I'm a recovering academic who uses her insights from behavioural economics to develop methods that facilitate collaboration. In my weekly newsletter, I share the summary of my latest interview on the "workshops work" podcast along with an application of facilitation as a life and leadership skill.
The Power of a Calm Mind || 🎙️ Episode 352 Less Thinking, More Sensing: Embodiment in Facilitation with Mirjam Leunissen
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Dear Reader, I came back from ten days of silence on Sunday. No phone. No writing. No reading. No podcasts. Just long hours of sitting, scanning sensations, and noticing how quickly the mind wants things to be different. Less pain. More comfort. A way out. Vipassana calls the practice equanimity. The capacity to stay with sensation as it is, without craving when it’s pleasant and without aversion when it’s unpleasant. Not suppressing. Not indulging. Simply noticing. When we stop feeding our mind new input, it starts showing you what’s already there. This morning, I was about to record the podcast episode for the evening. The team had been briefed and cleared their calendars to jump into editing as soon as I finished. And then: nothing. The guest didn’t show up. And on my end, no spike of irritation, no scrambling to fix the situation while mentally cursing it. Just a clear look at what was actually happening. It took me less than five minutes to realise that I had the perfect solution sitting in the other room: My fiancée, who happens to be one of the best embodiment coaches around. When asked if she was up for a spontaneous recording, she was! What followed was a grounded, generous conversation. I learned from her, as I always do, and found myself weaving fresh Vipassana insights into her deep body-based knowledge without effort. As it seems, Gautama Buddha might well have been one of the first embodiment coaches. Long before theories and labels, he worked with sensation, reaction, and the human habit of making things harder than they need to be. 🎙 Meanwhile, on the podcast…Take a moment to tune into your body. Do your muscles feel tense, is your heartbeat slow and steady, is your jaw clamped tight? Embodiment coach and one-week-old facilitator, my fiancée Mirjam Leunissen joins me this week for a podcast first! As a scientist in a past life, Mirjam spent her days distilling data points – and she continues to do so under a new guise, now recognising patterns in the body, in emotions, and how people show up. We explore how embodiment can be a gateway to changing perspective and mastering our own comfort, as Mirjam shares practical tips for making sense of our bodies. A beautiful invitation to think a little less, sense a lot more, and come back to being a whole human being! Find out about:
🎧 Click here to listen to the interview📥 Check out my 1-page summary 🎧 Join the next podcast club gatheringWhile counting down the final episodes of workshops work until it's retirement on December 31st, I am inviting you to join me on Substack where I am creating a Podcast Club: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/ In January, we will gather around the theme of Polarisation in Facilitation. Click here to sign up for free. That’s it from my side! I hope you enjoy the content and find inspiration in the stories and the podcast. I wish you a week where you notice what’s already there, before trying to change it. I’ll see you next week! Myriam
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How can we facilitate collaboration?
I'm a recovering academic who uses her insights from behavioural economics to develop methods that facilitate collaboration. In my weekly newsletter, I share the summary of my latest interview on the "workshops work" podcast along with an application of facilitation as a life and leadership skill.
Dear Reader, By the time you read this, I’ll be sitting in silence. Today will be day six out of ten. Ten hours of meditation a day. No phone, no notebook, no book, no calendar. Just me, my breath, and whatever Goenka has to say about observing sensations without reacting to them. It’s my sixth Vipassana (listen to my insights after the last), which means I should know by now that the first two days feel excruciating. My mind throws a tantrum like a toddler whose iPad has been taken away....
Dear Reader, I said yes. Too quickly. Again. And here I am, looking at the pile of broken glass, wondering what I could have done differently. Isn't it ironic that I'm a facilitator who literally teaches people how to work together. And still, I fell into the oldest trap in the book. Someone invited me to collaborate on something exciting. I felt flattered. My gut told me to slow down, to have a real conversation about how we'd work together. But I didn't want to be the difficult one....
Dear Reader, How do you know whether the group you're speaking to is engaged or not? Last week I was facilitating a workshop on the basics of facilitation for a new community. I asked a question. Silence. Everyone stayed on mute. I tried another prompt. More silence. But people had their cameras on and smiled—they were clearly engaged, just not speaking. I've written about the sound of silence in facilitation, and this week Yuko shares the Japanese perspective on it in the podcast. But last...