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TEDAche | Stretching, Compassion & Rebounding

TEDActive spontaneous dance party

The wonders / dangers of attending a TED conference.

A few hours ago TEDActive ended.

I’m currently sat in my Whistler hotel room even though the party goes on with groups of tremendous souls from all corners of the globe still hungry to connect.

Alas, I’m all talked out after six days of immense conversations, nearly 100 TED talks plus a variety of moments which truly remind you of the spectrum of experiences this world has to offer.

I feel stretched.

Full of compassion.

Ready to bounce!

For me, the themes taken away included these ideas of:

  • stretching—reaching beyond your grasp and changing your mind / body / habitat as an attempt to find new solutions or better questions;
  • compassion—embracing and empathising with suffering as a means of connection to discover new perspectives;
  • rebounding—the act of trying again or even using the negative as a reframing exercise to grow or carve out new paths.

Events like these are dangerous if you’re not ready to change (or commit). No matter what your expectations are, in the giving of yourself to the experience you lose something: some light stuff (like sleep and the yearning of solitude) although also the dark (as the stories curated and the organic ones shared with your fellow participants fuel the yearning to be more).

The aim now is to digest, deconstruct plus apply the learning (especially from the other TEDx organisers in attendance—there were 350 of them) to the future TEDxWellington events, and selfishly, my journey.

Onwards!

Picture above is of the TEDActive spontaneous dance party whilst Aloe Blacc woke us up:

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