What kinds of personal transformation help to drive system transformation?

by | Oct 19, 2018 | Global Dashboard, People, Prosperity

What kinds of personal transformation help to drive whole system transformation? That was just one of the questions explored at a fascinating event hosted by Perspectiva earlier this week – if you don’t know them they’re really worth checking out, especially their great project on Beyond Activism.

It’s a really good question, relevant not only to politics, but also to what we need our education systems to do at a point when we’re less clear than ever on what kind of skills our kids will need in a massively uncertain future.

So here’s a first go at thinking through ten areas where progress in personal transformation would contribute directly to wider systemic transformation – and which (if we were smart) our societies would actively invest in training us on, throughout our lives:

  1. State management. Can we manage our mental and emotional states, and ‘untrigger’ when necessary?
  2. Perceiving. Are we mindful of our biases and framing assumptions? Are we able to think critically?
  3. Identity. How much do we see ourselves as individuals and how much do we identify with a larger collective? How big is the ‘us’ that we think we’re part of?
  4. Purpose. Do we have a clear sense of what we’re actually trying to do in – both individually and collectively?
  5. Ethics. Irrespective of whether or not we’re religious, do we have a clear ethical code, covering not just individual behaviour, but also taking responsibility for our share of collective behaviour (e.g. on social media)?
  6. Openness. Are we able to be honest about our feelings and experiences? Can we tell our story fearlessly?
  7. Empathy. Are we able to listen deeply to what others tell us back? Are we able to hold our views lightly, and be prepared to have them challenged and changed?
  8. Collaboration. Are we able to work with others, and how much are we able to do it through self-organisation rather than relying on top-down hierarchies?
  9. Creativity. How much are we able to create and think laterally? Are we able to do it with others?
  10. The numinous. Are we able to connect with and draw on a deeper source of inspiration – whether through silence, nature, meditation, prayer, or awe?

Am sure I’m missing lots here – do ping me on Twitter and tell me what I’ve missed…

[Image credit: Steve Greer]

10 thoughts on the future of activism

by | May 18, 2018 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks

So here are 10 thoughts on the kind of activism we need at a point of widespread crisis and deep polarisation – a distillation of what I’ve been thinking about over the course of the first half of a six month sabbatical.

1 The best activism works for both inner and outer transformation, because it understands that the crises burning around us are external expressions of our inner worlds

2 The best activism moves beyond the idea of victory, and categorically refuses to become a story of “us versus them”

3 Love has the power to change the world, but love and care for others only becomes possible with love and care for self

4 Change depends on shared stories, but we cannot truly listen to anyone else’s story, much less develop shared ones, unless we are brave enough to truly tell our own

5 Self-help is great – but if it extends no further than individual level then it’s stunted. In a time of culture wars and deep polarisation, what we need now is *collective* self-help and healing

6 Moral evolution is the central story arc of human history, and we are poised right at the cusp of our species’ emergence from adolescence and into adulthood

7 Our civilisation faces an initiatory moment of death and rebirth, and myths about these themes hold deep wisdom for us at this point

8 The universe is intelligent, conscious, and non-random, and at the most basic level for us rather than against us

9 Unbelievably rapid, non-linear change becomes possible when we remember that we create the reality around us through our expectation, attention, and intention

10 Our best days are before us, not behind us