Who are ‘the League’ you ask? Dr. Louise Greenstock, the Victorian Crusader for the League wrote for us as we entered single figures in the days counting down to the event…

We are all buzzing with excitement at the collaboration of the year coming to Melbourne in just over one week’s time!  Under Emily Hehir’s leadership the TEDx LittleLonsdaleSt Women event will see ambitious, inspiring women flocking to the Wheeler Centre to hear from some of the most iconic women in Australia to engage in an Honest Conversation.  To top it off, the League of Extraordinary Women are hosting the event’s official after-party! (Grab a ticket: http://leaguevipxmas.eventbrite.com/)

The League of Extraordinary Women was founded in 2011 by four business women: Liz Atkinson, Sheryl Thai, Marie Cruz-DeVera and Sarah Riegelhuth. The four founders were driven by that niggling feeling that somewhere out in the big city of Melbourne, there had to be other women just like them. Women who ran their own companies, women who had big dreams for their first business, women who were a similar age and going through the same problems and challenges.  Over lots of coffee and cupcakes, the League was born.  In 2012 the League has grown into a movement of young female entrepreneurs joining as members in rapidly growing numbers, and attending stimulating breakfasts and glamorous evening events.  The League founders are so committed to supporting their community that they took on Crusaders in each of it’s native States, QLD, NSW and VIC.  Chiquita Searle (QLD – Chi The Label), Samanatha Dybac (NSW – Sammway) and Louise Greenstock (VIC – Mind & Motive) took on the role of ambassador for their own State and Samantha Gash came on board as the awesome National Crusader. The hottest announcement yet is the welcoming of Monica Kade (@MonicaKade) as Change Crusader for the League too!

The League is a truly exciting group to be involved with.  The founders are genuinely impressive, warm and supportive.  The events are well-organised, stylish and attract the most relevant and inspiring speakers.  Month after month there are new initiatives announced with 2013 set to see the League explode into new areas and continue to put members first. 

This collaboration behind these events is a unique opportunity to rub shoulders with hundreds of women out there doing something cool, making their mark, and keen to collaborate.  The after-party will provide others who did not make it to the sold-out main event, to come along and be seen, be heard and make new friends.  In addition, there is still a few days left to be included in the exclusive League Connect book! This little book is a directory including the bios and contact details of women attending the event. If you want the women attending the event to see your name and learn about your business, grab ticket to the after-party before Monday 26^th November at 6pm and select the Admission + The League book!  There is such a buzz around women in business at the moment that this is truly the place to be! Come on ladies, grab a ticket right now http://leaguevipxmas.eventbrite.com/

Dr. Louise Greenstock, the Victorian Crusader for the League, is passionate about ending the cycle of self-criticism among women. Louise’s company, Mind & Motive, helps women understand the workings of the mind and the wisdom of the body and spirit to ignite that spark within and reconnect with their passion and purpose.  Louise’s clients learn self-acceptance and compassion which lightens life right up. Louise works with women one to one, as well as running inspiring seminars and full-day events. 

Company Email Address: louise@mindandmotive.com

Twitter: @lngreenstock

Facebook: facebook.com/mindandmotive

Many years ago when I was seventeen years old I wrote myself a letter. I wrote it against the back drop of the Vietnam war, a war to which I then paid little attention because the nuns who taught me at school urged us to avoid dangerous activities such as the Moratorium on the streets of Melbourne against that war or any other events that were subversive to the status quo.

One Friday night late after all the members of my family had gone to bed I sat up late listening to the radio. Old fifties favourites. The music put me in a mellow mood. I had just completed my final year exams but I did not yet know the results. And so I did not yet know where my life might wander. I wanted to go to university to study social work, but I thought I might fail in which case I would go out to work. I could be an assistant in a office or sell dresses in a shop. In any case my life lay before me like a closed book and I decided to write my twenty one year old self a letter.

I wrote about the desires of my younger self to lead a good Christian life. My younger self exhorted my twenty one year old self to keep up the good work. To continue to behave myself, to be especially vigilant where boys were concerned, to continue in my chastity, not yet a nun but near enough in my aspirations to chastity poverty and obedience. Reading back over the letter now I sense my seventeen year old self had some inkling of what might become of her older self, and how the strangle hold my younger self held over me then could not last.

I have some sense now that although my younger self wrote in all honesty about her expectations of a good life ahead in the moral sense, another part resisted and projected into the future some future version of herself who was in danger of breaking the rules, of breaking free and no longer leading the good life my younger self once espoused. 

If I were to write myself a letter now, now well past the middle of my life and into the autumn, I would start with a quote from Jenny Joseph’s poem:

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And in so doing I project into my future a more subversive and eccentric woman than I have so far allowed myself to be. I travel in reverse.

- Elisabeth Hanscombe. You can find more of her writing at her blog, Sixth in Line.

The TED brand and their independently organised TED-licensed TEDx event program can be a touch confusing sometimes.

We want to clarify that there can be multiple TEDx events in the one city at the one time. They could even be happening on the same day! Each event is organised by separate organisers, catering to different audiences, with different speakers and ideas being shared.

TEDxWomen events around the world have to be held within 24 hours of the main TEDxWomen event in Washington D.C. (which occurs on 30 Nov and 1 Dec 2012). Approximately 82 of these ‘satellite’ events are already organised, in places as diverse as Algeria, South Korea, Uganda and of course, Little Lonsdale St in Melbourne! 

Our event is occurring once, on 1 Dec, hosted by The Wheeler Centre, featuring 11 live local speakers as well as livestream content from TEDxWomen in Washington D.C.

Our event is sold out. 

Dr Elise Bialylew (@meditatecreate) reflects on the role her inner voice has played in her life.

***

An honest conversation is our key to intimacy. To being who we really are, irrespective of what someone else thinks.

Through my training in psychiatry I have had to have many honest conversations. Speaking with people who are at their most vulnerable, like exposed nerves to the world. Sometimes we need to reach the depths of pain, before we can really be honest with ourselves or others.

Perhaps the most interesting type of honest conversation is the one that we have with ourselves. Whether in a job that is draining the life from us or a relationship that is “just fine”, learning how to be honest with ourselves can be so damn hard. It can take careful listening, patience and courage.

The last honest conversation I had with myself was a decision to leave a long term relationship. There was a humming, background murmur of “not rightness” whose volume increased until it suffocated my soul into listening. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend you can’t hear, or even better still, make rationalisations for why that inner voice is to be doubted. Fear can springboard us away from our truth and land us in a labyrinth of intellectualisation and discontentment.

Eventually, my inner voice started to yell. My inner conversation became more like an honest command.

It’s time to leave, you need to face the fear and follow what feels true.

Sometimes taking yourself away from the noise is the only way you can hear what’s really going on. Meditation helped me to strain out my clumps of thinking and tune in to my soul speaking its truth.

What honest conversation are you avoiding with yourself? What do you need to support yourself to tune in and respond mindfully?

***

Dr Elise Bialylew is the creator of Mindful in May. She has been working as a doctor for the past ten years and more recently is training in the field of Psychiatry. She has also trained in mindfulness meditation having attended seminars and retreats with leading national and international teachers. Elise blogs at http://www.curiouslycreating.com.

I asked a friend if she would share with us one of her experiences of an honest conversation.

We hope you enjoy the story she has shared with us. Feel free to let her know on Twitter, find her at @sandra_arico or sandra_arico@hotmail.com.

If you’d like to share an #honestconversation with us, tweet us or message on Facebook.

In 2009, I had a very honest conversation with myself. One that took me from a well-paying corporate job at a leading global consulting firm, all the way to the jungles of Guatemala, where I had no idea that I would face the most transformational – and equally gruelling – journey of my life (so far!) 

I came into the office one day, just like I had done every day for almost two years. Little did I know that this day would in fact, be a very different day. I loved my job when I first started, fresh out of uni, recruited by the CEO of the corporate division himself, working on some great innovative projects and absolutely killing it. I had done so well my whole life at everything I put my mind to, especially academically, and now I was really shining through in the same way in my working career. Before long, all the right people knew who I was and it was opening a lot of doors for me. But pretty quickly, all of the shine wore off, and what was once a new and exciting challenge had become what I felt was a pretty mundane reality. It had been playing on my mind a lot for a long time, but looking back now, I think I had just been too afraid to admit that I was unhappy and that low and behold – what I was doing was actually not my passion. 

This day was different. My commute to work was grey, a stark contrast to the rainbow colours I normally painted the world with. I looked around and suddenly felt like the sun had vanished and I was floating through a sea of sleeping people, lemmings in suits, eyes to the pavement, almost faceless. I stood there for a moment and just watched. I looked at people and wondered whether there was actually even anyone in there, or if they were in fact just shells or remnants of souls that had once inhabited their bodies. I walked through the revolving doors of 550 and stood silently in the elevator. Eight of us did. All silent. I got off at my floor, walked through the office and sat at my desk. What on earth was going on this morning? I looked around at my colleagues. Barely a flicker of an eye or a hint of a ‘good morning’ from most – not because they were assholes, but because they were so absorbed with working at their computers. They suddenly all looked like robots. A bomb could’ve gone off and I wonder if half of them would’ve noticed. At this point, I knew something in me had changed – because nothing around me had. These were the same people I saw everyday, this was the same office, the same job. It was just that this morning, I was seeing it through new eyes. The switch had flicked inside me, and my spirit would no longer let me continue on for another moment until I would agree to finally have that honest conversation with myself that I knew I had been avoiding.

And so I did. It went something like:

Is this your passion? Do you really want to be here? Coming to an office every day where you are slugging your guts out for someone else at the top of the food chain, whose primary purpose is simply to increase profits for their shareholders? Is this really what you’re purpose is? What life is about? What you believe is the limit of your capability?

I couldn’t answer ‘yes’ to any of those questions. The conversation ended. And in that moment, it was all just so clear. Clear enough to make me get up and walk over to the CEO’s P.A. and ask where he was because we needed to talk. She could tell something was up. She says to me that he’s just walking over to the elevator to go downstairs for a coffee and if I hurry I can catch him – she hilariously walks over with me briskly, gets to the elevator he’s just walked into, holds the door open and literally pushes me in! The doors close and there I am. There we are. It’s just me and him now. And my heart is pounding a million miles an hour as he looks at me with a confused look on his face, most likely wondering what the hell is so important that his P.A. needs to push me into an elevator for.

That day, I quit. It was one of the scariest and most daunting things I had ever had to do – to look the person who hired me and took me under his wing square in the eye and say, “I’m not happy so I’m leaving”. But an honest conversation is an honest conversation – and after the one I had had with myself earlier, I just couldn’t argue against. I wasn’t about to continue lying to myself a moment longer.

So what do you do when you’re 22 and you’ve just quit your corporate job? Well naturally, you pack your bags and fly to the opposite end of the earth on your own, to a third world jungle and spend a year at a mystic meditation school. You spend about a third of the year in silence, 50 days straight at a time, semi-fasting. You learn how to leave your body, induce trance states, become lucid, control your dreams and talk to the dead. Oh yeah, and you also learn about how the universe really works and how we fit into it… bit different from the corporate grime hey?

Gotta love those honest conversations

The third annual Melbourne Knowledge Week will be held from 26 November to 1 December 2012.

TEDxLLSWomen is proud to be an official Melbourne Knowledge Week event. See our event page here.

Melbourne Knowledge Week is an initiative of the City of Melbourne and forms an integral part of the Knowledge Melbourne program of activities. The Twitter hashtag to join in the conversation is #mkw2012.

What is Melbourne’s Knowledge Sector?

Melbourne’s knowledge sector comprises key assets and infrastructure like knowledge repositories such as libraries; research hardware and software including communications facilities; and capabilities and analytical tools.

These support public and private organisations and networks (including events) involved in knowledge production, dissemination and application, including the business, education, government and not-for-profit sectors.

There are other lesser known or emerging infrastructures, organisations and strengths which Knowledge Melbourne will help to identify.

Melbourne Knowledge Week 2012 is proudly presented by City of Melbourne. For more information visit: melbourne.vic.gov.au/knowledge

Curator and host Emily Hehir shares her experience meeting with TEDxLLSWomen speaker Angela Barker

Friends and family of mine know I am passionate about women’s self-worth and the limiting nature of habitual thoughts and tired stories. A constrained view of women and their worth in society is one of the reasons I was driven to organise TEDxParkvilleWomen last year, and TEDxLLSWomen this year: the TED format presents a real possibility for new ideas to stretch us; push us beyond our ordinary, tired discourses and narrow narratives to new frontiers.

Today I reaped the benefits of this possibility first hand, when I met with one of our speakers to plan her TEDx talk. I drove over cranking some great tunes to try and snap out of an otherwise ordinary mood: I was tired from a long week at work, grappling with a negative, critical mindset that I often let drag me down.

I pulled up outside Anj Barker‘s apartment, with its big green van outside to transport her around Australian schools to present her talks, and its custom fit out with large hallway, wide kitchen bench and spacious bathroom. Anj is an exceptional young woman whose life trajectory was violently and alarmingly rerouted by domestic violence. Her story of sheer will to live her life & live it well – notwithstanding all the reasons she could use to justify giving up –  causes me to mentally push my sorry self back into line.

Anj surrounds herself with butterflies, positivity and inspirational messages

The possibilities for Anj’s future are far more limited than they once were, her dependence a source of low level frustration that buzzes constantly in the room like a radio signal out of range. Notwithstanding all that she has been through and all that has been taken from her, she says she is ‘lucky’; she does her advocacy work so that others may have a better recovery experience than she did. She makes frequent jokes. Her wheelchair and slowed speech belies her wicked sense of humour and insightful reflections on the nature of humanity and the struggles of the mind.

I walked out hours later, having been fed and watered by the generosity of Anj’s parents, who let me into what has been a dark decade for them, with the wind knocked out of me. How could I possibility sustain my career whining or worrying about my weight/exercise regime after coming face to face with the harsh reality of the randomness of life and its injustice? And Anj’s determination in its wake?

How dare I do anything other than live a life of gratitude and whole heartedness.

Tickets have now SOLD OUT.

Please add your name to our waitlist at www.tedxllswomen.eventbrite.com.au and we will contact you asap if tickets become available.

Remember also that videos of the TEDxTalks from the day will be available on this website and maybe even TED.com after the event.

Thank you so much for your interest in having an #honestconversation. Feel free to join in on Twitter and Facebook.

Much love,

TEDxLLSWomen

Tickets are about to go on sale, please head to http://www.tedxllswomen.eventbrite.com!

We are limited by TED in how many we can sell so thanks for your interest and apologies if you miss out – the videos will be online after the event!