Thrive to new perspectives
Over the weekend I went to Thrive, a symposium for humans who want to get hands on about connecting. The conference is the brainchild of Rei Alphonso who also gives the first keynote. Rei confesses that she feels like her guts are hanging out. But it’s ok because Thrive is a safe space to be vulnerable and establish connections with other humans. There are different workshop streams like communication skills, transformative justice, bodywork and grief and despair work.
The first workshop I attend is on community responses to violence and sexual assault by Undercurrent Victoria.
I was pretty shaken by the “Me Too” campaign a few weeks ago. So many of my friends have experienced sexual harassment or assault or both. I talked to a lot of my friends about it. It was pretty much the consensus that if you are a woman, sexual harassment or worse would have happened to you. I was shocked. I don’t want to live in a world where women are afraid to encounter men, because sexual assault and harassment are so common. I felt powerless because I didn’t know how improve the current situation other than reflecting on my own words and actions and calling out inappropriate or offensive comments or actions made by others. Two friends mentioned the workshops of Undercurrent find out more about the topic.
During the workshop there are a lot for discussions on the reasons of gendered violence. My main take away is that rigid gender roles are one of the main drivers of gendered violence. It makes me wonder, if rigid roles are one of the main drivers of violence in general? A lot of conflicts result in violence because one of the sides is so fixed on their own position that they can’t see the view of the other side anymore. If they could see things from the perspective of the other side, they wouldn’t resort to violence. Nobody likes having violence done to them. I can see that putting more flexibility on roles will cause less violence. What I took from experiencing the workshop is that it is important to train yourself to see things from new perspectives and encourage others to do the same, like talking with women about their experiences of being female. If you are in Melbourne I can highly recommend to attend one of the excellent Undercurrent workshops.
In the afternoon, Lana Woolf is running a workshop on story-telling for strategic change. We all sit in a circle and after checking in, we tell stories about times when we felt a special connection with a friend. All stories very heartfelt and look at theme from lots of different angles.
The second day starts with Nevo Zisin who gives a captivating keynote on their journey to discover themselves. Nevo is non-binary, which means they identify, as neither female nor male. What I find most fascinating is their change in perspective as Nevo explores different parts of them in relation to the world around them. Nevo published a book a their journey. It is called Finding Nevo.
The first workshop I attend on the second day is Rage Meditation by Miriam. Miriam is developing a new type of meditation technique that allows you to turn your anger into compassion. At first we are discussing what rage means to us. Then we enter a guided meditation where we think of something that upsets us and then flip it to turn it into compassion, essentially turning fear into love. It kind of works for me, I feel angry first and turn into more controlled and balanced state.
After lunch Morgan Lee Cataldo gives a moving talk, sharing her insights into the topic of lived experience and her personal stories of working alongside those with marginalised identities. At the end of the talk she asks everyone to their hand above their tummy and go into themselves and listen to words and feelings that may come up. The two words that resonated the most for me were perspective and free.
The afternoon workshop I attend is called Deep Time: questions from the future by Kiri Bear. After a few group connection exercises we get split into two groups. One group represents our generation, the other group seven generations in the future. The future generations are asking about the past; for example why have we lived in such a destructive way towards the planet and towards each other, and how we moved away from destruction to a better world. I am in the group of the current generation and have to provide answers to my descendants. It’s pretty moving reflecting on what you are doing right now based on a future perspective.
Last session is by Duuvy on Home, a vehicle for self realisation. He has been building earthships in Mexico and Australia. Earthships are houses made from natural and upcycled materials, like old tires and bottles. In his presentation he has a slide titled: The art of not giving a fuck and embracing your inner weird. He explains: “If you embrace your weirdness it will give you a 360 degree view of all of the opportunities around you.” This really resonates with me. Too often we are judging ourselves which prevents us from making great discoveries.
I remember Rei saying at some point during the conference: “We are all weird.” We are all weird and unique in our own ways. It’s so beautiful. What I really loved about the symposium was how open everyone was. It created such a loving and safe atmosphere that allowed to connect and develop new ideas and perspectives. I made new friends and got so many new insights. A huge thank you to Rei Alphonso and everyone else for taking initiative and creating a space to thrive.
