Out of Crisis Comes Opportunity

What happens when crisis comes?

In life we can only be in one state. This is saying to us, "Grow or Die". Faced with the threat to survive millions try to ease the pain of getting through this by not looking within for their answer. Instead, we have been conditioned to ‘trust’ what seems like: if it is good enough for them, then it must be good enough for me. The magic pill, bullet or shot, this one size fits all is not questioned. How have we become so bland as to think that we all require the same solution?

What Crisis is really offering is a choice of emotional growth and the possibility of thriving. This is the crisis - if we don’t change and adapt there is continued stagnation and eventual death. This is a place of torment and decision, for no person likes to admit that he is inadequate, especially if he has thought of himself as a success. The successful person likes to believe that he is successful because he is strong – bigger, better, smarter, faster...Well, we are all unique, and therefore we need to face crisis as an adventure, as an opportunity for a new, creative response. We need to recall and recommit to living life like a child approaches all their learning challenges.

As Frank M. Colby, pointed out in one of his essays, “in our topsy-turvy world it is quite often the lopsided mind who runs the fastest along the little sidehills of success”.

“As long as we continue in a series of unbroken success' we are not apt to obtain the humility necessary to recognize our own conspicuous immaturities.” -The Search For Serenity by Lewis F. Presnall

Yesterday was a new beginning as a committed core group of WV individuals coming together as a conscious connection willingly vulnerable, courageous, and proactive, even in the messiness.

Being proactive expressing our thoughts

Being vulnerable to the truth of our feelings, risking the opinion of others

Not allowing our fears to hold us back.

The willingness to allow the whole know it’s parts.

Allowing everyone a place to be heard without the need to have a presumed “rightness”

In this way our thoughts can meld and share a greater vision for the collective. We either all make it through or none of us do.

Duality thinking - the old ways of right and wrong are destroying us. The good news is that we can no longer pretend that we are all more or less of the same mind, and yet we come with a commitment to the fact that all lives matter. It no longer serves if we cave to the loudest voices. Con-fidere – a time to go with faith. Be open. Until you walk in the shoes of another, you cannot know their mind. Be still long enough to hear your neighbor. Your "right" may not serve the other. And, it is in our stillness that wisdom arises. If we cannot get still, we cannot hear other – we merely keep hearing the gong of our own loud voice, opinions, judgments, and fears.

The question then becomes how do we hear everyone, and not simply the convenient? Roger Martin calls this Integrative Thinking.

Creatively resolving the tension in opposing models by forming an entirely new and superior one.

From our bold, brave space the WV group resolved to reconvene with the added ‘safety’ of stipulated and agreed to Values and Ground Rules. Values are what we commit to be true to and ground rules are to help bring us back when we get off track.

The friction of the opposing minds is what pushes us to evolve to a higher ground, thinking creatively, collaboratively and courageously. Evolution is served not by repeating the past but by the adventure a something fresh and renewed.

We need your voice. Will you consider being part of a movement that embraces new science and bring our voices together with heart-based courage. We are committed to being the mid-wives to the Emergent New out of the space of I don’t know what I don’t know.

Categories: : Mind