The Hygge Manifesto meets Working Out Loud Circles: 2 - Presence: Be here now. Turn off the phones.

This is the third post in a series of posts looking at hygge and working out loud circles using Meik Wiking’s The Hygge Manifesto from his book “The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well” as a framework for discussion.

Whilst this is not unique to hygge, hygge may only be fully realised if people in the room are fully present and engaged and not “messing about” on devices. Not using devices is a physical sign that people are an integral part of what is going on.

I am acquiring a set of talks/clips etc on this subject. I know I personally need to be more focused and less distracted in all areas of my life. This video is one that I used in a recent All Age Worship event at church:

Presence applies to both physical and real life circles.

Presence also speaks to me of actually showing up to the circle meetings/calls. Clearly, there will be times when business/life demands mean people cannot always turn up. In virtual circles where the calls are recorded and the videos posted later, it is encouraging to hear people say that they played the call back when they were not able to be present “live”.

This may apply mainly to circle facilitators but I suspect also to other members of a circle but I find it amazing when I play calls back that I facilitated just how much I missed during the call. It is also encouraging and at times humbling hearing how a circle addressed a particular subject. One of the members in my current circle had a baby while we were circling and hearing the gang give their personal advice on parenting from years of experience not in a legalistic one-best-way way but in a deeply introspective way is one of my circle highlights.

I recently heard someone talk about “where we live”, do we live in the past, the now or the future. I know I for one need to spend more time on the being here now and not always planning things or looking back often with regret.

Resources

For a full list of posts in this series see the index post

My Top Ten Resources for Encouraging People To Actually Work Out Loud (as at 6 November 2017) (this post includes links to Working Out Loud resources)

Author Info

Simon Fogg is an IT professional who has worked in IT for all bar 8 months of his 34 year career to date. He delivers business consultancy, project management and service management services as part of the Claritas Solutions team in Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK. Claritas deliver solutions to clients in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors across the UK. He was first introduced to Working Out Loud Circles in 2016 and has since led 2 x 12-week global/virtual circles (using Slack and Zoom) and is currently recruiting and setting up for launching an “out-of-the-ordinary” (more than 5 people) 3rd circle on a trial Workplace by Facebook community in January 2018 with members already using the platform.