Thought-provoking ideas, and transformative tools and training for working with individuals, groups, organisations, and communities.
An invitation to awareness to start the New Year
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Dear Reader It’s 2025! How did that happen!!! October 2024 seemed like only a few weeks ago! Time travel etc aside, we hope you’ve had a wonderful start to the New Year. The first of January is a particularly special day for fans of Process Work as it’s the birthday of the founder of Process Work, Arnold Mindell. For many years, out of both generosity and interest, Arny would invite people on Facebook to share the dream they had on New Year’s Eve, and he would offer hundreds of interpretations, underpinned by the idea that NYE dreams contain themes for the coming year. For those of us studying his work, this was always thrilling – the opportunity to have Arny interpret your dream was a real privilege! His interest was also research - inquiring into what was collectively being dreamt for the upcoming year by studying the emerging themes from all these dreams from all over the world. He was an incredibly generous teacher and is both missed, but also, as he insisted, still with us in spirit. Thank goodness because we still have so much to learn together! There’s no doubt we’re facing many challenges on this planet. In times of such heightened precarity, humans naturally tend to seek a level of certainty – we all want to feel safe and belong. But certainty is only ever from one perspective, and rarely lasting as the spirit of life itself is ever-changing. Indigenous cultures and spiritual mystics have always been close to this knowledge. Aboriginal Elder Dr Miriam Rose Ungunmurr speaks and writes about Dadirri – ‘inner deep listening and quiet still awareness'. How can we, in these times, listen with awareness? To each other, the planet’s, and our own signals, rather than constantly rushing around trying to ‘fix’ things without first really understanding what is being asked of us? Three suggestions to start 2025 with awareness: 1. Ground your year by beginning with the spirit and wisdom of Dadirri by watching this video (note – permission was sought and given to share this from Dr Miriam Rose Ungunmurr) and making space for inner deep listening, bringing awareness to that which animates your life. 2. Embrace the Pause. Awareness starts by the simple (or extremely difficult) act of slowing down to notice. It might help to build in or create opportunities for pausing and reflecting in your life, relationships, and groups. How might you carve out little opportunities to ask: What am I noticing right now? Try focusing this noticing in less thought-based ways – in your body, sensations, nature – and without judgement. 3. Learn with others to build our collective understanding. These times demand something of us all, but not the SAME something. Learning with others doesn’t always mean learning in community – many of us need to also digest, reflect, and integrate our learnings alone. Dance with both, so we can learn from each other, building our collective learning skills as well as our individual and relationship learning skills. Here at ANZPOP, what we’ve been listening to is a calling, from inside and out, dreaming signals and world signals - to teach and learn Process Work together in a diverse community. Learning with each other as we travel along this life together, in all ways our paths cross. This is our reason for being. Our first offerings for 2025 are an opportunity for just that, to learn deeply with a group of fellow travelers over a luxurious two years. Offered in both Melbourne and Byron Bay, our Two-Year Process Work Study Program brings together a community of learners to journey together, exploring the foundational theories, skills, and applications of the Process Work model, in a highly experiential and connected way. All of the topics, whilst in title form might look like a specialisation, are relevant to all areas of our lives. Process Work is a life and work practice and the course is an opportunity to learn and anchor the awareness skills of Process Work into your life, relationships, and work - whether you know a little, a lot, or absolutely nothing about Process Work! The application deadline for the Byron Bay course is this week – January 10, and for Melbourne, January 17. If this course has been flirting with you – take that pause to check in, and if the timing feels right – register here for the final places. We are excited to share our other public offerings in more depth as the year unfolds but for those keen to get the Process Work Community Conference dates pencilled in…this year it’s all happening on 22-23 Aug at the Gold Coast. Looking forward to learning together and all that 2025 has in store. Warmly The ANZPOP Team |
ANZPOP
Thought-provoking ideas, and transformative tools and training for working with individuals, groups, organisations, and communities.
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