open your eyes again..
And really take your time to adjust to the space with your body in it as it feels right now.
Feel free to bringing yourself back to this practice whenever you are on the go or stationary.
Reflection: Write a few notes down in your Joyality Journal about the feelings in each of these body centres … reflecting but not judging.
What you have just completed is the first step in focusing, to connect with what’s happening within your body. By connecting with your inner world, you are actually also connecting with the world around you. What is within affects what is outside. (We will be practising some focusing in the sharing circles throughout the next 8 weeks.)
You can do this exercise wherever you are throughout your day, whether you’re walking, sitting on public transport, riding a bike or sitting at a desk. See if you can remember to practice this a couple of times a day and write a few notes in your journal how it went everyday.
You might also ask yourself: Was it easy? Or hard? Was it frustrating? Did you find it hard to remember to do this exercise? How do you feel about that? Where are you feeling that? Remember all these feelings and thoughts are relevant. They are simply telling you something important about yourself. Remember to be gentle on yourself. Are you judging yourself? If you find you are, what are the emotions that come with this judgment? What are the thoughts? We invite you to write those down in reflection in your Joyality Journal.
By doing this, we are practising releasing the grip of tension, “shoulds” and judgments in our lives on ourselves first, so that we can be more open to self-love, self-acceptance and therefore be better available to share our fullest potential with the world.
* Source: Rita Gyorffy, inspired by material from Focusing Australia via The Phoenix Institute’s Transpersonal Counselling course including the Thought Steam meditation by Naomi Goodlet.
Click here to go back to the Three Big Stories of our time, in theWhy Joyality? section.
Reflection: Now spend some time reflecting on what you’ve written, what you’ve imagined about this person, and ask yourself this question:
What do you have in common?
This might be aspects of your ecological shadow, a shared interest, friends, workplace or industry, or a place/location … anything at all. Spend quite a bit of time on this question and really brainstorm “What do I have in common with this person? How am I similar to them? What beliefs, values and feelings do we share?”
Throughout the rest of this week we invite you to learn more about this person and reflecting on their reality, world view and core values. You can do this through observing the person in real life, the media or if you get the chance try engaging with them to find out three things:
What they really care about?
What they think makes them and other people happy?
How they think the world can be made a better place?
Source: This exercise is based on The Philosophy of Life Game, which Dr Eshana Bragg developed and has been practicing with groups of people for the last 15 years or so. It is inspired by the work of Katrina Shields, in her book In the Tigers Mouth (1991), particularly the chapter called Building Bridges with the Opposition.
Purpose: The purpose of the Building Beautiful Bridges process is to step into other people’s shoes. Particularly those who we don’t usually relate to, or we find ourselves on the opposite sides of an issue we care about.
It’s a process to help us develop compassion and break down stereotypes. It’s a way of overcoming artificial barriers and practising stepping towards people that we don’t usually feel comfortable with in a friendly, compassionate and gently enquiring way. So … we get to open our hearts and open our minds, which sows really important seeds for collaboration in the future. Building bridges across an apparent gap of separation also helps us see the beauty in people, and find ways to respect and even admire them, which makes the world a more beautiful and joyful place for us to inhabit!
Have you heard those corny sayings “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet” and “Your enemy can be your greatest teacher”?
Well, as usual, this exercise is an exercise in imagination! Let’s get practising …
Preparation: We invite you to find a quiet space with your Joyality Journal and free yourself from the business that’s behind you and in front of you, and take some time out to focus on this process.
**Feel free to pause here while you do this. **
Having done that, take a couple of deep breaths and think about the people in your community, or the wider community, who you believe just don’t understand you. They just don’t get why you care about the issues that you do, whether its climate change, some sort of environmental protection or social justice, whatever it is for you. In fact, many of these people don’t even believe that what you care about is an issue at all.
**Feel free to pause here while you do this. Allow any feelings to arise in relation to this, breathe, and let them be.**
Try to get a bit more specific now and apply this process to your “passion action” that you’ve been developing through Joyality .. and focus on people who you want to be different in relation to your passion action. You want them to act differently and make different decisions, and to support you in the differences you want to make, the differences you want to bring to the world. See if you can write a list of these people. They can be specific individuals or a type or a role, for example the police, or other students in my course, or my family or the prime minister of Australia. Write yourself a really good list of people in your Joyality Journal.
**Feel free to pause here while you do this. **
When you’ve done that, choose one of these people. It is easiest to do this process the first time focusing on someone you already know. You may want to choose them because they are particularly challenging, or they just resonate or stand out as someone you would like to feel closer to, or perhaps they are a person that is very important in terms of your strategy for change making (refer to your journal notes from the end of Joyality 401).
“To deeply understand what is important to another does not mean that we must DO what they want. Understanding them also does not mean that we have to agree with them. And understanding them does not mean that they are right and we are wrong.”
– Jon Russell
Process: Part 1
Visualising this person that you have chosen to do this exercise with, and holding them in your imagination for a moment.
What is their usual reaction to you when you are expressing what you care about and the actions you would like to take to make the world a better place? (If you haven’t actually expressed those things to this person then just imagine what their reaction might be if you were to express those things.)
How do you feel when that happens? What emotions come up for you?
Allow yourself to sit with that feeling, exploring it gently and nurture yourself and do whatever you feel to take care of yourself in that moment. You might feel to draw upon one of your selves from the Voice Dialogue process. You might want to use the focusing technique. Just breathe and allow that feeling to release back to where it came from, or down into the earth, into the nature that we are, or just to be there present without needing it to change.
You might want to ask yourself what you need, or what you would like to happen in that situation, and see if any insights come.
The main thing we need to do is to give ourselves some attention and nurturing in that situation. It is important to give ourselves compassion first, connecting with our feelings and needs, and maybe even figuring out a request for ourselves or the other person. That way, we can move through a potentially triggering situation, in an empowered way.
You might like to write a few notes in your Joyality Journal.
Process: Part 2
When you are ready, shift your attention to the person in your imagination in front of you. What do you know about them? Their lifestyle? Their values? Their wants and needs? We’re going to explore a series of questions, so if you haven’t done so already I invite you to close your eyes and image as clearly as you can, making up details if you don’t know them, but its important to try not to parody this person. So be as realistic as you can be.
1. Getting Aquainted. The first set of questions are:
What does this person look like? What sorts of clothes do they wear? What sort of hair style?
See them as clearly as you can in your imagination. Just allow images to pass across your minds’ eye, inviting you to consider different aspects of this person. You don’t need to write anything down, just get in contact with them through your imagination.
How do they spend their day? How do they earn a living? Who do they spend their time with? And what do they really care about?
2. What Makes Them Tick? For this second set of questions you might want to use your journal to explore your answers:
What might they think makes people happy?
How might they think the world can be made a better place?
3. Why is That So? Again, use your journal to explore your answers:
Why do you think they see the world that way?
What media might they be immersed in? What big story does that media tell about the state of the world? About whats important? About what makes people happy?
Like us they might be increasingly bombarded with disturbing news about the state of the world. How do you think they might deal with that information? Would they push it away and deny it? Do they get depressed by it? Do they take positive action?
Reflection: Now spend some time reflecting on what you’ve written, what you’ve imagined about this person, and ask yourself this question:
What do you have in common?
This might be aspects of your ecological shadow, a shared interest, friends, workplace or industry, or a place/location … anything at all. Spend quite a bit of time on this question and really brainstorm “What do I have in common with this person? How am I similar to them? What beliefs, values and feelings do we share?”
Throughout the rest of this week we invite you to learn more about this person and reflecting on their reality, world view and core values. You can do this through observing the person in real life, the media or if you get the chance try engaging with them to find out three things:
What they really care about?
What they think makes them and other people happy?
How they think the world can be made a better place?
Source: This exercise is based on The Philosophy of Life Game, which Dr Eshana Bragg developed and has been practicing with groups of people for the last 15 years or so. It is inspired by the work of Katrina Shields, in her book In the Tigers Mouth (1991), particularly the chapter called Building Bridges with the Opposition.
Other Resources: See Marshall Rosenberg’s Compassionate Communication.
This exercise is done in two parts. The first can be done at home or wherever you’re comfortable. The second part should be done somewhere in the outer world, in a place that you feel disconnected from nature. Remember to take your Joyality Journal with you!
Purpose & Preparation
To prepare for this process, you’ll need to do 3 things:
Make sure you can access this page on your phone or other mobile device, and that you have enough data to stream audio. (If you can’t, then you’ll need to download the Connect Wherever 2 (Process and Reflection) onto your mobile device. Let us know if you need help with that.)
Choose a physical place to do the Connect Wherever Process (guidance below)
and, before you go to that location, we suggest you re-listen to theElemental Beingmeditation.
Now think about and choose a physical place that is similar to the place you are likely to do your change making in. Choose a challenging place that is quite disconnected from nature, for example, somewhere that’s air-conditioned with no openable windows, or perhaps it has no windows at all. You could even practice this in a shopping centre. The best way to practice this activity is to choose a place where you feel uncomfortable and disconnected from the things you really care about.
Now that you have chosen your changemaking place, think about how you might travel there. Whatever your answer is make sure you travel that last few 100m on foot, before going inside a building, so that you can listen to this audio whilst you are walking to your change making venue.
“I act on the conviction that everyone is making a difference. Just by living our lives, consuming space and resources [and interacting with other people] we are making a difference. Our choice is what kind of difference we want to make.”
– Fran Peavey
Process & Reflection
Reflection:
Tune into your body, your emotions and state of mind, see if you feel any different than you normally do in a space like this, and write about this in your Joyality Journal.
How are you feeling? What is your state of mind?
Do you feel more connected to life and nature than you normally do in this space?
If so which parts of this exercise gave you the strongest feelings of life and nature and the force of evolution. Write this down, because these are the most powerful practises or thoughts and concepts for you to focus on when you are coming into an environment to do some change making in the world around you.
Purpose: A lot of our change-making work doesn’t take place in the most beautiful spaces. It is often in the city, in air conditioned buildings, perhaps inside a corporate business environment, maybe a parliament house, council chambers, city hall, or in Congress. Even if we are doing our change making processes in natural spaces, there are often some very disturbing things happening in those places as well, such as destruction caused by logging or mining, toxic waste dumping or the break down of previously thriving ecosystems.
These places can feel quite soulless and quite disconnected from our values, the inspiration and beauty of nature and the kind of lifestyle and society we are trying to create.
The question is, how can we stay inspired, connected to and invigorated by those values, by those things we really care about, when we are in an uninspiring and disconnected space?
The process we are about to do is a series of tools and techniques to help you feel more connected with the larger processes of life, no matter where you are, so that you can draw upon that inspiration and power in your change making.
We invite you to practice this now, ahead of time, so that you can become very familiar with the process of feeling connected when you actually do your action or your change work. This is also a good time to remind ourselves that change-making is not separate from our ordinary lives and ordinary places that we find ourselves working and living.
“I act on the conviction that everyone is making a difference. Just by living our lives, consuming space and resources [and interacting with other people] we are making a difference. Our choice is what kind of difference we want to make.”
– Fran Peavey
Preparation: To prepare for this process, you’ll need to do 3 things:
Make sure you can access this page on your phone or other mobile device, and that you have enough data to stream audio. (If you can’t, then you’ll need to download the Connect Wherever 2 (Process and Reflection) onto your mobile device. Let us know if you need help with that.)
Choose a physical place to do the Connect Wherever Process (guidance below)
and, before you go to that location, we suggest you re-listen to the Elemental Being meditation.
Now think about and choose a physical place that is similar to the place you are likely to do your change making in. Choose a challenging place that is quite disconnected from nature, for example, somewhere that’s air-conditioned with no openable windows, or perhaps it has no windows at all. You could even practice this in a shopping centre. The best way to practice this activity is to choose a place where you feel uncomfortable and disconnected from the things you really care about.
Now that you have chosen your changemaking place, think about how you might travel there. Whatever your answer is make sure you travel that last few 100m on foot, before going inside a building, so that you can listen to this audio whilst you are walking to your change making venue.
*** Pause here whilst you go to the start of your walk, about 100metres from your inside location. ***
Process: You have arrived at the start of your walk. We invite you to look around you, get yourself oriented to where you are. Spend half a minute or so doing that. Like the very first Joyality walking meditation you did, remember the idea of a silent disco, focus on your own experience and enjoyment in this process even though you’ll be surrounded by other people going about their daily business.
Make sure you are standing still, and in a safe place. Now look up … this is something we often don’t do when we are walking through town or in the city. Look up into the sky and notice what you see there, what the weather is like, whether the sun is shining or whether it is cloudy, what sort of clouds there are… are they moving fast across the sky? Or are they just still? Just tuning into the weather… See if you can tune into the vastness of space that is up behind that sky, up towards the sun and out further into the solar system. Connecting into your big context.
Now looking down around you more normally, start to walk. As you walk towards the venue, just become really aware of your feet walking on the pavement or the road and start to draw your attention further down as you walk, underneath the concrete, underneath the bitumen, down, being aware of the soil beneath you and the rocks, the different geological layers down below your feet. As you are walking see if you can become aware of the lay of the land. So what shape does this landscape, the natural landscape, under the roads and pathways, what shape does that take … going up a hill, down a hill, round corners, feeling the shape of the land beneath you. That may even take you back in time a little, imagining what this landscape was like before all the buildings and the streets were made…. I wonder where the natural lines of the creek were, what the trees and natural vegetation were like.
As you continue walking, draw your attention to any vegetation that is around you. Are you walking past any parks, or are there any street trees, are there small bits of grass growing through the cracks in the concrete? And hardy weeds? Allow your attention to be drawn to the nature that is around you in that human made landscape. Allow yourself to marvel at the wonder and the strength of that nature that is around.
*** Pause here whilst you absorb and notice the environment around you … continue when you are nearing your destination. ***
As you are nearing your change-making place: Keep walking or, if you’ve already arrived, find a seat somewhere either outside or inside. Draw your attention a little more into yourself, but make sure you also have enough attention on what’s around you so you keep yourself physically safe. Focus on the nature that you are, the nature that is inside you, that is connecting with you all the time. Practising a mini version of the Elemental Being meditation, become aware of your breath and the connection between you and the atmosphere. Every in-breath, really feel grateful for the life force that is entering you.
Then drawing your attention to the water that is in your body. The beautiful soft fluids that are moving around, take a drink of water if you have some with you and appreciate the blood that is taking all the nutrients and energy around your system.
Now drawing attention to the solidity, the earth element within your body, your bones, your strong framework that allows you to stand tall, stand in your power and feel the element of earth within you, strong and secure.
Finally focusing on the element of fire as you are walking, feel the heat energy of the exercise as you walk, be aware of the energy of the sun that has come through the food that you have eaten, into your body, the fire in your belly, the passion that you feel for life.
Now ending this meditation on your elemental being, focusing on all of those elements coming together and recognising the force within you of life affirming life. Seeing if you can focus on the power of positive evolution that’s flowing through your being right now. That can support you on any of the positive changes that you wish to make and inspire within others.
*** Pause here while you find your destination and actually enter the space or the room where you are going to practice the rest of this nature connection process. ***
At the change making venue: Now that you’re inside inside your change-making venue, your disconnected place, find somewhere that is quite comfortable to sit and just be for a while. Find yourself a seat where people are unlikely to disturb you, or get yourself set up in such a way that looks like you’re busy so no-one will interrupt you.
*** Pause here while you settle into your spot. ***
Now that you’re comfortable, we invite you to focus in on the nature within yourself. Centre yourself by taking a few deep breaths, focusing on the air, your breathing that is within you. The water, the earth and the fire. Just settling yourself into the natural being that you are. Appreciating that. Focusing on and appreciating the beauty that you are. Finding that place inside your heart, inside your body where you are really connected to that joy, that beauty, that peace.
We invite you to close your eyes and see if in this place, which might be busy and noisy, see if you can focus and come into a calm place within yourself, with your elemental being.
*** Pause here whilst your give your self as much time as you need to connect with that calm peaceful space within yourself, take as long as you need there is no rush, this might take a couple of seconds or even several minutes. Practise tuning in, just have a go, before opening your eyes and continuing. ***
Human connection. Now that you’ve opened your eyes again, have a look around the room or the space that you’re in. Become aware of all the different things that are in there, tables and chairs, or decorations, curtains, light fittings, whatever is in that space. Start to become aware of all the hands of the people that have used these things, how many people have touched and used all these objects around you? Who have they been?
Then cast your mind back to the history of these objects, think about how many hands have been involved in making these things, in the manufacturing process, in the transportation process, how many other people have been involved in actually making this whole space, all the things in it, the building itself. Think of all of those people and how, being in this space right now, you are connected to all of those people.
If there are other people in the room, in the space with you, allow you attention to be drawn to them, really opening up, with curiosity, thinking who are the other people sharing this space with me. See if you can practice seeing the beauty within them. Practising something that is other than your ordinary sense of consciousness in this space … and really sit and allow the beauty of these people to become apparent to you.
*** Pause here whilst you give yourself time to do this. ***
Natural Origins. The last part of this process is to focus again on the objects within the room, within the space, and allow them to connect you into their source, into the source of everything on Earth.
Have a look at some of the objects around you, just take one to start with and take yourself back through what you know of how this object has been created, how it’s been manufactured and what the source materials of those objects are, there might be a few of them. Do this the best you can, using your imagination if you don’t know for sure.
Follow each of those components of the object back to its original source, so if its steel then think of the iron ore that it was manufactured from and the fire, the energy that was used and where that came from. So the original source of the fire would have eventually been from the sun and the source of the iron ore was from the mineral in the ground.
Allow each of these objects to take you back to the raw source, the natural original place in nature that these things come from. By doing that see if you can feel connected to nature as you sit here in this place. Recognising there is no separation. We, and our human made environments, are all made of stardust.
*** Pause here while you follow as many objects back to their source. ***
Reflection: Now that you have finished that process, I invite you to stand up and walk around in that space, do something a bit more normal and ordinary in that place, whether that is buying something to eat or drink, or just having a light conversation with someone, or going to wash your hands, whatever it is that comes naturally to you.
*** Pause here whilst you do that. ***
Tune into your body, your emotions and state of mind, see if you feel any different than you normally do in a space like this, and write about this in your Joyality Journal.
How are you feeling? What is your state of mind?
Do you feel more connected to life and nature than you normally do in this space?
If so which parts of this exercise gave you the strongest feelings of life and nature and the force of evolution. Write this down, because these are the most powerful practises or thoughts and concepts for you to focus on when you are coming into an environment to do some change making in the world around you.
Source: Dr Eshana Bragg, inspired by workshop processes first experienced with John Seed (Thinking Like a Mountain, 1988); David Abrams (The Spell of the Sensuous, 1996) and Wes Nisker (Buddha’s Nature, 1998).
Joyality is that feeling you get when every cell of your being is joyful, peaceful, and alive. It is that feeling that you can’t quite put words to, because they could never do it justice. It is deeply related to beauty, love, and the pure exuberance for being alive, but exactly what it is will always be something of a mystery.
The Joyality Program 