May 6, 2014
It’s good to plan. It’s good to reflect. It’s best to do.
Here at IISC we spend a fair amount of time supporting others in articulating what they want to achieve, including those who must be included, and defining a pathway to action. When done well, this work depends on a fair amount of reflection on practice – how do you think about what you do? What are you learning about what you do?
We also train people. We help them become better facilitative leaders. We introduce specific practices – specific things people can do.
Without the practice the lessons are lost. We learn by doing.
I was just talking about this in our office kitchen with Danielle Coates-Connor, one of our colleagues, and she compared it to meditation.
It is quite hip to talk about meditation these days. Mindfulness is in. At least in theory. People have a sense that stillness of the mind and present moment awareness are powerful ways to live and thrive. But there is a huge gap between knowing this and practicing this. Too many of us still believe that thinking about meditation is a lot like meditation. But it’s not.
The same is true for our projects and our dreams. We can get the right stakeholders together. We can talk about what we want to do. We can visualize it. We can plot it out. But the learning doesn’t begin until we start. The change does not begin until we do.
Do you wonder:
How to integrate more “doing” in your “planning?”
How to integrate more “doing” in your “reflecting?”
How to start experimenting as soon as possible?
How to start learning?
December 5, 2013
|Photo by Manuela de Pretis|http://www.flickr.com/photos/24141546@N06/8559396140/in/photolist-e3n9gw-cTpPPN-d1dvTd-d1dvC9-d1dvto-d1dvjW-d1dvbm-cZuvob-cZunHN-9zX8Sz-ax3pnQ-e4wUZj-eaf1p3-bEqAP4-9zJw2f-brvfdL-bEqguP-brvtTs-bEqo76-8Eev3a-bdwXog-9kfqCB-9HgmuC-7L5k6b-ax9ASs-9Nt9k5-c62iqA-bEqygR-f5eTyJ-f4ZDuv-bEqzcZ-bEqoDB-brvFWY-brvpph-83RYMt-bEqrup-fCnaiV-bEqfpi-bEqkhM-bEqpCK-bEqnBe-bEqkVM-bEqdpz-e46RkD-e46RGP-e4cw9J-e4cwju-e46Sxk-e46Rqx-e4cubU-bEqzCR|
When I take time to slow down, as I was able to do over the holiday break last week, my interest is refueled in practices that support our ability to maintain perspective and a sense of effective agency in the world. My line of inquiry is not simply around what can keep us energized, pull us back from the edge, or deal with burn-out, but focused on how we can align our internal state with external aspirations in an integrated way and grow ourselves so we can help evolve larger systems. My thinking and reading often takes me back to the work of Barbara Fredrickson, the emotions scientist based at the University of North Carolina, as well as to a host of others in the fields of positive and social psychology. Having revisited some of these writings over the break, here are 10 recommended practices for personal and social resilience and development: Read More
August 28, 2013
Last Friday, as we closed our joint offering with the Center for Whole Communities, “Whole Measures: Transforming Communities by Measuring What Matters Most,” at Knoll Farm, participants and facilitators alike carried forward insights and ongoing questions about what wholeness is and what might help to create more of it in our communities and organizations. The timing was auspicious as the nation has been marking the anniversary of the March on Washington and reflecting upon the progress we have made towards wholeness as embodied in Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, delivered in a speech 50 years ago today. Read More
January 18, 2011
One of the guiding mantras here at the Interaction Institute is the idea that “the success of an intervention is directly proportional to the inner condition of the intervener.” This idea and our commitment to “the love that does justice,” help us to uphold those practices that nurture our inner condition and facilitate our capacity to love. It is with this commitment in mind that I share the following review:
Sally Kempton has written a wonderful book. Meditation for the Love of It is a breath of fresh air in this current wave of meditation literature. Pleased as I am by the booming interest in the practice of meditation, I am often frustrated by what feels like a one sided perspective of a beautifully multi-faceted tradition. A masterful teacher, a great writer who is able to transmit her own direct experience of the Self, Sally Kempton makes accessible a rich meditation tradition that could otherwise be relegated to the inaccessible realms of esoterica. Read More