Category Archives: Blog

Climate Change Inaction and Relationship

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By Irina Feygina

Climate Change is at Our Doorstep.  We have all the tools needed to ameliorate, and possibly reverse, the human impact on the climate.  Our economic and human resources, capacity for technological innovation, and ability to coordinate and learn are immense, and if harnessed toward tackling this issue we can turn things around.  But we don’t.  Why are we failing to meet this challenge with the wisdom, courage, and community spirit that it requires?  How can we shift toward action and support adaptive responses?

Relationships Underlie our Responses to the Climate Crisis

We tend to envision climate change as a multitude of measurable trends: increasing greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures, climate variability and extreme weather events, loss of nature and species extinction, sea level rise and desertification – all leading to destructive impacts on agriculture, infrastructure, cities, communities, lives.

Yet, our responses to climate change and barriers to action are driven by a different layer of experience, one Processwork calls “the Dreaming”.  It is comprised of individual subjective experiences, perceptions, and interpretations – our inner, unique, authentic world from which our behavior stems.  Understandably, many who want to engage politicians and the public with climate change offer facts and scientific knowledge to convey the severity of the risks and impacts.  Yet, this approach has not succeeded because it has not recognized and addressed the barriers at the dreaming level.

In many years of learning about and attempting to address climate change inaction, I have discovered that beneath the resistance is a longing and profound need for relationship.  I offer this insight as a tool to work with climate change differently, in a way that connects rather than alienates people.

 

Climate Inaction Stems from the Need to Belong

Our fundamental motive, which drives much of our behavior, is the need to belong: to be an accepted and valued member of a group, welcomed and desired, loved and included in something bigger.  Our relationships may be with institutions, communities, families, friends, God or spiritual entities, animals, nature, ourselves.  For most people, relationships form the heart of our lives, and offer meaning and purpose – and we are willing to go to great lengths to protect them.

This becomes a key impediment to accepting and addressing climate change, which threatens the very fabric of our society, and the well-being of those we love.  Climate change brings the most fundamental facets of our socioeconomic systems into question – the reliance on industry, technology, and the notion of progress, and reveals their unsustainability.  Those strongly identified with and psychologically invested in these systems will do anything to protect them, and are likely to engage in denial of climate change and resistance to solutions.  This dynamic is effectively exploited by an organized, extensively funded, shadow political effort to stymie action and sow doubt about the science of climate change.

On the other hand, those who are willing to acknowledge the reality of climate change often fail to see its relevance and proximity to their lives and the people they care about.  If they do, they may be unable to take action due to overwhelming feelings of fear, powerlessness, and inefficacy in the face of this enormous challenge.  The absence of a coordinated response spearheaded by political leadership and inclusive of the public leaves a void where a shared reality is needed.  People are left without a coherent vision nor a path toward engagement which is feasible and meaningful in their lives.

The Key to Overcoming Disengagement is Relationship

Climate skepticism and complacency are both about belonging.  The skeptics perceive a conflict between responding to climate change and protecting the economic and political institutions they identify with and depend on.  The complacent prioritize responsibilities to the relationships that comprise their lives, and are lost without a community foundation for engagement with climate change.  For both groups, responses driven by identity, relationship, and community (or lack thereof) prevail over risks and scientific fact.

Consequently, to work on climate change effectively is to work on these relational processes.  Help the skeptical undo the perceived conflict and harness their desire to protect the system by reframing solutions as a way to uphold what people love and feel attached to.  Help the complacent and disengaged connect climate change to the relationships they care about – their children, friends, neighborhoods, work. 

Make climate solutions consistent with people’s values and aspirations.  Build community and empower through shared engagement and successes.

Not only is relationship at the root of inaction, it is also at the root of action.  People align their behaviors to social norms, as a way of fitting in and being accepted.  Social norms are the most powerful driver of changing behaviors toward sustainability.  Adopting clean energy technologies (e.g. solar panels) is most strongly predicted by how many neighbors have done so, not price.  People are most effectively convinced to reduce water and electricity usage through learning that other people in their locality are doing so.  The burgeoning social resistance of the youth to governmental inaction is driven by connection to members and identity with the movement. 

The Paris Accords were successful after decades of failed international climate negotiations as a result of dedicated relationship building and dialogue among the world’s nations.

Processwork Facilitates Deeper Relationships across Diversity

There are many tools that Processwork can offer for supporting relationship dynamics in the context of climate change.  I am beginning to explore ways to bring these tools to climate organizations and groups, and trust these attempts will be my teacher in how to best draw on Processwork to support the Dreaming. But here are some thoughts.  As facilitators, we strive toward an inclusive attitude that honors and recognizes all perspectives – even ones we experience as disturbing, unknown, or frightening.  When conflicting sides encounter and recognize each other in this integrative way, a foundation is created for a deeper conversation, in which each side can recognize and acknowledge the other.  This can give rise to solutions that are informed by both facts and a deeper dreaming, and foster relationship across difference.

Processwork teaches us to embrace conflict, adversity, and wounds, and trust that listening deeply will reveal what we need to know and show the path forward.  By learning to follow and trust the process we discover our unique contributions and styles of working with complex situations, and can offer support to others for deepening personal growth, strengthening relationships, and building community.  It also offers approaches for supporting team dynamics and interpersonal difficulties within groups and addressing the insidious state of hopelessness and burnout that often arise when tackling entrenched challenges.

Exploring the Essence and Doorways into Growth

Processwork also invites us to discover the essence and explore the mystery of climate change – what is it teaching us and what doors is it opening?  How is it challenging us to create meaning in this unknown landscape?  What spiritual insights and growth is it demanding of us?  Going to the essence offers a detached viewpoint from which we can step out of the ever-widening polarization and perhaps discover a new sense of interconnectedness.  It can also help cultivate hope, resilience, and empowerment.

It is time we listen to the dreaming behind climate change inaction and recognize that our responses are driven by belonging, identity, and relationship.  We have much to offer in recognizing, holding, and healing these relational processes, and moving from polarization and alienation toward community and hope.

 

by Irina Feygina, PhD

Irina Feygina is a process-oriented facilitator and psychologist who supports individuals and groups to deepen self-awareness, strengthen relationships and communication, and embrace conflict as a doorway into discovery and transformation.  Her passion is working on the human dimensions of climate change – conflict and cooperation, skepticism and engagement, and holding space for complex personal and community processes around this vast challenge.  She has worked in government, nonprofits, and academia, and is currently developing approaches to climate conflict that combine insights from Processwork and behavioral sciences.  Irina holds a PhD in social psychology and is completing her Diploma in Process-oriented facilitation.

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Image credit: Ann Kopka; Entwined

The Spirit of Conflict

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By Ger Halpin

“Conflict is a gateway to a deepening of relationship with myself, with others, and the world.”

I’m afraid (in fact I’m terrified) to speak about the spirit of war and conflict, especially at a time when there is so much suffering and fear in the world.  I have not lived through the horror of war.  I haven’t lost my loved ones or seen them suffer in ways that are unimaginable to me.  Attempting to speak about conflict is brazen and potentially dangerous, and a huge part of me questions my right to say anything about any of it.  But something wants me to share my very small experience with you. 

The Fighting Spirit Inside Me

Within me, a warlike spirit emerges from the essence level, from the root of my creativity.  It is often the source of essential changes which need to happen in my life.  My war-like nature has connected me to my personal power, when everything in my life conspired to take it from me.  I’m forged in the fires of my own personal conflict and this has been at the core of my life myth. 

I feel compelled to explore conflict and my confrontational nature.  I yearn to have a peaceful, Zen-like nature and to emanate peace and reconciliation, but it isn’t my path.  Instead I fight, wrestle, question and trample my way towards moments of peace, insight and enlightenment.  Processwork’s inner-work model, which believes every experience is potentially valuable and transformative, has enabled me to go deeply into this aspect of my nature.  So, despite the horror and desolation of conflict, I own that I’m not yet ready to engage in peace and reconciliation.  

Why is that?  Because I struggle to celebrate and embrace my warlike nature, or to grieve for the pain and desolation I have created for myself and others.  It frightens me to say it out loud, but I am still in awe of the generative power of conflict and I’m not ready to surrender my part in that process yet.  But, because of Processwork, how I engage in conflict is changing.

Processwork Transforms Conflict

The complex nature of conflict is revealing itself to me slowly and in different ways.  Processwork enables me to work on power, privilege and rank.  Now, conflict isn’t about shoring up my identity, establishing my boundaries and creating the world according to my version of reality.  I don’t need to use it to seduce, subdue or threaten others to accept my vision. Processwork is teaching me that I fail when I use conflict to create a world which reflects only my own narrow worldview.  

Engaging in conflict is not about honing my skills and establishing strength in relationship to the weakness of another person.  Scoring points is now an empty victory if it only seeks to exclude or denigrate someone else’s experience or beliefs.  If the result of my conflict with another is to only reflect my perceptions and my experiences, then my world becomes a poorer place.  I have misused the power of conflict.  I have rejected the inherent creativity of conflict and lost the chance to create a world enriched and sustained by diversity.  

Conflict isn’t about marginalising the perceptions of other people, their diverse experiences and denying our shared history as sentient human beings.

Deepening Relationship with Myself

After years of fighting, polarizing situations, and creating stalemate in my personal and professional life, I now realize that conflict is a gateway to a deepening of relationship with myself, with others and the world.  What began as a crusade to establish my identity and to experience my own power in the face of familial and societal oppression, has now become the challenge of experiencing myself as a person and a spirit connected infinitely to everyone and everything else, past, present and future.  This is both shocking, frightening and exhilarating.  This is a world in which I can live, love, fight and explore the experience of being a woman, a mother and a human being.  

Skills for Conflicting Creatively

Processwork motivates me to find new skills to engage in conflict.  The ability to fight and conflict is a great gift to me, changing my life, sometimes for the best and sometimes for the worst.  However, my intention in fighting with someone or for some cause is changing dramatically.  I want to use conflict to learn more about myself, about you and the universe we inhabit.  But I’m fearful that without inner-work, group work and rank awareness, the cost will be too high.  

It isn’t easy to stay connected to my deepest self when I feel frightened or threatened or excluded.  I fear my opponents and their intent when they challenge me or threaten the people or values that are precious to me.  I struggle to get beyond those feelings, and sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail.  Despite this, I know conflict is a powerful path to awakening and I want to become a warrior on this path. 

At its deepest level of expression, conflict is a path of heart.  Having fought for my physical, emotional and spiritual survival, at great cost, I value and appreciate the power of conflict.  I have learned so much about the roots of my own suffering and I have inflicted wounds and suffering on other people.  I’m learning about power, how it is used and misused and its impact on all of us.  I am learning about sensitivity and insensitivity, and how these both facilitate and inhibit our capacity to notice and respond to feedback, in ourselves and others.  

Taking the Other Side

I must always remind myself that conflict loses its transformative power when I fail to take the other side as well as my own.  I am still trying to find ways to creatively engage in conflict, a possibility and a pathway revealed to me by Processwork.  I’m hoping that you and I can follow the nature of conflict, so that it isn’t just about death, destruction and subjugation, but instead becomes a channel for deepening our humanity, and embracing all our creativity and diversity.

by Ger Halpin, MPP, Dipl. Processwork, PG Dip CDRS, Approved Mediator MII

I am an eternal student of change and conflict.  Change and adaption is the key to survival.  Moving through life, negotiating conflicts and flowing with change is my life myth and ongoing challenge.  This requires awareness, a certain attitude and a spiritual practice: a spiritual practice that honors your past, your present and your future.  For me, Processwork embodies all of this and forms the cornerstone of my existence.  It is at the heart of my daily practice as a Community Worker, Facilitator and Mediator.

www.geraldinehalpin.ie.

Ger is on teaching faculty at Processwork Ireland

Healing History

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By Gary Reiss

“I know there are old demons which are coming back to the surface.  They are ready to wreak chaos and death,” he said.  “History sometimes threatens to take its sinister course once again.”  French President Macron speaking at a ceremony honoring the breakout of peace of WWI, November 11, 2018.

Psychology

The central principle behind psychology focuses on individuals and their personal lives.  It is about me or you and if we expand our lens, it is about our families also.  This important central focus, however, covers about half of what psychology needs to cover.  The missing half is not personal to me or you but what we carry psychologically due to our extended multi-generational family system, the groups we are part of, the history of these groups and the countries they come from.  Working in both of these realms together gives us the potential for more inner development and freedom.  Psychology has been built on the idea of personal change and taking responsibility for one’s life, with the exception of severe psychological problems which are seen as genetic or biochemical.


Peacemaking

The central principle behind most peacemaking and facilitation is to work with the problems of the present moment, to make some kind of peace treaty and write it up.  We, those of us who are therapists, facilitators and peacemakers, don’t address the hidden presence history often plays.  As a result, the various sides don’t understand that their conflict isn’t just their conflict, but history repeating itself.  Many of us feel the way the Earth holds the trauma and ghosts of history.  If these Earth-spots are not processed or cleared, history repeats itself again and again.  Last year in Warsaw, a few weeks after I taught there, 60,000 white supremacists marched with slogans calling for a new holocaust.  The lessons and the energy of the last holocaust have not been processed fully, so now here it comes again.

Processwork

Process-oriented Psychology has taken an approach that integrates the ghosts of history and says that we are neither just individuals suffering from our internal psychology, nor are we just groups of people or countries suffering from external present-centered problems.  We are both.  Often inner-work, psychological work, and spiritual development are split off from world change and social action.  However, in Processwork we put this all together.  From a Processwork standpoint, sustainable personal change doesn’t happen without changing the world, and sustainable world change doesn’t happen without the individual’s inner-work to change their feelings.

Processwork addresses individual issues, family issues and world issues as part of individual therapy.  However, it also addresses social and world and historical issues through group work methods.  The two main tools for this are open forums and group process.  We call these methods the Worldwork part of Processwork, this unity of personal work, inner work, and outer world change.

Social Issues, Fields and Ghost Roles

Social issues that exist within the field affect individual psychology.  We share a field; an atmosphere we can sense we are all part of.  The field is full of roles being played by individuals, couples, families, organizations, businesses, or cities.  In families, some common examples of roles might be the parent or the child, the healthy or the sick one, the good child, and the addict.  There are also hidden roles, those felt and gossiped about but not represented or identified with. For example, in a hardworking family there may be a lazy uncle to always gossip about.  This is a ghost role, something that exists in the family but is not identified with.  When he is mentioned the energy of that uncle is present in the family even if the uncle isn’t physically present.  Other common ghost roles are the addict, the killer, the child, the elder, or even abuse, death, and love.

History is a Ghost Role

One of the most impactful ghosts upon a family or group is history.  I am Jewish.  In many Jewish families, the Holocaust is never mentioned.  Yet history is present always in the field.  It is a ghost role but somehow still present.  The issue for me is also personal.  In my family, we knew part of our family had lots of people directly impacted by the Holocaust and the other side had almost no one.

As a child at the dinner table I once asked, “How come we have so many cousins and aunts on Mom’s side and almost no one on Dad’s side?”  I think it was my mother who told me that my father’s side had “disappeared” in Europe.  I learned in my late 50s that my family was from Poland and most of one side died in the camps, probably Auschwitz.  I still have more to learn.  These ghosts of our history permeated my family’s mood; they created an air of anxious negativity that seemed to not be about present life.  The ghosts of history create this atmosphere.  The first time I taught in Warsaw, before I knew I was from Poland, I could almost sense the ghosts.  When someone goes to regions affected by World War II they can feel the ghosts still in the air.  Many people have had this experience wandering the streets of Warsaw for example, as the participants told us at our seminars there.

Ghost Roles Need to be Processed

The ghosts left by unprocessed history are like uncooked energies in the field; they surface again and again and tend to recreate history.  Our work as facilitators and therapists is to facilitate the cooking of personal and historical trauma so that we can work with these forces, these polarities, these sources of trauma, so that we don’t have to face them again in the same traumatic ways.  We can instead learn from, integrate, process, detach from and transform our personal and historical trauma into being the next positive steps for ourselves and humanity.

by Gary Reiss, LCSW, PhD, Dipl.PW

Gary Reiss is a certified trainer in Process-oriented Psychology.  Gary has a private practice in Eugene and Portland, Oregon, and teaches Process-oriented Psychology worldwide.  His specialties include family therapy, sex therapy, working with coma patients, Worldwork in world hot-spots, organizational development, and integrating Processwork with different spiritual traditions.  Gary is the director of the nonprofit organization The International Peace Group.  He has published 11 books, including The Dance of Sex, Dreaming Money, Families that Dream Together, and Love, Power, and Wisdom.  This post is an excerpt from his new book Healing History; Breaking the Cycle of Personal and Historical Trauma, published in 2018.

 

My Childhood Dream is my Facilitator Superpower

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These are my Life-Myth Superpowers… what are yours?

by Matt Stella

I am laying curled up on the back porch. Brown painted floor and railing. Crying. About five years old.  A little boy alone, upset, in the fetal position.  The porch is raised up from the yard like a stage, yet I must be outside of the house trying to hide and be alone.  The little backyard is nicely manicured: flowerbeds with a nice stone border, and a perfectly green lawn that extends to the back fence.  Closer to the fence it’s darker in the shade of a big maple tree.  The grass there is not as lush, with some bare spots and patches of dirt.  The back fence is a wooden wall about 6 feet high, like a stockade you would see in old forts.

Then, just like every time, an old woman in a dingy white dress comes out of the back door of the house across the fence.  She steps out onto her back porch, which is raised from her yard at the same level of my porch, so she can see across the fence to where I am.  Her house is white but in disrepair, with peeling paint, unkempt.  Her yard has no grass.  It’s wild and untended, the dirt packed down from a sad, mean dog that’s chained to a stake in the middle of the lot, pacing and digging wherever it can reach.

Crying harder now, I feel her looking over the border fence at me.  It’s uncomfortable to feel that she is watching me.  And suddenly it’s unbearable and terrifying.  The old woman in the white dress is not fully human.  Even though I’m trying not to look at her, I realize she has the terrible head of a chicken, with her haunting, piercing, yellow chicken eyes locked straight on me, no eyelids, a relentless steady gaze.  The longer she stares, the more unbearable it feels.  My sobbing and panic heightens by the second.  I know that if she keeps looking I will die.

Carl Jung and the Life Myth

I always wake up just before dying.  This is the dream I had in the night, many nights in a row, in different phases of childhood, starting about 5 or 6 years old. Over time I ‘outgrew it’, and I did not think much of it.  Then in my 30’s when first studying Processwork, I was asked to remember the first dream, nightmare, or recurring dream of childhood — what Carl Jung would call the Life Myth Dream.

My Processwork therapist, Randee Levine, was brilliant and wise.  She helped me approach this nightmare with curiosity, then compassion, then awe.  I could see that for much of my childhood, teens and early adulthood, my inner life was most like the child in that dream.  Everything looked quite fine on the outside, like the house, nice, privileged, put-together… but in the back, behind the scenes, I was depressed, afraid, insecure, small and hurting.

Over the Edge – the Chicken Head Lady

But what about CHL – the Chicken Head Lady?  She was definitely not me.  I was definitely not her.  The edge between my world and hers was a tall stockade barrier.  And the awareness in the dream, the looking, was coming from the wild, scary land across the edge.  Not from me.  In the dream, as in my life, I was most aware of trying to look manicured like the lawn and flowers, but secretly feeling hurt, weak or ashamed.

If you are familiar with Processwork, you may be anticipating the good part… How am I the Chicken Head Lady!?  It was a deeply healing and empowering process to shapeshift into her — to practice standing straight up, with the relaxed but fierce awakeness of pre-human eyes staring straight across the edge to the source of the suffering.  From her perspective, she was not trying to harm or kill the boy.  She was just witnessing, unflinchingly.  Over many years, my healing and growth have been a practice of living that dream.  It starts with noticing that in the ‘back porch’ hidden areas of my mind, I am feeling hurt and alone, desperate not to be seen.  Any attempt to look at it feels terrifying like it might be the end of the world.  But then to adjust my gaze, open eyes fierce and wide, and look dispassionately straight at it, opens me to an ancient power with no fear.  The ‘boy’ starts to disappear. He is ‘killed’ in the sense that the longer I look, the closer it is to being gone.  Even if I only remember to do this inner work once in a while, it’s a great relief and a return to power.

Central Polarity – Opposite Allies To Help My Clients

It has been 20 years since I was taught to view the unique, mythic themes of my life through the lens of this dream.  As a therapist and Processworker, there is no skill or metaskill I am more grateful for than this Life Myth Dream to guide me.  When I have a client exposing a hidden hurt, and the shame of it being seen, I can access true compassion.  The ‘boy’ is my ally, reminding me what it’s like to feel that desperate panic, suffering and shame.  And the Chicken Head Lady is my ally, showing me the impersonal paradox of detachment, awareness, and fierce connection.  When I remember to look through her eyes, I can see straight through a person to the seed of their suffering, and not turn away.

Giving Thanks

Over the years I’ve done more and more work with survivors of trauma and childhood sexual abuse.  Even with a facilitator-superpower like CHL it was very difficult at first to look straight at the heart of stories of violation and damage to children.  But the more I could believe in both sides of the edge of my dream, and slowly integrate the polarity as a whole, the more able I have been to work with greater and greater suffering.  Thank you Chicken Head Lady!  Thank you scared little boy!  Thank you cultivated land, wild land and the big edge between!

by Matt Stella, LICSW, Dipl.PW

Matt Stella is a process-worker in Salem, MA, north of Boston.  He has been a psychotherapist in private practice since 2001, with a love of Processwork since 1999.  His work with depression, anxiety, addictive behaviors and relationship challenges has focused on the dynamics of shame, inner authority, and transformation.  He leads men’s groups and specializes in men’s issues, including the effects of sexual abuse and trauma on men.  Meditation, Authentic Movement, Contact Improvisation, creative process and especially family life with his magnificent wife and daughters have all been vehicles for his personal growth and discovery.

e-mail: mattstella.licsw@comcast.net

 

Trauma Inspires Us Toward Wholeness

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by Brianna Wunderlin

I had two main traumatic events as a child that affected my mind, body, and spirit, though I didn’t remember either until I was an adult.  This is quite common as the mind can protect itself until it is safer to start the process of uncovering and healing. The coping mechanisms and triggers are ways that the mind, body, and spirit are attempting in effective or ineffective ways to protect us from further harm.  The issue comes when these ineffective ways produce more harm than good, keeping us from living a life that is living resiliently in the present.

Trauma and Dissociation

Trauma affects everyone differently, but often has a physiological response, which is the nervous system’s coping mechanism; fight, flight, or freeze.  My main response was flight, which turned into dissociation.

Dissociation can be as mild as spacing out or as strong as part of your psyche split off from the rest.  Mine was severe enough that a younger part of myself had split off from the normal track of growth.

Whether we have experienced trauma or not, we are all made of many parts.  Processwork has some concepts that support healthy relationships between these parts.   

Deep Democracy

A key Processwork concept, Deep democracy, welcomes all diversity in its many forms and values, listening to all of them.  It is one of the most effective tools in my toolbox with clients and in life; deeply listening to all the parts.

Listening means not just hearing, but noticing messages in all their forms – emotions, imaginations, dreams, projections, animals, movements, energy, etc.  When we listen to the voices inside and outside ourselves, we commune with the aliveness of the world.

However, if you do not have a quiet place from which to ground yourself, and not get carried away into the information, people, places, or events, listening can be overwhelming.  

The Internal Metacommunicator

In Processwork, this place of awareness is called a metacommunicator; the part that communicates about what is going on inside ourselves.  This is the voice that can name or comment on what we are experiencing. It allows us to step outside of our experience and communicate with all our parts, instead of being swept away.  When we use this metacommunicator, we can take actions with awareness about our inner landscape, instead of pushing on, or ignoring what is occurring on the inside.

This is particularly important for those who feel they are at the whim of their triggers and internal experiences.  Many people who have had trauma have a nervous system that is easily overstimulated, and easily triggered. For this reason it is even more important to find a firm sense of stillness and grounding where you can learn to safely receive life.  

Grounding

Tuning into the energy of the earth and its supportive role in your life can help with this.  Walking barefoot outside, immersing yourself in nature, or inviting the feeling of support from the earth through the soles of your feet, are all ways you can ground and tune into the energy of earth.  

Noticing Triggers and Working with Them

The trauma I experienced created a shattering effect in me.  Often when I was triggered, I would dissociate. The experience right before dissociation was a feeling of shattering apart.  Technically I was; pieces of my psyche were like, “we’re out of here.”

As I learned, through Processwork and deep yogic meditations, to track my physical sensations, I began to notice these different effects of trauma in me.  Common triggers were: anger directed towards me, a spotlight in a group or class, conflict, my internal voice wanting to say something in a group but feeling unsafe to do so, and being seen by others.  These usually only triggered me when I didn’t feel safe, which was a combination of me not feeling safe inside myself, and usually some sense of judgement from others who seemed similar to the abuser in my past.

One of the moments I realized this was at a work meeting when someone implicated me in something minor but negative.  I felt their words and energy go straight into me. My trained, sensation based awareness brought me to realize I was beginning to go numb and cold.  I quickly excused myself from the meeting.

I went to the bathroom, where I could let go into a ball of tears.  These tears came from a deep, hurt place that I knew needed to be felt, seen, and heard.  I allowed the tears to flow, hitting the sink basin; letting water meet water. As I finally felt the emotions ebb away I went back to the meeting, able to be semi-present.  When it was over, I went to the parking lot and I noticed the shattering feeling inside of me, like I had been pulled in different directions.

Using My Facilitator Skills

I called to the parts that had split off; the little girl, who was scared and alone and the me who was conscious and could inhabit my body.  I began to facilitate the different voices and bring in the ones that were missing.

In Processwork, these parts, often externalized to allow them expression, are called roles.  I stepped into the different roles: the abuser, the one who felt hurt, the protector, the caring and nurturing mother.  

At first, the protector and nurturing mother were missing, but I invited them into the scene.  I physically made a place on the pavement of the parking lot for these different roles, and I let them speak through me as I moved from place to place.  

Parts in Dialogue

Allowing parts to dialogue gives them expression in the world, and grounds them into the present time to be heard, making me more whole.  As I have learned to be with these different parts, they are no longer pieces, but make up the whole of me.

On an energy level, these parts once contained parts of my energy.  As I re-inhabit them, that energy becomes accessible for me to use with more conscious awareness.  

The Dreaming

Similarly in therapy or in a group, people can play these inner roles, and the energy landscape, or dreaming, of the individual or group can be seen.  The dreaming is the underlying, fluidly-moving river of meanings, roles, and emotions which manifest the surface level reality we all sense and agree on.  

Toward Wholeness

Being aware of the dreaming is how you become a creator of your world; owning and learning to access the wholeness of your own energy – the wholeness of you.  

 

Brianna is teaching an upcoming course – Sacred Resilience: Sexual Abuse Healing.  Please check out her website for information and updates.

 

By Brianna Wunderlin, Dipl. PW

Brianna Wunderlin is a transformational coach aiding women who experience emotional overwhelm and stress to find resilience and inner strength.  

She has worked most often with grief and loss, spiritual emergencies, trauma, mother/daughter relationships, leadership, and empowering women to embody their gifts and claim their power.  She is a Processwork Diplomate.

Brianna has worked with trauma through yoga, meditation, energy work, and Processwork.  Her favorite place is nature, and she lives surrounded by sage brush in the high desert outside Reno, NV.  

You can contact her online at http://www.briannawunderlin.com/contact & on Facebook at Becoming the Whole

 

Photo credit: Bekah Russom https://unsplash.com/@bekahrussom

 

Treasure Hunting: Finding Meaning in Life with a Disability

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by Sanae Hashimoto

Why me?  Why was I born with a disability?  This question came to me suddenly when I was a teenager, and my journey to find an answer has been on-going since then.  Processwork, with its many tools for discovering meaning in what troubles us, has transformed this journey into a wonderful treasure hunt.

Life with a Disability

I was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which is a genetic bone disorder characterized by fragile bones that break easily.  Because of this, I am very short and I have been using a wheelchair throughout my life.

In my school days I was always the only child who used a wheelchair or who had such a different stature, but I was rarely bullied.  I was basically a happy kid with full support from my friends and teachers.

Yet I couldn’t stop feeling powerless and inferior inside.  “I am a burden for others,” was my self-image.  I became a therapist so I could contribute and feel “worth” something, even a little.

The Universe Loves Diversity

I discovered Processwork in 2009 as I searched for a favorable orientation for myself as a therapist.  In 2011, I attended a seminar led by Arny and Amy Mindell in Japan.  During the seminar, one of the participants asked Arny why diversity is important.  With a big smile, Arny simply replied, “Just because the universe loves diversity!”  

That was the moment my self-image changed.  Processwork gave me the tools to shift my identity, and Arny’s words helped me see my difference through a wider and more appreciative lens.  

“My disability is a part of diversity,” I said to myself, “and I can be proud of myself for contributing to the world with my disability.”  

I decided Processwork was the paradigm for me.  I knew it would help me find the answer to my question.  I then began my studies at the Japan Process Work Center.

My Childhood Dream:  Survive to Thrive

In Processwork, the first dream a person remembers from childhood, their childhood dream, is considered a mythical blue-print for their life.  This concept is inherited from Jungian psychology.

I was about three years old when I had this dream.  I dreamt I was having breakfast with my parents and my sister in our dining room.  Beautiful sunshine filled the room and everything seemed peaceful.  Suddenly several black shadows, shaped like men, broke into the house.  They robbed us and started to kill my family.  Their weapons were syringes with no needles but with thick fluid poison inside.  They put the poison in our mouths.  All my family were killed, and I was killed last.

I worked with this dream using Processwork to discover what comes next.  As if directing a movie, I created a sequel to this story.

In the sequel, the black shadows were absorbed into the floor and disappeared.  I wasn’t in fact dead, but I woke up somehow transformed by the poison.  I realized what had happened; my parents and my sister were dead, but I was still alive.  I went back to the dining table and ate my breakfast again in the warm sunshine.

The deeper message of my dream is “I survive to thrive.”  

My Body Symptom:  A Little Funny Boy

It had always been a little challenging for me to work on my body symptoms with Processwork because the experience seemed too mysterious.  In January 2018, I attended the Winter Intensive Course at the Process Work Institute, and there I finally tried unfolding the meaning in my main body symptom.  

I explored my secondary process; my fragile, soft, and curving bones.  A unique dance emerged, with a figure who was a blend of an octopus and a human being.  This figure became a little funny boy, about six or seven years old.

I, my primary process, told him, “Get away from my body, you are a burden,” but he didn’t mind at all because he didn’t know what a burden was.  There was no concept of burden in his mind.  All he knew was joy.  He replied to me, “Let’s play with me and enjoy together.  That’s the best!”

I asked him, “How can I trust you?  How can I believe what you say is the truth?”  Then he calmly told me, “How can you not trust me?  I’m in you.”  Then I burst into tears.

From Burden to a Part of Diversity

Through these two and many other experiences with my fellow Processwork students and teachers, I’m becoming free from what has felt like an “abuser-abused relationship,” with my disability.

For me, like the black shadows in my childhood dream, the abuser within my disability becomes a change-maker who makes my own transformation possible.  

I’m learning how to trust and love myself as well as others, the world, and the universe.  The more I learn, the more joy is brought to me, just as the little funny boy teaches me with my body symptom.  When I welcome my disability, including feelings of powerlessness and inferiority, as a doorway into my personal-growth, I can contribute to the world being more diverse and inclusive.

I don’t completely know who I am, but I know I’m not a burden anymore.  I wish to be a change-maker and a thriver for myself and the world. 

I don’t know yet if I have the answer to my question, “Why was I born with a disability?” but I’m happy with the mystery now because I want to continue treasure hunting with Processwork.

 

By Sanae Hashimoto, MEd

Sanae Hashimoto is a clinical psychologist, certified FJCBCP (Foundation of the Japanese Certification Board for Clinical Psychologists).  She has been working as a student counselor in middle schools and universities for over 15 years, with a special interest in diverse and inclusive education.  She is currently a phase 2 diploma student at the Japan Process Work Center, working on her final project for graduation. 

Photo credit: Ikebana by Sanae Hashimoto

Falling In Love With Life, Staring Death In The Face

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By Sherry Tara Marshall

 

I Never Thought I would go Public about Dying of Cancer

But why not?  At our first meeting, the surgeon announced I’m going to die in two to five years.  “Is he a God?” I thought.  It put me into an extreme state; I lost awareness of myself.  I was 62, fit and healthy, with no cancer in my family.  Two years later – a blur of chemotherapy – the shock still reverberates.

But Time has become a trickster.  How fast those 2 years have raced by, and yet my Processwork training helps me also see it as a wonderful wake-up call.

“Bow to Life and Death”

My high dream, the best it can be, is NOW is the time to practice what I’ve learned in 30 years of Processwork and Tibetan Buddhism.  I swing between that and my low dream, the worst it can be, which is the progress of this disease.

Processwork, which owes much to the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, has taught me to let go.  “Be the river,” I say to myself.  “Why be against suffering?”  I eat uncertainty for breakfast, lunch and dinner and have nerves of steel!

In 2019, Over nine Million People Globally Will be Diagnosed with Cancer  

25 years ago, cancer was talked about in hushed voices in huddled, hospital corridors.  Patients were rarely told they were dying.  Now the stark truth is instantly revealed.  We are also being asked to “die a good death.”  Good for whom? I ask.  I want to die however I die.

We are All Terminal

Many of us think only other people die.  We live in a death-phobic society, where
no-one wants to talk about it.  We pretend we are in control of our lives, until something happens like a car accident, or death of a loved one, or cancer.  Processwork addresses hidden topics openly and explores both polarities of fear and hope.

Life Changes in a Heartbeat

I recently ran a group process for a cancer group in Australia.  We went over the edge, meaning what we want to do next but can’t quite do yet.  What relief and fun, losing restrictions and becoming aware of our deeper, unknown truths.

One woman said, “When people ask me how I am, I would love to say, Dead woman walking, but I can’t.”  We all said it with her, falling off our chairs laughing.

(Further comments from that group are in italics.)  

Process Work Helps by Naming Roles in Myself and the World

Living in cancer-land means roles are thrust upon us by consensus reality (mainstream society.)  “Superhero; be positive; battle the cancer; never give up and never say die.”  The media and friends are pressure-makers, encouraging us to charge headfirst into battle to beat cancer.  But all of us eventually lose the war with death!

There is also the smiling, peaceful, positive Buddha role which says, “I’m doing well and I’m confident.  I put on a brave face and never complain.”  Understanding these roles helps me not get ‘stuck’ but to move fluidly between them and other parts of myself. 

“Be positive.  Positivity isn’t going to cure our cancer.”

So, how do we relate better to those who have a terminal disease?  We follow their process, by knowing how to follow our own.

Death is Certain and so Uncertain

My social activist role uses my primary (more conscious) anger to try to change things, not only for myself, but for others.  I am sadly aware that in many countries, people who don’t have money or live outside big cities, do not receive adequate, if any treatment.

“So are you all better then?” 
“No, I’m never going to be better!  It’s terminal cancer, Sweetie”

80% of Cancer Patients are Given Chemotherapy Four Weeks Before they Die

Big Pharma makes a killing.  It costs $60,000 a year for a maintenance drug, with a 37 percent chance to increase remission time by 3.7 months!  The side effects cripple and kill us.  Are they serious?  Yes, deadly serious.  Feeling out of control is unbearable at times.
Processwork says, “Be in and out of control.  Both are ok.”

“Well, at least your hair will grow back.  That’s the main thing.” 
“Actually not dying is the main thing.”

I befriend the fact that I will die

Natural therapies are a mirror-image of conventional medicine.  Costs are $250 plus per week for consultations and herbs.  Despite condemning each other, the different types of medicine share a similar process around the money!

“I envy you.  At least you won’t have a long life and know what you will die of.” 
“Really?  Why don’t you swap places with me then?”

The Grief of Realizing Death is in Charge

Despite our best intentions the holding of hope and reality is indeed a difficult balancing act.  My secondary (more unaware) process is deep terror, not actually of death, but of the relentless development of the disease.  Would I ever have known having cancer feels so shameful?  My inner-work reply is, “Why be attached to anything?  Have it and let it go!”  But sometimes I’m just a puddle on the floor!  And that is ok too.

Process work Taught me to Not be Against Anything

I thank my PW teachers, Arny, Max, Julie, and my Australia and New Zealand Process Oriented Psychology (ANZPOP) friends and colleagues, as well as my Tibetan Buddhist teachers, for waking me up to the unending possibilities of dancing between suffering, detachment and bliss, while falling more in love with the wonder of Life and Death.

Cancer has Become my Teacher too

The real medicine our culture needs is to take death deeply into our hearts, water it with our tears and make it as natural as breathing.  Otherwise, we are mostly in sleep mode, walking through our lives.

“Between our two lives, there is the life of the cherry blossom,” Basho.

When I die, I hope I will be curious and excited to follow it as a process like any other, and Simply Be with What Is.

 

By Sherry Marshall, MA, Dipl. PW

Sherry Tara Marshall (BSc. Sociology; MAA. Social Work, MA. Social Ecology, Diplomate, Process Work) has worked in private practice for 35 years and been a consultant for corporate and non-profit organisations.  She is on the Teaching Faculty of ANZPOP.

She was Director of Staff Counselling at RNS Hospital, Sydney Australia, and has helped HH Dalai Lama for 20 years. 

To read more of her articles on line, please visit her website, Sydney Process Therapy.  You can find her book, The Search for Meaning; Connecting with Buddhist Teachers, at Amazon.

 

Photo credit: Pinterest

From Recovery to Discovery in Extreme States

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By John Herold

I was in fourth grade when the space shuttle Challenger exploded.  From that moment I wanted to be an astronaut. There was something about racing into space as well as the inherent risks in trying that held a strong appeal.  By the time the shuttle Discovery was retired in 2011, I assumed my space career was over.

I Didn’t Expect My Wish to Come True

Looking back, that 10-year-old aspiring astronaut wasn’t very specific about exactly where he wanted to travel.  Outer space or inner space?  And by what means?

In December of 2012 that childhood wish came true in an unexpected and disturbing way.  My trip to the stars happened not on the space shuttle, but in an extreme state of consciousness.

Like a rocket I swiftly developed a huge amount of energy, skipping sleep for five days.  No longer in the reality most of us can agree is happening, I felt like an alien visitor.  I experienced everything anew from a symbolic, unified and deeply interconnected perspective.  The familiar John who didn’t believe in mysticism, numerology and spirituality receded into the background.  All that remained was this steeply unfamiliar part of me.

This New Part Was Full of Surprises

During this time I began to hear bells that those around me don’t hear.  The bells answer some questions yes or no, and have helped me in countless ways, though they don’t respond when I ask them directly.  Crisp and beautiful, they have never led me astray.  They are messages from a trusted companion.

It was also during this time that numbers began to speak to me in extraordinary ways.  I first noticed them at 12:12pm on 12/12/12.  Such sequences have occurred hundreds of times since, and they are now a regular part of my life.

My car’s odometer reading 9999.9 on 9/9/18 on my way to a Hearing Voices Network facilitator’s training

The Astronaut in Me Needed Support

Just as traveling to space is risky and expensive, so are extreme states.  Though the energy, bells, sensations and numbers are magical to me, my behavior at the end of 2012 was deeply disturbing to almost everyone else.  I spoke quickly and forcefully using language that was difficult to understand.  I was in everyone’s face.  I spent all my money.  I held unusual beliefs.  I had trouble describing my state of mind.  I appeared to be out of control.

Eventually, in response to pressure from people around me, I found my way to the emergency room.  There, my experience was seen in a different light; as a mental illness.  Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I was held against my will and coercively drugged.  I was told my experience needed to go away and that I would require medication for life.  The newly arrived part of me had been pathologized – viewed as a sign of sickness.  This began a war between the old and new parts of myself.

It’s painful to fall down from a spiritual emergence to a diagnosis of mental illness.  Traumatic memories of being trapped, powerful tranquilizers and strident assertions from mental health professionals made it very hard for me to access the newfound mystical features in my life.  By August of 2013 I no longer wanted to live.

A Reaction to Psychiatric Oppression

Many believe depression automatically follows mania.  But in my experience, depression was a response to psychiatric oppression.  This oppression was so powerful, I internalized it.  I agreed that my energy and experiences the previous year were symptoms to be managed, medicated and ultimately discarded.

Processwork Views My Extreme State as Valuable

At my innermost core I knew there was something valuable about my experience, but I felt alone with it.  This is why, when I found Processwork, firstly through Will Hall, and then through Gary Reiss, it was so incredibly refreshing. Viewed through Processwork, my extreme state was no longer a sickness.   

When I shared my experience with Gary, he welcomed it, saying:

“You obviously have a lot of creative energy.  I believe the magic you experienced was real.  Do you want to ride this horse, make meaning and share that meaning with the world?”

I had found an ally who agreed with my innermost perception.

I Signed up for the Masters in Process Oriented Facilitation

The first night of the MAPOF program almost two years later was another defining moment for me.  As I introduced myself, I half-pathologized my own experience, saying I had been to Pluto.  After I shared my story, my new cohort mate, Camille Dumond, responded:

“John, we want you to go to Pluto!  And when you go, remember what you find so that when you come back, you can share it with us.”  

This open and accepting attitude brought me to tears.  

I Had Found My Astronaut School

Processwork has helped me welcome my mystical experiences rather than extinguish them.  It has given me a powerful framework and practical tools for navigating and integrating all my parts.

Today I’m no longer in an extreme state, and the mystical part of me that came forward so suddenly in 2012 never left.  I take note of the synchronicities in my life, and when the bells talk, I listen.  But also present is the familiar part I’ve known for most of my life.

As Gary has said to me:

“John – try being a little psychotic all the time!”

Using Better Language

I’ve never liked the word recovery because it implies altered and extreme states are a sickness we must recover from.  Recovery also implies we need to cover up (re-cover) newly emerged parts of ourselves in order to get well.

Instead of re-covering, I opt to rid myself of the cover altogether.  I now choose to dis-cover, and allow all my parts a chance to live.

I’m Not in Recovery – I’m in Discovery

Like the space shuttle.

 

To learn more, you can watch John’s webinar on Processwork and Extreme States.

 

By John Herold, MA

John Herold is a facilitator, speaker and trainer from Gig Harbor, Washington.  He is the founder and director of Puget Sound Hearing Voices, now in its fourth year of weekly meetings.  John’s work is deeply influenced by his personal lived experience with extreme states and psychiatric survival, his involvement with the Hearing Voices Network as well as his master’s training in Processwork.  He is passionate about spreading non-pathologizing ways of understanding experiences often labeled as mental illness.  In 2017 John received an Inspirational Person Award from Intervoice: The International Hearing Voices Network.

 

Photo credit: pixabay.com

Alchemy of Eros: Unfolding Chronic Pain into a Richer Sex Life

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By Niyati Evers

 

A little girl in South Africa let me know my pain had become my identity when she stopped using my name and called me “the lady with the broken back.”

My Known Way of Being

I’d struggled with severe back pain for many years, but I would not allow it to hold me back.  Even if getting into a taxi made me cry. Even if the only way to get to my hotel room was by sliding along the walls.  Even if I had to call a doctor to come inject me with painkillers just to cope.

That was my known way of being, what we in Processwork call our primary identity.  I was someone who never gave up.  This also meant I marginalized my pain; I refused to listen to my body or bow to its limitations.  I learned early in life not to need support from other people.

The Limit of Will Power

But my strong will couldn’t overcome the pain I lived with.  One night in 2008, I finally gave in. I was lying in my hotel room during a corporate seminar, my knees on a stack of pillows, painkillers strewn all over the mattress.  I hadn’t prayed since childhood, but that night, I found myself praying.

“Please God, whoever or whatever you are,” I whispered into the empty room, “I can no longer live on my will power alone.  Please take over.”

Emerging Identity

The next morning I couldn’t get up from the breakfast table.  I willed my feet to lift off the ground, but I was no longer able to walk.  Here it was, the emergence of what we call a Secondary Process: a new and in my case very unknown way of being.  I was forced to seek and accept help from others.

A friend took hold of me, put my arms around her shoulders, and dragged me into a taxi to see a doctor.  During the drive I kept wiggling my toes, repeating: “I can wiggle my toes, I am not paralyzed. I can wiggle my toes, I am not paralyzed.” 

The doctor told me I needed total bed rest.  My primary identity kicked in immediately:

“I can’t do that,” I told the doctor, “I am flying to America in two days.”

The doctor looked me straight in the eye.  “If you get on an overseas flight in this condition, they will carry you out on a stretcher and you will never walk again.”

My Childhood Dream

In an early childhood dream, I’m riding my bike when a wall suddenly appears in front of me.  I wake up right as I crash into the wall.

In Processwork, we believe our childhood dreams carry themes that run like rivers through our lives, recurring again and again in different forms.  I had run into the wall of my childhood dream, and just like in my dream, I woke up.  I realized my prayers had been answered: a bigger will had taken over and now forced me to listen to it.

Transcendent Recovery

While I recovered, my spine had to be completely straight.  I couldn’t read or work on my computer.  I had to seek and accept help.  Another dear friend took me into his home.  He looked after me for months as I lay flat with my knees on a stack of pillows.  

During those months, I reconnected to the transcendent joy I’d glimpsed on the spiritual quests of my twenties.  As I opened to receive love from other human beings, my heart softened.  People said they’d never seen me so radiant, even though I still shuffled through the house, barely able to lift my right foot, dragging my left leg behind me.  In spite of the incredible physical pain, I felt I was making love with the divine.

I am convinced this process prepared me for the deep, open-hearted relationship I now enjoy with my partner Robert.

My Symptom and Sexuality

When I allow my primary identity to push, my back transforms into the wall of my childhood dream; the pain becomes debilitating to the point where I cannot have sex.  My back injury forces me to listen to my sensitivity, to slow down and relate from the inside out.  I have to ask for what I need, for how and where I need to be touched.  I have to communicate my limitations and boundaries and express my desires for tender connection.  All of which is very secondary for me!  Only when I surrender to my body’s signals am I able to relax into arousal.

From here I can explore the dynamics of my back injury on the playground of sexuality.  Even when a symptom is objectively real, in what Processwork calls Consensus Reality, there is a dreaming process in the background.  When we unfold a disturbing symptom during sexual play, we can tap deep into its true gifts and meaning.  Within my debilitating back injury I access a powerful energy, unaffected by pain.

Surrender

The overall process of my back injury is about surrender to a greater power.  Things that turn me on or off sexually all mirror that process.  My will power serves me great in many areas of life, but sexually, being the one “on top” or “in control” is no good for me.  

As I consciously play at being Robert’s servant and give him control of the show  (for the duration of our sexual play), I follow my dreaming process; I surrender to a greater power.

Through this we both experience profound levels of intimacy and transcendence.  The “lady with the broken back” recedes and I become Snake Woman.  Robert and I flow in movement, sound, love, joy, playfulness and connection.  Our power and surrender dance together in ecstatic oneness.

I Needed to Break

In a way, the little girl in South Africa was right.  I was the “lady with the broken back.”  Life broke me because something in me needed to break.  Living on will power was a hubris in me that needed to be humbled.  It is through that ‘broken-openness’ I have surrendered to a deeper wisdom and love. 

As Rumi says: “only from the heart can you touch the sky”.

 

Niyati and Robert will be leading a workshop; Alchemy of Eros: An Erotic Journey of Intimacy, Pleasure and Transformation, at the Processwork Institute, October 19th-21st, 

 

By Niyati Evers, MAPW

Niyati Evers is originally from Amsterdam, where she facilitated Tantric workshops during her twenties.  In 1998, Niyati moved to South Africa, where she lived for 14 years and worked with race and gender dynamics.  She completed her Masters in Process Work at the Process Work Institute in Portland.  Niyati and Robert have an international therapy practice called Alchemy of Eros.  Together, they facilitate workshops in the realms of relationships, sexuality and intimacy.  She is working on a book about her experiences growing up in Amsterdam as part of the “second generation” of Holocaust survivors and living in post-Apartheid South Africa.   

 

This post is an edited version of one published on Niyati and Robert’s website.

 

Process-Oriented Coaching in Organizations

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By Rho Sandberg

 

A Process-Oriented View of Organizations

In order to thrive in today’s constantly changing environment, most organisations recognise the need to become more agile.  They’ve often experienced first-hand the challenges that arise when structures, hierarchies, rules and work practices become rigid or are slow to transform.  Many organisations are attempting to cultivate new approaches, so that they can catch the wave of change early.

Leaders are now becoming deeply curious about the changing world around them.  They work with their teams to discover ways of operating that anticipate and are responsive to their dynamic and complex environment.

Anyone familiar with Processwork will recognise this movement to understand the dynamic forces at play within organisational life as an inherently process-oriented approach.  Arnold Mindell, the founder of Processwork, recognised the limitations of a state-based view of the world, which regards ourselves, our organisations and the world as static.  His methods introduce a way to work with the conscious and unconscious dynamics within organisations, groups, teams and the individual herself.

Accessing Deep Organisational Intelligence

Effective leaders are interested in accessing the deepest intelligence of their organisation.  As process-oriented coaches and consultants, we help leaders and teams to access tacit or internalised knowledge that is easily lost or overlooked.  

A process-oriented approach to organisational change is inherently agile.  Here are some of the reasons why:

1. Working With Disturbances

Organizations interested in being more agile, are learning to value and embrace the fluidness of becoming, as much as their current understanding of who they are and the business they are in.  In an era of disruption, the status quo can change in the blink of an eye.  Increasingly leaders engage coaches to support them in this enquiry.

A process-oriented attitude is curious about those disturbances that seem to interrupt our plans, as well as chronic organisational problems, conflicts or changes in technology and the marketplace.  We believe disturbances are of value and hold important information and potential for the organisation.  The value of this appreciative mindset, when faced with disappointments, is reflected in one of the classic business innovation case studies: The invention of The Post-It Note.  As a result of an apparent failure – an adhesive that did not stick permanently – a new product was created that had not even been imagined.

Rather than looking for one right way to do things, the process-oriented practitioner – just like an agile organisation – is looking for signs of what is happening in the environment, system or relationship in that moment, including apparent failures.  We ask ourselves: “What is right about that?”

2. Working Systemically

Process oriented coaches and consultants understand that subtle shifts in the environment can lead to major changes in society.  Drawing on the principles of complex systems theory and quantum physics, we help leaders to pay attention to what they are experiencing within themselves as a reflection of the dynamics of the larger system.   The links between inner and outer reality are understood in ways which are deeply meaningful.  

Leaders and teams that adopt a process-oriented approach begin to pay even closer attention to the early signs of pending change.  They work with curiosity and a learning mindset to discover rich sources of information they would previously have overlooked.

3. Mobilising Diversity

Solving complex social and technical problems is beyond any individual and increasingly beyond the skillset of one profession because different ways of thinking and experience are needed.  Agile organisations bring diverse and multi-disciplinary teams together.

However, forming a diverse and inclusive team is just the first step.  Learning to communicate with people who come from different professional or social backgrounds is challenging on occasions.  Process oriented coaches and facilitators draw on their training in conflict management and share these skills with others.  In this way, subtle tensions and the entrenched problems that limit creativity and stifle genuine innovation can be successfully addressed.

4. Emerging Leadership

In addition to recognising the formal roles people occupy in the hierarchy, we work with the dynamic shifts in roles which can easily be missed.  For instance, relying only on identified leaders or experts can be a dangerous trap that limits the information and insights brought to the table.

Leadership is both a formal role and an impetus that is needed throughout the organisation.  Supporting informal leadership to emerge is essential for any organisation or community that wants to tap into its resources.

Process oriented coaches work with the visions and aspirations of teams and individuals.  They help would-be and emerging leaders pay attention to their dreams and sources of inspiration, to step into their fullest potential.

5. The Skilful Use of Power, Influence and Authority

Processworkers are interested in the influence of power and rank on the ways people interact in the workplace.  The ripple effect of unacknowledged power and rank differences can be insidious, resulting in negative competition and jealousy, interrupting the flow of information and ideas, and impacting organisational morale and wellbeing.

Too often, power and rank are not recognized because of a hesitancy to talk about these things.  They are felt but not discussed.  Process workers assist others to understand their own relationship to power and impact upon others.

6. Exploring The Undiscussables

Process oriented coaches and consultants support organisations to bring awareness to the “undiscussables” which often shape their culture.  Coaches work with individuals to think about the best ways to approach these potentially challenging conversations.

We recognize that these unexplored dimensions of organisational life can block the flow of energy and resources.  An organisation that wants to be effective can rarely afford this sort of energy drain.  It undermines flow and keeps creativity and dialogue stuck.  

In fact when worked with skilfully, those things we try to avoid and regard merely as disturbances, reveal themselves as a rich source of useful insights for the organisation.  Exploring the more challenging aspects of organisational life can in fact mobilise a deep potential.

7. Adopting A Multi-level Lens

In summary, process-oriented coaches and consultants adopt a rich lens to view and work with different sources or levels of information and potential within an organisation.  They assist individuals in organisations to understand the fluid environments they operate in and to make better strategic decisions.  These elements include the flickering signals of impending change or new market needs and trends, the dynamics of leadership, team and partnership relationships, and a deep connection with the organisational mission and purpose.

 

By Rho Sandberg, 

MACFOC, MCogSc, PCC Accredited Coach

Rho Sandberg, along with her business partner Vicki Henricks, MA, Dipl. PW, PCC Accredited Coach, is a founder of the Global Coaching Institute, which offers internationally accredited coach training using a process-oriented approach.  Collectively, they bring over 60 years experience as executive coaches and consultants to senior levels of government and executive teams in global corporate, public sector and community settings.

 

Photo credit: Oliver Sjöström https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-riding-white-surfboard-1005456/ (cropped)

 

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