I’m not sure how it works for others, but for me, being and feeling a part of a community of like-minded therapists on a journey of experiential learning and good fellowship is an important thing. I am referring to the mindfulness meditation group that I meet with the second Friday evening of every month. Therapists in other cities maybe doing similarly already – they call it ‘convergent evolution’ – but, if they aren’t already, I put it out there as something to consider.

Here’s how it’s been looking so far these first few months. Each in our group of ten take a turn hosting.  The host mcees the evening and introduces whatever suggestions for ritual they’d like to put in place. After a number of meetings now we’ve adopted a basic structure for how we like to do the evening. We begin with meditation for fifteen-twenty minutes.  Always so nice after a busy week, I have to say. We then breath into a ‘mindful sharing of the moment’ check-in, that is surely guided by the spontaneous impression, perhaps gestalt, of the moment that emerges. Being therapists it is not hard to imagine that there is a level of open and natural sharing of ‘what’s up’.   Most of us can’t but help ourselves here. We meditate a second time for twenty minutes. Share ‘mindfully’ a second time, this time usually with a guiding theme, question or consideration. We then meditate a third time before we smile a deep inner satisfaction, and move into the closing of the evening – the mindful ‘breaking of a little bread’, potluck style. This past group we ate in mindful silence!

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