The final Mindful Play Session of the season saw 42 playful people gather to explore their relationship with connection. We started with a TED-style talk, exploring firstly why connection is important:

We brainstormed 'what does connection give us?' and 'why might people struggle to connect?' before I launched into the story of Rat Park:

Rat Park was an experiment which explored the nature of addiction, concluding:

If you'd like to read more about Rat Park, click here to find Bruce Alexander's article.

Next, wondering how we're going to heal the whole of society, we returned back to Brene Brown:

To explore the tools of empathy, I brought in a bit of Non-Violent Communication(NVC) theory, which you can read more about in my last blog. I spoke about how NVC proposes that our met and unmet needs generate our feelings, which in turn influence our behaviour. Empathetic awareness of our own and other people's needs and feelings can lead to deeper connection, whereas judgement  / non-ownership of feelings and needs can lead to disconnect:

Whatever pisses us off about other people is generally something to do with a need in us that needs more attention.

To round off the talk, I brought in a quote from Thich Nhat Hahn:

After the talk, we meditated and played with the theme of connection, ending with an embodied group brainstorm on the actions that promote connection, here's some:

The Mindful Play Sessions were a joy to create and deliver. I'm super-grateful for all the 70+ people who came out to play over the last 2 months, I salute your dedication to play and connection!  I'm also massively grateful to my amazing support team- to Beccy, Greg, Jess, Claire, Joe, Rhys and Cat, who supported me in the workshops and all my friends who supported me outside, especially big up to Joe and Tone. I wouldn't be able to do this without support, so THANK YOU ALL! 

Watch this space to find out how all this translates into a book!