In a time when the world - ecologically, politically and culturally - has become more volatile and complex, how do we move forward? As change practitioners, activists, consultants and leaders, the pressure to know how to respond, how to be helpful can be a heavy burden. Each of us carries something of the pain of the past, overwhelm of the present and concerns for the future as professionals and very oridinary human beings. 

Again and again I notice how much we invest in avoiding the pain and avoiding the fact that we just cannot know ‘the right thing’ to do. After a few decades of engaging with the richness of collective grief work and practices of unravelling an individualised, human centric culture, I still catch myself in the traps of trying to fix things, trying to understand it all and trying to do stay engaged.

What I learn, again and again, is that we need to face in to the troubles, to surrender to uncertainty, to allow the overwhelm to break our hearts….

So that we can drop underneath this in to something greater than our minds can understand, more mysterious than our strategies can grasp hold of, and more resourcing than our fantasies of change agency.

And so over the years I have hosted spaces for grief and surrender, for rest and connection and for facing into the troubles in good company. If you’d like to host a workshop or retreat in this arena, or need help as an organisation to face in to the troubles, or as an individual practitioner you’d like mentoring please, get in touch.