Human to Human

Chris Corrigan, ”Support is Life” (5/18/23, 55 minutes)

This was such a treat to welcome Chris Corrigan to the podcast. He is as articulate as they come. He is someone that I love for is insatiable learning and mass ability and instinct to connect. He is someone that weaves generosity and kindness to that learning and to the baseline invitation of being curious together -- I've know this in him over the 20 years of our friendship and working together. He's a man whose eyes light up when invited to go it together. So, a big bow. A big smile. And an appreciative grin to Chris and this time together.

By way of Show Notes:

0:00 Welcome, Context

2:00 Hello and Getting Convercircly

3:00 What's it like to be you? A beautiful question to get to depth. Appreciating joy, goodness, beauty, reciprocity in the serious and the silly together.

9:15 Drawn to joy as contemplative practice, 50 days of watching for joy in the big and in the microdoses.

19:00 "Optimistic to the point of uselessness" -- when you hire me, you get me.

20:45 Welcoming builders, and a bit of scolding by the elders

24:00 My Dad -- super curious from the beginning.

28:15 What would it take to be more curious? A question to guide in groups.

37:15 Three Days of Connecting -- Then the best campfire of your life. Then action planning.

40:00 Activating curiosity. This is the outcome.

43:00 The essence that helps in our field is support, a field of mutual supportive generosity.

45:50 Giving yourself away initiates a cycle. "Support is life."

49:30 Contracting Chris.

51:10 Tenneson reflecting on Chris.

Chris is a long time friend, colleague, and companion. He is deeply committed to learning, teaching and practicing complexity and dialogic change. He’s a musician, poet, writer. He’s generous with his words and heart, going about connecting people in conversations, work and play, with the things they most care about. To get more curious — www.chriscorrigan.com

 

Beth Tener - ”Kinship” (Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA)

Lots of delight to connected with Beth Tener, a friend / colleague over the last 10+ years. We share a lot of similar values in our respective work, including the desire to foster wholeness and health. We both have appreciation for practices that bring connection, authenticity, and learning. Enjoy the listen. Thx for forwards, etc where inspired.

A Few Show Notes:

0:30 Welcoming wonder and wander with interesting people.
3:25 Living love in social change work.
6:52 Live as one person, as whole and healthy human beings.
9:30 Quality of relationship goes with the quality of result, health of the whole.
11:30 What compels you, Beth, to work in this way? Coherence of emergence. Joy of curious kinship together.
15:50 Inviting relating: nobody should go home unconnected.
22:25 Kinship and friendship as forces for social change.
28:30 Vibrational resonance and change.
30:00 Kinship with all life, ancestors, the unseen.
32:00 Hungry to listen in walk & talks.
36:00 Connecting to nature.
38:00 Core encouragements.
42:00 Warm curiosity.
43:30 More slowness needed to make good friendships.
46.15 Tenneson's reflections and appreciations of Beth.

Beth Tener is a facilitator who is passionate about how we bring people together in ways that enable healing and ignite personal, group, and community potential. Her new initiative is called Kinship, which focuses on how to strengthen relationships with each other and nature, and grow trusting supportive communities as a “root solution” to many of our ills.  She lives along a tidal river in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Abenaki lands, and she loves creating contexts that feed life, whether in the garden, the kitchen, or in gatherings with friends and family.

Lawrence Kampf - ”Higher Expressions of Selves” (Motovun, Croatia)

Yup, a real treat to connect in this format with my pal Lawrence Kampf (48 minutes, recorded 3/9/23). He's a brother. He's a colleague. He's a wise being. He's a kind soul. As Lawrence shares, he's a person that "can't not help people grow to higher expressions of themselves." I've felt that with him. In laughs and in tears.

A few show notes are here -- headlines of topics and times when they show up in the recording.

Lawrence Kampf (www.novaearthinstitute.com) is a senior consultant, coach, educator, advisor, meditator, and energy healer specializing in supporting visionary creators and leaders. He is a natural bridgebuilder across geographies, industries, cultures, paradigms and dimensions. American by passport, he resides full time in Motovun, Croatia and is slowly tuning his New Mexican green chili adapted to Hungarian paprikas game.

Linnea Bjorkman - ”Holistic Living” (Denver, Colorado)

I loved the conversation with Linnea (49 minutes, recorded 1/25/23). As friend. As colleague. As fellow learner. To revisit Circle (how we met), her work with Yoga, Breath, Gardening, Permaculture, and a bunch more. When I think Linnea I think holistic living. And groundedness. 

A few show notes are here -- a few headlines of topics and times when they show up in the recording.

Linnea Bjorkman (pronounced Lin NAY uh) (pronouns: she/they/ella/elle) is an ever-evolving human. I’m curious, kind, do my best, smile often, cry often, make mistakes, and need at least 8 hours of sleep per night. I'm queer, bilingual (Spanish/English), and a Colorado Native. I've been told I am heartful and possess gentle wisdom. Whole Root Wonder is my small business. I support individuals and communities who are looking to deepen their experience of delight, harmony and well-being through yoga, meditation, food gardening, permaculture, and intentional heart-centered group practices. www.wholerootwonder.com

 

 

Relational Leadership -- 3 Questions

I love feeling a big topic (Relational Leadership) and translating it to a few questions that can be used in participative process to create some connection and wisdom. The three questions I'm using a lot are: 1)What do you care about? 2) What might you uniquely be seeing? 3) How are you doing? (12 minutes)

The Violence of The Binary; The Kindness of the Multiplicity

Been thinking a bunch about this one. The subtle ways that too much of contemporary life is skewed to either / or, right / wrong, this / that. The binary is embedded in way too much, acting as a vicegrip on our brains and hearts. It's an age old issue, perhaps amplified by the digital revolution. I believe our times call for us to grow much more ability to embrace the complexity, the wholeness, the each of us in all of us. (16 minutes)

For Guidance In These Times -- 8 Orientations to Grounded Journey

From some early morning reflection, stillness, and musing I found an updated guidance system. Eight principles or orientations. You could call them practices. From commitments to simplicity, to being in nature. From tending to physical body to fierce commitment to the inner work. From honesty with pain and challenge to the alchemical path that is joy. From giving and receiving gifts to giving and receiving grace. Perhaps these might you reclaim or add to the simplicity in your own guidance systems. (18 minutes)

For Question Designers Everywhere

One of the skills I most rely on as a facilitator, and as the human being that I am, is being able to ask good questions. I've learned a few goto reliances that connect people to an ecosystem of curiosity -- like the web that connects morning dew in the photo I took recently. Some of the reliance is attitude that infuses simple questions with added invitation. Some of it is the wording that makes it accessible to most everyone. All of it points to learning so as to be in connection and discovery with self, with teams, with circumstance. (12 minutes)

With Kate McCracken -- Sense-Maker, Writer, Parent, Leadership Facilitator

I love the connection with Kate. She thinks so well on her feet. She connects insights. She knows stuff. She's not afraid to lean to the not knowing. I start with a simple question -- What has your attention these days? We follow that through writing, parenting, CoVid, humaning, and a few other topics. I love her reference to "returning to something not remembered." Enjoy.

From Normal to Now

I loved the recent conversation I had with friend Bob Stilger, that then inspired my blog post of the same name, From Normal to Now. It's not "getting back to normal" that feels helpful or honest in these CoVid times. It's more learning to be in the "now" and seriously revising our psyche's relationship with "normal." (Program Note -- I mistakenly referenced Japan's triple disaster as 2013. It was 2011.)