Hello new OS friends!
I wanted to share with you my experience of my first ever OS event in sunny
Stoke Newington. Three weeks ago I had never heard of OS and suddenly there I
was at the World conference!
I had a blast! It was really such an enlivening space that opened up. I felt
very connected to people and found an amazing sense of presence and awareness
that made the whole thing really special. And so many amazing people!
Conferences usually involve a lot of talking, accompanied by a lot of inner
dialogue critiquing the talkers... At WOSonOS there was talking also, and there
was a lot more listening, palpable listening. I recall one person saying that
he usually talked a lot and that there he listened more, and felt heard more.
My guess is that his experience was not unique.
I want to pay tribute to Phelim and his team for such a great production,
really great, and I loved the opening night sketch and performances. I am so
grateful to you for who you are and what you bring.
And to everyone I had the real pleasure of being in conversation with: I felt
very connected to you and felt like this was something really special for the
world. I am working on using OS for some global conversations, so, watch this
space...
My session, on 'being in the moment' - we were able to have an experience of
being in the moment, and that resulted in no-one taking notes... So below are
my own retrospective notes. If anyone who was there cares to add anything,
please do.
I was so moved and touched and inspired by everyone. I was very moved at the
closing session and had tears in my eyes as we said our farewells.
I never met any of you before, but I feel like I love you.
Jonathan
The question in my mind for this session was 'I wonder if the group that
comes together for this session can have a collective experience of
being in the moment?'.
Interestingly the session was always full
with between 6 and 10 people present, and the end group was entirely
different from the beginning group. I wondered how much leaving a session might
be connected with a belief that we know about what is going to happen in that
session.
People shared their
experiences of being in the moment, and more often, not being in the
moment. One person shared that for her an experience of being out of
the moment happened when some people left the group and her thoughts
became tied up with ideas that their departure had something to do with
her. A common reaction.
I shared an experience of being absolutely present to
everything around me on a bus journey I had had recently. The people, the
traffic, the
buildings, the noise. I had experienced them all as incredibly vibrant
and alive. I was present to their vitality and noticed the way the light
fell on it all, the way that everything is so 3D. My way of being was
that I accepted whatever happened, noise, delays and so on, I resisted
nothing. I had become aware that I had beliefs about bus journeys, like
'I know bus journeys, I've done them before. I know this area, I've seen
it before'. I gave up all my beliefs, which were essentially about an
idea that I somehow knew what was in the future. A space opened up and I
realised that I had no idea what was in the future. That no-one
ever has any completely reliable idea what is in the future. And the
space that opened up was one of total openness, where actual experience
could happen. Not an idea about experience or an interpretation of it,
but experience itself. I wondered 'Could this bus journey occur to me in
a new way?'. And it did. Some places we went through occurred as though
they were film sets - the light appeared as though carefully organised
and controlled to give the best possible vision of the scene in front of
me. I have very good recall of this journey, and this makes me wonder
how much poor memory is associated with an avoidance of living fully. So this
has become a way of being which I access every day now. And one which is
available to anyone.
There
was a sharing of an experience of arriving at work and having no memory
of driving to get there. The person had been thinking for the whole
journey about the working day ahead. Was there any way that this person
could have been really present during the journey? The question arose from this
'How many moments do we miss each day?'
One
person shared that he felt he missed 80%, and that he was continually
thinking about the future. The question arose 'How would things be for
you if all that thinking wasn't there any more?'.
A few moments of silence.
I
had a split second of feeling 'Oh no, they're supposed to talk!' and
quickly came back to the moment and felt very present and aware of each
person who was with me.
Someone said "That was a really nice
silence". And it was; because we, enough of us, were able just to be
with each other, in the moment.
When the formal end point
arrived, I noted it. People asked how it had been for me and we then
carried on talking for another half an hour.
No-one took notes, so this is written up after the fact.
The
next day participants approached me and shared that they had their own
experiences of being in the moment, since the session, one person on a
bus journey, the other in a restaurant.
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