Reflect, Reconnect and Reimagine - A time for just-centered change

I open this second newsletter on this often reflective New Years Eve for many of us in the West with two invitations:

1) To read the above quote, to sit in and feel as well as think about what your mind, body and gut replies with - My replies to this question are shared, in part, below and what freedom in allowing ourselves to reimagine with a blank page

2) Read this below article from just after New Years Eve 2020. A note that I work within the middle of the chemicals industry so both honour my complicity in this piece and my desire to hold space for a new, reimagined dialogue within and beyond the sector and its up/downstream industries with both internal and external partners (contracted just-relationship centered partners)

I share a range of those amazing humans in the following blog:

"The fight for Indigenous rights has never been more important for all humanity. It is no coincidence that more than 80 per cent of the world’s remaining intact forests and biodiversity is in Indigenous hands. We are global leaders of green movements, including the Rights of Nature, which provides legal standing for ecosystems in law. My own tribe, with the help of groups like Movement Rights, was the first in the US to recognise that on tribal land, nature – of which humans are a part – has the legal right to exist and regenerate its vital cycles."

I share these two invitations as I am super optimistic about the reconnection, healing, community building and positive disruption that is emerging, yet we cannot and should not ignore the realities of the impact of our Western ways on communities well out of our context and eyeline.

Please do let me know how the above two invitations land with you

Also the level of organisational silence is widespread and should not be misunderstood. I remember learning about this with NextJump a few years back and it is a deeply toxic and problematic trait of many big businesses and is too rarely focussed on:

Context

For those that know me, I am big supporter of 'working out loud,' of sharing authentic, well-intentioned, constructively challenging content and all whilst inviting healthy debate around topics such as just-centered organisational design, leadership development, vulnerability as a strength (where creating safety for all), sustainable sales strategies, change being an inside job and more.

To that end, below you will find some summary reflections, and they are my own, following much support, guidance, experimentation and learning over the past 9 years, but especially the past 2.25 years as I have received stunning, challenging and emergent support from my systemic guide Samantha Suppiah.

I feel that we are at a critical juncture at home, at work and in society at large and I state this after 9 years of personal learning, unlearning, upset, anger, joy, elation, frustration and more since my affectionately named ‘mid-life awakening’ in 2014 and all of this emerging whilst working at the same multinational company and being in the same loving relationship at home.

What is going ‘inside’ of us is often disproportionately HUGE and expansive vs what is witnessed on the outside, by a factor of 100 to 1 + I would assert

My most recent podcast guesting experience was with Whitney Johnson on the Disrupt Yourself podcast so why not give that a listen if you are curious:

So here goes, and again these are my personal observations and feelings as a Westerner:

We are sick as a species

We are disconnected as a species.

We are lost as a species.

We are at a critical point in our evolution as a species.

We are conditioned to be co-dependent as a species.

We are conditioned to see the ‘other’ as a threat as a species.

We are conditioned that ‘we will be ok when …….” Fill in the blank as a species.

We are conditioned to operate solely ‘above the neck’ as a species, the brain is all-important. Anything below the neck in terms of heart and gut is shunned and ridiculed.

To feel or to say ‘I don’t know’ is conditioned to be a weakness.

We are dis-embodied as a species.

We are abundantly creative as a species.

We are innately one as a species.

We have an infinite capacity for inner change as a species.

We have an infinite capacity to react to external changes as a species.

We are ALWAYS high in self-worth, before conditioning, as a species.

We innately want to support, co-create and re-imagine creatively, before conditioning, as a species.

We are ready to re-imagine systems and life more widely behind the confines of the currently collapsing capitalist, environmental and societal systems.

The above is a very West-centric list based on my own journey over the past 9 years. Also it would be easy to view the above without the topic of POWER and SYSTEMIC LEVERAGE in the mix, so please, consider these factors as part of the mix.

What I am observing and learning first hand are critical antidotes to the above include:

• Deep local grounding combined with deep global systemic awareness - The AND'ness as I like to cause it, a counter-binary perspective
• Centering of those communities in ALL decision making that are most harmed currently by our choices and our organisational design and strategies, not a tick box CSR programme, not a tick box DEI programme, deep, systemic redesign
• Brave inner and outer work around conditioned supremacy culture patterns. See Tema okun's amazing work here and please do not get triggered by the website title, if you do, this page is for you to do some deep-dive around
• Reconnection to ourselves (values, feelings, meaning, slowing down, prioritising selfcare, saying no gracefully etc), reconnection to others (healing trauma, developing and enforcing healthy boundaries, co-creating spaces of exploration and constructive challenge, building intentionally diverse, deeply meaningful personal and workplace networks etc) and reconnection to the systems that sustain all life (growing own food, growing own food in a community and workplace basis, learning about global supply chains and the interdependency and interconnections of all things and beings, learning about the impact of our Western ways on communities far away from our shores, learning and sensing beyond technological salvation etc)
• Actively anti-racist and anti-oppression design of all business models, structures, strategies and externalities
• A remembering of our innate power and agency at an individual and collective level
• A remembering of our voice, creativity, and artistic prowess whether that be as a facilitator, painter, musician or poet, just as a few examples
• Space, generative listening and the co-created conditions for deep, vulnerable connection
• Imagination beyond GDP and ‘stuff’ as corporate, societal and media based projections of ‘success’ and ‘enough-ness’
• A trust that we are all, every single one of us, infinitely more whole, powerful, creative, humble, able, inclusive and ready to the important work of healing ourselves, healing and/or letting go of our toxic structures and relationships and as a result getting out of the way so Mother Earth can heal herself

This is not a resolution, but more of an invitation to revitalisation and revolution of our individual and collective mindsets in the West.

I fully appreciate that those like myself who have uber-privilege in the West, this will be easy to ignore but I ask you, PLEASE DON'T!

I never thought I would write this but something that Matt Damon said in Interstellar was the catalyst:

“Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier, we can care deeply, selflessly about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight.”

An invitation to allow ourselves to remember the connection between the important head but also heart and gut. We are whole humans that have been dis-embodied for hundreds of years.

I am tired of watching The Titanic that is Western home and business life misdirect itself and one another.

We have to be braver.

We have to be bolder.

A reminder as to that critical paragraph from the above article, shared again below:

The fight for Indigenous rights has never been more important for all humanity. It is no coincidence that more than 80 per cent of the world’s remaining intact forests and biodiversity is in Indigenous hands

Exploration Space 1-1 Experience

My role now and going forward is as a Disruption and Innovation Catalyst working at the intersection of International Sales, People and Culture, Equity and Inclusion and Sustainability.

I shall be embodying this both within and outside of the chemicals industry that I have worked within for over 20 years and these sectors of course all have a critical role, in current and maybe future, global supply chains.

I have fought this for too long o be honest and not named this energy as clearly as I do today, but that is what I am here to do, it is what I already increasingly embody and it is also what I am here to become. Universe, I surrender !! :)

If you would value any space for yourself to slow down, stop, review and reflect I have two 1-1 exploration days available across 18th and 19th Jan 2023 with my partner venue Hethfelton House in over 150 acres of woodlands, lakes and a stunning country home for near exclusive use.

Drop me an email at [email protected] or [email protected] and we can set up a chat to see how the space and guidance may be helpful.

I have in fact been holding space for myself over the past two days in the same way, reviewing 2.5 years of journaling, insights and personal progress and mistakes, and it is and continues to be deeply profound in terms of clarity.

The biggest realisations for myself from the exercise so far have been:

• Bring ideas, challenges and positive disruption of the status quo - no matter what your role or positional power
• The result behind any of your fears is pretty much never the result or not as bad as you feared
• You should not and cannot carry the fears of others as your own
• There is always so much insight and breadcrumbs laid in previous experiences when we allow ourselves to settle in, slow down and reflect upon that
• 3rd party support and guidance is critical, in a variety of ways
• Over-communicate and listen deeply and generatively (allowing space for emergence)
• Vulnerability within safe spaces is a gateway to authentic connection
• Work is two-way agreement, step up and into that energy of equity
• Share your voice, it matters

I wish anyone that reads this newsletter update a restful, reflective, recharging, and reimagined start to 2023.

If you have found this blog interesting and/or thought-provoking, please share it with your network or someone that you feel may benefit.

Shall we connect?

My name is Garry Turner and I am a Disruption and Innovation Catalyst working at the intersection of International Sales, People and Culture, Equity & Inclusion and Sustainability:

• International business development and authentic relationship building human working within and across a Euro 3bn + corporation?
• International speaker on topics around human-centered design, vulnerability and change is an inside job
• Support senior leaders and mission driven solopreneurs as a Thinking Partner
• Facilitator of people-centered workshops and organisational design
• The co-creator with Jo Hompstead of Human Development Space in-person gatherings which are an emergent and co-creative space for both businesses and open groups

Digital Business Card — https://link.v1ce.co.uk/GarryTurner?

LinkedIn — https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/garryturnerthinkingpartner

Linktree — https://linktr.ee/HexoChangeGarryTurner