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Dancing Between Paradigm

Evolving Our Thinking to Regenerate Life

How to approach this article + context

Test all the ideas you read in this article with your own experience. I’m by no means an expert, and have a lot to learn from you as the reader and co-participant in personal evolution! I felt called to further dive into this topic and test my own capabilities to discern paradigms of thinking after listening to a dialogue between Carol Sanford and Josie Plaut around discernment as a core skill in systems change work. This is heavily influenced by Carol’s article around Heeding Einstein’s Admonition : A White Paper on Regeneration’s Significance. I recommend reading this if you want to dive deeper into paradigms!

The impact of paradigms

As systems change agents, whether we’re acting in a large philanthropic organization, our neighborhoods, a social enterprise startup, or a corporation, we dedicate a lot of time and effort to make the world a better place.

However, many times we’re confronted with doubts, conflict in our work, and a nagging feeling that we could be doing more.

First off, we can accept that we are enough in this moment. We are whole, as we were born whole.

But these doubts may have a valid source — that we’re operating from the level of thinking that made our current world in our work to make a better world.

You may be stuck in a paradigm of thinking that doesn’t align with your ambitions for a world where humans and earth live in harmony and sacred relationship with each other.

Paradigms of consciousness, or default modes of thinking are both subtle and sweeping. They are hidden in how you frame the work you’re doing, and have incredibly far-reaching consequences for the level of energy, creativity, and unifying capability you gain.

Many doing work with the intention of truly transforming our systems bump up against the same ceiling — the ceiling of our thinking paradigm and the beliefs, values, and assumptions that underly it. In this article, we’ll develop an understanding of paradigms and examine where we’re at. We’ll learn about the four paradigms of transformation introduced out by Carol Sanford, supported by a developmental…