Map of Love

Introduction

mapoflove.org is an online not-for-profit platform for mindfulness practitioners. The platform is guided by the practices and philosophy of the MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) program and the underlying foundations of Mindfulness in general. It evolved from the 13-week online Mitigation Retreat (March - June 2020), which was led by Jon Kabat-Zinn and was provided by Wisdom 2.0. Its intent is to keep the spirit that emerged and unfolded during this retreat and to provide a common, safe and secure platform for everyone.

It is here to support your personal mindfulness practice and may also help you to explore mindfulness and its different aspects and activities. Through this platform you can practice mindfulness, share experiences, ask questions and share resources. You can experience the interconnectedness within the loving global community, stay in touch with each other, build new connections, spread wisdom and love, remembering that it is about being fully present and awake as often as possible having in mind Jon Kabat-Zinn’s words that it is about “falling awake”, “not falling asleep.”

 

The platform consists of the website (mapoflove.org), the interactive Map of Love at Zeemaps and the workspace on Slack (map-of-love.slack.com).

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The purpose of this Code of Conduct is to ensure that the spirit that emerged and unfolded during the Mitigation Retreat led by Jon Kabat-Zinn is respected and continued, to maintain a safe and secure environment for everyone and to foster diversity. 

The Code of Conduct is a living document. It has been evolving since the creation of this space and mirrors the experiences we have made since the Mitigation Retreat ended. The wonderful interconnectedness has been continuing in many ways. Many heartfelt and beautiful things have been unfolding within the community. There were also some challenging moments in which it became apparent that additional precautions are necessary to provide a safe and secure environment. We therefore emphasize key values and ground rules as profound elements.

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The Code of Conduct supplements the Terms of Use of the mapoflove.org website and applies to all mapoflove.org sponsored spaces, services and events online and offline. Your continued use of the Services (as defined in the Terms of Use) confirms your acceptance of an agreement to abide by the Terms of Use and this Code of Conduct.

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Gentle reminder: The contents of this platform, including text, graphics, images and any other material are intended for informational and educational purposes only and are not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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Key values and principles

mapoflove.org has been built out of love. Its intent is to spread the spirit of mindfulness, love and compassion experienced during the Mitigation Retreat. We want to create a safe space for all of us where we can take good care of each other.

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Please respect the following fundamental principles: 

• Respect confidentiality, everyone’s privacy and be respectful of each other.

• Offerings to the community come out of love and are free of charge.

• Please do not use this platform as an advertising platform.

• Please do no harm. 
   

Mindful sharing

Share About Your Own Experiences

You are encouraged to share your personal experiences and lessons you have learned from those experiences, but only to the extent you are comfortable doing so. 

You are invited to share your questions, insights, and comments about your experience during the Mitigation Retreat, your personal mindfulness practice and how the Mitigation Retreat has impacted you and your personal practice. Your sharing about other mindfulness related topics you are passionate about is also welcome and appreciated.

If you share or repost something from another source that has inspired you, please try to provide context on what it means to you, how it resonates with you or why you think it is relevant to the community.

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Your Free Offerings

If you plan to provide an offering to the community, we kindly ask you to get in touch with us beforehand (e.g. via e-mail). All events are curated by the Map of Love Team (MoL Team).
We will review your request and inform you on how to proceed further. Offerings to the community should be free, cannot be part of a paid activity (e.g. the first one free, the rest paid), should not require further registration and avoid conflict of interest.

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This platform is not a space to offer or announce any open, unstructured social gatherings or events (e.g. chat rooms), therapeutic groups or the advertising or solicitation of therapeutic or other forms of counselling.

 

The host/organizer stays responsible for their events. mapoflove.org will not be responsible and not be liable in any way for the contents of the event, nor what happens in it, nor any results of it.

We developed the following ground rules for events and activities offered through the Map of Love platform as guidelines for hosts and organizers:

• Only structured events, meetings or activities, with a mindful time limit (up to 3 h), having

  a mindfulness related purpose and defined topics may be posted. Please include the

  names of the moderators/hosts and presenters.

• Please provide direct access links to events, meetings or activities.

• To maintain a safe space and to support mindful listening, we encourage hosts to disable

  the private chat function if one exists.

• As an organizer, if you plan to record your event, please inform in the announcement

  about the recording and its purpose prior to the event, meeting or activity.

• To maintain a safe space please do not share announcements/access links outside of

  this platform. Only organizers/hosts may share.

• In the interest of respecting privacy and keeping the community safe, we advise to refrain

  from any solicitation of identities or contact information before, during or after the event,

  meeting or activity.

• The weekly and daily summaries of events in the #community-calendar channel provide

  reminders for events. So especially for series we ask you to limit your reminder to one message per week for all events of the same kind.

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No Promotion of Services or Products

On this platform as well as in any events, meetings and activities we want to stay true to the spirit of the Mitigation Retreat - this means no fees, no donations and not-for-profit. So please understand, this is not the place to advertise or promote services or products that require payment of fees or other charges, no matter how worthwhile they seem (except as set out below, e.g. conferences or summits).

 

External Mindfulness Events

We offer an #external-mindfulness-events channel to share information about external events like conferences or summits paid or free.

If you plan to inform about an external event, we kindly ask you to get in touch with us beforehand (e.g. via e-mail).

The MoL Team will review your request and inform you on how to proceed further.

We kindly ask you to just inform about the event and refrain from further advertising or marketing. For ongoing series of events you may send a reminder once a month.

 

Donations

We ask you to please not use this platform for posting any request for donations for any causes or persons since we cannot check every cause or person for their legitimacy. 

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Respect

We value each other and respectful behavior. Respectful and mindful behavior includes but is not limited to:

• Practicing mindful listening:

  • Non-judgmental deep listening with full presence

  • Not following your first impulse, not reacting, rather giving yourself time for reflection and consideration, becoming aware of what is unfolding inside yourself (e.g. body sensations, emotions, thoughts, judgments), then responding from your heart 

  • Sharing your experiences, rather than giving advice   

• Being considerate, kind and constructive

 

To respect an individual’s spaces, please understand, whether you know them or not: Please request permission before taking their photo (including screenshots) or filming them. Please note: Consent one time is not consent every time. Therefore please ask each time you would like to film or photograph someone.

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Any form of discrimination will not be tolerated. There is no tolerance for demeaning, harassing, hateful, or physically threatening behavior, speech, and imagery.
Please: Don’t be a bystander. Be a role model of respectful behavior, and help to address disrespectful behavior when you notice it.

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Privacy & Confidentiality

This platform is not a public space. Nevertheless, it is wide-spread and open for people to join. If you want to publicly disclose anything discussed here, use the Chatham House Rule as the guideline (“participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed”). For attribution of specific content found, we require that you ask the originator of the content for permission. 

Although the Chatham House Rule is applied, we encourage you to please take care of your own boundaries and only share to the extent you are comfortable doing so. No one has signed a non-disclosure agreement to participate, and you should not assume anything you say here will remain private, so please act accordingly and do not share anything that you would not want to be in the public domain. 

 

Resolve Peacefully

If you feel harmed or hurt in any way by any material that is posted or something said, try to respectfully explain to the person directly who posted the material or said something why you feel harmed or hurt. You can also request that the post be deleted.

If you feel in any way unable to approach the other person, please contact the MoL Team. We are here for you. Let us know about anything that you feel is disrespectful, threatening, or that causes you distress in any way. We will listen and work to resolve the matter. Please also contact us:

• If you notice that anyone is not complying with the key values and principles mentioned above and you cannot resolve the matter directly with the person, 

• if you experience disrespectful behavior toward yourself or anyone else and feel in any way unable to respond to or resolve it, or

• if you are being unwantedly approached or solicited.

 

You can contact the MoL Team by email: info@mapoflove.org. All reports will remain confidential.

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Apologize for Mistakes

We encourage anyone who may be advised that they have done something that has offended, hurt or in any way caused harm to someone else to appreciate that no one is judging their good intentions, only that they may have inadvertently done or said something that adversely affected someone else. Should you catch yourself behaving disrespectfully, or be advised that your behavior has been received as disrespectful or harmful in some way, we ask that you listen carefully to any criticism, acknowledge the disrespect or harm and, if appropriate, apologize. 

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Consequences

The MoL Team will seek to resolve conflicts and violations of this Code of Conduct peacefully and in a manner that supports the safety for the users of this platform. The MoL Team reserves the right to ask an individual whose behavior does not comply with this Code of Conduct to leave the platform, if in the MoL Team’s judgment it is necessary to protect the community as a whole.

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Contact Us

You may contact the MoL Team by email at info@mapoflove.org.

 

Last edited: April 18, 2021.

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