You are warmly invited to a space of heartfelt care, humble learning and mutual curiosity; where people meet people from across the oceans and share their thoughts, ideas and stories. 

 

This is an ongoing improvised exploration of questions like what is essential, who am I now, what is work, health, education, growth, power, and more. As we listen to each other and share spontaneously, we dive ever deeper into the experience of how your story changes my story and vice versa. ​​

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​The People Need People process addresses the nature of community in a new form, creating conversations that reach beyond polarisation, fracture and silos.

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Mindfulness experts encourage people to practice being in the moment while walking, exercising, eating, talking and even washing the dishes. But it turns out that it’s not that simple……to be truly "mindful," we have to approach these experiences in a very specific way: with curiosity and openness, engaging our whole self, yet with a certain lightness of spirit to let go of prejudices, mental habits, and attachment to outcomes. 

But wait just one moment!

Doesn’t all of this complicated adult gobbledygook boil down, in the end, to something quite obvious to any five-year-old? Isn’t it just another expression of the crazy shenanigans we used to get up for hours at a time as kids? To the simple act of PLAY, which all children regard as the best possible way to spend each waking minute of their lives?

This workshop, inspired by imaginary spiritual traditions such as the Tao of Pooh, the Poppins School of Perfect Presence and the Ministry of Mindful Silly Walks, will provide a resounding answer to these urgent questions. 

Over the course of five hours, Alex Menhams and Eduardo Jáuregui will guide us not towards a distant “enlightenment”, but to a lightness of being available to everyone at all times. They will encourage us to stop treating meditation as mental “training”, a difficult “discipline”, or even something to be “achieved” or “attained”, and to finally give ourselves the permission enjoy the present moment as a place of wonder, ease, freedom, adventure and play. Just like we did at age five. 

Silent meditation will give way to bodily movement, inner work to creative interaction. We will recapture the spirit of school recess, believe in impossible things, laugh at our inevitable mistakes, fears, and imperfections. All of it within in a safe space of mutual care, where the simple wisdom and spontaneity we once knew can be liberated, free at long last to skip, hop, whistle and dance. 

Thanks to these mindful games, designed to help us dive headfirst into the roiling uncertainty of the present moment, and to the rediscovery of the endless creativity within each and every human being, we'll have astonishing amounts of pure unadulterated fun while learning a number of super serious lessons. Or at least that’s what we'll try!