New shoots appearing at last - it's been a very long winter...
It’s been a very very long time since I have felt the energy to write something for publication and be visible - the last blog post I wrote was in 2017! I’ve been somewhat disconnected and then flawed, flummoxed and perplexed by the collective and personal trauma in the system that's been present in the last couple of years, and been left finding my feet and my way in all of that. It's difficult to go out, when all around is sending you in.
Now, something has shifted, in me, and the world, for sure. It feels like the right time to emerge back into being more visible and available to others with my work and so a blog for the first time in what feels and looks like forever!
It’s not like nothing in my life has been happening over all this time;
My apartment has been redecorated, upgraded and spruced up, and my husband and I are in the process of buying some land to build an educational health and wellbeing centre and regenerative market garden – no small endeavour, and a whole other story for a different post.
And, I’ve still been offering one to one work online throughout all the crazy shifting sands of ‘government advisories’. You might know, if you’ve tried to book a one to one client session with me, it’s not always easy to get a slot.
It’s more like these last few years have been about me doing a deep dive into my own core values and beliefs and how I orient myself with those principles in the new world landscape that I, and no doubt everyone else, find themselves in. I have to remember, that I also got married in 2018, and moved countries/hemispheres twice. That too would definitely have an effect on my dive into myself as God laughed and did other things while I tried to make plans.
My capacity and ability for workshop presentations has been an interesting journey. Online group work I have never been able to get my head, or my energy around, I would sit down to organise some, but my heart and my head could never get into it. So I just followed where the energy took me for doing my own workshops online, and that wasn’t anywhere at all when it came to group work, so nothing happened! There is only so much bandwidth that one can have and it felt important to honour that and be just where I was at.
I have participated in a couple of online courses with very mixed emotions; it was fairly easy to organise from the comfort of my own home, walk from kitchen to office chair, turn on computer, beverage in hand, ‘sloppys’ [clothes] on, and great to connect in some ‘extra terrestrial’ way with others and be doing some CPD.
Yet I couldn’t help feeling a deep sadness and even anger, within my system at the requirements in the times that meant this was the way that was made necessary by circumstances beyond my control. It’s not the same as meeting in person – and to be honest I just didn’t like it, for so many different reasons I will not get into here. Harrumph!
The energy that I felt though was exquisitely juxtaposed with a deep wonder and marvel at the solutions that emerged, and continue to emerge from those ever changing circumstantial requirements. That life finds a way, and creativity and ingenuity springs forth when society is faced with challenges and problems to solve is encouraging and heartening.
It gives me hope in these times, as a world with such enormous and diverse societal questions and conundrums to deal with that solutions will evolve and emerge to answer such deep questions as to; How we are to continue to live on this planet and be in this world as humanity with a future, and what might that future look like for us?
Once again I am filled with an almost overwhelming sense of mixed emotions around these questions; buoyed by the seemingly natural organic and surprising nature of emergence in these movements for change, and saddened at the radicalisation that some of these solutions appear to create. It’s like being on an internal roller coaster of hope, elation, wonder, awe, grief, sadness, bewilderment, paralysis, enthusiasm, creativity, connectedness, disconnectedness, polarisation, anger, despair, love, peace, trust, hope…… I can hardly keep up with myself sometimes!
There seem to be so many more questions than answers at the moment. As humanity, grapples with different solutions, to new and emerging challenges, alongside old and continuing issues, I can feel lost in the enormity of it all. It would be easy to approach these tipping points with the same thinking that got us into the situation in the first place.
I have found myself falling into the same trap on a microcosmic level in the personal too, attempting to solve a problem with the same thinking that got me into it in the first place, and completely unaware that I was doing that. We have to remember here though, that the ‘thinking’ that got us into ‘it’ may be entrenched in an ancestral inherited pattern that we have been unknowingly entangled in and not conscious in us at all. We may just be playing on repeat, because repeat is the only way the ‘system’ we are involved in currently knows how to be.
Thankfully, with my capacity for a systemic overview, I have been able to take an alternative view of some of these challenges and be curious about them from a different perspective. To be curious about 'what is the real problem the issue emerging is trying to be an answer for?' and open to a possible solution from a systemic perspective that could be different from the one that is happening now. In this way the system, and the individual that is a part of that system, has the opportunity to transcend the old patterns to meet the emergent future, resourced and ready to make space for something new and exciting to surface.
As a systemic practitioner I am aware of the presence of an attempt at a deep healing movement in the system, when difficulties within arise or become noticeable. When things become uncomfortable, or ‘functionally dysfunctional’ behaviours (said this way because everything in the system is information and the system is seen as a ‘whole’ even if it appears to be falling over) occur, there lies an incredible potential for healing and the chance that something could be different becomes inherent.
Holding the consciousness that the solution is often contained within the problem and the system itself, and just needs to find a way to be made visible, is what makes systemic constellations such a wonderful tool.
It is simply - Systemic Wisdom made visible….
We find ourselves in such uncertain times; not knowing which way is up, faced with our mortality as an individual and humanity, each of us being called to search deep into our soul to our unique truth and sovereignty. Where to start with any of it? – It all seems so vast and overwhelming and yet, on my journey inwards the answer is very clear. We start with ourselves first, with our own system, however small…. We start with what we CAN do, the little achievable things each day that mean the most to us. Whether that is giving appreciation, a hug, emptying the rubbish, recycling, praying, meditating, going for a walk, to the gym, giving to a cause, telling someone we love them, doing the laundry, or just getting out bed.
The invitation in this space is to find a way to not get polarised into 'good' and 'bad' - this only feeds the systemic separation. The invitation for us is to find the way that gives all things a place and seek the balance. Send love to the whole system, not just part of it. See the system as being the sum of all of it's parts, not just the ones you like or that feel good. When I embrace the shadow in myself, I have agency to do something about it, and I move closer to the capacity to embrace the shadow side of the world. I help feed the resonance for a natural solution to arise and something different than what has been up to now to be possible.
We start with the things that work on our soul and heal our hearts, meeting the moment with what it greets us with, curious and open to the capacity that we can manage. In these movements do not underestimate how each little thing adds up. Each movement makes a difference to the morphic resonance of possibility for health and wellness and a new perspective. Each movement is an affirmation that life and love have a place in this world and so do you, and when you do, humanity does too.
So, What, Where, When, How next?
I have in person workshop dates in the diary
AND -
Keep an eye out for some exciting new offerings and courses coming in the near future;
In my new Opening to Emerging Leadership programme
Date to be determined, but planned to start in April or May.
Part 1:
Exploring our Leadership Wounds -
In this 3 day course we will explore the impact of leadership wounding on multiple levels; personal, ancestral and collective.
We will look at the impacts of this on society past and present and also the personal, how it impacts and informs you and your system directly.
How might this then be holding you back from stepping into your true leadership potential, even if that is just being your leadership potential of your self and self authorisation and what can you do about it?
May each of us be resourced in our journey into wholeness, may we be strengthened in our body and soul, and softened in our hearts, as we step forwards into a new world of possibility and magnificence.
Namaste fellow travellers and pioneers
Elaine