After planning to hold a beautiful trip for an intimate group of like-minded people on one of my favourite islands in my second home of Thailand this past February, I wasn’t able to garner enough interest to sign people up on time to hold the experience. It was going to be a 6 night 7 day trip, filled with connections, transformative bodywork, giving back, and exploration of both ourselves, and the local community and it’s stunning surroundings.

From there, I knew that I would be spending most of the upcoming spring and summer in my home base of Vancouver, Canada, and I still wanted to be able to create a space for intimate gatherings. Combining my love of food, exploration, and connecting people, and through chatting with others, I realized that there didn’t seem to be something that existed in Vancouver that hit all the notes of what I wanted to curate. For me, the goal was to build a trusted circle of people in the Vancouver community to share struggles without worrying about appearances. A space to be vulnerable and feel comfortable for people to be themselves, from where they can explore possibilities, and unleash their potential.

And a key part of this was to bring together and invite a group of diverse and interesting people, who may align with some of the following values that I hold close and have designed my life around over the past 9 years: Freedom, Flexibility, Abundance, Growth, and Connection.

The first dinner was held last week, on April 30th, in the wine cellar at Lupo – a beautiful private space in their amazing and non-pretentious restaurant (it’s a house!) with incredible Italian cuisine. The dinner was set with 8 people – half men and half women – aged between 25-55+ – people I had met who I thought would resonate with the idea. In the end, only 7 of us were in attendance as someone couldn’t make it last minute, but it was a great group, filled with individuals who were so open to sharing and learning from others, and it definitely made my heart full.

We had a few set rules for the evening – no phones at the table, guests couldn’t introduce themselves by what they do for a living or discuss their occupations, unless it became more fitting later in the evening (which it did), and that everyone agreed to be open to sharing and listening in a safe space where what we said stayed inside the room.

For me, facilitation is something completely new, at least in a formalized way. I have a tendency in life, both when in Vancouver and traveling around the world, to bring people together and gather and organize events or experiences more organically. However, I’ve been recently reading more about the art of facilitation itself, such as the fantastic book The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker, and learning the Chaordic Planning Framework, as a couple of examples, and the structure behind it has sparked more of my curiosity.

The dinner itself was very heartwarming to me – it was perfectly imperfect. We went a little long, there were some challenges to the logistics of ordering and trying not to disrupt the flow of conversation, and I sometimes had a difficult time bringing back the conversation to the theme of the evening or keeping each person within a set time limit, as everyone had so many interesting things to chat about – mainly relating to prior travels, within this particular group.  The idea was to have a few set prompts throughout the evening, and to leave everyone feeling more connected to others in Vancouver (which can be quite socially isolated at times), supported, and hopefully inspired to move forward and take one simple action to help them start to break free from whatever is making them feel stuck. To go deeper on this topic, please read “Breaking Free From Feeling Stuck – Going Deeper.“

Key themes of the evening included feeling like a fraud or not good enough in some way, the pressure of societal expectations, kindness and judgement (to oneself and others), people pleasing (especially amongst the women), and dealing with growing up in a religious family and the uncertainty of having differing beliefs that go against the grain of everything that you’ve ever known.

It was incredible to be in a room with 7 near complete strangers (I also didn’t know a couple of them myself until dinner), who were so willing to be vulnerable and open to sharing and listening, to explore their past and present struggles, all while enjoying an amazing meal around a dinner table. In telling our stories from varying ages, cultures, and backgrounds, we’re still able to relate to one another, and better understand that we’re all human beings who have similar issues and difficulties in life, and are here during this very short time period on earth to make the best of it possible, along with the supporting villages around us. Regardless of the logistical parts of the evening that have room for improvement, I feel that we were able to achieve what we sought out to do from the beginning – co-creating a space to share our struggles and connect, leaving with inspiration and the intent to keep moving forward.

From here, I would love to continue these dinners, while adding in a giveback element to the local community, just as I had always planned as an integral part of any travel experiences I put together. For me, this is the action I’m taking to continue to break free from feeling stuck and move forward step by step in a direction that is fulfilling for my life. For each monthly dinner, my current thinking is that we will have up to 2 returning guests, so that we can continue to grow the community of people who resonate with similar values.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how this all evolves and co-creating more experiences with those who would love to connect with others and surround themselves with inspiration and support! If you would like to attend one of these dinners, please sign up to the dinner-only mailing list and we’ll keep you posted on what’s coming up in Vancouver! And don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any other ideas or questions!