Periodic learnings with interesting people. Periodic writings from Tenneson Woolf’s Human to Human Blog. Intimate conversations with self and other. Starting anywhere and following it everywhere.
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.
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.)
For a while during this CoVid pandemic, I found myself oddly resisting, yet also turning toward, the idea of catastrophe. In the resistance, I guessed that there was something fruitful to give myself permission to explore. There is potency in going toward that which we fear or resist, right. Well, these 16 minutes are a version of that. It's six things that I feel I'm learning when I let myself into "end of the world" thinking.
Casey is one of my favorite people in the world. His energy and his honesty are very inviting. I met him through the United Church of Christ Next Generation Leadership Initiative, at which I've been faculty now for three years. Casey brings insight, wonder, compassion and so many other delicious slivers of aliveness in making space for people.
I’m a group process person, that comes from an orientation of living systems, and that has particular interest in how the humanity of things plays out in a world in which everything is connected to everything. I’ve been afraid with CoVid. Yup. Worried. Yup. Trying to offer clarity to those near me. Yup. Here’s some of that clarity, a few headlines, from my systems brain and heart as I try to follow things (9 minutes).
I love talking / listening with my friend and colleague Quanita (13 minutes). She brings insightful reflection and wonder to her becoming -- the deep, fun, and easy; the relationship with mentors and elders; the relationship that she sees with divine order. Enjoy.
Who are you? What's it like to be you? How did you become you? What's now got to do with the long arc? Jim can follow the prompt with spontaneity, seriousness, humor. I like all of that. I've come to learn that these questions are ongoing for all of us.
This phrase is one of my favorites these days -- The thing behind the thing behind the thing. It suggests quest. It suggests layers. It suggests “ongoing” (I could very easily add ellipsis…). It’s narrative for what I feel we are so often up to in teams, groups, communities, and families. It’s also straight talk, plain and simple.
I’m the kind of human that likes to explore the operating systems for working with groups. I suppose I’ve been searching for and experimenting with improvements most of my life. So as to add more consciousness. Or kindness. Or brilliance accessed through the whole of it.
I have learned over the years that one of the key aspects of psychological maturity is the ability to hold as valid, opposing thoughts, or simultaneous but different truths, at the same time. Let’s over simplify what plays out in millions of moments every day, and then learn from that.
