You may have noticed that I have been relatively absent for the past few months, sharing only sporadic updates. It’s for good reason. As you may already know, to my great surprise, I have seen my professional life and my contemplative life merge into a beautiful new shape.
Five years ago, I had this idea, or this vision, that I would, on the one hand, be offering consulting services to luxury fashion brands, continuing on the same path I had been on since Christian Louboutin. On the side of that, I would be writing, teaching loving kindness and mindfulness, and offering podcasts and resources.
I never could have imagined that I would be able to merge it all – my love for communication, storytelling, and an advisory practice – to contemplative practice, coaching and facilitation.
Truthfully, the process dragged on. Pulled between my old identity, tied in so intimately to the only way I had known to make a living for so long, and a new, exciting but undefined future, I stagnated. As I heard the teacher Thomas Hübl say in one of his online classes (in Ancestral Healing, a marvellous course): “Hell is the absence of movement.” I would have called this hell a limbo. And I’m sure you know what I mean by that: those moments in life when you’re suspended and unable to find momentum. I wrote about it in my last email, as you may remember.
There was no need to fret (well, I was impatient, so I did fret), because eventually, the metaphorical penny dropped. I suddenly understood how all the small and larger actions I have taken over the last eight years were converging and bringing me to a deeply purposeful new place.
Le Trente was originally the name of my salons: gatherings I started hosting at home two years ago. Think of them as an ‘in-person podcast experience’, with an audience of ten to 15 people, hosted in my beautiful living room. The name found me by chance. After choosing it, I finally looked up the meaning of the number thirty. Surprise and delight… Read for yourself:
The numerology number 30 represents highly creative and social energies.
- 30 resonates with optimism.
- The essence of the number 30 resonates with and supports creative expression and encourages it in others.
- 30 is imaginative. It’s an effective communicator. It’s tolerant and joyful and dynamic.
This represents not just who I am, but what I wanted to create with my gatherings. One thing led to another, weeks of working on my business plan (finally, getting there) and here we are!
Le Trente is a social learning studio and a community of practice, rooted in Geneva and accessible online to the world. We offer an ongoing space for transformative wellbeing, creative exploration, and the art of storytelling. Through guided mindfulness meditations, creative workshops and peer learning, members connect and grow together — supported by a culture of compassion, reflection and authentic community.
A note about your subscription: As Out of the Clouds becomes part of Le Trente, I’m migrating our subscriber database to ensure you continue receiving the content you’ve come to expect — just under a new banner. This means you’ll receive The Metta View (my regular newsletter with musings and essays linking work and life through a mindfulness lens), regular podcast updates, and details about our events including mindfulness sessions, meditation practices, loving kindness gatherings, and coaching masterclasses and workshops. The essence of what you subscribed for remains the same, simply evolving within Le Trente’s broader community. Of course, if this transition doesn’t align with your interests, you can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of this email. Your privacy and preferences matter to me, and I’m grateful for your continued presence on this journey.
The depth of what I can now offer through Le Trente comes from my own learning journey. Having taken dozens (literally…) of online and in-person courses since 2017, the new offering goes beyond mindfulness. It merges what I’ve learned about online learning, coaching and facilitation, storytelling and mindful communication. And alongside that, because I don’t want this all to revolve around me, I’m also pulling in all the smartest and most wonderful people I know to bring their wisdom and knowledge in a brilliant network of masterclasses and workshops.
Le Trente is a truly hybrid project, aiming to support those who (like me) may want to occasionally join a class from the comfort of their home, and also feel the need to gather in person, to connect to a group, around topics that matter.
You can follow our development on Lu.Ma (our event calendar), as well as MeetUp. For now, each event will have a fee attached to it, but come October 1st, we will launch our online platform on Circle, with all events covered by a monthly subscription, either online or hybrid.
You’ll notice that we’re putting a price tag on our foundation mindfulness and loving kindness guided classes. That’s very purposeful. As you already know, the vast majority of us (I include myself in this!) do not show up when events are free. Even last night, I had registered for an expert masterclass, only to completely forget about it. The stakes for attending were just too low.
It’s my deep desire to help bring people together, hence the name ‘community of practice’, so I hope you’ll choose to join, if only to try out the sessions over the summer. I realise that for some, even CHF15 is going to feel too high, which is why we’ll be offering a community practice at least once a month, where you can pay whatever you can.
Meanwhile, you can still join me on Insight Timer for free; the only cost being the time to download the free app, which you can find here.
Thank you so much for reading me! I hope you’ll join me online or in person soon, and wishing you a lovely rest of the day.