Loving Sydney

I’m trying to figure out why I love Sydney so much. I have loved this city since I first stepped foot in it four years ago, and this morning walking to this Subject-Object workshop I’m running, I found myself with the kind of silly smile I often have on my face when I’m here.

Some of it may be context. I’ve come to Sydney this time to take a certification programme (for the Leadership Circle 360 instrument) and to teach an Subject-Object Interview workshop. In both of these workshops, I get to hang out with smart and interesting people asking important questions about how do we help support people—others and ourselves—to grow. And specifically in the SOI workshops I have run here so often this past year, I get three days of totally interesting conversations about human sensemaking, and I learn and learn and learn.

So Sydney is a place I do not live but come to visit, it is a place where I spend my days in workshop rooms with interesting people doing work I love, and my evenings out to dinner with people I’m deepening relationships with, and my nights in quiet hotel rooms with only my own thoughts for company. I walk along the most beautiful waterfront, watch the rainbow-coloured parrots in the trees, and savour the best Thai Basil Tofu I’ve ever tasted. I am fully alive here.

I have been particularly cheerful this week. It has been hard being away from home this time, and the weather has been utter crap, raining constantly. I have worked too hard and slept too little. And still, my life feels so rich with possibilities that I can hardly believe it’s my life. I think I am noticing especially where I have come to since moving to New Zealand, and how fantastic it is not to be in the transitional space I’ve been in for so so long. I love the work I do in Sydney, I’m excited about the new connections and new practice field I’ve found this week, and I’m thrilled to be going home tonight to cuddle with my children, kiss my husband and pet my chickens.