An invitation to change..

Dear All

I am happy to announce that my Earth Converse website has been updated www.earthconverse.com. Which means all the writings will now be from there.

All previous blogs have been transferred (with nice fresh images thanks to Unsplash) and new ones will keep coming.

So I invite you to change site, and head on over to conversation starters.

May they stimulate your inner and outer conversations. On leadership and life, nature and collaboration.

Thank you for your readership and engagement.  I am very grateful to you, and also am grateful for Blogspot, for making it easy for me to publish my musings. 

Warm regards


Penelope

Stop. For Leaders Transitioning to Sustainability Roles. Stop. Reframe To Sustain. Stop.

Last week, a leader was excited to tell us that she had recently taken on the global sustainability role in the organisation. A dynamic leader of 24 years in a FMCG business, she had made her way through the ‘leadership pipeline’ as Charan et.al[1]. described, taking on more complex roles, in new contexts and cultures, each significant turn in organisational position having major changes in job requirements demanding new skills, time application and values.   And now she was given the responsibility of sustainability.

It has taken some time for sustainability to go from something given to the temp as window dressing corporate social responsibility, to being a systemic approach in the business and part of C-Suite thinking and CEO role modelling.  So whenever good leaders announce their new sustainable role, like on LinkedIn, it gives me hope. 

Momentum is gaining. Time is of the essence.  We need our leaders to go full steam ahead. It is the #decadeforaction.

And so paradoxically, it is at this critical transition, this important juncture that such leaders need to stop.   

Because this is not just another change, another complex role.  To use the caterpillar analogy, even big changes like shedding our skin can only take us so far.  At some point, something more transformational needs to happen. As Schein (2015) [2] captured, sustainability is the ultimate team sport.  And for this reason, a chrysalis stage is required. 

At Earth Converse we take a whole-system, mindful and nature-based approach to our conversational work with leaders across sectors.  Our Reframe to Sustain programme is tailored for leaders transitioning into sustainability, inviting them to pause and to take a fresh perspective on nature, leadership and collaboration. 

The programme provides space for stillness, and encouragement to adopt a “beginners mind”, to reflect on their experience and learning so far, and even to scrutinize the lens of that reflection [3].  It is an opportunity for leaders to think about what ‘great work’ [4] means to them – with our ultimate stakeholder and source: nature.  An encouragement to ask the deeper question of why we are worth sustaining, a chance to authentically explore what contribution, we can make to “clean up the mess” [5] and create ‘’regenerative societies’ [6]. And to undertake a rite of passage, to explore what needs to die in order for a rebirth to take place, to truly serve the world. 

We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released…The ecological crisis is doing what no other crisis in history has ever done..challenging us to a realization of a new humanity (Jean Houston)

If you would like to know more about the programme or the work we do, please contact me penelope@earthconverse.com

References:

1. Charan, Ram., Drotter, Steve. and Noel, Jim. (2011), The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company (2nd ed), Jossey-Bass, US

2. Schein Steve, (2015), A New Psychology for Sustainable Leadership: The Hidden Power of Ecological Worldviews, Greenleaf Publishing Limited, UK

3. A reference to double loop learning as advocated by Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1974) Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

4. A reference to what he calls ‘the Great Work’: Berry, Thomas (1999) The Great Work, Bell Tower, US

5. Tolle, Eckhart (2005), The Power of Now, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, UK – reference to his “are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess?” pg. 65.

6. Asking the big questions and going beyond 'sustainable' to 'regenerative' as advocated by Wahl, Daniel Christian (2016), Designing Regenerative Cultures, Triarchy Press, UK

Gifting yourself delicious and sacred idleness this festive season

Delicious idleness: the well known Italian expression and concept of “dolce far niente”. We know it as the sweetness, pleasure and carefree feeling of doing nothing; the enjoyment of sheer indulgent relaxation and blissful laziness.

And then there’s Sacred Idleness, perhaps its more serious cousin.    

Epstein used the term to encourage medical practitioners to take time out, in order to cultivate habits of mind, such as attentiveness, curiosity and presence, in order to enhance their own wellbeing and effective medical practice.  I know through introducing the concept to leaders across sectors, that they intuitively recognize that it is critical for their resilience and evolution.  And they know this idleness takes some work.

It is the work of learning. And in particularly of learning to let go.  We don’t just stumble across it, but intentionally dedicate time for it. A time of rest, restoration, rejuvenation and also of reflection.  It nurtures us and develops our wisdom along the way. We honour and relish it through our attention to the present moment.  It is earnest in its purposefulness and yet is more about suppleness and emptiness than control and activity.  We set off with an intention and are open hearted and open minded to what emerges from the not-doing.

As some leaders experience on the mountain solo we run, to be idle in this way, can be deliciously sweet and blissful. For others it can feel anything but, at least at the start, especially for those not used to not-doing, or contemplating who they are and what they do. 

Sacred Idleness can take various forms; there is no prescription. It depends on every individual and their situation but it is about being fully with yourself in stillness embracing it all – whatever arises.  

It may involve retreating to the mountains, to gain perspective in the glory of nature. 

It may involve sitting silently in front of the fire, encompassed by its warmth and security, seeing the reflection of your mind in the changing, dancing flames. 

It may be lounging on a chair, feeling the sensations of the sun and sea air on your skin, reflecting on what has past and what you would like to manifest. 

It may be hanging out at your favourite spot to contemplate the big questions in your life.  

It may be to meditate and give gratitude to all who and what you love.  

It may just be a dedicated 10 minutes by yourself between dinner courses or between juggling demands of the dog, children and relations, to not only ‘catch your breath’, but to sit there with it.

So may you gift yourself sacred idleness this festive season, and carry on the practice as an ongoing commitment to your health and wellbeing into the new year and decade.

And may you gift yourself delicious idleness for the same reasons.

Festive cheers to all.

Notes: 

A term coined by George MacDonald as quoted in Poor Man's College Quotations, 1994. in Epstein, R.M. (2003b)  “Mindful Practice in Action (II): Cultivating Habits of Mind”, Families, Systems & Health, 21(1): 11-17.

This has become a regular festive season post since 2012. In 2017 a version was also featured on Impact's blog https://www.impactinternational.com/blog/2017/12/sacred-festive-idleness.    

The Practice of Living and Dying

Is there any more perfect day to talk about the practice of living and dying than on the equinox?.

You may ask why I want to write about such a topic. I have many reasons, but these for a start. 

1) Well, none of us are getting out of here alive.   As The Onion announced, ‘World Death Rate is Holding Steady at 100 Percent’.  

2) I want to be good at it!

3) I would argue that our obsession that growth is good, decline is bad is keeping us in denial about ourselves and our planet (more on this at a later date!)

4) It seems that we have forgotten ‘how to die’ symbolically, which limits our ability to fully step into our potential, as people. As leaders.  

Obviously, the topic is big. And that is the thing. It is so big that, particularly in our western culture we shy away from it.   It is something so beyond our control we keep it in dark corners.  We shroud it in taboos, projections, superstitions and silence. 

Which is why, the likes of the humble wise Meredith Little, who together with her husband founded The School of Lost Borders and who has been guiding vision fasts and rites of passage for over 35 years,  has it as her mission, to inspire us to live and die consciously.  Her programme, The Practice of Living and Dying, which she co-developed with Scott Eberle, is a wonderful gift to the world, serving to help break the silence and restore dying to its natural place in the cycles of life.   Drawing from earth-based wisdom, she gently guides us to look into our own nature, in nature, to explore our relationship with death and rebirth.  

For me, the programme is multidimensional, but to give you a feel, here are 3 of its offerings: 

1) To prepare for our own physical death: to have a perspective of how we would like to die (acknowledging it may not necessarily go to plan!) is empowering and liberating.  To reflect in advance of that generally unpredictable event, is a gift to our own life and transition.    To do as much as we can so we do not add to the grief and burden of those we leave behind is a true act of kindness. It gives us the time to reflect about the conversations we need to have (now), to do our forgiveness work, to make peace with our lives.   It helps us to think about the legacy we want to leave, as an ancestor of the future. It gives time to do a will. 

2)To help support someone dying or grieving a death:  How many people around us in our friendship circles, at work, in our community are grieving the loss of a loved one, or are themselves dying? How can we be mindful of their experience?  How do we meet them where they are? How do we turn up for them? Sometimes it may be asking the simple and profound question ‘what do you need?’ and listening deeply to that answer.  

3) And perhaps more powerfully, and certainly something for our everyday life, to explore what needs to die within us, in order to grow into what we can be.   Every day initiates us into living and dying, for we are in constant change.  We can therefore symbolically renew our relationship with life and death and endings and beginnings within ourselves at any time.     It is these “little deaths” and various “rebirths” we can take to call in the life we really want, and in doing so prepare ourselves for the final transition, ‘the big Death that awaits us all’.  As Charles Dubois wrote, ‘the important things is this:  to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become’.    That may be a belief, a habit, a fear, a fixed identity. Anything that holds us back from living the life we were born into. This quality of dying, is beautifully explored in Elle Harrison’s Wild Courage, where she talks about how it creates space for change in our individual and organisational lives. 

And who is our best teacher?

Nature.  

Everywhere it offers its gifts and lessons for how we can gracefully embrace the cycles of living and rebirth.  It is the ultimate in resetting and resourcing.

Autumn brings the fallen leaves and also the harvest, today the sun came up, tonight it will set. Right now, you can breathe in because you can breathe out.  

So perhaps you will take up the invitation Meredith offers: of going out to nature and sitting with something that is dying, and ask it, ‘what needs to die within me’.  And to sit there and listen. 

Notes:

Word of the Day: ‘equinox’ – the moment today, 23 Sept, when the Sun’s path (ecliptic)crosses the celestial equator, resulting in a near even worldwide division of day and night. Tweet by @RobGMacfarlane.  23 Sept 2019

The School of Lost Borders http://schooloflostborders.org

Thank you to Meredith and all those beautiful souls, and Diana and Xavi from Transalquimia who wonderfully hosted and held our work https://www.transalquimia.org/living-and-dying-spain 

Death or Dialogue

Conversations can change us.  Conversations can change organisations. Conversations can change climate and our planet’s demise.

In the face of our sixth extinction, where only transformational change in how we interact with nature will turn it around, we have to, to use the words of poet David Whyte, stop the conversations we have been having. 

The conversations that lead us to this point. The ones where we don’t truly listen but just wait to speak. The ones where the conversation is more like ping pong, where we just trade opinions and beliefs.  Opinions and beliefs which we really don’t even know the source of.  Or the ones where we seek evidence to justify or build on what we already know. The ones where we sit rigid with our fixed agenda or narrow focus.  The ones where we shout simple answers to complex problems or shut things down, because we can’t bear not being in control or not knowing. The ones where we don’t reveal how we actually feel. 

At Earth Converse we help leaders have the conversations they need to and guide the development of their dialogue skills.  In many respects, it is back to basics, unlearning and relearning to foster inclusivity and creativity, create systemic shift and generate collective awareness and positive action.   Where we remember our innocence and curiosity to ask questions. And to sit with those questions.   Where we listen, as the poet Mark Nepo says by leaning in softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.  Where we become more aware of how our biases filter our view of the world, and influence what we embrace and what we dismiss.  Where we notice how our life positions influence how we regard ourselves and others, and how we turn up and engage in conversations.  Where we learn to sit with the emotions that arise and find new ways of responding. Where we learn how silence contributes to dialogue.

One of the most profound team conversations, was where I turned up in an Italian town and simply asked the team of European leaders as we sat in a circle of 7, what is the most important thing we need to talk about today?  It showed, as advocated by Otto Scharmer of Theory U, with an open mind, open heart and open will, we transform through dialogue.  Boundaries do collapse and from there, we can co-create new possibilities and paths.

For Earth Day

Activist and author Naomi Klein tells about the time she travelled to Australia at the request of Aboriginal elders. They wanted her to know about their struggle to prevent white people from dumping radioactive wastes on their land.

Her hosts brought her to their beloved wilderness, where they camped under the stars. They showed her "secret sources of fresh water, plants used for bush medicines, hidden eucalyptus-lined rivers where the kangaroos come to drink." 

After three days, Klein grew restless. When were they going to get down to business?

"Before you can fight," she was told, "you have to know what you are fighting for."

Nature is worth saving for its own sake. 

However if we as humans want to co-exist, we need to realise our connectivity with it. We can so easily disconnect ourselves, particularly if we are sitting in an office feeling far removed. It can bypass us that everything around us is born from the earth, that everything we do has an effect. To ponder on the raw materials and production processes, that made this home, this computer, this cup of coffee, one can only be humbled and awed at the gifts of nature and the ingenuity of people, and be pained at the impact we have.

This Earth Day lands in a particular moment in time. In a Rosa Parks kind of way, Greta Thunberg, has sparked a gear shift change in the conversation about our existence on earth.  Individual and collective awareness and action are ramping up, with the likes of SchoolStrike4Climate inspired by March4OurLives, and Extinction Rebellion undoubtedly fueled by the Brexit shambles.  The call for systemic, structural change is getting louder and louder, as here with George Monbiot. It has to. Everything and everybeing is interconnected.   

Photo: Delfino Corti

Reset and Resource: Sacred and Delicious Idleness

If we are talking about resetting and resourcing, the festive season provides the ideal occasion for us to do exactly that.   If not ideal, it can certainly be that time of the year when we need it the most.

Cue for some delicious and sacred idleness…. 

If you know something about Italy, you would have come across the expression and concept of ”dolce far niente”, delicious idleness.  The sweetness, pleasure and carefree feeling of doing nothing; the enjoyment of sheer indulgent relaxation and blissful laziness.

And then there’s Sacred Idleness, perhaps its more serious cousin.    

I first came across the term through my work with physicians from Epstein’s ideas on encouraging medical practitioners to take time out, in order to cultivate habits of mind, such as attentiveness, curiosity and presence, in order to enhance their own well-being and effective medical practice.  

Like delicious idleness, sacred idleness is the opposite of work. The difference is that it is less about laziness and more about learning. For it is a time of rest, restoration, rejuvenation and also of reflection.  It nurtures us at a deeper level and develops our wisdom along the way. We don’t just stumble across it, but intentionally dedicate time for it. We honour and relish it through our attention to the present moment.  It is earnest in its purposefulness and yet is more about suppleness and emptiness than control and activity.

As some leaders experience when we ask them to reflect on themselves, such as ‘the leader they want to be’, it can be deliciously sweet and blissful. For others it can feel anything but, at least at the start, especially for those not used to not-doing, or contemplating who they are and what they do.

Sacred Idleness can take various forms; there is no prescription. It depends on every individual and their situation, but it is about being fully with yourself in stillness embracing it all – whatever arises. It may involve retreating to the mountains, to meditate or to trek quietly in the glory of nature. It may involve sitting silently in front of the fire, encompassed by its warmth and security, seeing the reflection of your mind in the changing, dancing flames. It may be relaxing in your favourite spot,  reflecting on the year that has been and what you want to take forward into the new year. Or it may just be a dedicated 10 minutes by yourself between dinner courses or between juggling demands of the dog, children and relations, to not only ‘catch your breath’, but to sit there with it.

So may you gift yourself sacred idleness this festive season, and carry on the practice as an ongoing commitment to your health and wellbeing.

And may you gift yourself delicious idleness for the same reasons.

Festive cheers to all.

Notes: 

A term coined by George MacDonald as quoted in Poor Man's College Quotations, 1994. in Epstein, R.M. (2003b)  “Mindful Practice in Action (II): Cultivating Habits of Mind”, Families, Systems & Health, 21(1): 11-17.

This has become a regular festive season post since 2012. In 2017 a version was also featured on Impact's blog https://www.impactinternational.com/blog/2017/12/sacred-festive-idleness.    


Photo own of a favourite spot