When you swear by your new practice, when you experience a spaciousness, ease and power from your new diet that makes you superior, when you believe you have found the way and others are wrong – you have basically become a proper lingham.
Life can feel great living in the tower of your beliefs, looking down on the fried chicken eaters, the non meditators, the Leavers. You chuckle to yourself, its not even worth telling them – they are just not evolved enough to understand.
Your spiritual ego swells like an emoji beach ball. You enjoy your movement meditations and your gong baths and your weekly trips to the Wild Food Café (I practically live there). You spend time with your mates who really get it. Forget the others.
This is all well and good. Who I am to say what is right or wrong for someone else?
I’ll tell you instead what is burning inside me. I’m yearning to go beyond the confines of this niche. To burst the banks and flood the whole world with silvery-watery glory. Ahem. To look at a much bigger picture. To get super humble and start sharing whatever shambling practice and self awareness that are helping us and others to get in touch with more of ourselves. It’s time to open things up.
It’s time to demystify, to start using a language that others understand, that makes them feel welcomed. A grounded vocabulary. It’s time to transmit on a totally different frequency dude.
It doesn’t matter what job a person has, what their beliefs are, it doesn’t even matter how they voted in the referendum or whether they wear a bindi on a night out with the girls. It does’t matter how many vipassanas they have done. They are yearning for it, they are desperate – and all they need is someone to give them permission.
When publicity material is covered in unicorns, talking all about heaven and ecstasy (what about shadow – is that allowed too or does it make me a bad boy?), it has lets say quite a niche appeal. And again, nothing wrong with it, it just makes me sigh.
I go to events. I see the same amazing people. And they are glorious. And the experiences are enriching. Yet all too often they are presented in a way that limits their audience. There are so many more people who are looking for it, are looking for something they see as credible.
At the first festival of Togetherness in May, I deliberately set out to cultivate a wider audience, to make it accessible to the mainstream whilst keeping its essence true. We had 500 people, half had never been to anything like it before. And their feedback was amazing.
What is the point in doing this wafty *** if its just for us to masturbate about how lucky and switched on we are? It’s enriching to have a mix of ages, opinions, experience, gender, sexuality etc, to embrace all that is there. I see the yearning every day in the street, on the tube. Deep down we all have the same crap in different shapes and colours – fear, loneliness, unworthiness. It stops us acting in line with our beliefs. We have some tools, why not share it in a way that others will really get? This is where we can be of service.
I’d love to see some toning down of the waft. I’d love to see more people on fire with their passion, causing all near to burst in to ecstatic flames – whether they are plant-based or not.
It’s my passion to give permission. To make things more accessible. To shame no one for their beliefs, status, being. To invite everyone.
So this is my challenge- can you use a vocabulary to describe the last event you went to in a way that your non-woo woo mates would get? And if you are organising events can you look at your communication again? Is there a way you can transmit your essence to a wider audience? Can you give permission for more people to come and play? Of course it will never be the right thing for everyone and this is not a call to evangelise. It’s an invitation to get humble and embrace the wholeness. Almonds yah.
If God
Invited you to a party
And said,
‘Everyone
In the ballroom tonight
Will be my special
Guest…’
How would you then treat them
When you
Arrived?
Indeed, indeed!
And I know
There is no one in this world
Who
Is not upon
His Jeweled Dance
Floor
Hafiz (rendering by Daniel Ladinsky)
Upcoming events
Shhh Dating
23 August @ Farrs School of Dancing
Flirting Games, Eye Gazing, No Talking
£20
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shhh-dating-east-farrs-tickets-36305403439
The Experience
7 September @ 42 Acres Shoreditch
An evening with Alan Lowen, founder of the Art of Being®
£25
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-experience-with-alan-lowen-tickets-36635904978
A Day of Togetherness
1 October @ Kachette in Shoreditch
A day of experiences exploring human connection in the city
£35
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-day-of-togetherness-tickets-36637046392
Andrew Barnes Sexuality Seminars
16 – 18 October @ Columbia Hotel, Lancaster Gate
Expanding Women’s Sexuality, Expanding Man’s Sexuality, The Soulmate Delusion & The Relationship Map
£35 each or cheaper when all purchased together
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/andrew-barnes-seminars-in-london-tickets-36675869513
Full Body Energy Orgasm with Andrew Barnes
19 – 22 October in private Hackney venue
Learning to go beyond friction-based sexuality and techniques that support the body to induce bliss-states for healing.
£320
A Weekend of Togetherness
18 – 19 November in Greenwich
Go deeper with a dynamic and intimate 2 day festival of human connection
£99 – £119 – FB event for more info here
Tickets released soon
https://www.facebook.com/events/127510127857224/
- How do you explain “woo” stuff to your mates? - 5th September 2017
One thought on “How do you explain “woo” stuff to your mates?”
Just found your blog, what a fabulous find, shame I’ve left London. Now I’m Ubud, Bali and there is a LOT of WooWoo. As much as I love it some of it is bordering on the bizarre.
In my past life, that i’m currently detoxing from I was in consumer electronics sales and marketing and it was exactly the same problem there. I think you get “a few” in any industry, that want to make their widget/event/therapy sound way more extreme than the others by using lofty ( and often made up) talk.
It’s infuriating for everyone involved, especially as there must be 1000’s of YouTube blogs and business blogs written on the topic of explaining and selling simply. I gave up in the end, hence my sabbatical, but I hope you keep flying the clarity flag, as it really matters 🙂