This is one of my favourite topics. It’s something I find incredibly mysterious and beautiful - the fact that we human beings and indeed everything in nature has an inherent impulse to grow and flourish.

Think about it: even if we’ve presently resigned ourselves to unsatisfactory conditions, deep down we all have a sense that life could be more fulfilling, happier and joyful. If we connect with that feeling, nurture it and give it sufficient space and bring in our creativity to allow that impulse to express itself, then over a period of time we will start to see dynamic and life affirming changes. This is the self-organising principle that a coach seeks to facilitate in a person.

To clarify things a little further Managed Change is when changes are made due to extrinsic forces i.e society, religion, family pressure, managers etc. Self-Organising Change is when the impulse come from an intrinsic energy within.

• So what would a deeply fulfilling life look like for you?

• How could you go about creating that?

Taking time and reflecting deeply on questions like these can create new insights. Taking time out on one’s own or with the support and presence of a coach we can get in touch with our natural creativity.  When we accept and align ourselves with who we really are and what we really want, like a river finding its way around obstacles on its destination to the sea, we have an ability to self-organise and create the life we deeply desire.  

Here's a brief interview about the Self-Organising Principle I did with Mark Walsh for the In-Sight video project.

Sources of Inspiration: 
Margaret Wheatley - Unplanned Organization, Learning from Nature's Emergent Creativity
Jim Rough - Dynamic facilitation and the Magic of Self Organizing Change    

This is a video I did with Mark Walsh of Integration Training for the In-Sight Video project on Youtube.

Whilst death is one of the few certainties of life we rarely like to think about it. It seems too frightening. It's such a big unknown and particularly in the West it's something of a taboo subject. 

Intellectually we all know we're going to die. But do we ever think about when this might happen? How much time have we got left? Great benefits come from spending a little time now and again to contemplate this reality. The message of thinking about death is "Seize the Day!"
We can live in presence and gratitude for what we have. We can actually live our lives much more fully through thinking about death:

Here's our conversation:

Today is Blog Action Day 2012 and the theme chosen for this year is “the Power of We.” I find this topic to be inspiring because the nature of our times is pushing us towards rediscovering what can be achieved through collaboration and community.

It does seem, however, that we humans have a particular hurdle to negotiate before we can fully harness the “Power of We.” These days our economic, social and environmental structures are in a state of crisis. Yet we are unable to make progress due to our polarised debates and conversations. We are caught in a destructive struggle between the polarity of individual rights vs. the collective good, in an adversarial tug of war between right and left wing ideologies or even between the intellect and feelings.

When the proponents of individualistic freedom triumph  the door is open for the common good being sacrificed by unchecked greed. When the champions of the collective dominate then diversity and individual expression is compromised.

As Margaret Wheatley puts it “It seems that whenever we bargain with life and seek to satisfy only one of its two great needs, the result is a quality of true lifelessness. We must live within the paradox; life does not allow us to choose sides.”

But how do we live with the paradox? How can we honour both the needs of the collective and the needs of the individual?

As a facilitator I am particularly interested in how we can overcome this duality in the context of group meetings. People all too often find meetings boring – they walk away feeling an individual has dominated proceedings or they feel unheard as though the group has stifled their unique contribution. This is a tragedy given that the necessary building blocks to resolving our problems are engaging conversations that harness both individual expertise and contributions of everyone. We are not lacking in well-intentioned people with great ideas. What we need is social technologies that enable conversations in which a diversity of perspectives can converge and find the common ground of “we” solutions.

The great news is that methods for facilitating conversations already exist that are performing this very function!

Impossible, you may say. How can we get people holding polar opposite viewpoints onto the same page with “we” solutions that compromise nothing of the participants' individual viewpoints?

In the field of social innovation the process of Dynamic Facilitation is one excellent tool that enables this. The method shifts the participants of a meeting away from adversarial debate and towards confronting the issue. Every contribution is valued and noted down for all to see. The facilitator follows the energy of the group and its participants, without imposing ground rules, so that a natural flow of creativity can emerge. Rather than managing and controlling the discussion to a pre-established agenda that stifles out-of-the-box thinking, the facilitator simply trusts that the group knows how to self-organise, put the pieces of the puzzle together and arrive at a level of collective intelligence. Even with seemingly impossible issues group breakthroughs and authentic win/win solutions emerge through this radically different way of holding a conversation.

This new way of holding meetings has massive implications for groups, communities and societies. It even holds the potential of transforming our democracies so that they become truly participatory. Wisdom Councils use Dynamic Facilitation to help randomly selected citizens find unanimous “We the people” solutions to pressing issues which can then be presented to the community or to elected officials.

Below is a video by Jim Rough, the creator of Dynamic Facilitation. He explains its potential for harnessing "the power of We":

I'm a facilitator trained in this method by its creators Jim and Jean Rough. If you are interested in holding a meeting using Dynamic Facilitation or wish to find out more just get in touch and I'd be happy to discuss your requirements.

When we commit to moving forward in life – getting a new job, starting a new business, creating a community or social project, starting a new relationship, making a public presentation… whatever it is there can be a sense of enthusiasm, excitement and uplift as we are filled with the promise of what we intend to realise.

The part of us that wants to grow and develop is satisfied knowing that we’re moving in the right direction towards fulfilling our potential. But if we’re realistic we probably acknowledge that moving forward is also likely to bring challenges. We’re going to encounter situations that mean we have to leave our “comfort zone.”

So when we get to the point where intentions have to translate into actions, this is where the pull back and the obstacles start to arise. Feelings connected with fear and anxiety start to come up. Our underlying vulnerability is exposed due to the prospect of venturing into unknown territory. Now these feelings are not negative per se, for example fear often has an important message like “pay attention to this novelty” or “be alert for danger”; however if we get stuck in fear it can result in paralysis or severe procrastination that stops us moving towards where we want to go.

We may know in our heart there is something we really want to accomplish but the moment it comes to acting on that intention we might start to feel a bit queasy, numb, sleepy or anxious. When these feelings come up our reaction will often be to turn away and seek something more pleasurable. So instead of taking the first action to start our great new project we go and make ourselves a cup of tea, we check our Facebook account, we start cleaning the house or make ourselves busy with something that was previously a lot less important.

Ok, you may say, I recognise this - but how do I deal with it?

Well, the most important step is to acknowledge the fear and the feeling associated with it. Our knee-jerk reaction is usually to experience the uncomfortable feeling as an enemy that has to be pushed away or deadened by distractions or substances like alcohol and nicotine. This may seem to work in the short term but in the long run the feelings get stronger and the anxiety just cranks itself up even more.

So the first step is to get in touch with the fear, allow it to be, even welcome it in as a trusted guest. Then we can start to get curious or intimate with the feeling. Where in our bodies do we feel it? We locate it and then bring our complete undivided attention to embrace and be in touch with the feeling and stay present with it as much as we can. By practising this, the feeling of anxiety may at first feel more pronounced but then it will subside and dissipate.

The above step is always vital but additionally we can also voice the fear. If our anxious feeling could speak what would it say? Become the fear, embody it completely and see what it has to say. What are its concerns? Listen to them. This helps us to have a cognitive understanding of what’s going on. It helps us to separate from identifying with the anxiety and being controlled by it.

Nowadays there have also been developments in what‘s known as releasing emotions.
One such method is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique.) It looks a bit weird when you do it but I have consistently found it to be effective. This method once again consists of welcoming the uncomfortable feeling and bringing it to mind then tapping one’s fingers on acupressure points, freeing up the emotional energy and allowing it to flow. Take a look at this video about how to do it here.

Another way of releasing is the Sedona Method. This also involves allowing the feeling, then investigating it and asking and answering 3 questions: “Could I let this (fear) go? Would I let it go? When?” It sounds too simple but sometimes the simplest methods are the most effective. In this video Hale Dwoskin, one of the founders of the method, shows you how to do it.

Enjoy the embracing and releasing! I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and comments.

Can we trust that we have an innate wisdom, a natural intuition that knows how to sustain ourselves and make us thrive?

For most of us this trust doesn’t come easily and there are reasons why we find it hard to align ourselves with this ability. However I would like to suggest that we all have this natural, innate wisdom and that we can all align ourselves with it to create deeply fulfilling lives. On top of this, it seems the changes the world and society is going through makes it increasingly necessary and vital to enter into relationship with our natural, intuitive selves.

Perhaps the major obstacle to this is the fact that we live under the sway of a worldview inherited from the ideas of the 19th century, The Age of Reason, of left brain logical processes and mechanical thinking. This view sees control and management as the necessary in maximising self-interest. It has affected everything from how we manage our inner feelings and emotions to how we control others and the natural environment.  Such analytical thinking and that era has served us well in many ways. It brought us incredible advancement: the industrial revolution, telephones, computers and aeroplanes. However the consequences of this mode of thinking alone is now also bringing us social, economic and ecological imbalance.   As we move from the Industrial Age, through the Information Age and into the Conceptual Age, everything is pointing to the reality that the old ways of thinking are now sadly out of touch with the world of today.

 The truth of 21st Century is complexity. Science now sees that the universe doesn’t behave predictably like a machine. Our daily lives, work and relationships are also increasingly complex which often leaves us stressed out, burnt out and overloaded with information. It’s getting harder to simply ‘control and manage.’

A number of studies and emergent fields of thinking are suggesting that we need to reclaim our intuitive, natural and holistic side. These are the qualities associated with the right side of the brain, whilst up until now the culturally dominant aspects of analysis and logic are characteristics of left-brain thinking. Whilst the left brain gathers objective data and processes details, the right brain looks at the big picture and is connected with the ‘heart.’

The human tendency that has sought to dominate nature reflects this over-reliance on left brain thinking.  This has meant that up until very recently both science and religion have tended to see that which is most natural within us - our bodies, our emotions, feelings and intuitions (related to the right brain) - as something base or untrustworthy. Maybe, even as you read, your analytical mind is dismissing this very blog as a load of ‘touchy feely’ nonsense!

Fear Vs Trust

So far we have generally failed to notice that everything from those niggling emotions, recurring problems and body symptoms to our secretly grandiose dreams have the capacity to open us up and set us on the path of a greater vision beyond self-serving rationalism. I am suggesting here that for many of us the quality of our lives is diminished because we fail to connect with that which is seemingly irrational within us. We’ve been locked in boxes, agendas and logical survival mechanisms.

It’s time to realign ourselves with nature and that doesn’t mean we have to take our clothes off and hug a tree! And it’s not only about finding sustainable ways to live on this planet of finite resources. Re-aligning with nature starts with recognising that which is natural in us. We’re all gifted in our own unique ways, but to what extent have we unleashed those gifts and allowed ourselves and others to truly benefit from them?

Living only in the paradigm of reason and control we easily succumb to fear but when we open to the natural paradigm we can start to trust ourselves and see that even our feelings and emotions are trying to tell us something. The world needs more heart. At the same time there’s no need to abandon logic and analysis. That would be disastrous and create a new form of imbalance. We deeply need the integration of reason and heart.
How long can we survive in the control paradigm alone? When we live out of a place of fear of survival concerns or the fear of really manifesting who we truly are we end up either trying to control others or being controlled by someone else’s terms and agendas.

So what happens if rather than control our emotions and feelings we actually enter into relationship with them? What happens when we become quiet and start to get curious about the feelings in our bodies and minds?

What would happen if instead of following our head agendas we actually listened to our intuitive senses? Does our heart have desires that are unfulfilled? If we could connect with the wishes of our heart where would that lead us? What kind of life might we want to create? What would happen if we put on hold the sensible, logical mind that “knows” what is and what isn’t possible and we listened to what our hearts see as possible?

What would happen if you took time out to sit down and seriously ask yourself these questions?

Maybe there’s a deeply meaningful life of unexplored potentials awaiting you!

If you (or your organisation or community) would like me to help you explore such questions or if you want to receive further blog posts by email, just get in touch.