I am happy to announce that I facilitated my first workshop “Boost Your Happiness” on Saturday 28th of February. Although, I have been running weekly mindfulness workshops for free since October 2014, this was the first time where attendees paid for my workshop.
The idea of running workshops came to me awhile back with the idea to reach the maximum amount of people and spread consciousness. It was a gradual process with ups and downs.
In September 2014, I signed up for the Science of Happiness course organised by UC Berkeley and the Greater Good Science Centre. They have been very generous to offer a free online course, which looked at the latest research on psychology and discussed practical exercises that help us to increase our level of happiness. I will recommend anyone to participate in this free online course to learn more about how to live a more meaningful life.
The Science of Happiness Workshop
The Science of Happiness course provided very useful information and wisdom that need to be shared with others. I was asked to present on this subject at Navitas English Language School during their professional development seminar in January 2015 and I am very grateful for this opportunity. My presentation looked into practical ways to increase our happiness by harnessing the effects of social connections, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and mindfulness. The presentation was well received and the feedback showed that it inspired them to cultivate mindfulness in their lives.
If you like to learn more about how you can improve your happiness, here is a link to my presentation http://tinyurl.com/lrw3g5e
The preparation and marketing phase for the “Boost of Happiness” workshop started in early February. After meeting with Jodi, the founder of the West End Natural Therapies Centre (WENTC), and clarifying the venue arrangements, my wife, Alex, started to work on the marketing campaign. She designed a wonderful poster and created an event page in my website.
Getting the clients to sign up wasn’t easy. Our first client was actually our housemate who is into yoga, mindfulness and healthy life style. One week before the workshop, I had 3 clients and was contemplating on cancelling the workshop, as I needed at least 6 people to make it viable. At that stage, I took a conscious decision and decided not to worry about the event anymore. My idea was if I meant to do it, then people would show up anyway.
I believe this was the turning point. Once I stopped worrying and craving to get more people, I just let go and asked the universe to deliver. I totally believe in the universal law of attraction that some of you might already heard of from the international best selling book “The Secret”. Lately, I have been a keen follower of Dr. Wayne Dyer, Abraham Hicks and Louise Hay’s work, which talks about similar ideas concerning manifesting our own reality.
One of the keys of manifesting what we want is to have a razor sharp focus on what we want but also not getting attached to it. Simply trusting the universe to deliver your wish when the time is right.
After trying so hard to get additional clients, I simply surrendered and asked universe to take over. The next day, I had 5 people who were interested to sign up. This was certainly a miracle, as I only managed to get 3 people in 3 weeks.
We were 12 people in the workshop including, Jodi, Michael, who guided the last part of the workshop with his amazing gong and sound healing, Alex and myself. It was a wonderful afternoon where the participants enjoyed different mindfulness exercises, found out about the latest research on positive psychology, experienced guided meditation. The event ended with an incredible sound healing facilitated by Michael Askill from Perception Sound.
I feel that this is the beginning of a new adventure, although I am not sure what will happen in the future. I simply keep trusting the process knowing that all is and will be well.
By the way, our next workshop “Mind, Body, Spirit” is on the 14th of March. This one will include yoga, mindfulness and sound healing. Here is a link to the my events site.
Be happy.
