It’s an extraordinary thing that a group of 6-10 people are willing to carve out 3-4 hours each month to challenge and support one another to design and keep on track, the life they want to lead.
While it would be great if everyone came into the Forum with a clear head and 100% focus, the reality is often far from this. Forum members come into the meeting with unpaid bills, fired employees, arguing spouses, troubled friends, and many other issues.
Opening up a Forum with a meditative body scan is a great way to calm the noise of life and get everyone to be as present as possible right away at the start of the meeting.
Many meditation apps are helpful in this process. I often recommend the Calm app. They have a 3-minute meditation body scan that is short and sweet.
One trick for virtual Forums is to not run the sound for the meditation through a phone because it will sound horrible to the rest of the group on the receiving end. Instead, if the group uses Zoom, do Screen Share > Advanced > Music/Computer Sound. Then open up Calm.com and play the meditation from your computer. It will sound MUCH better for the rest of the group.
It doesn’t take more than 3-5 minutes to get everyone centered, and it will bring powerful results for the rest of the meeting. Namaste.