If you are working on social impact and social justice this is a newsletter to energise your journey - sign up by adding your email below
Collaborative experimentation and living systems π΅ππ
|
Dear community There's a song at the end of this prompt that felt deeply true for me this weekend. We are nature.π΅ππ It reminded me that if we're going to change our world, for ourselves and future generations, perhaps we need to move more like nature itself. Nature doesn't seem to require central control. Nature relies on relationships, communication, feedback and adaptation. Nature also holds love and rage, and expresses both when it is under threat. I'm becoming less convinced that the answer to our social justice challenges lies in superstructures, big hierarchies, large organisations or our current political system. Instead, I wonder if the future belongs to many small, interconnected communities. Groups of people experimenting, learning, sharing, communicating, acting, giving back and showing up for justice. Like butterflies moving from flower to flower, discovering what each has to offer. Like bees pollinating from one plant to another. Like a dying tree returning its nutrients to the forest so new life can emerge. Maybe I spent too much time in nature this weekend. πππ It made me realise something. Everything I care about is really about cultivating living systems. Families. Parenting. Community organising. Holding space for leaders. Even tending to my own inner world. The same pattern appears at every scale. The forms of change that last are sustained through relationships. They make room for experimentation. They accept mistakes as part of learning. They adapt. And I notice that when I focus on the more toxic parts of human nature, I can forget the quiet communities that are already modelling another way. Some of my family, friendship and work relationships haven't lasted because we didn't experiment, communicate and learn together. This morning, Eli didn't want to go back to school after chickenpox. Rather than pushing harder, we experimented together. The solution? A game of darts, with Maltesers for the winner of each round. The goal stayed the same: helping us both move into alignment. The path changed. Experiment. Communicate. Adapt. And play... Over the past year I've been developing three simple frameworks with clients around grief, impact and self. The question that gave birth to these frameworks was: How do we cultivate living systems that can keep changing themselves? I'd love to share these three simple frameworks with you sometime. βhttps://calendly.com/mo-belonging-people/connectβ And the song
|
Mohammed Ali (The Innovation)
If you are working on social impact and social justice this is a newsletter to energise your journey - sign up by adding your email below
Dear community, As I delve deeper into decolonising my own work and life, I find myself holding the tension of living within capitalism while trying to live in ways that are healthier and cause less harm. I certainly don't have the answers yet and sit with the tension. Whilst I wrote this, I had flashback to meetings and conferences in countries across the Global South, where traditional dances and rituals were performed. At times, they felt fake. Not because the traditions themselves were...
Dear amazing connections, We've been running Rise in Our Roots up north with community leaders for nearly a year! And weβre now bringing a special two-hour session to London! π± If youβre up for discussing some of the struggles facing leadership in the UK and overseas, while also experiencing some of the energising and opening processes at the heart of Rise in Our Roots, Iβd love to see you there! β¨ All in person. No AI. No Zoom. Proper human connection and sharing of energy. π 24 September |...
Dear community When I first started therapy, when Eli was about four, it was partly because I'd realised that when I was activated, I would either go silent or get angry. I started therapy and coaching in tandem because I wanted to both heal and act. I wonder how many of us recognise that pattern? I was reminded of this when Eli and I went to see the latest Spiderman film, where Dr Banner carried so much shame about hulking out. He tried to suppress his rage with a device, which felt like our...