“It was life changing to meet with others this way on a journey, riding the waves of challenges around our gender. I was able to be wildly authentic and allow healing, joy and love to be received by myself, and given to others.”
~ Female Participant
“A great opportunity to enter into a safe space where intimacy, vulnerability, sharing and listening leads to healing and bridging the gender gap.”
~ Male Participant
G’day GERI mates! What a fantastic year we had for GERI Australia. We are consolidating our presence and feel very enthused about what has been happening in 2023. May 27 – 29, we ran our first three-day, Introductory Workshop in a face-to-face format since COVID, what a joyful experience!
Over the past two years our team has been solidifying even more, growing into a strong 5-member team and towards the end of this year we added an extra member making us 6. We have Esther Diplock, William Diplock, June Lambourne, Jeremy White, Kara Salter, and Robert Grimes.
In May this year, we ran our first three-day, Introductory Workshop in a face-to-face format since COVID, what a joyful experience! The workshop had 24 people including facilitators with a very even balance of women and men, as well as with other gender and ethnic diversity. It was held at the Abbey, outside Brisbane, a beautiful, sacred, tree-lined location. The process unfolded beautifully, with deep sharing and a strong sense of beloved community forming.
For some, when entering into a GERI workshop, the initial thinking might be “gee this is going to be tough sharing in front of the other gender”. In the workshop we had two gay men, and for them sharing within the same gender group was actually the biggest challenge. They felt fearful about disclosing their story to other men, and expressed they were often not comfortable with heterosexual men. They revealed they were asking themselves the internal question ‘am I actually in the right group?’, knowing they would feel more comfortable with the women. These two wonderful and courageous souls, despite the above fears, shared beautifully and vulnerably into the men’s space each time the men met together, and the beautiful transformation that slowly happened over the three days was that several of the heterosexual men softened and became more understanding and welcoming of gay men and gay men’s experience. This was obvious by the end of the three days as witnessed by verbal recognition of the gay men’s lives. The two gay men were also able to reflect that it had been a helpful experience for them to share and to be supported in the men group.
Our aspirations for 2024 is to run two 3-day GERI workshops; the first in the outer suburbs of Brisbane (Queensland), and the second in the suburbs of Perth (Western Australia). The Brisbane workshop will include mentoring the South Korean team as they travel to join us in this three-day program. We are also planning to run a GERI Heart Circle for people who have attended a three-day program. We may also host a 7-week, online GERI workshop.
~ Esther and William Diplock, GERI Australia co-leads