Only this morning I met a woman at a tech-club coffee morning which she co-hosts in Leeds. She said she had always been the only woman in an office or in a minority. Recently she has found herself connecting with women’s networks and working with more women and she suddenly realised that she has been missing out on something for years!! She was discovering the nourishing companionship of women at work. We are different especially when we can be in a majority or better still … JUST women.  Every women’s gathering I have had the honour to co-host I get the feedback about how “nurturing” the experience is.  Once we have truly figured out why this is so, then we can bottle it and sell it to the men! They need it too.

the secret sauce of a women’s gathering … feeling at home
It is always a great start when we gather in someone’s kitchen unpacking the bags of food (mostly home-cooked or delicacies well-chosen from favourite suppliers) and search around in unfamiliar cupboards for appropriate serving dishes. It’s a great exercise in collaboration – we make do, we improvise, we show off our cooking skills and we share recipes. By the time we have eaten and marveled how little duplication we have had in the dishes and how tasty everything was, we are a solid community of friends. There are no strangers among us. We all feel very much at home. This is a fabulous atmosphere into which we can now bring our business conversations.  We all have something we are passionate about that we want to share. We want to grow our businesses and make connections but more than that, we absolutely LOVE learning from each other and hearing our stories. We feel so connected when we realise that we are not the only one treading this seemingly lonely path of life transition and we acknowledge the desire we all have to truly connect with our purpose and channel it into our business ventures.

A Women’s Gathering happens in London every month (next one December 14th, Wednesday), Gina hosts a Women’s Gathering in North England quarterly in Skipton at the Healthy Home (next one January 7th Saturday) and a gathering will now happen regularly in Marin County (next one Winter Solstice in Mill Valley).

During our gathering in Novato, Marin County in late November, 17 of us gathered for an evening of food, conversation and inspiration.  Here are a few highlights of our discussions.

1 We are shifting from DOING to BEING
many of us are well-versed in hard work and making things happen (by force of will). We’ve been learning to let go of an old way of doing things and notice that we are coming from a different place. One woman, now an artist, shared that finally she was learning to “be” after years of almost killing herself physically trying to go out into the world and make things happen. Now she spends more time in nature learning the natural way of unfolding. Instead of her being the “driver” that she used to be, she finds things are starting to come to her.

2 Doing business from a new way of being
Many of us have a proud history of being go-getters and working hard but we have been training ourselves not to work so hard. In doing this we are discovering a new way of working as we experience “allowing”, which is totally new to us. Whereas before we never allowed ourselves to do nothing, we now find that magic is indeed happening from being still, quiet and unengaged in usual activities. This new way of allowing business and opportunities to come to us requires a lot less effort but it is needing us to let go and trust.  Simple, powerful, difficult.

3 Healers in business
Now that we know we have to be our WHOLE self in business (we seem to have no choice here) we are starting to use our intuition more openly and even bring healing energy to our business dealings. Because our spiritual life is getting stronger we are finding ways to integrate this into business and do commerce more consciously.

4 Taking actions on our intuitions
We have feelings inside about who we need to become and we all cherished the opportunity to share highlights (and lowlights) from our personal journeys realising that our stories are actually part of a global story of women coming into their prime and moment in history. One woman felt the need to change her name … just a letter at the end, an E to an  A. Subtle but she felt this change was important to reflect the vibrational changes happening in her life.

5 We no longer KNOW
It has been helpful to let go of the need for certainty and to hold on to the knowing we have within, even where we can barely articulate what it holds for our futures … we just seem to know that we will be OK.  We are trying to live more in the moment without anxiety about who we will be in the future. Having to know exactly no longer serves us and we are now starting to embrace NOT KNOWING. This is initially a scary place since many of us have been paid as business consultants for everything we KNOW. We have discovered the power of NOT knowing and letting information and answers unfold in a more magical way.

6 Business can be lonely and we are reaching out more
Those of us who have moved on from corporate life and starting out on our own and those long-established in their own enterprises can find it lonely sometimes. We really need community.  We said we needed something beyond networking … we need a sisterhood! An evening such we were experiencing has been enriching for all.  Several women said that networking with other women was new for them .. in fact they had avoided it before. What on earth did these business women talk about? But now they were finding themselves drawn to the company of women and appreciating it.  Others shared how they have actively been seeking collaborative business partners to bring in new skills to their business as they recognise they no longer want to struggle in areas where they do not excel. Finding the right person with the right skills is making work much more rewarding and the shared experience is joyful.

7 Purpose has been a big driver
Many in the group have been going through life transitions … some for many years. The quest to find our purpose and establish what our new roles might be has often been more important than the financial considerations. As much as we have needed money, the need  to be in the enquiry of where our life is going has been paramount. Some of us have learned how to let go of busyness and discovered the art of doing nothing …. at least seemingly doing nothing because we are now beginning to realise the creative power of just being and not engaging in the frenetic and constant activity we did before. We ALL seem to be going through major shifts of some kind.

8 Business in a more feminine way
Some of us are exploring sensuality and how we can reconnect with our femininity and bring it to our business endeavours. As we are connecting with and valuing our inner wisdom we are feeling moved to bring this to the way we work. One woman shared her desire to enhance the role of women in finance, an industry where only 15% of professionals are women. Another shared how she was suddenly this last year finding her value as an older woman – her years of experience, maturity and wisdom was being valued by departments full of young technology workers:  hurrah!  … it makes a change from feeling invisible

It has been Global Enterprise Week this last week and on Thursday it was Global Women’s Enterprise day. In honour of this a group of us got together for a small women’s gathering on Mount Shasta and discussed a number of questions about women’s roles in the world and in business. As usual for a women’s gathering we started with food which everyone had brought: home-made gnocchi, vegetable curry, seaweed & cashew dip, organic salads, sparkling apple & ginger drink followed by ……a flourless chocolate cake which almost stopped the conversation

Then down to business ……. we talked about the roles we could play in changing the world.  Having come from a recent Women & Investing Through a Gender Lens event I shared how women now have a great deal of power but perhaps we do not realise it.

• We buy over 80% of everything that is sold, and influence more than 90% of purchases. Not only that but we have most of the wealth …
• 75% of it is owned by women over 60 (USA and UK).
• And women business owners in America generate over $4 Trillion making their contribution equivalent to the fourth largest economy in the world.   I think if we get our heads round that we realise that do have power ……..  we just need to talk about how we use it. Riane Eisler says “women need to change the conversation”.

From our roundtable discussion I can share about 5 themes:

1 We recognise and honour the power of one woman: rather than think that we don’t have influence we can draw inspiration of courageous women all over the world taking a stand. The OCCUPY movement was started by a woman. The media may not be giving  much coverage but only this week 34,000 people gathered in New York while the TV reported that “just a few thousand” turned out. This movement has spread right across the planet in just two months.  One woman gallery owner in Los Angeles started the Bank Transfer Day campaign which caused between 700,00 and one million people to move their accounts from Bank of America to community banks and credit unions. One woman. What could we do as one woman? Indeed what could we do as a group of women if we gather together in conversation and talk about the kind of world we really want to see?

2 Our intuition is our best guide … so many of us are heeding the call we can hear coming from within telling us to shift, move home, grow, be more …. One woman in our circle embraced her creativity for the first time at age 60 after over 30 years in opthamology. She is now a documentary film-maker and photographer. It is so inspiring to meet a woman who embraced another significant part of herself in her 7th decade and created a business out of it.  We are never too old to start anything!  Three women in the group had put aside their successful lives in other cities to come live at Mount Shasta and create livelihoods here because they felt the strong call to do so. Mary shared how 40 years ago when she was painting she focussed her energies on her inner life and her ability to tune into the essence of her artworks always called in the new owner of the painting. They would literally telephone her while she was painting it.  She never had to go out and sell her work … her vibrational marketing was a much more graceful way of her being successful as an artist!

3 We can take leadership in our communities. When times are hard as they are now, it is disappointing to see people get very competitive over scarce resources. Why can’t we share more instead of fighting over what little there is? Surely local business can find a way to support each other in a community instead of simply price-cutting? We could lead in being collaborative, find ways of taking care of each other and share what is around. As we aim to live healthier and more sustainable lives, we could make more of an effort in buying locally grown and produced food and resources. Everything we purchase is a vote for some business. If we are more conscious of what we buy then we can exert our influence. Amore, our host for this event, has been inspired to start the Mount Shasta Alliance to bring people together collaboratively.

4 We enjoy gathering and connecting with others. We need it .. indeed we thrive on it.  All too often we can end up on our own in our businesses and it’s not only good to share the anxieties we might have, we realise it’s important for us to share our triumphs. It encourages us enormously if our successes are witnessed by others. Wide-ranging conversations about bargain-shopping, changing hairstyles, recipe exchange all easily meld into a need for assistance with product pricing, meditation, bank charges and real estate opportunities. We cover all that matters to us in life and business. We all agreed that sharing time with other women deeply nourishes us.

5 We all shared our desires to make a contribution to making the world a better place …. a MUCH better one than it is right now. For all that, we know that we see real need right in front of us inside our families and around us in our communities. It all starts at home and that where each woman truly does have influence. We can go out and march for peace but we also have to recognise that it is the mothers who send their sons out to war and the wives who send their husbands.  We bring them up and we support them as they march out into conflicts that we don’t want any part of. This is an area where we must change the conversation.   We look around and see inequity, judgement and poor treatment of social outcasts and the mentally ill. We have to ask ourselves if we are truly bringing up the next generation to be accepting and practice forgiveness in our own families?

What conversations are you having about life and business that could make a difference??

I’ve been thinking for a long time now that we need to wake up and realise that we CAN do something about the ridiculous greed being demonstrated by the big banks. What is the point of complaining about fat-cat salaries and bonuses … then continue to keep your account with that bank!?

In the USA people are taking action inspired by one woman in Los Angeles who called out to fellow citizens to withdraw their money and close their account as a protest to additional new monthly charges being proposed by Bank of America. Art gallery owner Kristen Christian organized a nationwide event for Saturday, Nov. 5, dubbed Bank Transfer Day, calling on people to move their money from big banks to smaller institutions like credit unions and community banks. All told it is estimated that between 700,000 and one million people made the switch. That’s quite a loss in just one month!

A separate movement with a similar goal … to teach the big banks a lesson … is the Move Your Money campaign. Playing on the fight between the forces of good and evil as exemplified by George Bailey and Mr Potter in that magical and inspirational film: It’s A Wonderful Life. Watch the campaign movie below.   It feels like things are really starting to change on the planet. Perhaps people are realising that we are citizens and not just consumers and every small action we take does count ….  Do you endorse the policies, charges and salary/bonus payments of your bank?

I have been wanting to write for ages, but once again, my journey has turned inward. When I came back from my last 4-month trip I could feel a huge difference between the new me unpacking and the old me that was expressed in so many ways around my home. I realised that I would not be able to do anything productive or creative until I had faced this and started the shedding process that was required. The term clutter clearing does not come anywhere near being the right description when one has to re-align one’s external environment with the inner one. Feng shui expert or not…… I can get very attached to my stuff.  So in my struggles to get started, a week or so ago, I created a video for you with some tips for making a breakthrough. I found it very helpful for myself. Struggling with clutter? Gina Lazenby reveals what to do…. watch this video now I am happy to take my own medicine so making the video was the spur I needed to get me going and within a couple of hours of filming, I had thrown out nearly half my library of books – something I have been trying to do for the last year. I came back to the camera to report my progress!! You’ll see …. if I can inspire myself I hope I can inspire you too     I let go of 260 books…. and many more since that day! Helpful Friends turned up to support me – including my parents. I got my Mum to sit in a chair while I tried on my wardrobe of clothes …. as part of this shedding process I have lost a great deal of weight. Kilos have been dropping off effortlessly (for a change I might add!)  I think because I have finally reached a place where that weight is no longer serving a purpose,  the new me underneath has emerged. I don’t even look the same as I did two years ago … and that new me doesn’t like the clothes the old me used to wear!!!  That was a big letting go process I tell you ! Finally space clearing & feng shui supremo Cathryn McNaughton came to stay. I think she thought we’d have a couple of days of walking and afternoon tea in the Dales but NO …… we were up to our armpits in crystals collected from all over the Healthy Home which were cleansed and assigned new duties. With her help I was able to throw out a decade of press cutting research and my magazine collection.   I’m also in the process of ditching crates of video masters from all the training courses which my Feng Shui school produced in the 1990s that I was going to digitise ‘one day’. We are now into the second decade of a new millennium and I finally realised how OLD this information is. Everything has a fresh new twist now so you can’t publish old material….. the world has moved on. That was a biggie for me too. The key for me throughout this process has been the need to align the new me who looks, behaves and feels different with all the physical layers of my life and home.  Although it has taken me a month this summer to clear out years of old stuff, the process of my becoming the new me has taken the best part of a decade. The final 2 years have been the speediest, with the most shifts,  and the completion took place in Bali when we hosted the Women’s Retreat there. (I’ll write more about that when I tell you about the next one that we have booked for November this year). I am sharing this with you because many people I meet are also processing tremendous shifts in their own lives. This is a necessary part of life now but it is best done with some support and knowledge that you are not on your own … we’re all going through this ‘becoming process’ of being and living in a different, more conscious and heightened way that can no longer accommodate old patterns, old behaviours and old stuff. I have met so many women in their 50s and 60s who have sold up ALL their possessions, moved out of/sold their homes and released themselves into the world, travelling and shifting into totally different personas. I am in awe of their courage. I have met hundreds of women who are on the move … most have no idea of where they are going but they feel a sense of momentum as they explore aspects of themselves and are placing huge trust on their inner guidance. We all seem to be getting ready for a new way of being in the world, one that I feel will embrace a stronger feminine presence and leadership. Meanwhile the women are really getting ready for a new future ……. Whatever it is you are going through: illness, loss, grief, energy deficit, career transition, re-invention ….. know that the universe is somehow supporting you in your process and there is light at the end of the tunnel. The more you can let go of, the more will come back to you as shiny, new, bright, clean, sparkling opportunities, energy and gifts. Don’t forget to ask for help because Helpful Friends WILL turn up!  Look round your home and decide to separate yourself from the stuff you have collected and be prepared to shed it. Like never before we must let go of old paradigms thinking and the more we hold on from the old way of the world the harder it is. Short term pain, long term joy!! Enjoy the video. let me know how you get on with your own processing and shedding…. that’s it for now ….. I’m off to the store room to let go of old coats, boots, hats of yesteryear …. then I shall drive down to Oxfam and Skipton recycling centre. Love & light from Yorkshire ….. home of the Yorkshire Goddess !!!! Gina Lazenby   PS Join me on facebook …. share your clearing stories with me   Join me on facebook

Hmmm… that’s an interesting question.  It’s like when people ask me (the author of the Feng Shui House book) if I ever have any clutter! Of course I do … that’s why I know so much about it. But really, it’s more about what you do as a result of it than whether it is present in your life.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I took some time out for a retreat in the mountains above Golden Bay on New Zealand’s South Island. While there I managed to spend a few minutes with the ashram’s co-founder, the delightful Swami Karma Karuna.  When I heard that she runs the mountain-top retreat, leads sessions at the centre, travels the world leading educational programmes and is mother to a 14 year old daughter I thought I’d ask her whether she ever got stressed. Bit of a cheeky question!  When I first met her she was picking up the week’s groceries for the 20+ community working up at the ashram (no matter how internationally acclaimed you are, we women never seem to escape the groceries!!) and as she drove me up the mountain she told me about the huge Easter event at the centre which they were preparing to host with twice the usual number of attendees. Volunteers had come in from all over the world to help at the centre and some of them were building facilities and toilets for the great influx expected.

Phew, I think I’d be a little stressed juggling all that but of course, such is the power of living a conscious and spiritually disciplined life that you get yourself into a state where you have the inner resources to handle what nobody can hide from in the modern world.  I have kept up my daily yoga practice since my week at the Anahata Yoga Retreat.  And being there reminded me that yoga is not just an exercise routine … it’s a way of being in the world in a very mindful way that nourishes you spiritually so that the rest of your life is permeated with your inner wisdom. Do listen to the lovely Swami as she shares her life.

While on my travels in Queensland I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with Gold Coast-based Dr Maura McGill. She’s a medical doctor whose main focus is treating female menopause ……. naturally. I have to say she is a rare jewel indeed.  Dr Maura says it is very rewarding work because she can make such a big difference in women’s lives and so few people specialise in this area.  I visited her at home and recorded an interview. The first of two videos is here where she talks about the practical action to take regarding handling what she calls the “7 dwarves of menopause”!   A second video about the gifts of menopause will be posted next week …

In our conversation I asked her why menopause is such a big problem now and giving so many older women such an uncomfortable and sweaty life! She talked about the foreign estrogens from plastics and household chemicals that infiltrate our bodies which inhibit the normal workings of the hormonal system already going through a change as we age. You can access a free McGill Menopause Management report via this link.
It is sad that most doctors don’t seem to know what to do about menopause for women other than prescribe HRT or advise you to wait for the symptoms to disappear automatically (2-5 years).  They don’t have any expertise or knowledge of the body’s natural chemistry and Dr Maura pointed out that very few gynaecologists understand natural treatment of menopause because they are part of a profession focussed on surgery!

All the women who gathered for our Circle meeting in Sydney were motivated to attend by a need for connection – a deeper level of connection and sharing that only really happens when we create women-only events.

The evening started at 6pm with a food ritual: everyone contributed something and a buffet selection was created for us all to share. It’s uncanny how we don’t seem to duplicate dishes and always seem to have exactly what we need. The energy that comes with the food is as sustaining as the food itself!  It’s amazing how an hour of chit-chat over a meal can build a strong feeling of community and is a wonderful warm-up for any business meeting. It seems to be a moment when you feel moved to share kindness in a way you might not if you were in a public restaurant with all its distractions. A shared meal in a private space with strangers is a great way to start dropping off our layers of protection and separation.

Once the business of clearing up the dishes was complete we could start the formal proceedings of the evening. We sat in a circle and all agreed that we’d like to add a candle to our conversation. Even more nourishing than the food was the minutes of silence we chose to observe before we started, sitting together companionably in peace.  I decided to open up with “Why are you here… What brought you tonight?” and “What is it that you’d like to take away from our time together?”

In our sharing it was beautiful to witness the capacity the women had to share their vulnerability, to speak openly of embracing change and being willing to explore new aspects and possibilities for themselves. There is a particular strength that comes from being willing to open up about our lives and the search we are engaged in.

Here are the common themes of what most of us were recognising:
* a greater need for connection with like-minded people to explore our spiritual nature and deeper meaning of life, particularly to make sense of a rapidly changing world. Sometimes  It means that we are  spending less and less time with certain friends but we have to be true to our own needs.
* we need more time to be alone and be reclusive. We just don’t have the appetite to see friends like we used to; we feel time is moving very quickly now and we are just not keeping up with people.
* discovering new aspects of ourselves which were exciting as we searched for ways to realise out potential. Our calling seems to be calling.
* an appreciation of the value and sustenance of spending time in the company of women, like this evening.
* we are recognising a desire to just BE, and not try to read or do ‘something’ in our time out. We know we need more space to be.

Are you finding the time just to be? And do you have opportunities to share with others how you feel about the changes you are facing on your journey?

one of our Womens Gatherings in London

As a prelude to a Women’s Gathering which I am hosting in Sydney on Wednesday April 20th, let me share how they all started….. (For the Sydney event, see the invite on facebook)

I have been hosting women’s gatherings, formally, for the last three years. It started with a monthly meeting of women entrepreneurs in London in April 2008 with my business partner Mynoo Blackbyrn.   We were all part of something called the XL Entrepreneur Network (XL = Extraordinary Lives).  Right at the start many of us were voicing our disappointment in the format of the monthly meetings being offered: a seminar room with all chairs facing the stage and a male expert speaker.

We wanted community and connection and we wanted to hear each other’s stories so we simply set up an alternative forum. Spurred on by a call from the floor “When are we going to have a meeting just for women” by XL member Illaria Poggesi, Mynoo and I  co-hosted a meeting each month in one of our homes in central London and created a wonderful community of business women who are still connected. Even women who were not able to join the gatherings felt part of something special as we continued to report back on what we were doing.  We all discussed what made it work so well and came up with the following insights that can form the basis of further women’s gatherings …. anywhere.

1 We meet first as women and secondly as business women.  Connection is important to us, we find the conversations nourishing then when we have the community element taken care of, we hold a formal meeting. Women tend not to separate their personal, family and business lives …. we show up as whole women and love to talk about anything.  It’s a way of doing business sideways: share about weight issues, not having time to do our nails, kids education and the need for a good accountant.  It’s who we are. Life!

2  Central location: it helped that Mynoo and I lived in central London but then we were casting our net round the membership spread across the whole city and acting as a hub. Subsequent gatherings that I have hosted have been in homes in cities across the world and the location has simply been based around the availability of a home with a good large gathering space (and a hostess willing to share her kitchen).  Make it central and reachable for whatever community you are aiming for.

3 Private space: this is the most important. It needs to take place in a home and not a public space. That way we immediately relax.  It makes a huge difference not having conversations overheard. We create a sacred space in which we can all be vulnerable and that allows the deepest of connections. You can become a circle of trust very quickly in the right space. In Sydney I have been lucky to book the Meditation Space, centrally located on Crown Street, and whilst we cannot cook there we can bring our own vegetarian food.

4 The role of food. We made food central. It helped that both Mynoo and I were confident cooks so we were happy to open our kitchens up and cook. Right from the get-go we decided that traditionally, women bonded over cooking, so we created the opportunity for those who wanted to, to come earlier and help prepare the food. Depending on the numbers, if you buy the food in the morning, 3-4 pairs of hands from 3pm can get food for 12-24 people ready in 3 hours.   Where this has not been possible we make it a pot-luck and ask everyone to bring a plate/dish. That way, many hands make light work. For some people coming from the office or a meeting, all they can do is buy prepared food but that’s fine. It’s the creation of the meal together that is so bonding; plus everyone helping to clear up. You get to know someone much better during this activity and busyness.

5 Everyone gets to speak. There is nothing worse than going to a meeting and just hearing the speaker. We all have wisdom, gems of knowledge and tips for each other. In our gatherings we share how we are with honesty and ask for what we need. The meeting is not built around a guest speaker. WE are the guest speakers!!  We decided it was less important to glean more information, more important to find support and be heard.

6 The business circle:  the circle format has power. My inspiration here is Jean Shinoda Bolen, author of ‘Urgent Message from Mother’ and ‘The Millionth Circle‘.  She says: “When women gather in circle with a sacred center, a space is created which calls forth collective wisdom and inspires personal passion. The world needs both right now.” (Read more at the bottom about what Jean says about Women’s Circles). in this circle of trust where everyone gets to speak, any request for help can be made. Whatever is affecting us emotionally or practical difficulty at home will have an impact on our business so nothing is too personal to throw into the pot.  It is a great format for a discussion group too. I have hosted conversations on events like Global Women’s Enterprise Day (read about it) and we have had wonderful conversations and insights.

7 Recording the event:  I always took a group photo at the end of the evening before people started to disappear. That way we were able to capture the energy and spirit of the event and share with others afterwards. Sometimes a volunteer would transcribe minutes with our requests for help and announcements which were circulated widely. In the early days I’d write up a newsletter with lots of colour photos …. that take a lot of commitment, but what it did do was create a profile for us in the larger global community.  Now with more use of social media, it is easier to maintain the connections and conversations in a Facebook group.

8 Timings: I have hosted women’s gatherings on a weekday lunchtime and on a Saturday but a midweek evening is what we did in London. We also varied the day of the week so that if someone had a yoga commitment on a Thursday night they would not be permanently excluded.  We opened our doors at 6pm, took an hour for drinks, chatting and final food prep then served the meal by 7pm.  Then we’d clear away and start the more formal business segment by 7.30pm or 8pm. (if we cleared away at the end we’d ask for some to stay on and help).  In London the formal meeting lasted for 2 hours and we would wrap up at 10pm. I notice in Sydney people like to finish earlier. Do whatever works in your location and local culture.

9 Costs: Mynoo and I have generally charged the equivalent of $15-20 to cover food costs and drinks.  Budget for room hire if you have to rent a space. Make it a more nominal figure if you are hosting a pot luck. The rule with money is to charge whatever feels right.

There is always a lot of healing when women gather and share deeply. That’s why it is important to hold this type of event in a private space and not a restaurant. Out of these conversations have grown many business partnerships and referrals and I have personally witnessed women growing into more confident leaders who truly are reaching their full potential. It is one of the most beautiful and nourishing experiences one can have and a real privilege to be part of. Gather your women friends and contacts together and try it.

You can watch a video of some of the London participants sharing what they got out of being part of the community we created from the Women’s Gatherings.

What Jean Shinoda Bolen says:
A proliferation of circles with a spiritual center becomes a worldwide healing force by bringing feminine values of relationship, nurturing, and interdependency into a global culture in which hierarchy, conflict and competition, power over others and exploitation of the earth’s resources are dominant values. Our aim is to celebrate the millionth circle as an idea whose time has come.

Everyone who has been drawn to the idea of“the millionth circle” is part of the millionth circle vision, and any event or circle that anyone creates that furthers the formation of more circles with a sacred center can freely define what they are doing as being part of the millionth circle vision.

• Create a circle.
• Consider it a sacred space.
• One person speaks at a time.
• Speak and listen from the heart.
• Encourage and welcome diverse points of view.
• Listen with discernment instead of judgment.
• Share leadership and resources.
• Decide together how decisions will be made.
• Work toward consensus when possible.
• Offer experience instead of advice.
• When in doubt or need, pause and silently ask for guidance.
• Decide together what is to be held in confidence.
• Speak from your own experience and beliefs rather than speaking for others.
• Open and close the circle by hearing each voice. (Check-ins and check-outs.)

I am on the trail of Eat Pray Love … not intentionally. It just seems to be working out that way!
For sure I had a healthy “Eat” phase as I toured Australia then hitched a ride with my parents who were cruising to New Zealand. I had to endure quite a few gourmet days! Then after a busy period of writing I felt the need for a change of scene that would give me some good stretching exercise as well as fresh air so I went to a yoga retreat in the mountains of South Island. It turned out to be an ashram so I had a good few days of yoga, chanting and quiet, all of which is a prelude to me going to Bali and hosting a Women’s workshop and retreat in May.

As Bali was the “love” phase for Julia Roberts in the popular movie (of the even more popular book) I will have to wait and see how that shapes up for me………..!

Watch the video I recorded on the last day of the retreat when I was struggling to keep my inner peace ………

There have been quite a few editorials in the UK press about the dismally low numbers of women on the Boards of British FTSE 1000 companies. Less than 10%. The idea of enforcing a quota like Norway is not taking off and I read a report in the Australian weekend paper relayed from the UK’s Sunday Times that maybe “men are not to blame for the glass ceiling” after all.

The idea being muted is that we might lack ambition and self confidence and we are more hesitant at putting ourselves forward for top jobs. I spluttered a response to myself when I read this but it is an interesting one to ponder on.

It is a really complex issue.

The words about men being “to blame” are emotive and can easily put an individual man on the defensive when this subject is raised for discussion. Consider this: the structure, routine and environment of the corporate world has largely been fashioned by men and for men with stay-at-home wives. With a full-on commitment to careers, most households do actually need a stay-at-home wife! So what happens to the wife who works outside the home?  In most cases she has to juggle many more chores and responsibilities than men.  Most career women with a family have a second job of home-maker and mother which not only is unpaid, is largely undervalued.

Any work that involves caring seems to be off the radar and is not counted or measured by society as valuable and valid input. There comes a time for many women I am sure when they have to make a judgement call about investing even more emotional, physical and psychic energy for their company if they want to pursue the higher executive levels. For many it is just too stressful and they make a choice to opt out …. maybe only for a while, a few years. But in that time window, male executives continue their trajectory up the career ladder. It can be difficult to step back into the career system and if you have been away caring for family and children it’s generally viewed as non-work….. ‘just’ looking after children. I think it is one of the most challenging complex jobs in the world and it is time we valued it as such. That way, those years juggling hectic family schedules, mollifying disagreements, nurturing individual educational needs and talents will be counted for what it is … a worthy use of executive time.

Well that’s just the issue of career conflict and the choices women have to make. When the biological clock is not ticking or child care is not an issue, there is still the matter of women’s mindsets.  Again the whole concept of career development throughout an organisation is devised by men with male candidates in mind.  The system is seemingly fair as equal opportunities are given to men and women. I think the reality is that the company culture is often masculine, aggressive, competitive and driven by testosterone which does not resonate with most women – certainly those who are striving to remain connected with their natural feminine ways.  So many women choose not to sacrifice themselves for the top jobs, some will leave and start their own enterprise.

Do you think women lack ambition? Is that what is holding us back … or are we just not designed to fit into a system that does not help us thrive?