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Peer groups, Cumbria spring group – fourth morning: honouring my mother

The last morning of the group.  I wake a bit "troubled".  This is the ebb and flow of the group.  Feelings tend to be more intense here.  As the "group river" flows its four day course, I know that I'm likely to move through a series of different emotional states.  I lie in bed for a bit sensing what I'm feeling.  What's it about.  The overall "smell/flavour" of my mood seems contributed to by a mix of things.  One factor is that I feel, what seems to me, a low key grumbling unease going on between me and one of the other people in the group.  A second factor is a discomfort I have about how another person expressed themselves for a while in the group yesterday.  A third is a concern I'm feeling about another person seeming to get too "isolated" in the group.  And there's something too about the group ending - both saying goodbye to the people and saying goodbye to this

Peer groups, Cumbria spring group – third morning: emotional closeness, green issues, & dancing

Third morning.  It's after 7.00am.  Yesterday I wrote on "Authenticity & feedback".  The group seems to be "speeding up" now.  That's partly because I've got less time this morning.  Fairly typically at home, I try to have my light off by 10.15pm and get up by 5.15am.  Last night we were dancing till about midnight.  Brilliant.  Such great fun, but not a big encouragement to be up only a few hours later.  And partly the group feels it's speeding up because, like being away on a few days holiday, experiences start to blur together.  And partly I feel it's because the river of emotion and openness is running more strongly.  As happens so often, many of us - me included - seem more fluid, more easily touched by strong feeling, more easily "triggered" by the depth of what others express.

Peer groups, Cumbria spring group - second morning, authenticity & feedback

Yesterday in "A 3 layer view of intrapersonal & interpersonal judgement" I wrote about the first morning of this four day residential group.  Now it's the start of the second day.  What happened yesterday?  I began in that "on-my-own" familiar way - getting up quite early, washing, writing, meditating, plunging in the stream.  I tried running up the Drove Road, but slightly pulled my calf muscle again - a recurrence of a strain from earlier in the week.  I walked/hobbled back down through the fields.  Lambs, cowslips, beautiful hares, calls from the curlews. 

Walking in the Mamores: three Munros in the mist (second post)

I'm woken by a particularly loud owl hoot close by.  "HOOO.  HER-HOOO".  And again.  And again.  Becoming more distant.  I lie listening to the dawn chorus.  There are voices in it that we don't get at home.  It's a bit after five in the morning and I feel I've slept well.  Content.  Lovely down sleeping bag and a sleeping mat.  Gosh camping can be a lot more easy than when I was a kid.

Gratitude and dedication

On the 15th March 2010 my dear, precious mother Edie Hawkins died.  She was 97 and I'm writing this post ten days later.  After the funeral, after the flurry of forms and arrangements and visits and paperwork have quietened down.

I woke early this morning.  Thought about her.  A sense of her.  She was an immensely kind, giving, determined, selfless person.  This website wouldn't be here without the influence of her and my father, Jim Hawkins (who died back in 1989) - also such a generous, caring, thoughtful human being. 

If you've found anything of value on this site - if it's helped you personally or in your work, please say an inner thank you to Edie and Jim.  This website wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them and how they've influenced what I believe in and what I work for.

 

Different kinds of group, different kinds of friendship

I'm a member of three different groups, all of which meet occasionally in the evening.  Since two of the groups only get together about every six weeks, it's unusual for all three group meetings to occur in the same seven days.  In fact I can't remember it happening before.  It's happening this week though - hence the trigger for this blog post "Different kinds of group, different kinds of friendship". 

The group that meets pretty much every week is probably the most straightforward.  We've been getting together for many years to play badminton for a couple of hours.  It's great.  I hugely enjoy it.  It's warm too - we're friendly and we joke a lot.  We encourage each other and we're very competitive as well.  However with most of these guys, I hardly meet them except to play badminton.  I could tell you very little about how their lives are going, or about how they're usually feeling.

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