Presence Moment Along a Riverbank in Nepal

//Presence Moment Along a Riverbank in Nepal

Presence Moment Along a Riverbank in Nepal

Foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal

After taking in Doug Silsbee’s work on Mindful Leadership and Coaching  in Banff, hosted by Larry Huslmans with Reframe Leadership, I have been practising being more present in both my coaching practise and in my life. When you become attuned to taking in all that is there in the moment you learn to both tune out the distractions and heighten your awareness to the richness of what is right there, right now.

This happened for me recently when walking back from

Marshyandi River in Lamjung Nepal

Delivering Donated School Supplies

Shree Shanti Niketan PrimarySchool in Sundarbazaar, Lamjung, Nepal with 3 youths that volunteered to help me deliver donated school supplies from Canada.

Prem, a 15-year-old young man seemed self-conscious when he remarked about all the garbage along the river as we walked back to the health camp sponsored by Medical Mercy Canada. I talked about how we each have a choice to be part of the solution or part of the problem in life and that as young adults the younger children will follow his lead and those in his peer group.

Not more than 3 minutes later I had this sense that something wasn’t right. This was the presence moment when I stopped walking and looked around at each of them, Prem, Gopi and Avishek. Then I realized that I was the only one still holding an empty juice box that we were all drinking from moments ago. I asked Prem what happened? He stopped, wide-eyed, realizing something was wrong. There was no instant recognition of wrong-doing or connection to what we just talked about so I brought the subject forward again and used this situation as a live example. Prem’s response was “don’t worry I have left it in a beautiful place”. I couldn’t help but laugh at his well-meant and original response.

I asked them what they wanted for their country, one full of garbage every where or one that was clean that would attract tourists. They said the latter so I picked up a few pieces of litter, they did the same and we all had armsful by the time we arrived back at the secondary school that was hosting the health camp.

I told them their actions were powerful tools for change. That they were the future leaders of Nepal and people were watching and following their examples. They can and did invoke change just by role modeling the way that afternoon along the Marshyandi River.

When I thanked them for helping making Nepal a clean and beautiful place, they replied “You don’t need to thank us, this is our duty.” Powerful words from three 15-year-old teenage leaders.

New Leaders in Nepal

By |2018-10-28T10:15:43-06:00November 22nd, 2010|Leadership Skills|0 Comments

About the Author:

Leave A Comment