We meet online for deep listening, sharing, inquiry and connection around a topic
Collaboration Navigation Thurs Sept 15th 2022 12pm PT 3pm ET A deep dive conversation for community organizers and activists Hosts: Jul Bystrova, Galen Meyers, Suzanne Jones Register
For those who are passionate about positive community change making work, and want to collaborate effectively. We are offering a space to be held, heard and know you’re not alone with whatever you are experiencing. Let us amplify our efforts and embrace our challenges as opportunities for our personal and interpersonal growth towards a better world.
The questions we will be exploring are:
What kind of group culture do we need for effective collaboration?
What are skills we can practice for productive dialogue across competing perspectives or different backgrounds?
How do we work with people who are triggered or who are triggering us?
This will be a facilitated and generative space for conversation about some of the vital issues we experience as we learn to collaborate. We will have the opportunity to share our challenges, deepen our inquiries and our insights with each other, and give and receive reflections.
Hosts: Suzanne Jones has spent the last two decades teaching families, employers/employees, teachers/students, activists, and members of co-ops and co-housing the skills of effective and compassionate communication. Her methods draw from her graduate work in Communication Studies and her study and experience of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication model
Galen Meyers holds certifications in group facilitation as well as in permaculture design and in yoga and meditation instruction. He has been participating in the formation of community groups for the past 10 years, especially in participation with the Transition movement. He has worked with Transition US and Transition Network, including through his participation in the Inner Resilience Network and the Inner Transition Circle. Galen has a diverse and integrative academic background including physics, math, biology, complexity science, and cultural evolution. He considers himself to be a “regenerative philosopher”.
Jul Bystrova has been active in community organizing work since 2007, working on local, national and international initiatives for personal and interpersonal resilience. She is the cofounder of the Inner Resilience Network and the Era of Care project. She holds groups and events in community wellness building, has a private holistic practice, and is an Interfaith Minister with a Masters in Interdisciplinary research.. She has specialized in energy medicine, personal/collective trauma, and organizes around cultural healing, climate justice and psycho-spiritual issues. She served on the Transition US Collaborative Design Council and is currently working on culture repair and wellness trainings in the face of change and challenge. She is also a performance artist, poet, philosopher, outdoor adventurer and a mom.
Please see our agreements for our deep dives and all we do here at the Inner Resilience Network
Past Deep Dives in the Deep Dive Series 2019-2022
"On Death and Dying" In this grand cycle of life, all things go through change and the process we call death, the end of a form of life as we have known it. Besides happening to our body, it can also can be applied to those times in our life where we must die to something. We can also see collective cycles coming to a close as a kind of death.
"Living in the Not-Knowing" Our relationship with uncertainty is a vital component in our inner resilience.So many of us are struggling with the big questions of where we are going and what's going to happen, also what is true existentially-- both on a personal and on a collective level. We do have ideas, some of them very strongly supported--which have a trajectory, but ultimately we really don't know how it these ideas will play out for us or our communities.
"Who Do We Choose to Be?"
What human qualities are needed for a life-sustaining society?
What qualities am I cultivating now that enable me to live reciprocally?
How much am I a product of forces I have no control over and how much can I actually choose how and who I want to be?
When I envision myself realizing my highest potential to assist with the change I want to see in the world, what does that look like?
"Sharing Sacred Space"
What role does the sacred play in our life? Where and how do we invite it in?
What is the dark in our life and what is the light that we are inviting in?
How does connecting to the natural cycle of the solstice connect us to ourselves?
How do we use this time as a way to build our inner capacity?
"Gratitude"
What are we struggling with and what are we grateful for in our experience of this struggle?
How do I connect to gratitude in my life on a regular or daily basis?
How does gratitude shift my experience, especially when I'm facing adversity?
How can I feel thankful as I stay connected to challenges happening now? In other words, how do I avoid a spiritual bypass?
"Gender"
How do I experience and express my power and my powerlessness as a woman/man?
What does it mean to me to be a woman/man today and how is my gender identity shifting?
How have I felt wounded by the other gender? How have I stereotyped the other gender as a result of this wounding?
What comes up for me when I envision a community where the masculine and the feminine is honored equally?
"The Gift Within our Shadow and Conflict"
How have I projected my hidden parts unto others?
How has my experience with conflict been impacted by my shadow?
How have I and my activism benefited from shining a light on the dark side?