Taking the leap
A story about moving in uncharted waters
This is for Mozaic, a shared space that weaves our stories and learning as we evolve the world of work.
It was between a Wednesday and a Thursday, in the simultaneity of a no and a yes, that the way home made room for the world to call. A formless state took charge: to leave the stability that surrounded me in my root country to embrace the uncertainty of getting lost somewhere else in the globe.
I didn’t resist, at all.
We need to recover our metaphysical relationship with the world, profoundly understand why things happen and how. We need to let go of receiving everything ready. My thirst was for the search in context. Immersed. Feeling, sensing, questioning, experiencing, learning and finding meaning.
How do you gain awareness of what is pulsating within you?
Realizing that the outside lies within changes the lenses we cross life with. Walking over the surfaces and plunging into the depths, intuition and imagination came to play to help make sense of all the questioning. What sprung up was a restlessness concerning where I was putting my energy and the impact of this on my unfolding process. The answer was actually a question:
Is this deeply pulsating with me?
Days seem to get too small for all we’d like to do when most of the time is spent on an activity and environment that are not aligned with ourselves. When we walk on the surface, time, for instance, seems to constrain our actions. That is, for a period of time we should work; the rest can be used for other stuff we need and/or like. We sometimes join a nonvital rhythm in order to fit everything in and end up giving space to an apparent sense of separation: there’s a life which is work and there’s a life which is friends, family, traveling, having fun.
As we dive beyond the surface, questions become deeper around the whole structure of our organizations. That is, this structure impacts not only on our time and routine but also on our health, our relationships, other organizations, society, the planet… And that apparent sense of separation dissolves. We’ve been shrinking reality for too long. Nothing lives apart.
What and why are we getting together and organizing for?
Lost in corridors of extensive production lines, I see machines and humans in a dance of long journeys. Hierarchical commands reign, the line cannot stop. A new journey beckons, Maybe over there it is different?, curiosity takes me. At a time when the sun leaves no shadow, I go outlining mirrored buildings of countless floors and powers. I am carried by the fast paced sea of people that walk dissolving another busy morning. Hierarchical commands linger in the air. I do not see machines, but I see humans, and here, too, they resemble. Same feeling shows up, It’s not possible that there isn’t a different way to do this!!
The search for alternative routes restarts. Routes that clumsily extrapolate the dimensions of the paved straight line filled with speed control signs built with so much certainty in front of us. Routes that border the limits of the known, eager to become dirt tracks, dense forests, river crossings, slippery rocks, salty currents, windstorms. And there I was, crossing oceans for a dream.
Little did I know two months later a pandemic would come and chaos would take over. I remember total lockdown, away from home, leaving behind every illusion of control and so many hours in front of the computer. In one of the classes, I see Stelio on the other side of the screen, commenting something about surfing and organizations. He’s mad, I thought. What is he talking about? And pretty soon my mind was traveling far away, perceiving the relationships of my experiences in the water (and in life) with what he was telling us about organizational design (and life). New connections emerged. Surfing was never the same, neither was working. Nor myself.
It was in the midst of this shapeless state that I finally found the world of possibilities that is Cocoon Pro. It was 3 months of marinating the beginning of our relationship, until I chose to take the leap.
Living Cocoon Pro
Surrounded by nature, windy days marked the unprecedented times spent with these people, finally, in the flesh. As I moved barefoot in spaces between talk circles, nuances were weaving individual and collective perceptions. There are beings that speak our language not necessarily with words.
What happens when people pulsating similarly get together?
Taken by inner guidance I found people that enjoy being together and that are choosing to organize in a different way than the world has been feeding us in the last decades. Story tells that Cocoon Pro was born from a huge “what if”. Since I jumped in, I’ve been understanding why.
From the entrance you perceive the ground is different, it does not have a predefined path anymore, as you are the one to interview a governance member and not the other way around. The ground gets wetter and it moves circularly as different activities are available to you and you can choose the ones you want to get involved in according to your motivations. The value produced is seen in the end of the work, not in the beginning, and it works as a feedback to yourself so you can decide how to navigate. Without. Judgement. The ground gains depth, as meetings go beyond analytics through spaces for human sharing. It also gains an unknown extension and complexity as more individuals and collectives pulsate together. Open and moving, a space to evolve.
A storm approached and my time living abroad seemed to be coming to an end. Enfolding my vulnerability, I told some Cocooners the set of circumstances that involved me. No one had the answer. But we all had, in fact, by the moment we chose to open this conversation to Cocoon’s open governance. From that moment on, anyone interested in the “decision about supporting Isabela’s personal work evolution” was welcomed to get on board. And here we are, in motion through unexplored waters, together.
What “what if’s” could you be nurturing?
We are capable of creating our reality, individually and collectively. There are people out there willing to let go of old patterns to really make a change.
Over the recent times, winds of the now have made me present in different confluence spaces. Practices of silence and listening have allowed for a unique state. As the stories are unfurled in the air, my perception interweaves them and my mind wanders:
How would life be if we created conditions to empower people to move in the world with confidence in their most authentic self, free, simply being?
A huge thank you to all the special people that made and continue to make this ride possible.
If this story pulsates in you somehow, I’d be happy to talk. Reach out :)
