Yes let it be a Coeur-age! I think it takes some courage to trust that life will find its way through the heart.
I am new to showing up from the heart so I am not sure if I noticed it right that people soften and open up around me now. As soon as I sit back into being and I truly open up for connection, the people around me become human beings (and not only doings) as well. So I am not so sure that it is "hard" to bring the full depth of human experience and possibility into our do-part of life (like work). Just start with yourself and trust.
Since recent (and thanks to the Embodied Permaculture Project) I experience regularly that coming from being, and even doing from being, is so much easier! My perception of life is light, no more clenched teeth, no more need for grip or control and yes much more flow and acceptance of what is. If I come from this safe and spacious place of my being, conflict is hardly possible and solutions-thinking is the norm. Good things emerge.
Looby Macnamara (People and Permaculture) calls for Cultural Emergence and she developed a toolkit to consciously design our world. This tool set can be used to make the transformation to a coeur-age in a group easier.
Thanks Barbara! Yes, I agreed that it actually isn't that hard to do, but it feels hard. There is a psychological barrier for lots of people based around fear of rejection. But you are also correct that starting with yourself and trusting is the only way to let go of the fear and experience the magic that happens when we meet others at this deeper level of being.
Just last night I found myself giving my son a lecture on deciding and acting from the heart. He was at first baffled but he didn't want me to stop talking and kept asking me more and more questions. His face showed fascination. As well as bringing Couer-age to the work setting and into politics, we need to raise our kids on this mindset, or rather heart-rate, should I say?
What a lovely story Désirée! We've been having similar conversations with our youngest son recently and have been encouraging a practice of "what's here now?". Noticing sensations and emotions in the body and allowing them to express, process and release back to wholeness. How beautiful the world would be with generations of children connecting with each other and the world from a grounding in their hearts.
Living in France, it’s a big yes to ‘la vie en coeur’. For coeur-agefully asking for a pause, before being taken on the high speed train that is called ‘modern’ life. To reflect on why and how we (want to) live, work and play. I have tried for many years to ignite change in my academic work setting. But my cœur bleeds with every controlling decision from the upper level, taken without any reflection and harmful for the human and non-human world. For me it’s time to go and connect with the amazing tribe of people who share my longing for heartful living, like I think are also to be found at Being Earthbound :)
Beautiful and heartfelt reflections Laura! Interacting with those hard institutional bureaucratic edges can be so dis-coeur-aging! I do believe that the fact of your presence and the generative intention you bring to your work do have a positive transformative impact on those institutions even if sometimes it feels invisible or intangible to you. Have you noticed any shift in the people or policies around you in that regard? Are there any others that feel the same as you at work?
And I agree that to support this work we need to come together into communities of care and practice that take leading from the heart to be of central importance in these times! It's great to welcome you to the Earthbound community!
Thanks for your heartwarming response. So many sayings in which we can use the heart :).
Yes, there is a small tribe of resistance towards the techno-drum that is beating at my university (University of Wageningen, the Netherlands). We celebrate connectivity and practise transformative learning approaches in which learning through body and heart are as important as through the mind.
And I believe change always, if not only, starts from a small group of engaged people (stole that one from Margaret Mead), yet at times it’s a rough journey. Especially within the context of EU funded projects that seem to get the worst out of people participating. EU officers at high levels seem to be more busy with controlling measures and ticking boxes than with fostering positive change.
Perhaps we need to apply for funding a project that draws them into ‘our direction’……?
It's great to hear that you have a small but dedicated tribe within the University to bring this approach to the fore.
"Perhaps we need to apply for funding a project that draws them into ‘our direction’……?" That's an interesting question to explore! So many changemaking contexts and changemakers feel compelled to move towards bureaucratic structures because we feel small and powerless. So we use the language or the methodology of the bureaucracy to maintain a perception of credibility and respectability. We talk about parts per billion of gases because we feel that's what the system wants to hear when we're actually motivated by the beauty and sanctity of wild places. Yet we lock that part away just as we close off our authentic selves for fear of rejection. But what would happen if we took the opposite approach? To use the language and methodology of "Life" and invited funders etc. into our paradigm instead?
Something similar comes up when we welcome our work colleagues into an embodied presence practice for example. There is the fear that we will be rejected or mocked or treated as "Weird". And while that may be the reaction of a small minority, it's much more often the case that people feel seen and relieved to be able to ground and connect again at a deeper level. There is a thirst for heart-centred approaches at an interpersonal level and perhaps there could be a thirst for it also at organisational/institutional levels as well if we started to interact with them from presence?
Charles Eisenstein writes well about this in his book, Climate: a new story.
Yes let it be a Coeur-age! I think it takes some courage to trust that life will find its way through the heart.
I am new to showing up from the heart so I am not sure if I noticed it right that people soften and open up around me now. As soon as I sit back into being and I truly open up for connection, the people around me become human beings (and not only doings) as well. So I am not so sure that it is "hard" to bring the full depth of human experience and possibility into our do-part of life (like work). Just start with yourself and trust.
Since recent (and thanks to the Embodied Permaculture Project) I experience regularly that coming from being, and even doing from being, is so much easier! My perception of life is light, no more clenched teeth, no more need for grip or control and yes much more flow and acceptance of what is. If I come from this safe and spacious place of my being, conflict is hardly possible and solutions-thinking is the norm. Good things emerge.
Looby Macnamara (People and Permaculture) calls for Cultural Emergence and she developed a toolkit to consciously design our world. This tool set can be used to make the transformation to a coeur-age in a group easier.
Thanks for your courage to inspire!
Thanks Barbara! Yes, I agreed that it actually isn't that hard to do, but it feels hard. There is a psychological barrier for lots of people based around fear of rejection. But you are also correct that starting with yourself and trusting is the only way to let go of the fear and experience the magic that happens when we meet others at this deeper level of being.
Just last night I found myself giving my son a lecture on deciding and acting from the heart. He was at first baffled but he didn't want me to stop talking and kept asking me more and more questions. His face showed fascination. As well as bringing Couer-age to the work setting and into politics, we need to raise our kids on this mindset, or rather heart-rate, should I say?
What a lovely story Désirée! We've been having similar conversations with our youngest son recently and have been encouraging a practice of "what's here now?". Noticing sensations and emotions in the body and allowing them to express, process and release back to wholeness. How beautiful the world would be with generations of children connecting with each other and the world from a grounding in their hearts.
Living in France, it’s a big yes to ‘la vie en coeur’. For coeur-agefully asking for a pause, before being taken on the high speed train that is called ‘modern’ life. To reflect on why and how we (want to) live, work and play. I have tried for many years to ignite change in my academic work setting. But my cœur bleeds with every controlling decision from the upper level, taken without any reflection and harmful for the human and non-human world. For me it’s time to go and connect with the amazing tribe of people who share my longing for heartful living, like I think are also to be found at Being Earthbound :)
Beautiful and heartfelt reflections Laura! Interacting with those hard institutional bureaucratic edges can be so dis-coeur-aging! I do believe that the fact of your presence and the generative intention you bring to your work do have a positive transformative impact on those institutions even if sometimes it feels invisible or intangible to you. Have you noticed any shift in the people or policies around you in that regard? Are there any others that feel the same as you at work?
And I agree that to support this work we need to come together into communities of care and practice that take leading from the heart to be of central importance in these times! It's great to welcome you to the Earthbound community!
Dear Dan,
Thanks for your heartwarming response. So many sayings in which we can use the heart :).
Yes, there is a small tribe of resistance towards the techno-drum that is beating at my university (University of Wageningen, the Netherlands). We celebrate connectivity and practise transformative learning approaches in which learning through body and heart are as important as through the mind.
And I believe change always, if not only, starts from a small group of engaged people (stole that one from Margaret Mead), yet at times it’s a rough journey. Especially within the context of EU funded projects that seem to get the worst out of people participating. EU officers at high levels seem to be more busy with controlling measures and ticking boxes than with fostering positive change.
Perhaps we need to apply for funding a project that draws them into ‘our direction’……?
It's great to hear that you have a small but dedicated tribe within the University to bring this approach to the fore.
"Perhaps we need to apply for funding a project that draws them into ‘our direction’……?" That's an interesting question to explore! So many changemaking contexts and changemakers feel compelled to move towards bureaucratic structures because we feel small and powerless. So we use the language or the methodology of the bureaucracy to maintain a perception of credibility and respectability. We talk about parts per billion of gases because we feel that's what the system wants to hear when we're actually motivated by the beauty and sanctity of wild places. Yet we lock that part away just as we close off our authentic selves for fear of rejection. But what would happen if we took the opposite approach? To use the language and methodology of "Life" and invited funders etc. into our paradigm instead?
Something similar comes up when we welcome our work colleagues into an embodied presence practice for example. There is the fear that we will be rejected or mocked or treated as "Weird". And while that may be the reaction of a small minority, it's much more often the case that people feel seen and relieved to be able to ground and connect again at a deeper level. There is a thirst for heart-centred approaches at an interpersonal level and perhaps there could be a thirst for it also at organisational/institutional levels as well if we started to interact with them from presence?
Charles Eisenstein writes well about this in his book, Climate: a new story.
Thanks!