Two days with a group of strangers exploring embodiment might seem like a challenge, especially if the ideas and practices are completely new. Yet again and again, participants in Radical Wholeness Weekend Workshops report transformative insights and experiences.
The participants in the most recent workshop we held here in Oxford reported things like developing a capacity to ‘listen’ to the breath, sensing the breath wave in the pelvis and perineum and discovering the energy and aliveness that live in that part of the body. Others reported experiencing the pleasure of feeling more grounded and centred and yet others discovered their still point and the presence that radiates from it.
Why are these experiences desirable? Every time a part of us comes into awareness, we feel more whole and more at home. In the words of Philip Shepherd who developed the Radical Wholeness Workshops, this process brings the ‘orphans’ home. It is, of course, necessary to greet these orphans with kindness and compassion, whatever state they are in, and lead them gently and safely back to the pelvis and this is another skill participants start to master.
A lot of ground is covered over the weekend and not all of it makes sense the first time. Participants connect with ideas and practices that are right for them in the moment. And while the insights and experiences of the weekend initiate change and offer a new direction of travel, the changes only become firmly established with practice. But with practice and often with further workshops, awareness grows, not just of ourselves but also of others and of the non-human world. Every time an ‘orphan’ comes home our nervous systems start to feel safer, so they are less easily triggered and overwhelmed. This enables a new level of sensitivity, creativity and strength that can be brought to bear on knotty relationships issues at home and further afield to the great global issues of conflict, violence and climate change.
