Gill South tries a meditation retreat but finds it hard to keep to the code of silence.
It’s probably not the best idea to arrive at a peaceful, “silent” leadership retreat, red-faced and sweating. The walk to its location at Eden Garden on the side of Mt Eden took longer than I’d thought.
My meditation retreat today is being run by clinical psychologists Lisa Markwick and Marijka Batenburg – the workshop is based on Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “mindfulness” methods. Lisa is an experienced leadership facilitator and coach with her company Mindful Adventures and has been recommended to me by Barry Coates, the executive director of Oxfam New Zealand, an excellent big thinker and an advocate of meditation.
According to Lisa, mindfulness is not something you have to get or acquire. It is a rich resource of aliveness already within you, waiting for your attention.
In this workshop people are asking themselves questions such as: How can I slow down when all around me is speeding up? What wisdom am I missing as I “think” my way through big issues? All this is very topical as everyone in the room is reeling from…
