Impressions of Spring In Person Day 2026
by Eibhlin Nic Eochaidh
Sunshine through a wall of stained-glass windows. Images in them I don’t recall. It’s the filtered light that stays. The space. The warmth.
We begin with chair yoga. Led by Rennie. Gentle movement in place. Sitting on our chairs, raising my arms out in front of me, I notice unfamiliar aches. The session ends with movements to “It’s a wonderful world”, embracing ourselves with generosity and gentleness. We have come into our bodies.
Now it’s too warm. We move ourselves and chairs into an inner room and begin a workshop on Stories of Resilience.
Tom and Margaret offered this workshop, setting off with “what comes when we think of the word resilience?” Images. Songs. A character in a book or film.
Immediately what came for me was the image of a child teaching themselves to walk. Falling. Picking themselves up. Over and over.
After exploring the word we divided into groups, each of us sharing a story of what came to us when we thought of something or someone that embodied resilience for us, returning to the main group with one story to share.
Stories of a journey to Ireland of a Palestinian Circus Group, the difficulties and challenges they overcame; a talk by an Israeli man whose young daughter was killed in a bomb attack; a sister-in-law’s resilience in grief; a sister who reinvented her life over and over. What stays with me now is how these stories moved us.
A question came up: are some people more resilient than others, or is resilience innate in some people and not in others? Something Margaret shared, of how a Palestinian woman said to her about how people empathise with what is happening to them but how deeply she resents being expected to be resilient, stayed with me.
Resilience doesn’t seem to be something embedded. How we navigate the “trials and tribulations” of our lives is partly shaped by our personalities, resilience a skill set we can acquire. We can learn it, lose it, find it again, discover what supports us not to drown in a dark hole of despair. Persistence appears essential. A willingness to begin again. To look for what supports me.
After a generous lunch, lots of chat and a marmalade cat, we returned to Focusing with the Enneagram workshop led by Therese.
Re-entering the room to find a map on the floor in the centre of the circle of chairs. Around the rim of the map’s circle were nine points. A voice saying “it’s a star map”. It was. A constellation of nine stars, each a cluster of personality traits, a pattern, representing Body types, Heart types and Head types.
Therese requested us to listen as she slowly read phrases describing each of the nine points. To feel how they landed with us, to notice and hold what we noticed: what we were attracted to and what we reacted against.
Up on our feet next, Therese guided us through gestures embodying each of the nine personality patterns, their high points. I found this illuminating – how good some gestures felt. How I rejected others. I found myself surprisingly attracted to the stance of 8, feeling myself taking up more space than I normally allow myself.
After this brief, embodied introduction to the Enneagram, we focused in pairs. What comes now is simply how wonderful it is to focus in person, “offline”.
We completed our day as we began with movements in place, and attempts at singing (!) to It’s a Wonderful World.
I returned home with a feeling of lightness in heart and mind, and a deep gratitude for the gifts of Friendship and Focusing.
Before I finish I want to tell you about something Tom mentioned, almost in passing, something someone in my life had previously mentioned – the idea of Glimmers, as opposed to Triggers – noticing and choosing to do things that help us to learn resilience.
The glimmers I gathered on this Spring day of In-Person Focusing were a moment during lunch break, sitting outside on the front steps, my eyes closed, feeling the warmth of the sun on my face; a huge tree on the lawn, its many branches outstretched, an embroidered tablecloth of spring flowers at its foot and the man working in the canteen who drew my attention with such pride to the homemade tartare sauce for the salmon. And yes, it was delicious!
We had such a wonderful immersive day that we forgot to take a group photo, or any at all!
But there is something that resonates with the image below of this hug, with the experience of the day!
Here is a previous photo of Therese's Enneagram map from the Dublin Advance Weeklong 2022.
