Taking the undercurrents deeper
Living change intentions, learning and actions for the next 15 months
There have been a number of undercurrents of inquiries in my life over the past six or so years, many have been captured with the question — how might we live the change in the world? What is Living Change? We are at a moment in history perhaps the end of history… we are experiencing big existential changes, seeing the beginning of worldwide system failure and collapse. So what does that mean for both the world — and in the context for my inquiries?
As change happens, tensions bubble, our emotions and historical patterns come to the surface, we need to find ways to really come aware of ourselves as well as look after ourselves so we don’t face into total hopeless and despair, how do we deal with loss, how do we hold space for what is happening? How do we do that in connection with others and the world? How do we not get overwhelmed?
Over the summer I took some time out to retreat, to think about where things are, as things are transitioning in the world, but also in work with changes at the School and coming out of Covid. Asking myself what are the inquiries I have been following, what have I been reading, experimenting with, exploring and reflecting on? There are a number of undercurrents, repeating patterns and themes or inquiry threads that I can see.
I also came back feeling a bit lost, lacking in energy for the next phase, a couple of friends as I mentioned this said you are an artist that needs to explore, what are your inquiries at the moment, knowing that articulating what these are would help. Realising that committing to formal learning or more concrete action might give me a deeper sense of personal and professional purpose, a sense of meaning and wider whole for the “work”, a way for me to deal with the existential crisis of our times — a learning into the unknown.
The inquiries and intentions
- What nourishes my body and soul as I live my life?
#sexuality #spirituality #somatics
This question might seem obvious, but as we live through life and especially as we go through change, we need to tend to our overall spiritual and physical health. There are some practices I have already established — from the process of inquiry itself, it makes my soul feel alive, living the questions, as well as adventuring through life, being in nature — be it cycling, swimming, traveling, camping, where the exercise and movement is also important as well as doing practices like yoga and meditation. These are integrated into my rhythm.
This inquiry is about continuing to expand this to dig deeper into the body, the somatic, the sexual and the spiritual explorations which I have started with more intent over the last few years. What body awareness do I want, what different resonances, energy fields are there and what is beyond just the thinking Anna? This for me is about experiencing wider consciousness and knowing in the world, about pleasure — the being rather than the doing of life, relaxation, moving and being still, softness, openness being more naked in the world — what does it mean to surrender to something greater, wholeness.
This next phase is exploring different spaces and places to do this — as a lot of this has been on my own — be it tantric weekends, five rhythms dances, pleasure festivals or Buddhist weekly groups. Experimenting with what I need and what brings nourishment, where there might be interesting communities to connect to.
2. How might I continue to deepen my own practice of facilitation and coaching through psycho-therapeutic methods?
#innerwork #coaching #facilitation
Living change requires us to work with relational dynamics in the world, to be able to facilitate, work with people for transformation. Critical to being able to do this work, of facilitating change is to know yourself, to know the patterns of your relationships so they may heal and not perpetuate cycles in the world. I have been on a journey of my own relational patterns, knowing them from childhood and how they have manifested themselves in my subsequent relationships, personally and professionally. I have done this through learning Deep Democracy, Processwork facilitation and through my own therapy. At the School we have evolved what we do to include this work — through our Spark course, supporting this inner work and facilitation practice as well as the learning we do as Navigators to irrigate capacity into wider spirals of change makers.
Although I coach people using my skills of action inquiry and facilitation, I do not have a formal qualification. Over the next 18 months I have signed up for a coaching course with Lewis Deep Democracy, based on psychological therapeutic models — looking at my skills in coaching, and deepening my skills in self-awareness so as to work with people grappling with emotional issues.
3. How might I lead a process of transition to a new way of organising for the School of System Change, shifting to healthy power and governance that is based on living systems principles?
#leadership #governance #power
For the last six years or so I and those I work with have been exploring, experimenting with the questions of how we organize for change, based on living systems principle, through Forum for the Future’s System Innovation lab, Marine CoLAB, Boundless Roots as well as alongside my co-inquirers and their projects. As we set up the School of System Change we set the intention of living systemic principles, being a systems change endeavor in itself. The premise of such was looking for new relational models for how we organise that allow us to be more whole, be in relationship with each other through models of self-organisation, where these power relationships feel healthy and energizing with life, as the current structures of organisation are deeply rooted in a worldviews that are at the heart of a lot of our challenges. By shifting these patterns there might be potential of shifting the wider systems. Starting the School within an existing organisation and running a CoLAB in a world that priorities current organisational models has its difficulties — and has contributed to my understanding of power dynamics that are involved in this work. We have also been exploring the models of systemic governance that might be needed for organising for change.
With the School becoming a sister organisation with Forum for the Future, it gives me/us an opportunity to take these lessons to the next phase. Although we are still part of the legal and financial model of Forum we are now more liberated to enact how we organisise as a collaborative network, from decision making to partnership models. To support this some of my colleagues and co-inquirers have been exploring transformational governance and I am apply to their learning cohort. At the School we are also looking at a learning cohort of systems change collaborations exploring Constellation for Change. So by running this we will also be applying the lessons to the School itself (if you are interested in joining this get in touch) and co-inquiring as a team around this work.
4. How might I/we deal with the challenges of our time, of disconnection and extinction?
#loneliness #loss #love
As said above — we are living through unprecedented times, with the current paradigm creating ever more disconnection between people (and nature). Frances Weller in The Wild Edge of Sorrow talks about different gateways to grief, one of them being a grief at the loss of village, in our western culture, living in singular households which has been amplified by Covid. As a single parent who lives half the time alone and the loss of going into the office and no longer working with groups in person (and as someone who gets my energy from being with people) I am feeling the acuteness of this disconnection — loneliness and loss. Part of this inquiry has also been about the nature of love, in intimate relationships, partnerships but also wider fields of experiencing love, being there for one another and how our current society patterns value the partnered couple over other forms. We, I believe, are living through an age of collapse and it is bringing us to existential questions in how we work and live with this change. This is why the inquiry of Living Change has been so important to me over the last years.
Love, extending self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth — in all about love, bell hooks.
So part of the inquiries above are also about finding and connecting with different communities in different ways, being part of (and hosting) co-inquiry and learning groups, looking after myself and continuing to develop my skills in working in this changing world. Also exploring what this looks like in other ways — what rituals we might need — like open invitations to my garden around the full moons, dinners and small events, how we can be with people in person. What are the rhythms of my life, how do we live in this time? What are we needing to pay attention to? What is home? So it weaves and connects the others, about love, about connection and about wholeness in our lives.
So over the next 15months, these are the action inquiries I shall take, I also want to set an intention to write up the the reflections on what I experience and find as an important part of the process of bringing to life these intentions. As well as exploring what the shifting of the narrative might need to be around these as wider paradigm questions.
