Meeting on March 27th; diplomat Hanna Lampi from Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Hello, and thank you for an excellent discussion! Hanna Lampi gave us a kick-start by telling her jump-story. Here are some findings that I found most interesting, please comment and share your insights.

BEFORE:

Hanna was living from conference to conference, interesting and challenging work, but there was no space to recuperate and understand what was really going on. "My mind was working all the time, day and night... But my superiors didn't force me to work this hard, it was my superego telling me that I was irreplaceable." Health problems and cynicism started to surface. "Cynicism is a poison... I felt that while I was growing professionally, I started to shrink as a human being. I looked at the mirror, and saw this cynical piece of shit..."

"It's Sunday morning, and I'm too tired to read Helsingin Sanomat." This was the moment Hanna realized things were developing to the wrong direction. She had trouble sleeping, and discovered a mantra to quiet her mind: "HELLITÄ", which means get loose, give way. In Finnish, it also contains the word "HELLI", which means care for, or cherish. What stopped Hanna from jumping off this merry-go-round? "I was afraid that if I had time for myself, I wouldn't be good enough... that I wouldn't like myself."

AFTER:

"I had my final fights with my superego, and then I was free to jump off. None of my fears have materialized, I've been totally happy since I took my leave. Actually, I feel I'm getting younger."

Hanna realized that she could actually do anything she wanted - but she didn't have to do something all the time. Just being at home made her so happy, and she wasn't at all bored. She's been doing a lot of skiing, and that is so fun she sings and dances at the same time.

"I have found the old me, the real me that was temporarily lost! I have stopped struggling and trying to achieve more, I just enjoy the moment. I have realized that you can't change anything, if you're feeling bad inside. Now I'm feeling whole, my body and soul united, and everything is possible." We summarised Hanna's change like this: "from a cynical piece of shit into a whole person of gold".

DISCUSSION:

Most of us can relate to this story. Of course it's good to have some time off and re-find oneself, and get well again. But what happens when you go back to work? Will the old habits creep back? We invited Hanna to join our group, so that we can follow how she's doing, especially when she goes back to work (if she does?). Hopefully Hanna joins the blog, and pops in from Helsinki to some of our meetings.

What if you had "mini-vacations" every day? Take a break during the working day, go out for a walk and breath easily, or in a meeting take a few conscious breaths and let everything go. Let part of your mind reconnect continuously to your essential self and the beingness in you. Perhaps then you won't get tired?

We also talked about wanting. If I have understood correctly, Buddhism says that life is suffering, all suffering is self-inflicted, and suffering comes from wanting. Freedom comes from not wanting, not clinging into anything (people, possessions, money, power, status). Freedom comes from accepting how things are, and the way they constantly change.

The discussion went on, covering many intercultural aspects regarding "cultural imperialism of the English language", differences between nations, being prisoners of history, and so on. Perhaps other participants could comment, so this won't be just my monologue?

KEY FINDINGS: I try to summarize my personal findings into three sentences.

1. Stress comes from being disconnected from your essential self.
2. Re-connecting to your essential self makes you whole and brings back your power.
3. When this connection is in place, anything is possible.

I wish you all a very easy-going and conscious weekend!

REMINDER: Friday March 27th at 8:30 - 11, at Park Hotel!

Hello!

I took up hosting this meeting and invited diplomat Hanna Lampi from Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Hanna has many interesting stories from Moscow, Bonn and Berlin, and regarding some recent climate negotiations around the world, but my primary motivation for inviting her is this: Hanna stopped her "busyness business" in January and took a six months leave. The busy rhythm is still in memory, but the stop has already started to open her mind. We will hear an interesting "jump-story".

See you on Friday morning at 8:30 at Park Hotel. The breakfast is 10 €.

Regards, Pekka.

Remembering old sessions, part 1

Since our forum has been running since June 2003, and we've just now opened this blog, I thought I could dig up some interesting old sessions and show them on the blog. This could serve the old members as reminders, newer members might learn about the forum's hiostory before they joined, and perhaps some readers might be interested to read these, too?

This is a condensed presentation of our very first session on June 6th, 2003...

What is Leaders Forum about?

It provides a very powerful way to develop personally and professionally with
other like-minded people who meet monthly to learn together, hear thought-challenging talks, and share ideas and experiences.

Our motto: Making a world of a difference by me making a difference in my world
Our values: Respect Trust Sharing Support

Each Leaders Forum group is unique. Members are from a diverse range of occupations and professions with most being in mid-career.

We learn and gain (1) New ideas and solutions to challenges, (2) To access our natural wisdom, (3) “What works” and “what does not work”, (4) Broader outlooks and deeper understandings, (5) To develop our leadership skills, (6) Support, encouragement and invaluable insights from other members ….our own personal mentoring team! Plus: Developed our expression skills in English.

How we work together: Our overall theme is leadership development. Within that theme we decide on and work with the topics that most interest us and from which we have most to gain. Meetings can combine talks by thought-leaders and practitioners; presentations by members; open dialogue and challenge-focused discussion; learning by practicing; mentoring one-to-one or as a group. Each member keeps a record of their “best ideas and practices” and is also provided with summaries. Members aim to gain high personal value, grow as self-leaders and to make their positive differences.

We are multi-professionals who are open and adaptive to new ways thinking. and to allow for the “best ideas” to come up we do not have tight rules. “Energetic, creative, enjoyable, relaxed, fun” best describes our meetings and is what we aim to take with us into our lives and into our work.

Short talks and presentations and unhurried open discussions: Thought-challenging talks and presentations spark our minds for us to dialogue together in search for the BIG ideas; the break-through insights to maximise our learning and to give the ways and tools we are looking for.

No homework: We are too busy.

The facilitators distil the best ideas and feed them back to us and we each keep our own personal record of our special insights and ideas we wish to use. Confidential matters are kept confidential.

For our first six months, we wished to (1) Develop our presence of mind, (2) Find new perspectives and ways to think, and (3) Understand what motivates me and others.

This is how we saw our Forum in the beginning...

Business managers are splitting the reality and then trying to manage this self-created separateness. Since separateness is unnatural, it requires a lot of effort. What supports relationships is working with the oneness. Since organisations are just relationships between people, this also supports organisations. Since oneness is natural, there is no effort.

Leaders Forum is a learning process from separateness to oneness.

Our motto: Making a world of a difference by me making a difference in my world.
Our values: Respect, Trust, Presence
Our goal: To develop our presence of mind. To find new perspectives and ways to think. To understand what motivates me and others.

10 interesting questions we want to talk about:

1. We play a number of different roles. Is the role ruling me or am I ruling the role?
2. We can live by our own and/or others expectations of us. Whose expectations am I choosing to live by? Who created the expectations and why? Are they appropriate for me to live by now?
3. “When I'm stressed I think of butterflies and the stress goes. They can fly because they take themselves lightly”, said one member. Why do I take life so seriously? Is seriousness a health hazard? What is seriousness and how can I lessen it?
4. What gives me JOY? What is my dream? Why don’t I do more of that? Why don’t I do only that?
5. How does co-creation happen? How can I help it to happen, at work and in my life?
6. How do I turn what interests me into my work? How am I connecting what is meaningful for me into my life? What is my mission statement? What am I doing? What is working? What is not working? Why?
7. Is it true, that by being well one is better able to do well and, does doing well mean creating life-supporting value and increased wellbeing? What is the wellbeing I am creating in my life and in my work, and how well am I doing that?
8. Do we transfer problems from one area of our lives to other areas in our lives? If we do, where is the "real" problem?
9. What do I fear and how can I let the fear go?
10. Who am I, essentially? If I take off everything that isn’t really me, what’s left? Would that be enough, would that be all that I need?