Already two weeks ago we started a five-day training about facilitative leadership in Ubud, Bali. The training was led by a couple we had met earlier, when we attended one of their cacao ceremonies. Elah and Ausierra are originally from the United States, but are currently based in Ubud. The group that we started the course with consisted of nine women from all over the world. It was special that almost all continents were represented and it was inspiring to see how all women – in their own way – are creating the life they want to live. The aim of these five days was to guide the participants in their leadership roles and in their task of facilitating group processes. This is something every women is going to do in her own way, including ourselves of course. The days were filled with different kinds of meditation techniques, yoga exercises, as well as individual and group exercises, sharing experiences and exchanging advice.
Apart from many different personal learning experiences for Myrthe and myself, we also learned a lot from how Elah and Ausierra guided the course. Some things we can do in a similar way, other things we would want to do differently. Every leader has their own style, and we believe it is very important to stay close to what feels natural to you. Our workshops will probably a bit more practical than the exercises we did in this course, because this is a way of working we are comfortable with. After a month of interesting meetings, trainings and learning experiences, we’d like to share a short list of learned lessons we take home until now:
- When you are the most authentic version of yourself, you’re the best leader you can be.
- All people carry an incredible amount of experiences and knowledge within them, use this wisdom of the crowd!
- As a leader you have the responsibility (the ability to respond) to act on situations in a way that benefits the collective, the whole group. Responding is the opposite of reacting, in which you would handle situations based on your primary emotions, such as fear or anger.
- You are more than your mind. If we want to be fully engaged and energized, we need to activate both our body, our mind, our heart and our spirit. Everyone has their own comfort zones and preferences in activating these different dimensions, therefore we will make sure to integrate exercises for mental, physical, emotional and spiritual activation in our workshops.
- To us, sharing and reflection are crucial tools if we want to understand ourselves and each other better. Therefore, our workshops will include a lot of interaction and group exercises.
- Obviously, we aim to design sessions which cover the needs of the participants. To us, a great leader however, also allows and creates space for their participants to use their time in the way that they feel would benefit them most. If this means someone needs other types of activities than the ones we have scheduled, this would always be completely fine.
- The importance of setting intentions! Also in business, visualising or describing where you want to be in five years time can be extremely valuable. Obviously, this direction can change over time, but setting your intended goal is especially important when you are working with other people to achieve a joint mission.
- And last but not least: create time for the unexpected!
The beautiful thing is that everyone can use their own talents to contribute to the ‘new earth’, which we called the society of the future in the training. A world based on different values than the one we are living in now. And to create this world we need everyone, whether you are focusing on sustainability, on personal development, societal awareness or anything else. The group in this training was an inspiring example of this: every woman explained her unique Sun (which varied from working with natural medicine to creating art installations or organising sustainable group travels) that helps to build a conscious generation.
During the course two moments were very special to us, which we would like to share with you. Hence, on the third day we were part of the organisation of the weekly cacao ceremony, which was a great opportunity for us to practice our leadership roles. The ceremony was being held in Elah and Ausierra’s house, a beautiful light and open space surrounded by palm trees, jungle and a huge lawn. During the previous days we spoke about the importance of the intention you have when you do something, when you speak or when you initiate a gathering. This made us conscious of the attention and love we put into the preparations of this event. This seemed to be having its effects, because it promised to be a magical evening. Contrary to the course, in which Elah was the only male, it surprised us that again many men showed up. It was very reassuring to notice that these kinds of events attract both women and men. The evening itself was even more special than the last cacao ceremony we attended. Because we were sitting in a smaller room with this time about fourty people, the atmosphere was literally more intimate and cosy. The evening started with a Spanish song. To give you an idea of what this sounded like, we included a short recording of this moment.
Audio file ‘Tierra mi cuerpo’ during the cacao ceremony:
Tierra mi cuerpo Earth my body
Agua mi sangre Water my blood
Aire mi aliento y Air my breath, and
Fuego mi espiritu Fire my spirit
The evening that followed was beyond everything. So much power and love, a sequence of moments of pure joy. When one of the men spoke up and started speaking about love and the connection with ourselves and with each other, everyone felt goose bumps. What made this moment even more special was that this man lives in complete silence already for many months and only uses his voice when he wants to share something truly impacts his environment. It made us think about in what kind of world we would live when everyone would speak with so much intention, passion and consciousness. When during one of the songs/mantras all forty of us spontaneously formed a circle, while holding each other and singing out loud, it felt like the whole room is about to explode: so much joy, love and connection. One women concluded later on: ‘I felt like we gave the whole world an upgrade’. Simply magical. Another special moment during the course was the end of it, when all of us got the time to explain about our passion and mission to the rest of the group. After this, everyone took the time do indicate what we appreciated about that person, after five days of being together. You can imagine this was a very special afternoon. A perfect ending of an intensive few days together, in which everyone felt strengthened and supported.
After these days we could use some relaxation again, so we went back to Canggu, the surfers town on the beach located about an hour from Ubud. Here we had an appointment with Obed Abbo from the Passion Compass. He works in Bali and focuses on guiding people in finding their passion and living their dream. Obviously there were a lot of similarities with our work, which made it fun to exchange experiences. After this we met with Jan, who we met previously in Canggu and who wanted to help us with further developing our business model. After five days with a lot of spirituality – which teaches us a lot as well – it was nice to get to practicalities and concrete actions again. We discussed our ambition for Follow your Sun and how we will achieve this together. But we also talked about the financial part of it, what does it mean if we want to make a living out of Follow your Sun? A very helpful conversation which included advice, good practices as well as support. What a gift to meet all these people here.
After this, it was time for a change of scenery, so we hopped on the plane to Lombok, the island about 15 minutes flying from Bali. South Lombok was stunning: white beaches with crystal clear blue water, surrounded by palm trees and green mountains. Not (yet) as popular as Bali and therefore much less touristy, we love it. Chaotic markets, bad roads and desolated beaches, sometimes we felt we were back in Africa, amazing.
At the moment we are developing our workshop sequence, which we will start in December and January. We’re already so excited! Currently we are at Nusa Lembongan, another small island in between Lombok and Bali. Next week we have scheduled some last meetings in Bali, and then it’s time to move on. We will travel to Java, overland to Jakarta, where we will fly off to Malaysia on the 30th of October. Off to new adventures.
Bali and Lombok: thank you for the moments of inspiration, of reflection, of creation, your meetings (visualized below), the adventures, the joy, and the endless warmth and Sunshine.
With love,
Myrthe and Kiym
