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Our Report to the Findhorn Community on a typical "Creating Joyful Families" Workshop

This year’s “Creating Joyful Families” workshop: Six families, four languages, five nationalities, two translators, five focalizers, at Newbold, with kids between four and thirteen, all working and playing intensely for a week together! That is just a glimpse into an exciting, challenging, deeply-fulfilling week for both the participants and the focalizers.

The workshop encourages the adults and children to participate as equals--soul meeting soul-- so the activities are created to be valuable at a non-verbal level and, at the same time, work deeply in the life of the family through the insight that they offer. There are a lot of drawing, playing, singing, dancing, role-playing, communication activities, and story telling, this year all in simultaneous translation of four languages! It sounded like the U.N.

Because of the intensity and complexity of the week, we worked with five focalizers and two translators: Alexandra, Erin, and I, along with ex-members Giles and Clare Chitty, with Mie Nishimura and Benj Borseth, who originally joined us as Swedish and Japanese translators and ended up taking huge responsibility in leading activities and facilitating families’ processes.
Through the week we guided the families into an examination of who they are as a family and how they would most like to function together.

Empowerment of each family member allowed the families to explore new and sometimes better ways to play and work together. Building upon the experience of spiritual unity of the family, we then encouraged each family to take an active step together towards contributing to the world: from planting a garden in the sand of Saudi Arabia or cleaning up a riverbank in England to practicing the newly-learned “Way of Family Council” skills together regularly.

While morning sessions gave kids and parents an opportunity to interact and explore together, evenings began with story time, led by Erin--which became so enthralling no one would miss a session--and then carried on to deep personal sharing by parents on their own struggles, joys, and questions about family life. Tears and delight, pain and joy were shared in equal measure, all held in a sense of blessing and transformation.

The Newbold family provided a superb home for us all for the week! The food was carefully thought through to meet the desires of kids and parents, the spaces were wonderfully clear and open and inviting, the Newbold family was gently patient, helpful, and accepting.

I think its safe to say that all of us were really thrilled with the outcome, the sense of joy and fun and transformation for all the families in the challenging areas of their family life. and inspired by the spiritual guiding Presence of the angel of “Joyful Families”. For Alexandra and me, perhaps the very best part was working together with our daughter Erin as co-focalizers, and seeing her so masterfully and gracefully lead the group of twenty-six people!

Love and blessings,

—David & Alexandra McNamara