The importance of reunion

This is the fourth in the TENDERNESS series.

In June I co-hosted The Flow Game Host Reunion, a gathering of Flow Game Hosts from around the world. We found strength and inspiration in being together, but more than that, a commitment to leaning into each other to offer more.

The Flow Game is a playful way to talk about serious stuff, and it is baed around questions. It could be a personal question you're carrying -- about life, about work, about relationship, about change. It could be a team question that's at the centre -- about vision, values, co-working, future focus.

It can be played in small groups, in large groups, across geographically separated groups. And it has been played many different places from boardrooms to conferences to team events to prisons and schools.

There are around 500 Flow Game hosts around the world, each in their own location, each with their own set of challenges and opportunities. Here were my questions in creating this event:

• How do we stay together as a practice field?
• How can we create opportunities for people to be inspired by each other to keep playing?
• What can we do to build the courage to take the Game to new places? 

Around 35 of us gathered, but we came from all over the world. We spent time working with the founding story and harvesting its essences. We had time to raise questions, tell stories, attend to what mattered for us and yes, to fall in love with each other.

Over the decades I've been working with groups of all types, this is the single most important thing we never seem to pay attention to.

Yes, we like results. Yes we like colourful flip charts and beautiful harvests. Yes we like wise words and deep insights. But more than anything else, we like being together. Despite the digitalisation of the world, despite how much technology has given us, being in the same room together makes so much difference.

New energy came into our practice field because we offered the space to come together.

Both of The Heart of Practice in May and the Flow Game Reunion in June connected the participants deeply and sent ripples into these two practice fields.

It took both commitment and effort for me - and the wonderful co-hosts and organising teams it took - to conceive and hold space for these events, but they gave more. Both for me are an example of how I embody stewarding in my fields of practice.

Stewarding for me is an act of tending something I care deeply about. You might say it is an act of devotion. Any act of devotion demands fierceness and great persistence. Often it challenges you to move despite evidence to the contrary that what you are attempting will succeed. Therefore it also demands deep love.

There was great tenderness when others recognise how much loving sacrifice exists in staying and tending with deep heart over decades. I feel very grateful to be witnessed in this way.

How do I hold the practice fields I am tending with both fierceness and tenderness? How can those who tend the fire also be supported over the long term?