Focusing Roundtable - Flourishing in a Digital World: A Focusing Exploration

Thursday, July 1, 2021 - 11:00 am - 1:00 pm EST (New York - US)

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

If you’re reading this, you’re probably surrounded by digital tools. We all are - and yet, as author Cal Newport so poignantly puts it, “We didn’t sign up for this!” If given the choice, few of us would have created a technological environment like the one in which we currently find ourselves, constantly flooded with emails and messages and cleverly designed tugs at our attention. And yet, the most common perspective on this problem seems to be one of resignation. While technology clearly enables many wonderful things (this Roundtable, for example), we may have never paused to reflect deeply on the nature of our relationship to the digital wilderness we now inhabit. In this Roundtable, we’ll address these issues with questions like the following:

QUESTIONS we might explore together are:

1. How am I, really, with this part of my life?

2. What qualities of mind, heart, and body am I cultivating through my use of digital technology? What aspects of wellness might that undermine? How would I like this part of my life to be?

3. Is there a relationship with digital technology that would support my flourishing? What would that look like?

We’ll bring a Focusing lens to this issue, engaging in embodied reflection on these questions through breakout sessions and generative group exploration. We’ll invite whatever bodily knowing we have not yet experienced clearly by encouraging a gentle, curious and loving attentiveness to our experience. We hope to discover some deep and lasting insights into how to flourish in an increasingly tech-influenced world.

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable?

Anyone interested in exploring one’s relationship with technology in a Focusing way and finding more empowerment and well-being.

Suggested reading:

"Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World," by Cal Newport, is a thorough exploration of the topic, as well as a practical guide for shifting one’s perspective and actions.

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

What to expect from Focusing Roundtables: Each Focusing Roundtable is designed to promote informal peer-to-peer conversation. Rather than acting as expert presenters, the Hosts will serve as conversation moderators to encourage sharing and exploration of the topics from the participants’ own perspectives.  All participants’ sharings are welcome and valuable, no matter what level of experience or knowledge you have on the topic. To preserve the nature of informal conversation, the program will be offered live only and no recordings will be available. Registration is limited and on a first-come, first served basis. Participants are encouraged to create follow up opportunities for connection among themselves after the Roundtable.

The TIFI Membership Committee is pleased to offer this series of Focusing Roundtables designed especially for members of the Institute. If you are not a member, please join at http://www.focusing.org/membership, then return to this page to register. This program will afford members a valuable opportunity to engage in casual peer-to-peer conversation with other members who share Focusing-related interests.

About your hosts:

Luke Raskop is a coach and facilitator living in Northampton, Massachusetts (USA). He believes "getting right with technology" is one of the most significant and under-explored aspects of being alive right now, and that a much more wholesome relationship with our digital world is available to each of us--if we have the courage and self-compassion to move towards it. His main project is guiding people through the "digital wilderness". He draws on training and experience in Focusing, Non-Violent Communication, executive functioning, developmental trauma healing, and Buddhist mindfulness practice, as well as the spiritual and literary influences of CS Lewis and David Whyte.

Frank O’Neill is a Focusing Trainer living in Boulder Colorado, USA. He is active in crossing Focusing with NVC (Nonviolent Communication) and other forms of ‘Emergent Dialogue’ in group settings for the purpose of generating aliveness, discovery, and intimacy. He sees these modalities as each possessing certain skills of presence that people can learn and use to establish a culture of felt communication. His experience as a zen monastic demonstrated the disconnect between the practice of curiosity and equanimity during sitting meditation and conventional relating that tends to negate spiritual practice.