The Pocket Dojo podcast Episode #14

Breaking down to break through - the cycles we are in today

If you’re anything like me, novelty and new beginnings are easy and exciting, endings and closings much more challenging. They require letting go and a certain grace, before it’s really possible to explore what might be next.

One of the many things that

Paul Crick

, my co-host at The Pocket Dojo podcast, and I want to explore in series 2 of the show is how other people are regenerating their own lives and in their organisations. We’re blessed and grateful for the fantastic conversations with other practitioners and business leaders who are creating conditions for all to flourish in their own environments.

Today I’m talking with an old friend, Simon Hampel, who is the founder of Sarsen and the wonderful Light app. If you haven’t played with it already, I truly recommend taking a look. It’s a wonderful journey through a self-designed circuit of practices for mindfulness, personal growth, wellbeing… and beautifully designed too. Watch Simon’s introduction to Light to find out more.

Our spontaneous conversation meanders through different tributaries of Simon’s fascinating life, as he describes them: commercial successes and ‘failures’ in his 20s and 30s, amazing adventures in far-flung parts of the world and inspiring service to help people in great need in his 30s and 40s, before returning to the UK and starting both a young family as an older dad, and a new business exploring how consciousness, energy and technology can create tipping points for important change in the world.

I’ve known Simon since we were at university more than 3 decades ago. Life took us in different directions until a mutual friend reconnected us a few years ago. I’m really glad he did, not least because I can see both glimpses of the young man full of life I met back then and the mature, wise leader he has become. Today’s conversation gives us rich insights into the power of who we bring of ourselves into situations, particularly those that feel difficult, painful and destabilising. Guided by our emerging and evolving sense of purpose, we can always create conditions for life to regenerate in the spaces between us, whatever they may be.

During our conversation, I was reminded how the different tributaries of our lives begin to flow together into a great river that will finally reach the ocean. Life shapes us as we move through different experiences and we shape them. Everything is connected and interdependent. Regular practices keep us grounded and open, especially when we are faced with what can feel like decline and collapse.

And these uncomfortable states are necessary for us to learn and grow, perhaps to be able to accept the final one. They are part and parcel of the natural cycle of life that has existed on our beautiful planet for 3.8 billion years.

Photo by Jack Anstey on Unsplash

I also love how Simon touched on all the aspects of regenerative leadership that we introduced in the first series of the podcast:

00:00 Introduction

01:12 Simon's journey

08:36 Ingredients for success

• nourish relationships with one another and the places we move through

14:33 Challenges and overcoming them

• zoom in and out to see how what shows up around us often begins within us

• step into our personal power and speak with our authentic voice

• tell the truth so we can create trust

22:55 Collapse and regeneration

• compost and hospice what needs to die back and prepare the ground for new life to grow

• discover the deeper flow of life beyond everyday busyness and tune into synchronicity

27:02 Social consequences

• reframe challenges to see what is possible to do with what we have available

Embodying these qualities and skills is what we all have to do to face the challenges life is now throwing our way. It’s what regeneration is all about.

“It is said that before entering the sea

A river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has travelled,

from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.

The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.

To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.”

~ Khalil Gibran

I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.

Thank you for watching.