The Vision
In 1991. I was invited by my friend, Doug Peterson to attend the “Pursuit of Excellence” weekend workshop. It was conducted at the Context organization which had it roots in Mind Dynamics and the Human Potential Movement. The Pursuit weekend was followed by two other trainings “The Wall” and “The Advancement“. I attended all three and they were instrumental in helping me reawaken my latent sense of spirituality.
During The Wall, we were given the exercise of imagining ourselves to be a few years before the end of our lives and draw a picture of what was happening. My picture, which still lives in my mind, imagined myself living in a large, split-level home in the foothills of the mountains. It was Christmas time and friends and members of my family started arriving for some sort of party. Pretty soon, the house was full to overflowing. I looked out through the window in the living room and the field in front of our house was filled with people holding candles. In the distance, there was a long line of cars still arriving. Even as I write this, I can feel the overwhelming sense of connection I felt with these people who had come to honor me for somehow touching their lives.
That image still lives within me and manifests as the driving force of my life: to touch peoples lives by helping them connect more deeply with themselves and with others. It shows up in the name of my coaching practice and the name of this website.
ConneXions
What lights me up is helping someone else light up. It is what draws me to coaching and teaching and it lives in the heart of my own personal mission:
My mission is to deepen authentic connection in my world by teaching, coaching and modeling conscious, courageous and compassionate transformation.
My vision for the Gateways Community is to use the time that remains in my life to help as many people as I can to find deep and abiding connection in their lives.
The Plan
I want to grow the community organically by holding frequent and regular meetings online, and wherever possible, in person.
We have started with one meeting every week for whomever shows up. We limit the meeting to one hour and the structure is simple. We do a check-in, we talk about whatever comes up, and then we check out.
Everyone interested in taking any of our workshops is welcome, but for the time being, I am restricting participation to men only. As the community grows, we will start new meetings, and open up to women when it feels right to do so. I can feel inner turmoil around this issue, and I recognize how important it is to be open and inclusive. And I also recognize how important it is to create a space of emotional safety so that men can do their work. There is something sacred about gender-specific meetings, and I hold this issue carefully and mindfully.
Ultimately, the real driving force that will determine whether this notion Conscious Community will work is whether people get significant value from these meetings. The metric I have used for 20+ years to decide whether to go to I-Group meetings is how I feel when the meeting is over. And the vast majority of the time, I leave I-group meetings feeling better than I felt when I arrived.
I welcome your thoughts and feedback.
Let's Connect!
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