Category Archives: Blog

What is Processwork?

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Welcome to The Edge, a blog about Processwork in all its applications and manifestations.  As a practice and theory of human experience, those applications are unlimited and as varied as all the individuals and groups who make use of it.  I hope these posts, by Processworkers in different walks of life all over the world, will draw you in and inspire you to discover how Processwork can support growth, creativity and communication in your own life and work.

By Elva Redwood, Managing Editor, The Edge

History of Processwork

Processwork originally grew from Jungian psychology in the 1970s and 80s, when Arnold Mindell practiced at the Jung Institute in Zurich.  Dr. Mindell’s deep curiosity and work with people on body symptoms led him to broaden the dreamwork approach and explore different sensory channels.  Processwork was born as one of the first psychologies to integrate somatic experiences, and has since grown far beyond psychology in its scope.

The group of students drawn to study with Dr. Mindell became a dynamic community who helped him creatively; to teach, apply research, and elaborate on his theory and practice of Processwork.  The discipline continues to develop and is taught with the understanding that each Processworker will make it their own and contribute their own expertise and discoveries to the whole.  This original community has grown into a global association of practitioners and schools, both those without official Processwork credentials, and those with a Diploma in Processwork and affiliated with the International Association of Process Oriented Psychologists (IAPOP).

Influences on Processwork

Since its beginnings, Processwork has been shaped by many indigenous cultures’ wisdom, to which we all owe so much.  Most notably the Indigenous Australian knowledge of Dreamtime and the Chinese philosophy and practices of Taoism are fundamental to seeing the world through a Processwork lens.

Processwork Theory

The theory itself is elegant in its simplicity and application to any aspect of life.  As well as a tool for individual personal growth, Processwork’s model for identity and experience is equally useful for relationships and groups, both small and large, and any kind of conflict work.

Processwork understands human experience as a dreaming process which unfolds through sensory channels.  Our experiences are alive in Consensus (everyday) Reality as well as Dreamland – aspects of experience which are subjective and not necessarily agreed upon in a given culture.  At the deepest level, consciousness and reality spring from Essence, birthed and mediated by Process Mind, which is analogous to the ancient Chinese understanding of the Tao Which Cannot Be Said.

Channels

The simple channels of experience are visual, auditory, proprioceptive and movement.  Composite channels are made up of these simple ones and include relationship and world.  We are constantly receiving and emitting information in all these channels, though we are only aware of some of that information.

Primary and Secondary Processes

The information we are aware of and identify with comprises our “primary process,” the person or group we understand ourselves to be.  Information that we don’t identify with, which is often problematic in one or more channels, is connected to our “secondary process,” something outside our usual identity, which we are growing to become.

Edges

Between these primary and secondary processes is the phenomenon called the Edge.  It is our growing point, guarded by conscious and unconscious belief systems and contributing to misunderstandings and conflicts on all levels.

Attention to this dynamic of identity increases self-awareness, and therefore gives access to more choices of action.  Exploration and integration of secondary material leads to temporary resolution, eases difficulties, and opens a path to the next phase of growth.

Processwork is Useful Everywhere

Processworkers everywhere use this empowering paradigm to facilitate growth and creativity in uncounted spheres.  From individual psychology and inner work, relationships and families, Processwork has found rich applications in coaching, organizational development, and large-scale conflicts.  One of the most exciting applications for our troubled times is World Work, where hundreds of people meet to work on global issues. There are also dancers, painters, writers and musicians using Processwork in creating and performing their arts.  Teachers apply the theory in the classroom, and nurses use it in the OR.  Anywhere there are humans, Processwork can be useful.

To find out more from these individuals, please read on in The Edge.

If you’d like to explore deeper, visit the Processwork Institute Bookstore and public manuscripts pages, check out Arny and Amy Mindell’s website at http://www.aamindell.net/, find a school or workshop near you at IAPOP, and take a class, or contact an individual practitioner.

Thank you for visiting us at The Edge!

 

by Elva Redwood, MA, PW Dipl., Managing Editor

Elva Wolf Redwood is a Processwork Diplomate practicing with individuals, couples and groups in Portland, Oregon, USA, and on-line.  They are a writer and a lover of dogs, fermented foods and knitting.  They are drawn particularly to work with artists, activists, culture changers and anyone addressing developmental trauma.

elvaredwood.com

 

A Pandemic of Inner Critics

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by Agnieszka Olszewska–Kaczmarek

The Covid-19 virus is still raging all over the world.  We are waiting for the moment when we can all breathe a sigh of relief and feel safe.  However, there is another virus that most of us will struggle with all our lives.

“I can’t.  I’m not that skillful.  I’m too fat.  I screwed up again.  I’m too old.  don’t have enough energy,” etc.

This is the inner critic virus (IC) that clips our wings, usurps our energy and deteriorates our quality of life. 

The IC may impact our ability to pursue our full potential, or even prevent us meeting everyday obligations.

The IC is spread around the world, flooding it with waves of negativity and harmful behaviors or hate crimes.  Internet forums are filled with poisonous comments, politicians compete with nasty epithets, many TV programs build their popularity on the public humiliation of participants in various competitions, and bullying is a huge problem in schools.  And, as with Covid-19, for some the encounter with the IC ends tragically.

In the struggle with the IC, supplementation with positive affirmations is often
not enough.  Even though we praise ourselves and repeat it like a self-love mantra, the IC often spreads throughout the body and attacks other organs.  It challenges us to a
mythic battle where our health or survival allows us to be free from the infection that
awaits us down the road.  Along with the defeated disease, we immunize ourselves to life’s
challenges and learn to persist along our life path.

Process Work (whose methods I use in my daily therapeutic work with clients) approaches
the topic of self-criticism through many dimensions.  So, let’s look at the IC different angles.

How to fight the IC?

The first step is to notice there is an infection within us.

When I hear my clients talk about themselves negatively, I say out loud, “Oh! I hear there’s a critic here with us!”

Most often there is an initial moment of surprise.  The IC part responsible for the harmful narrative is separate from our awareness.  The IC is brought to light and we can finally look at it consciously.

Who is the IC?

What does this person say?  With what voice and with what energy?  Does the voice have a gender?  Is it one person or many?  Is this the voice of someone in our family?  Or maybe it’s the voice of the spirit of the times, culture or religion?

Nobody knows their critic as well as the person who comes to therapy.  Therefore, during the therapeutic session, they have the opportunity to play the IC role and present all its voices and views.

Most of the content conveyed by the IC is general.  However, several specific types of IC can be picked out;

The Critical Coach

Contrary to initial appearances, sometimes the IC has something valuable to tell us.  It is best then to force this figure to be as precise as possible.  Starting with an objective or
blatant example of how you are lazy, or whatever the general criticism is.

After applying a series of questions, it may turn out that the IC sees our potential and demands we live up to it. They may even have very precise advice for us and in this way become a priceless coach.

The Empathetic Critic

Sometimes there’s an IC who loves us and cares about our lives, but is like an awkward parent who is unable to compliment or constructively suggest a course of action. This type of inner critic may be completely unaware of their devastating influence.  Then we have to educate this part of ourselves to communicate in a way that gives us wings.  Revealing our deep feelings can work miracles.  When such an IC sees how hurtful their words are then they sometimes experience a shock.  Empathy can be activated and potentially a client may see an increase in awareness of how words can have a healing or damaging influence.

The Brutal Critic

The last category is an IC who only seeks to demean and destroy the person.  It is most often a result of abuse.  In such a case, it is necessary to set a very clear line, or even to symbolically kill the IC.  One of my clients decided that whenever she hears a hateful voice in her head, she would punch the air, imagining throwing the critic out of her mind.

After repeating such a gesture for several weeks, this critical voice stopped.  This type of struggle can be a particular challenge for people who associate the use of force with violence.  You must first disassociate such a connection to be able to give yourself the right to self-defense.

Taking over the critic’s energy

Regardless of what kind of IC we are dealing with, it is beneficial for us to
seize its energy.  After all, it is our own strength that can work for our good.  Acting out a
criticism, shy people suddenly turn into passionate preachers, quiet mice into resolute
leaders or managers, and the undecided are able to hit on concrete details like in a
boxing ring.  The broken record of negativity shows us what layers of persistence lie dormant in us.  In this way, we begin to have access to a new quality of inner awareness and strength.

IC Pandemic Reduction

Self-criticism forces us to track it in our thoughts and persistently examine our emotions.  If the inner monologue is dragging us down, it is worth tracing the source of the IC.  In such a way, by consciously examining our internal and external communications, we contribute to reducing the global epidemic of criticism.

 

By Agnieszka–Kaczmarek, MA, MAPOF

Agnieszka Olszewska–Kaczmarek is a psychologist and psychotherapist.  She completed
her master’s in Processwork at the Process Work Institute in 2020.  She lives in Poland
and works in a psychiatric hospital for children and teenagers, as well as at the Center For Womens Rights, and in private practice.

Agnieszka is also a singer-songwriter, performing under her stage name, Back To The Ocean.

Find more about Agnieszka’s work and music :

https://agnieszkatherapy.webnode.com
https://www.facebook.com/AgnieszkaOK.ProcessWork
https://www.reverbnation.com/backtotheocean

Image credit: John Hain

Be the Change: Processwork and Environmental Action, Part 2

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by Jon Biemer

Ghandi reportedly said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  I wear it on a couple tee-shirts.  I believe in it. My particular focus is environmental action.  How do I put this advice into practice?  How do I motivate others to do likewise?

Processwork offers some powerful strategies to consider.

Relationships

In addition to hearing and seeing, Processwork tells us that relationship is a channel through which we communicate at a deeper level.  Just by openly sharing environmental values, peers influence each other.

My local business association values me as a good facilitator who also calls himself an environmentalist.  Because of my involvement, our annual celebration featured the Johnson Creek Watershed Council pitching its cause.

The church I belong to devoted one collection a month for a year to support environmental justice causes.  We raised $4000 while learning about a dozen worthwhile organizations, including Outgrowing Hunger (community gardens), Sustainable Northwest (rural development), and OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon (“training the next generation of movement leaders”).

My friend Kenneth urged me to address food in my book about sustainability.  Energy is my career expertise, but thanks to his relationship-channel influence, I learned about regenerative agriculture, what an organic label means, and the importance of perennials like fruit and nuts.

My wife and I regularly influence each other in our environmental practices.  When Willow wanted to turn our lawn into a food forest, I did most of the sheet mulching with cardboard and woodchips.  My book on sustainability was almost ready to send to the publisher, when Willow told me how she replaces disposables with reusables and toxics with non-toxics, and how she avoids petroleum-based clothing.  That became Chapter 2, “Little Things Add Up.”

Community is an extended form of relationship.  When I wanted to give away two filing cabinets, our next-door neighbor posted a notice on the local Buy Nothing Project Facebook page and found someone who needed them.  Two neighbors on our street were inspired by our food forest to convert their front yards into gardens.  Within walking distance of our house, we now have three tiny libraries perched like birdhouses on street-side posts.

Life passages

Processwork advises that we follow the process.  Rites of passage definitely offer opportunities to embrace our environmental values.

How about when you go to college?  I know of three young people, daughters of my friends, who chose environmental science majors upon leaving secondary school.  Honest.

In 1975, I became disillusioned with my job in aerospace and frustrated by a non-existent love life.  One day a manager invited me to come to his home to a talk about the problems with nuclear power.  This proved to the moment when I found my calling to work on solar energy and energy conservation.  My social life improved remarkably as I followed that path.

The kids leaving home and retirement also invite creative responses.  My wife Willow and I moved to a much smaller house when my youngest son moved out; that reduced our monthly payments enough for me to accept a Voluntary Early Retirement from the utility company where I worked.  I chose to call it a “graduation” – and broadened my work in sustainability.  This led eventually to my recently published book.  Melanie Platt, a pediatrician who retired, translated her organizing skills into a new career with 350PDX.org.  She leads their Fossil Fuel Resistance Team.

Heroes

Another Processwork teaching is we have the attributes of those we admire.

John James Audubon helped us love the environment with beautiful pictures of birds.  Is there an environmental artist inside of you?  Muhammad, founder of Islam, forbade killing animals for sport and felling trees in the desert.  He set aside areas where native plants could not be cut and wild animals could not be hunted.  What prophetic environmental message are you called to share?  My wife is on a mission to avoid plastics.

Howard Zahniser shepherded the Wilderness Act through sixty-six rewrites.  The Howard Zahniser inside me persevered through innumerable rewrites and queries to bring my book to fruition.

Rachel Carson, in writing The Sea Around Us and Silent Spring, successfully combined her career in science with her love of writing.  This emboldens me to believe I can do the same with engineering, spirituality and writing.  In fact, Processwork suggests that we dance with seemingly conflicted energies until one dance emerges.

Advice From Your Future Self

Another Processwork exercise goes like this:  Visualize yourself at ninety years of age, satisfied with leading a fulfilling life.  As you look back to this point in time, recognize that this was when you made a decision that made all the difference.  What did you do?

Let’s tease your environmental action out of this exercise.  What action of yours could ripple out to help the world and/or ripple forward to give you satisfaction in old age?

Being a Climate Action Counselor

A recent Processwork class paired me with another student to learn about our unique facilitator styles.  Using his facilitator style, he shared this observation about me: You might be more effective as a counselor than an expert.  Hmmm… I am not an expert on your situation, but I can ask helpful questions;

  • “Is there a place you love?”
  • “What are the needs of your community?”
  • “Does your river need to be cleaned up?”
  • “Where do you have a say in how things are done?  Your child’s bedtime story?  Your kitchen?  Your yard?  Your office?  Your neighborhood?”
  • “Does your child’s school teach environmental literacy?”
  • “Could your grocery store be selling more organic food and using less packaging?”
  • “Is there a candidate or ballot measure that needs your support?  Do your people need you to step into a leadership role?”
  • “Do you have a personal climate action plan?”

In offering such questions, I ask people I meet to dream.  Processwork teaches us that dreams, whether sleeping or awake, are powerful.  They lead us to action.

By Jon Biemer,

Photo credit (Jon): Tode Oshin

Jon Biemer earned a Certificate in Process-oriented Psychology in 2014.  He is the author of Our Environmental Handprints: Recover the Land, Reverse Global Warming, Reclaim the Future, published by Roman & Littlefield.  It offers 178 Handprint opportunities to create a more sustainable world.  For details check out Jon’s website at www.JonBiemer.com or contact him at jonbiemer@gmail.com.

Photo credit (landscape): Martin Damboldt

Embrace Your Edge: Processwork and Environmental Action, Part 1

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by Jon Biemer

The world needs our help.  Glaciers and poles are melting.  Hurricanes line up across the Atlantic to wreak havoc.  Refugees are migrating.  Species are going extinct.  What can we do?  Why don’t we do more?

I seek to apply Processwork skills and insights to the challenge of motivating people to take environmental action.

In particular, Processwork suggests we have arrived at an edge when we feel stuck.  Something is going on, but we have trouble deciding what to do about it.  The situation may be as seemingly unimportant as choosing a meaningful present for a child, or as threatening as the loss of your home.  When we reflectively “hold ourselves to the edge”, we draw upon inner resources to find effective and creative ways forward.

Thus, both planned and unplanned events can be catalysts for environmental action.

Planned events

All sorts of stressful decisions need to be made when we plan a special event.  This often brings us to an edge, a sense of disquiet.  Welcome this opportunity to serve a greater good.

Do you yearn for a vacation?  Ecotourism provides a stream of money to people who might otherwise be driven to extraction as a livelihood.  This is how we turned around the decimation of sea turtles in the Caribbean.  Even going to a zoo or an aquarium helps the species preservation programs it sponsors.

Moving is an excellent catalyst to change habitually consumptive practices.  When my friend Brian came to Portland to go to school, he not only traded his car for a bicycle, he started work for Beneficial State Bank, a non-profit corporation committed to ‘investing in people, planet and prosperity.’  When Peter Kalmus took a job to study clouds at Jet Propulsion Laboratories, he and his family gave up airline flying and its impact on Global Warming.  Then he wrote a book and made a movie about the experience!

I did not know what to give my granddaughter for her tenth birthday.  She lives a long way from me.  What could she relate to?  Can you feel the edge?  How about something that reflects my environmental values?  How about a book about Gretta Thunberg?  She had a challenge (Asperger’s syndrome) that she turned into a “superpower”.  Yes!

Annual events can gently hold us to our environmentally sensitive edges if we pay attention.  How will I raise environmental consciousness on Earth Day which is acknowledged around April 20th each year?  What picnic, cooperative games or conference shall we plan for Interdependence Day – variously celebrated on July 4th or September 12th?  Maybe I’ll join a beach clean-up which is organized by the Ocean Conservancy and its partners one day every September.

The Global Footprint Network calculates and hosts Earth Overshoot Day when we as a species exceed the capacity for the earth to renew itself in a given year.  This year, 2021, that date was July 29th.  After that day we as a species are taking (not borrowing) resources from future generations.  An edgy thought, which nags us to find ways to curtail consumption.

Unwelcome Disruptions

When “business as usual” is disrupted, we may not know how to respond.  That brings us to an edge.  The Processwork practice of relaxing into an altered state, even for a short while, helps us remember our values.  The door to make a positive environmental change may already be open.

I was driving in the Mojave Desert of California when our van broke down.  After a long tow, both auto shops in Blyth said it was not worth fixing.  I rode the bus home.  My wife and I loved that vehicle, and its demise served as a cue to live without a car – for thirteen years.

When a loved one dies, plant a tree in the loved one’s honor.  Or invite mourners to donate to an environmental cause that will foster a lasting legacy with the aligned energy of thousands of other supporters.  While you are at it, arrange a bequest for a park or other worthy cause in your will.

After a tornado destroyed the town of Greensburg Kansas, residents confronted a desperate reality.  Mayor Bob Dixson rallied the community to rebuild sustainably – which attracted outside support.  Some homes and apartments now have “insulated concrete forms and straw bales in the walls.”  School children insisted that Greensburg’s new school meet LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficient Design) certification standards.

LeeAnn Walters, a mother in Flint, Michigan, saw weird rashes on her children’s skin.  She contacted the Environmental Protection Agency.  Miguel del Toral of the EPA chose to get others involved.  Mona Hanna-Attisha, with the local hospital, documented very high levels of lead in young patients.  Virginia Tech instructor Mark Edwards personally paid $150,000 to test for lead in the water system with the help of his students.  The cause to replace lead-sealed water pipes was joined by the Natural Resources Defense Council – and by donors like us.  At each step of the way, someone confronted an edge.

In 2008 the Keystone XL pipeline was proposed to export petroleum from the Tar Sands in Alberta through refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.  Shodo Spring could not get impending environmental disaster out of her mind.  So she organized the Compassionate Earth Walk which followed the pipeline’s 1300-mile route.  In 2013, thirty of us walkers blessed the ground with our feet and shared the experience with hundreds of people along the way.  In 2021, TC Energy canceled the pipeline project.

The COVID 19 pandemic brought millions of families to edges.  For our part, my wife and I decided, instead of traveling to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago, we would pilgrimage three to five miles every day from our front door.  Much of the world has learned to Skype or Zoom.  Going forward, do we really need to burn as much fossil fuel to stay in touch?

Conclusion

The list of planned and unplanned disrupters goes on – an unexpected message, an inheritance, loss of a job, even a health crisis.  These are invitations to change reality, personally and globally.  When we appreciate that the edges these situations create are useful, we find hope.  We take action.  We become a force of nature.

The world needs us to cross a few edges.

NEXT: “Be the Change: Processwork and Environmental Action, Part 2”

By Jon Biemer

Photo credit (Jon): Tode Oshin

Jon Biemer earned a Certificate in Process-oriented Psychology in 2014.  He is the author of Our Environmental Handprints: Recover the Land, Reverse Global Warming, Reclaim the Future, published by Roman & Littlefield.  It offers 178 Handprint opportunities to create a more sustainable world.  For details check out Jon’s website at www.JonBiemer.com or contact him at jonbiemer@gmail.com.

Photo credit (landscape): Harrison Haines

A Process Oriented Approach to Collaboration

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Collaboration is an alchemical way of growing an idea and ourselves.  It’s kind of magical and difficult to put into words.  Just like a baby, an idea needs a lot of space and time to grow.  It is important not to rush.  In writing our graphic novel “Dreaming Into Community, A Guidebook to Worldwork”, we spent almost a year on the first chapter alone.  As we worked out our process of interacting and working together, the last chapter easily flowed over an intense 2 weeks.  It took us 3 years to complete the book.

by Venetia Bouronikou and Lynn Lobo

We have often wondered if the idea for the book found us or if the idea came from our relationship.  Our excitement in sharing ideas and thoughts with each other, offering mutual support, encouragement and play, as well as sharing responsibility were key to us working together.  While the essence of our relationship guided our graphic novel in CR, our novel was like a container for our relationship.

Collaboration is a process, a journey into the unknown.  It’s about working and dreaming together into something bigger and more complex than individual thinking.  When we all first begin, not knowing how to start can often make us feel shy or uncomfortable.  From another more playful viewpoint, dreaming is giving us a field full of potential.  We approach with openness for an unknown adventure.  But we also need to cultivate an openness for processing difficulties, while being willing to change and grow.

When working with a process we ask “what is trying to happen?”, “what is emerging here?”.  We follow tendencies, subtle signals or flirts.  We enrich them and let them grow bigger into existence.  Integrating thoughts and expressions that one may not identify with certainly isn’t an easy task.  Our individual edges as well as our differences in relationship are confronting.  Curiosity and patience is needed in exploring new spaces and parts of ourselves.

Speaking personally, facing our edges in our collaboration inevitably lead to hotspots.  When that happened, and it did, we focused on caring for our relationship.  Conflict can be the juiciest part in a collaboration.  It’s a rich place for ideas to deepen and relationships to grow.  We trusted the wisdom of our process.

Our personal edges and cultural differences meant we had to slow down and attend to the irritations.  Not skipping over the difficulties enabled us to flow better in our work.  We learned that personal identities and edges matter.  While we are individuals, we also exist within the relationship and in different cultures.  Some edges can be negotiated, some edges need time, and some edges don’t need to be crossed.  We learned to honor them, explore them and to cross them while respecting our differences.

(From DREAMING INTO COMMUNITY: A Guide Book to World Work, by Venetia Bouronikou and Lynn Lobo)

Giving and receiving feedback is another important aspect of collaboration, with special attention paid to edges.  Giving feedback with love and kindness is a practice.  Receiving feedback openly and sitting with our individual inner responses also takes practice.  Sometimes it is essential to get a little distance from the work and from each other.  Self care and getting clear about your particular needs that enable you to hear, is critical.  Some innerwork to prepare also helps.  You may need to speak for your point of view with more clarity.  We are at the heart of vulnerability and patience is needed.  Working with feedback can be a slow process as we are serving our dreams up to consensus reality.

So if not with trouble, then when does collaboration end?  The obvious answer is when the task is complete, but this may be temporary.  It may be a stepping stone to a new phase, or we may be waiting for a new idea to arrive.  The relationship may have more to offer.  Through deepening relationship, new ideas can emerge from its essence.

Finally, during these 3 years of our collaboration, we often wondered “why do we keep trying and struggling?”, “Wouldn’t it be better to work each one of us on our own?”.  The answer we came up with repeatedly is YO (Yes and No)!  Sometimes it could have been easier, true.  But collaborating was always a richer experience.  Collaboration is a personal and collective challenge to stay open and create a more inclusive world.  It’s a social practice for living together on a shared planet.

 

by Venetia Bouronikou, MAPW, Dipl. PW, and Lynn Lobo, MAPW, Dipl. PW

Venetua Bouronikou is a psychologist and a certified processworker.  She has 20 years of experience as a therapist and a group facilitator and trainer.  She is passionate about Worldwork and the interconnectedness of personal and social change.  Venetia loves big trees and deep blue waters.

You can contact Venetia here

Lynn Lobo is a certified Processworker and visual artist.  Passionate about Worldwork, they offer workshops worldwide on creative practice, climate change and racism.  Lynn is also a member of faculty at the Process Work Institute.  They spend most of their time painting in their studio and talking to trees in the Australian bush.

You can contact Lynn here, and see their artwork here: lynnlobo.com

You can view and purchase Lynn and Venetia’s book here: DREAMING INTO COMMUNITY: A Guide Book to World Work or at amazon.com

Hurtful Relationship Patterns and Deep Dreams

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By Agnieszka Olszewska–Kaczmarek

In everyday life, we often meet people who are in relationships that bring them more suffering than benefits.  One of the parties, despite repeated injuries and a sense of unfulfillment and even unhappiness, remains in the relationship or walks away just to return in a moment.

On the other side is a partner who is addicted, notoriously fails to keep promises, and may even commit physical or psychological violence.  This partner may also cheat, mentally humiliate, and rarely if ever appreciate the other partner.

Gender Norms can Contribute to Disfunction

Gender configurations are changing and the hurtful behaviors themselves can be further strengthened by cultural patterns defining what is okay, acceptable and even desirable in the behavior of a woman or a man and what is absolutely “not appropriate”.

Entanglement can also take the form of constantly waiting for someone who is unreachable or returning in memories to someone who passed away many years earlier.  Looking at such an image from some distance, we wonder how this is possible.

The Relationship High Dream

Of course, there are many reasons for such pattern developments: the family home, economic dependence, low self-esteem, cultural messages, lack of contact with one’s own feelings and needs, guilt etc.  One of the elements of this puzzle, to which Processwork draws attention, is the high dream (a term coined by the founder of the method, Dr Arnold Mindell).

Simply put, in the context of relationships, this is our deepest vision of the desired relationship.  Each and every one of us has our own unique version of such a dream relationship.  For one person, it will be a constant mutual motivation for development; many hours of intellectual discussions and trips to the mountains.  For another, raising children together and mutual daily care.

Someone may dream of emotional quarrels followed by equally fiery sexual intercourse.  There are as many relationship high dreams as there are people in the world, and each of these dreams is a complex mosaic of behaviors, features and moods that we deeply desire.

The High Dream Points to Our Deepest Needs

A high dream is connected with our deepest needs, which is why it is an integral part of ourselves, and it demands fulfillment.  When we fall in love, we often attribute the object of our feelings with the characteristics of our dream.

Someone has a strong presence or personality or dream figure and we associate it with care and providing us with a sense of security.  Someone else smiles impishly and we can already see through our imagination how we run together lightly in a meadow away from all the world’s problems.  We get gifts or compliments and we are filled with a sense of importance and uniqueness.

In some relationships the bond deepens over time, in others the initial incentives disappear in the face of disproportionately more frequent injuries.  The need for love, the desire to fulfill the deep dream that we carry in the middle of our soul can cause us to persistently stick to the person with whom our dream emerged.

Exaggerating the Positive

We focus excessive attention on a positive event, exaggerating its significance, while ignoring a whole series of negative experiences.  We consciously or unconsciously choose to ignore, overlook or rationalize obvious red flags.  A bouquet of flowers given in the morning cancels another multi-day drinking binge.  A nice text message annuls weeks
of silence.  It may also be that there is nothing good any more, but we believe that if we try harder, the dream will come true.

Therapy Using the High Dream

Therapy can help you explore relationship high dreams and get closer to their realization.  In the process of building a satisfying life, it is often important to stand firmly and embrace our high dream.  If we fully recognize that we deserve good experiences, it is easier for us to consciously assess whether what we desire really happens in reality.

On this path we will probably meet beliefs that stand in opposition to our high dream: “There are no such sensitive men.”  “I’m too old.”  “The role of a woman is to sacrifice,” etc.

Memories of negative experiences from our first relationships with caretakers may come back.  The therapeutic process helps heal old wounds and build new, favorable mental, emotional and psychological patterns.

Embodying our own High Dream

At the same time, and sometimes surprisingly so, we discover many of these beautiful features that we attribute to others are parts of ourselves.  These areas are ones that have long demanded to come to our awareness.  In this way, we also become a fulfilled dream about ourselves.

 

By Agnieszka Olszewska–Kaczmarek, MA, MAPOF

Agnieszka Olszewska – Kaczmarek is a psychologist and psychotherapist.  She completed her master’s in Processwork at the Process Work Institute in 2020.  She lives in Poland and works in a psychiatric hospital for children and teenagers and at the Center For Women Rights and has a private practice.  Agnieszka is also a singer-songwriter, performing under her stage name Back To The Ocean.

Learn more about Agnieszka’s therapy practice:

https://agnieszkatherapy.webnode.com

https://www.facebook.com/AgnieszkaOK.ProcessWork

And hear some of her music:

https://www.reverbnation.com/backtotheocean

This article first appeared in Polish at Psycheexpert.pl  on 4/23/20.  This English version was edited by MaryJo Radosevich, MBA.

Photo Credit: Maria Orlova https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-multiracial-women-leaning-to-each-other-4906336/

Maid Servant in a Rich Man’s House; Processwork on Roles and Rank

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by Kalpana Tanwar

Shri Ramakrishna (1836-1886) is one of India’s most revered saints.  Near Portland, OR, a shrine is dedicated to him and his followers in Scappoose, along with an ashram in SE Portland.  On NW 23rd Avenue, I saw a portrait of him in a meditation room.

As a young girl, I recall reading aloud to my father from “The Mission of Shri Ramakrishna”.  My father was a follower and this was his way of teaching me the precepts.  At the time, I didn’t care for the teachings.  Decades later, I’m reading the same book in a reading circle in Bengaluru.

One of Shri Ramakrishna’s instructions is: Live like a maid-servant in a rich man’s house.

In today’s world this statement brings up issues of rank – gender, class, economic, social, etc.  We can debate it from our current socially evolved lens ad nauseum and easily dismiss it as irrelevant.

Let’s examine this equation in terms of therapy.

Rank and Roles

Processwork tells us that rank is fluid and flexible, and that we are generally unconscious of our high rank, whilst frequently identifying with our low rank.  We take on roles unconsciously.  However, with awareness, we can pick up, drop, and even switch roles.

Many hard-working, successful people become extremely wealthy over the years.  Are they enjoying the good life?  Hardly.  They are caught in the trap of constant vigilance for competitors, always attempting to keep up peak performances.  So, they are constantly stressed out, anxious, and fearful.  They are not living the life of the rich man, in spite of being one in reality.  They are indentured to their business, maid servant to the call of the cash register.

If these individuals took ownership of their success, and then lived like maid servants, they could be truly happy.  But they are so far disconnected from their material reality and their emotional greed, they are trapped to live a life of fear and anxiety.  Their wealth becomes a heavy burden to carry; their success is a whip constantly lashing at their backs.

Role Switches Impact Lives

A mother is highly concerned about her two adolescent sons who are energetic, fearless, and adventurous.  In the role of the maid servant she would be there for them, provide food, shelter, and a clean, safe home.  She acknowledges that they are exploring their boundaries, getting to know and test themselves and the world they live in.  She goes on to carve an independent identity for herself beyond being just a mother.  The boys discover the ways of the world and become strong independent people living authentic lives.

If instead she chose to be the rich man – ever-vigilant, demanding, having unrealistic expectations of obedience and domesticity, it would cause this family undue trauma.

Being Practical in Relationship

An attractive, well qualified, employed young woman in her late 30s is desperately seeking her life partner.  She wants to start a family.  Few men can match up to her expectations.  Like a rich man, she has been shopping around.

If she saw herself as a maid servant, she would check out her options by prioritizing her needs, as would anyone who were seeking out terms of employment.  Does she have the required skills?  Is she willing to commit?  What does she expect in return?  When does duty end?  Are her skills aligned to the task at hand?

Few of us ever want to look at relationships with such practicality.  Being giddy headed, and swept off one’s feet is the desired norm in romantic relationships.  Its outcome is usually enormous loss, heartbreak, pain, loss of selfhood.

Using High Rank Congruently

An engineer working in a software company is being constantly dumped on by her male colleagues.  Her traditional Indian upbringing – to be obedient, docile, quiet, taking care of others and looking out for their preferences and needs – no longer serves her well in the corporate environment.  All was well when she was the maid servant in her father’s house.  As a manager, she needs to embrace the identity of the rich man.  She must now consciously connect to her high rank and take ownership of it.  Once she becomes conscious of her maid servant demeanor, she will be able to embrace the rich man within her, switch roles, and become an exemplary leader in the organisation.

Role Switches Impact Society

In the age of the pandemic, one of the biggest difficulties has been for the rich man to be the maid servant.  As an entitled society enjoying our freedoms and privileges, we resent being told what to do and how to do it.  The need to be a rich man is deeply engrained in us.  We fear that if the rich man goes away, we will be nothing.  The fear and uncertainty lead us to indulge in risky behavior.

If we were to feel less entitled, we wouldn’t mind being the maid servant now for the time being.  As a maid servant, we would carry in our hearts our very own real homes that we would one day return to and so we’d feel secure and complete even as we toed the line and followed new rules.

My Personal Rich Man and Maid

This saying is a truism in my own life.  In my 30s, I was the entitled rich woman with a great career, a picture-perfect family, economic security, and social status.  Halfway through my 40s when things began to unravel in my own life, I realized that I was being the maid-servant; much to my horror!  In my 50s, Process Work has taught me that I am both the rich man and the maid servant.  This means that I can choose to now enjoy my riches, knowing I must do my duty with due diligence as a maid servant.

Crossing the edge from rich man to maid servant or vice-versa is difficult.  When we cross it, understand that we are both the rich man and the maid servant simultaneously, it helps us to navigate life better.  Knowing which role to take on when, is the path to a better way of being.

 

By Kalpana Tanwar, MSW, Dipl. PW

Kalpana  has an MA in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences,  and has worked for 20 years in the field of qualitative market research in the 80s and 90s in Mumbai, India.

From 2002-10, she lived in Portland, Oregon, to pursue her MA and Diploma in Processwork.  In India, from 2010, she introduced and taught Process Oriented courses and workshops for nine years at the Srishti Institute of Design in Bengaluru, and has been in private practice working with individuals and families.

In her vlog, Navigate with Kalpana, she shares her wealth of experience and expertise as a psychotherapist, conflict facilitator, and educator.

Photo credit: Pixabay

800 years young & don’t miss our January Intensive

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How did you get so big?

I stood in the rain, awed by an 800 year old being rising up through the mist. The low grrrrr of ocean waves crashing not far away, I sobbed quietly, overwhelmed by joy and awe in the Pacific Northwest coastal forest.

Western science has just recently understood that forests are collaborative diverse communities. The visible part of the forest can look like a competition for light, space and nutrients. But underground, the forest is a network of inter-species connections used for support and nourishment.

What scientists call ‘mother trees’ partner with fungi to pass nutrients, protection from disease, and information exchange that helps the entire forest flourish. This 800 year old giant has lived with generations of indigenous peoples, witnessed the recent arrival of Europeans, felt the steady deforestation of its coastal homeland, all the while nourishing and uplifting the forest community of which it is part.

As we farewell this year and welcome 2021, I am wishing us time to feel our roots and the invisible connections they make. To wonder at the weave of inter-species process that unfolds between and through us.

Could our roots help us transform the intense polarizations of this time?

Could our mother trees hold us through vulnerability, fears and denial and give us the courage to act with “stubborn optimism” for racial justice and a safe climate future?

How have your underground networks nourished you this year?

How have you been a ‘mother tree’ to others in your community?

Join us online this January for our introductory intensive to study the skills for unfolding process. Together we can find our way to a better normal.

Love
Hellene, from all of us here at the Process Work Institute

Click here for our latest newsletter (December 26,  2020)

Hellene Gronda, Executive Director
Ph.D, PW. Dipl, MA, BSc/BA(Hons)
Hellene has a life-long interest in personal and collective change and has been inspired by Processwork for over 30 years. An experienced leader in government and nonprofit settings she values the deep optimism and courageous spirit of Processwork, and its ability to find creative and unexpected solutions to the most difficult, confusing or inexplicable challenges.

Befriending Spiders: Corona and Unpredictable Fields

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by Peter Mascher

When the school and kindergarten in our small village was closed on March 13th this year, the practical consequences of the Corona pandemic reached us as well.

I have to say that Heckenbeck, a village of 500 inhabitants has not experienced a single illness to date, so I am writing from a very privileged position, with only a partial knowledge of how much other people are actually affected, up to and including an existential and health threat.

The Fear Everywhere Feels Like War

The news affected me and even more impactful is the fear that was constantly felt everywhere, that is now arising anew with the approach of autumn.

The baker in the neighboring village spoke of a war situation and there were plenty of slogans of perseverance.  However, the “enemy” was hardly to be grasped and could only be felt when one was already infected.

It is like a completely unpredictable atmosphere, a field that reminded me of some documentaries of Nazi Germany.  When the Gestapo, the secret state police, knocked at the door, it was too late for escape.

Again, people today are manipulated with this fear of unpredictability, driven out of their inner balance and thereby fall into existential distress.

My Childhood Dream

This reminds me of my first recurring childhood dream.

It was short and clear: many spiders were running towards me approaching me from several directions.  I was very scared.

I woke up and called for my mother, who then calmed me down so I fell asleep again.

It wasn’t clear in my dream which of the spiders would possibly bite me, it seemed more like an extended threat, like a “web” from which I couldn’t escape.

In my inner work I connected this dream with my family environment at that time, which was characterized by tensions between my parents.  These tensions unconsciously transferred to me as a child and escalated in later years.  The role my mother took was also ambivalent; she reassured me, but she was also the source of much of the tension in our family.

The experience of an uncertain field around me seems to have accompanied me all my life and has now been revived in these Corona times.

Integrating the Spiders’ Powers

Over many years, with the help of wonderful Processwork therapists, I developed a positive relationship with the spiders and sufficiently integrated their strength and message.  There is a certain power in these animals and the ability to build webs and thus provide for themselves.  In some of my more lucid dreams I enjoy flying around like Spiderman.  This heroic cartoon figure and I make sure that dangerous figures are safely wrapped in nets.

I learned something about my task in this world, to create webs of support that are virtually invisible and nevertheless constantly available to us humans everywhere.

On the spiritual level these are blessings, or “stardust”; the subtle messages of the universe, which we often ignore during our daily activities and simply wipe away.

Is it possible that the corona virus wants to teach us to perceive more of the subtle signals and structures of our complex reality?

Would it be possible to encounter an unpredictable field so early that there is less powerlessness and fear?

The Sentient Message in the Virus

Now I remember the Big U; the possible path of love, as I think of Arnold Mindell’s words in the context of a second training seminar in Tokyo in 2004.

I go deep into a sentient practice.

Since the virus brings with it an engagement with sickness and death, I follow this energy and go into minimizing impulses and into the perception of subtle signals.

In my imagination, the virus penetrates me and changes something inside of me.

During this time my breath is also minimized and I move into stillness.

It is a journey into the deep essence of my being.

Just like the spiders from my childhood dream, the virus is no longer my enemy.

The message becomes clear: “Accept change and learn to trust your fine sensory perception; your sentient awareness.  It leads you to your wise inner place and at the same time far out into the universe.“

The fear of illness and death disappears in me.  I feel a deep connection to the processmind, a non-local intelligence that permeates all the processes of my life and constantly provides for change.

Does that help in the practical handling of the corona field?

Yes, I allow myself to be manipulated much less by the fears and beliefs of other people without ignoring the “consensus reality” of the actual events.  I also feel much more connected to the people who actually need help.

Relating to my Inner Child

My relationship to myself has also changed.

I asked myself, what part of me is actually having the experience, and what part of me is particularly evident in the inner work?

It is not the adult in me who is afraid of corona, but the child in me who is afraid of this unpredictable danger, as in my early spider dream.

My “inner child” remembers the uncertain situations in my childhood and now wants to be noticed and held.  I experience it as essential that my “adult me” from the closeness to the essence level offers my “inner child” a space of acceptance and a feeling of being well cared for.  It is my experience that my inner nurtured child helps me to better engage with the challenges and conflicts of life.

It is not only my adult identity that accepts the challenge, but the child within me appears as an inner dream figure and sets a process in motion that would otherwise have remained hidden and secondary in the background.

As soon as our early childhood roots experience healing in this way, our “tree of life” grows with new strength in a wonderful magic way.

“Children we love become adults who love.”  It is never too late for that!

 

By Peter Mascher, Dipl. PW

As a professional musician for over 30 years, Peter Mascher has had a lifelong affair with his beloved instrument, the viola.  During that time, his self-realization as a musician grew into a spiritual quest.

He is passionate about working with people and supporting them to contact their personal wisdom and essence states of consciousness.  His non-dual perspective of our world forms the core base of his training for conflict resolution, health and relationships.

He has his own practice in his home village, Heckenbeck/Germany working as a facilitator and innovative coach with clients and groups within the private and business sector.

His book, “Dreaming Rocks-Journeys on the Inner Mountain” will be released this fall.

You can read more about Peter and his work at, www.seedplanters.net

 

Photo Credit: Egor Kamalev

Inner voices of Leadership inspired by Black Lives Matter – Errol Amerasekera

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The Inner Voices of Leadership: Inspired by my experience at a #BlackLivesMatter march

By Errol Amerasekera

Leadership is a service one offers to others. Therefore as a leader, one has to be mindful to not make things about one’s self. At the same time, leadership also requires us to be authentic, transparent and sometimes perhaps even vulnerable. So it’s always challenging as a leader to model behaviours such as honesty and self-revelation, without going so far as to be self-indulgent. The question which helps me navigate this dilemma is What is purposeful? In other words, how can I take my experience and share it in a way which makes it useful for others, thus making a contribution? But also to do this in a way which does not encroach into the territory of making it too much about myself or being self-indulgent. This is what I am going to attempt to do with this post, so let’s see how I go……

In my last post Does leadership require love? I wrote about the need for leaders to have self-love, because without this, it undermines our ability to lead with and from love. Life is funny sometimes, because not long after I published that post I had an experience which profoundly challenged me in terms of the very thing I was referring to in that post.

When the unconscious becomes conscious

I participated in a #BlackLivesMatter march in Brisbane, Australia in early June which was attended by more than 30,000 people. Once we found our place amidst the masses, I took the opportunity to look around me and really ‘take in’ the moment, the people, the feeling of the crowd. The surprising thing to me was that there were so many white people, especially young white people. But even more surprising was that what they were effectively saying was that the lives of people who look like me matter. It was a feeling I could barely take in; a message I could hardly believe to be true. For much of that afternoon I managed to keep that message at bay; to distance myself emotionally from letting the impact of that message wash over me. But then in moments, I could hold it out no longer; and my heart was flooded with the feeling that all these people, total strangers, mostly white people, were there giving their time, their spirit, holding up placards and chanting slogans saying that my life mattered. In those moments tears would stream down my cheeks.

They were tears of relief; tears of appreciation; tears of healing. My surprising realisation was that this feeling that I somehow mattered was totally foreign to me; it went against so much of what I had been told and taught, through the words and actions I experienced, especially in the early part of my life. So what was once buried somewhere in my subconscious, suddenly bubbled to the surface and coalesced into the realisation that I had a deeply held belief that I did not matter, that what I felt and my experience was not important. So embedded in my tears was both a recognition of this subconscious belief and also a relief that once recognised, the pain associated with these experiences could finally start to be healed.

But where did this belief come from? Who or what authored this story that formed such a strong and deeply held narrative, but also one that I was barely conscious of?

Everyone has a ‘back story’, here is mine…

My parents are from Sri-Lanka. I was born in England and we migrated to Melbourne, Australia in the early 1970s. Not coincidentally, that was not long after the abolishment of the White Australia Policy. As a result, we were amongst the first waves of non-white people to migrate to Australia.

When we moved to Melbourne I was the only brown-skinned kid at my primary school, and one of only a handful of non-white kids at my secondary school. Most kids had never encountered a brown-skinned person before, at least in real life. So from the start I was seen as someone different, as someone who did not belong, someone who was ‘less than’. As a result I was picked on, beaten up, called names, spat on, would have Go home n**ger graffitied on my textbooks. These were regular experiences for me through the latter part of primary school and the first few years of high school. Being shy, introverted and a bit of a nerd who found it hard to make friends didn’t help either, as it only made me more of a target. It wasn’t until I finally hit puberty (I was a late bloomer) and the results from my gym workouts started to pay off, that I developed enough of a physical presence and threat that over time the bullying began to abate. But by then it was too late, the damage had already been done….

I had been given the message so many times that what I was feeling, my experience, and perhaps even my life did not matter, that I now believed that message.

The external messages we receive about our worth, at some point in time, become part of our internal dialogue

American author, theologian and civil rights activist Howard Thurman once said: “If we are despised long enough, we eventually despise ourselves.” What he is eloquently capturing is the dynamic by which if we experience abuse and oppression, then over time we will internalise “the oppressor”. What this means is that the narrative of the oppressor or the bully now becomes part of our psychological landscape and therefore contributes to our inner dialogue. This inner dialogue determines how we see ourselves, what we think we are capable of, and what we believe we are worthy of.

In my opinion, this is what makes abuse, oppression and bullying so insidious. When the world outside sends us the message in multiple ways that our life does not matter, or that we are not important, we can hopefully retreat to the safety and sanctity of a house, our bedroom or perhaps even a family; a space which buffers us from the hurtful voices of the world around us. But once this oppressive voice takes residence within one’s own psyche, there is no escaping its impact. It sits deeply within us and quietly, but with skill and tact, drip feeds messages into our internal dialogue, much like a slowly leaking tap… drip….drip….drip….

Each droplet is infused with self-doubt and self-loathing that over time erodes our dignity, self-esteem and self-respect. And because we cannot help but take ourselves with us wherever we go, those messages become an ongoing and consistent aspect of our internal narratives. Once that voice has made itself comfortable and has resided there long enough, we eventually cannot distinguish that voice from our own thinking, because in reality, that voice is now part of us.

Dynamics from the broader culture also get internalised

And it doesn’t just have to be the messages from our own personal experience of abuse and bullying; we also internalise the messages from broader society and the ‘cultural soup’ in which we all swim. Through their repetitive and subliminal nature, these messages also eventually get lodged within our psyches. And in some ways we cannot help this; the cultural context we exist in has an undeniable and pervasive influence on how we see ourselves. This is as true for how we feel we do or do not fit into and are valued by the broader culture, as it is for how an organisational culture influences our performance, engagement and sense of belonging.

As such, a woman within a culture that still has aspects of sexism in it, is going to internalise some sexism into her inner dialogue and then sometimes assess her worth through this lens. A Jewish person, where there are still elements of anti-Semitism and white supremacy in the culture, will absorb some of those historic and toxic sentiments. In a culture where we rarely see same-sex couples and trans individuals represented in mainstream media, TV and movies, individuals from the LGBTIQA+ community will internalise the viewpoint that they are not valued and included as part of mainstream culture. These are just a few obvious examples, but similar dynamics play out around our education levels, socio-economic status or class, religion, able-bodiedness, etc

Internalised oppression manifests in different ways, but it will manifest…

For each of us, this internalised oppressor will have a different voice; a different way of undermining our self-respect, confidence and self-esteem. This will depend on our unique set of experiences and to what extent we feel seen and valued by the broader culture. But the underlying messages are remarkably similar: You don’t belong here. You are messed up and broken beyond repair. You are worthless. We hate you, get out of here. You are ugly/stupid/insignificant. We are more important than you. We don’t even consider you to be human.

And while, as in my case, we are not always aware or fully conscious of that voice, the way it manifests in our day-to-day existence will be all too familiar – anxiety, stress, self-doubt, eating disorders, self-harm etc. For others of us, we deploy what – on the surface at least – looks like a more ‘functional’ strategy – a driving ambition to succeed. Behind this drive and ambition is the need to feel a sense of power, status and control; experiences which may have been lacking in our earlier years. We are desperate to believe that this success will deliver the ‘ammunition’ that will combat the inner voice which whispers in our ear “You will never amount to anything”.

Of course, no amount of external validation and success is sufficient when what we are really needing is a balm for those hurts and wounds we carry inside and rarely allow others to see. This need can give rise to a compulsive, almost addictive need for success, which of course is not sustainable and is often decoupled from other important areas of life and well-being.

And finally, our inner voices influence our leadership

So what does all this have to do with leadership?

Firstly, as I said previously, in order to effectively lead with and from love, we need to have self-love. We cannot give others what we ourselves do not already have inside of us. And even if you are not a proponent of the belief that leadership requires love (which is perfectly fine), I would suggest that even more agreed-upon leadership traits such as empathy, having influence and relationship building require a mindset and an inner attitude where at least a modicum of harmony and centredness is present. When an internal oppressor is running rampant through the landscape of our psyche, it undermines our ability to create and access those psychological states which are most conducive to optimal performance and effective leadership. Additionally, the emotional energy it takes to wrestle with this destructive inner voice makes us more prone to emotional burnout, “compassion fatigue” and other stress-related syndromes.

Secondly, one of the effects of the “internal oppressor” is that it makes us feel ineffective and powerless, thus reducing our sense of personal power. In my post The power that “trumps” Donald, I discuss how Dr Julie Diamond, author of Power: A User’s Guide differentiates power into different categories. In this context, the most relevant of these are positional power and personal power. When we feel like we lack personal power, we can tend to seek positional power as a compensation. The danger of this is that we can use leadership as a ‘vehicle’ to gain positional power and then, rather than being of service, leadership becomes self-serving and indulgent. As we look around the world of business and politics, we see examples (including some obvious ones) of this. One of the ‘non-negotiables’ of leadership is that it is a service one offers to others. So when leadership becomes self-serving it breaks a cardinal rule, which perhaps calls into question, if it can even be referred to as “leadership” at all?

I know that about now many of you are thinking “Yeah Errol, we get it, but what do we do about it?” But for the time being I’m going to keep you in suspense. For many of us just getting our heads around this concept, and then taking the time to reflect on if and how the dynamics of internal oppression play out in terms of our leadership is a massive undertaking in and of itself. So many of these narratives are buried in our subconscious. Therefore, we need to take time to deeply explore our behaviours and excavate our emotions, especially those more troublesome ones; for they are the portal into our underlying beliefs about ourselves, how society perceives us, and the extent to which we believe our life matters.

So for the time being, I’m going to leave you with that challenge.

First published August 5, 2020 on the Bluestone Edge Blog. Republished with permission.

About Errol

Errol Amerasekera is director of Bluestone Edge and works primarily within elite sport, in the areas of culture, leadership and high-performance.

In deciding to narrow his focus to working with elite level sport, he has partnered with Bluestone Edge founder Dr Pippa Grange on a number of key projects, including working with the Australian Olympic swim team after London 2012. He applies his business management experience to sports organisations in Australia and overseas to assist them to manage the complex and competing demands of delivering sustainable high-performance.

He believes that the sporting context provides a powerful forum for transformation in individuals and society by challenging us to continually be the best version of ourselves. He is passionate about creating a safer and more just world for all by mediating conflict, coaching ethical leadership, and facilitating transformation in individuals, elite teams and organisations.

He has a Masters degree in Conflict Facilitation and Organisational Change, B.Sci., B.App.Sci. and is a Diplomate in Process Oriented Psychology.

Errol is a keynote speaker on the connection between leadership, culture and high-performance and the value of a human-centric and relationship focused approach to sustained success.

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