Bringing together mindfulness and playfulness
(They’re the SAME THING!)

Sitting perfectly still on a meditation cushion isn’t the only method of cultivating awareness.

Mindfulness experts encourage people to practice being in the moment while walking, exercising, eating, talking and even washing the dishes. But it turns out that it’s not that simple……to be truly “mindful,” we have to approach these experiences in a very specific way: with curiosity and openness, engaging our whole self, yet with a certain lightness of spirit to let go of prejudices, mental habits, and attachment to outcomes.

But wait just one moment!

Doesn’t all of this complicated adult gobbledygook boil down, in the end, to something quite obvious to any five-year-old? Isn’t it just another expression of the crazy shenanigans we used to get up for hours at a time as kids? To the simple act of PLAY, which all children regard as the best possible way to spend each waking minute of their lives?

This workshop, inspired by imaginary spiritual traditions such as the Tao of Pooh, the Poppins School of Perfect Presence and the Ministry of Mindful Silly Walks, will provide a resounding answer to these urgent questions.

Over the course of five hours, Alex Menhams will guide us not towards a distant “enlightenment”, but to a lightness of being available to everyone at all times. This session will encourage us to stop treating meditation as mental “training”, a difficult “discipline”, or even something to be “achieved” or “attained”, and to finally give ourselves the permission enjoy the present moment as a place of wonder, ease, freedom, adventure and play. Just like we did at age five.

Silent meditation will give way to bodily movement, inner work to creative interaction. We will recapture the spirit of school recess, believe in impossible things, laugh at our inevitable mistakes, fears, and imperfections. All of it within in a safe space of mutual care, where the simple wisdom and spontaneity we once knew can be liberated, free at long last to skip, hop, whistle and dance.

Thanks to these mindful games, designed to help us dive headfirst into the roiling uncertainty of the present moment, and to the rediscovery of the endless creativity within each and every human being, we’ll have astonishing amounts of pure unadulterated fun while learning a number of super serious lessons. Or at least that’s what we’ll try!

Details:

– 10:30am to 3:30pm
– Sunday 17 August
– New Street Market – Woodbridge
– £40 per person

The venue is wheelchair accessible and we offer free access companion tickets. We also offer payment plans and bursary places for anyone in need of financial assistance. 

About the facilitator

Alex Menhams is the founder of improv school Here & Now People in the Woodbridge (www.hereandnowpeople.com) and he teaches weekly classes that bring people together in ways that are joyful, playful, mindful and hopeful. 

He teaches and performs improv across Europe and loves exploring the connections between presence, play, mindfulness and humour. Alex has taught sessions on The Way of Play in London with Eduardo Jauregui, as well as workshops on playfulness and presence at festivals, retreats and conferences.

Alex works as a trainer and facilitator (www.alexmenhams.com) and is passionate about the power and possibilities of creative group work. He has had many adventures with leadership and team development and in creating thinking spaces for forward-thinking organisations. His clients include Channel 4, AstraZeneca, Shell, Norwich Theatre, Britten Pears Arts and many other charities, universities and NGOs.

Over the years Alex has dived deep into mindfulness, qi gong, taoism, Buddhism, advaita, myscitcal Christianity and radical nondualism. Along the way he’s found that being too serious on the spiritual path becomes it’s own barrier to being connected to life as it is. Three years ago he had an awakening to his true essential nature while walking on the Suffolk coast.

The Way of Play

The Way of Play has been developed by Alex and Eduardo Jauregui through a group of coaches and facilitators that formed at the Applied Improvisation Network Conference in 2022. Since then they have been exploring the surprising connections between play and spirituality together with other members such as Vanessa Wilde, Benjamin Lloyd, Taj Baker and Angelina Castellini. This session was developed in collaboration with Eduardo and delivered in London on 13th July.

Eduardo Jáuregui is the director of the Spanish mindfulness school Modo Ser (www.modoser.com). A social psychologist with a doctoral thesis on the topic of humour and laugher, he has taught undergraduate courses in psychology and sociology at Saint Louis University (Madrid Campus), as well as participating in numerous masters programs. Since 2002, Eduardo has facilitated hundreds of workshops in Europe, the UK and the United States on applied humour, mindfulness and other areas of positive psychology and wellbeing.