Ep 163: Group Learning on the Expansive Path

Transcript

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Truth and Transcendence brought to you by being Space with Catherine Llewellyn.

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Truth and Transcendence, episode 163.

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Welcome to the first video episode of Truth and Transcendence.

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I look forward to doing this every Monday across the foreseeable future, which, if you know me at all, there's no way of knowing how long that's going to be, but at the moment I see it happening in perpetuity.

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So thank you for tuning in.

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If you've been listening for quite some time and if you're here for the first time, thank you for choosing to give this a shot.

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On Truth and Transcendence, my aim is to disseminate information that's useful for any and all of us, but particularly for those of us on what I call the expansive path, and by that I mean people who've decided and chosen that personal expansion, spiritual expansion, are something they're genuinely very interested in and are currently engaged in, and I tend to think of it in terms of what's our next shift, what's our next piece of growth and learning.

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And I also like to think of the fact that in between significant bursts of learning and growth, we have consolidation periods as well.

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We have downtime, relaxation, integration and grounding or, as someone said the other day, stabilization, or stabilizing of whatever it is that's been activated or stabilizing of whatever it is that's been activated, and one of the ways that we can really invest in our growth and expansion is group workshops and retreats.

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You probably know I run some workshops myself, and even just in the local area where I live, there are many other group events going on, most of which I think are absolutely excellent and well worth investigating.

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So does that mean that I think we should all spend all our time every weekend on a workshop?

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I don't think that, unless that's actually what we want to be doing.

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At that point in time, I had a friend who I met on a training program and we got to know each other quite well.

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It was an 18-month training program and this person had come into some money and she basically traveled around the world for several years attending multiple courses, workshops, retreats, gatherings, festivals, and I didn't find this appetizing at all.

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I thought I really wouldn't want to do that and she said no, at this point in my life she said this is what I need to be doing, this is what I want to do.

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She said she wanted a complete reset, she wants to leave behind a whole phase of her life and she wanted to embark energetically and intentionally on the next phase, even though she had no idea what the next phase was going to be.

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Actually, shortly after the program we did together, she completed that cycle together.

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She completed that cycle, moved country, moved house, settled down and is now living a really fulfilling life, still going on the occasional group workshop, but it's not a lifestyle anymore, it's something she does on occasion.

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That was the right time for her to do that.

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Now it's the right time to be doing something else.

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So I wonder where you are in that particular cycle.

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I wonder if you're somebody who has never been to a group learning experience, who goes to them all the time, who occasionally goes to them, who only ever goes to one kind of experience, for example, conscious dance.

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Do you only ever go to conscious dance gatherings and workshops and retreats?

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Or do you go to men's work retreats?

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Or do you go to intimacy programs or communication skills programs or empowerment programs or business growth programs?

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The list is endless.

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Or business growth programs the list is endless.

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What's your general default in relationship to group workshops and why is that your default?

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Is that your default because that is really what's most nourishing and enlivening and expansive for you, or was it once like that, and is it now perhaps a little bit stale?

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Is it no longer pushing out the envelope?

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Is it now something which has just become a habit?

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So I'm not suggesting that it is.

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What I am suggesting is it's very useful to review this every now and again and just say to ourselves what is it that is really calling me, what is it that's most useful for me at this point in my life, and why?

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Why is that?

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I've noticed in the last year or so that many more people seem to want to go to group events than to work one-to-one doing solo work.

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I'm pretty confident this is because of the cultural effect of what took place during the years of the virus.

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During that time, a lot of people spent, frankly, far too much time by themselves.

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A lot of relationships were fractured, far too much time by themselves.

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A lot of relationships were fractured and haven't recovered.

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Some have, some have strengthened and people have come out of that not everybody, but a lot of people have come out of that really craving and genuinely needing more time in group space, more time in community, and I've spoken with other facilitators and practitioners and they've confirmed this.

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They feel exactly the same.

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This is what people have been looking for.

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So the question, then, is how do you decide which group event to go to, which is the one to go to?

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Now?

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I've got a number of guidelines I use in this regard, so one guideline is the question of what is it in me that I'm trying to change or evolve or grow?

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So, for example, at the moment I'm getting on a bit now and I've reached a point where I need to pay a bit more attention to keeping my body flexible and limber and the energy flowing.

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So to me, what that means is more dance and more yoga, but at the same time, I'm no longer bursting with the energy I had in my 20s.

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So I don't necessarily want to be going to a five-day workshop where you're dancing all day and dancing all evening.

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I'm more likely to go to a morning dance session or an evening dance session or a day perhaps not such a long and perhaps grueling experience.

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So that's just one example.

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So that's where I'm actually taking remedial action, maintenance action, and I've looked around and found a couple of practices that I genuinely, absolutely love doing, really enjoy doing, and so I'll sprinkle those across my life as a regular thing.

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Another thing I really enjoy working with is energy.

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So, for example, I've done the Pellewa workshop and I've done the Pellewa teacher training.

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Now, both of those came at points in time where I was looking for something else in addition to what I was just talking about in relation to the body, where I was looking for a significant energetic boost, a shift at a deep consciousness level that would help me leap into the next phase of my life.

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And in both cases, what the next phase of my life was going to look like was something I wasn't sure about, and the fact I wasn't sure about it I thought was a good thing.

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I thought it was a good idea for me to open up to it, give myself a boost and, while I was at it, learn some new skills and spend some time with some lovely people, people who were really interested in being empathetic, sensitive, compassionate, friendly, warm, giving, affectionate.

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Another advantage, of course, of group workshop is the hugs.

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If you like hugs, and you like plenty of them, a lot of these personal growth workshops are ideal for that, without it being in any way creepy.

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I remember one workshop that a friend of mine and I ran together years back.

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This friend, his name is Nigel Singer wonderful man, he's an expert in conflict work working with people to help deal with conflict situations, conflict resolution.

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We ran a workshop together called Conscious Connection, and so the whole weekend was about conscious connection, and the group responded to this theme by every single time.

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We did a process.

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Let's say it's get into pairs and talk to each other for 10 minutes about something, or okay, do this physical exercise or whatever it is.

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After every single exercise, people hugged each other as a thank you for spending 10 minutes having a conversation and then moved on to the next thing.

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We didn't ask them to do that and it created such a lovely atmosphere in the room.

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So I've just given a couple of examples of things I've chosen to do that I found valuable, and there was a combination in all of those of things I enjoy doing and things I thought would be good for me, help me maintain myself, but also help me to grow and move on.

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Sometimes I will choose to go and do something which is outside the norm for me, something quite different, not what I would normally do.

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Something quite different, not what I would normally do Now.

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This is a very interesting notion, because sometimes when someone says, oh, I'm going to do something kind of outside my comfort zone.

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What they think it means is they've got to go and do something that's really uncomfortable and, frankly, unpleasant for them.

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I don't think it means that and I don't embrace that idea.

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To me, it's more a question of is there something that is actually calling me, that I actually feel drawn towards, where something in me is actually feeling intrigued, feeling compelled to look into it, and is it something that was the same as what I would always normally do?

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And is it something that was the same as what I would always normally do?

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And in that case, if those two things are true, I will absolutely consider going and doing it, because it's really good for me to shake things up, it's really good to go outside of where I'm already really really comfortable, but I'm not going to go and do something just because it is uncomfortable, not just for that reason, and I think that's a subtle distinction, I think it's an important distinction.

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So if you're also then thinking well, okay, how do I choose which event to go to, how do I choose which teacher or facilitator to go with?

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Somebody contacted me and said I'd like to do the Pellower Workshop, catherine, which teacher do you recommend I go and do it with.

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And I said well, my recommendation is that you go and do it with the teacher who you resonate with the most.

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And I wasn't trying to be clever or smart.

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The reality is that within ourselves, intuitively, we will feel a resonance with the teacher who's the right teacher for us, or the right facilitator, and really trust that.

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I absolutely encourage people to trust that, because if you follow that, you will have a valuable experience.

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You may come out of it thinking well, actually that was really valuable and now I'd like to try doing something similar with someone where it's a bit more challenging for me.

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But you will do that built on a foundation of following something that resonates for you, rather than just jumping straight into something again just for the sake of the discomfort or the unfamiliarity.

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And when you've then chosen something I haven't even mentioned logistics and practicality Logistics and practicality can be a bit of a red herring.

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Sometimes, if something is genuinely inconvenient to do, it means it's not the right thing for you to do or it means the timing is not right.

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Other times, it means that finding inconvenient is a piece of personal resistance and ultimately, we're the only ones who know which it is.

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And personal resistance is something I talk about a lot.

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I work with a lot in myself and with others, because resistance is something that I feel is absolutely full of data for us.

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So if you're considering going along to something and you feel resistance, see if you can inquire into that and try and learn from that resistance and see what message it's trying to give you in terms of is this not the right thing for me?

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Is it the right thing but not the right time?

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Or is it the right thing for me but I'm resisting it purely because I'm scared or because I'm lazy?

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I don't want to engage with it.

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Whatever reason we might have resistance and ultimately you're the only person who will know which it is Not to say.

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If you're really not sure, no reason not to discuss it with your coach, your facilitator, your therapist.

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These people are there for you to use them and use them to help you decide whether or not to go to something and, if so, why you're going and, even more so, how to get the maximum out of it.

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Years ago, I remember someone teaching me that the way to get most out of something is to go into it with the intention to get the most out of it, to decide to get the most out of it.

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Now I've actually applied this to just sitting in the office all day.

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I turned up once for a client shadow session.

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I was going to be spending the day following him around at work.

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He was a chief executive and he was going to have his day at work and I turned up and he said Catherine, I'm really sorry, this is really not a good day for doing this.

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I said why?

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He said well, there's nothing happening today.

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I said what do you mean?

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There's nothing happening?

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He said well, there's no special meetings and a board meeting.

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And I said yeah, but you're alive, there's something happening every minute.

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Are you going to spend your whole day in your office looking at the computer?

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Well, no, I'm going to do some wandering around.

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People come wandering in and I'll deal with some email.

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I said great deal with an email.

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I said great, this could be an incredibly valuable day for you in terms of deciding that today is important, having that as your intention, having it as your intention that you're going to get a lot out of today and so will everyone else you deal with, and that it will be well worth it to have me here shadowing you.

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And he said well, all right, he wasn't really convinced, but that's what happened.

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That's what he did, and we debriefed several times during the day on his experiences and observations of the day, and he was astounded at the richness of the learning and the shifts that could occur in a day where, in quotes, nothing was happening.

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So if that's true, then if, contrary to that, you're actually going along to an event where somebody's designed it, they've gone to a lot of trouble to do that, maybe there's a workbook, maybe they've set up the space in a particular way, maybe there's more than one person involved on the team holding the event.

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There are other people there who are there for their own reasons equivalent to yours, some with very similar reasons, some with very different reasons.

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Everyone's there ultimately for the same purpose.

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And then you go in with the intention to absolutely milk this event dry, to drain from it every piece of value.

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Then you can have a really valuable experience, almost independent of the skill or the sensitivity or the capacities of the people running the event.

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If, on top of that, these people are also absolutely extraordinary and exceptional in the way they're delivering what they're delivering, then you get the maximum result when you come out of it.

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Of course, you can reflect, integrate what you got out of it, and then you go away and then you reflect.

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And, of course, one of the wonderful things with group work is that the learning and the expansion continue over time in most cases.

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So then the next thing you go and do will build upon the last thing you did as a continuum, and the other learning experiences you have in between build on everything you've done and then help feed towards everything you're going to do later.

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So this beautiful continuum is also really valuable to connect into.

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If you think of it as a river that's running along and you're just simply following the river, you're like a boat on the river.

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Every single twist and turn, every single up and down, every rock you go around is all part of a continuum of growth and expansion.

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And the specific group events you go along to are milestones.

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They are events where specific things take place, but everything that came before feeds into those experiences and everything that comes after is nourished by those experiences.

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So, yeah, consider what your current default pattern is in regard to group events.

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Consider what calls you, why it calls you, what you're responding to, why what you're looking for, consider who you're drawn to in terms of facilitators and trainers and coaches and consider going into these situations with the intention to get the most value you possibly can and then consider the continuum and the ongoing integration and grounding.

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Thank you for listening, have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.

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Thank you for listening to Truth and Transcendence and thank you for supporting the show by rating, reviewing, subscribing, buying me a coffee and telling a friend.

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If you'd like to know more about my work, you can find out about transformational coaching, pellewa and the freedom of spirit workshop on beingspaceworld.

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Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.

Ep 163: Group Learning on the Expansive Path

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