Staying calm amidst chaos - Fall 2024

Have you noticed it too??

It seems like our VUCA (a.k.a chaotic)?world is getting even more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. It's stretching us. In some cases, it's temporarily breaking us down - putting us into personal overshoot. And it can also strengthen, even enrich us.

The last several months have been a personal and professional whirlwind, and yet I’m OK… I’m really OK.? And I have to give a LOT of credit to the last 18 months of mental fitness training I've been doing (and offering) through Positive Intelligence.?

The destructive impacts of climate change have just stormed through the Southeastern US. Not to mention land wars in Europe and the Middle East, and the rise of Artificial Intelligence, requiring us to think harder and smarter, and learn faster and faster.

Uncertainty is on the rise, and that’s something we can depend on. It has a name:? The Metacrisis. Or Polycrisis. Some call it "the great turning" - anticipating the future outcomes. The point is - we don't know the outcomes. We can't know.

And yet we walk and work and love and live our daily lives. Amid this outer unfolding unknowingness. And the question on my mind - is how do we CHOOSE to meet this moment?

I started writing this (long overdue) newsletter on Sunday evening. Here's the (mostly) unedited version...

OK, it’s Sunday night at 11:20 pm, and I’ve spent the last couple of hours with my new grandson Liam sleeping on my chest, binge-watching “This is Us” (in Season 1, halfway through Episode 13 - loving it.).? I’ve also changed two poopy diapers, one of which leaked onto my pants. (TMI?)

I’ve been cooking up a storm since I arrived in Ohio on October 5th to await grandbaby Liam (who arrived on October 11th!) Apparently grandma’s nesting too.? My daughter Kelsey is great at planning, and she had printed a whole bunch of “freeze ahead” meals, so we’ve been testing out “Healing Chicken and Rice Soup”, Sheet Pan Chicken Pitas, and Chicken Meatballs (all delicious).

Plus walking the dog (Cooper), and loving on two-and-a-half-year-old big sister Brinley (when she likes me - which is definitely sporadic).?

And at the same time, getting up at 4 am three days in a row (Oct. 8 - 10) to facilitate a 3 hour PQ-Powered Teams workshop with a colleague ( Elodie Guérin ) who lives in Barcelona (I was on zoom!).

Add to that replacing my laptop and recording content & facilitating two integration sessions for the SWoN cohort I’m assisting with - focused on navigating the human interior condition, and our "immune response" to perceived threats.

SWoN stands for “Sustainability-as-the-World-Needs", based on Alice Kalro ’s arkH3 Theory of Change, where she looks beyond the climate tunnel at all 9 planetary boundaries, and helps us to do the same - applying cross-disciplinary systemic foresight. What we find (when we dare to look) is deeply concerning.? I'm bringing inner development strategies to navigate the immune response (in ourselves, and others) to real and perceived threats.

Zooming back to September 27th, I flew to Salt Lake City to visit my college friend, Sue, hiking on Saturday and Sunday, then off to San Diego to facilitate a 1.5 day strategic planning & growth huddle for a construction team, and then back to Salt Lake City on Wednesday PM, to co-present with my saint of a boyfriend Kevin Stack at the EEBA (Energy and Environmental Buildings Alliance) Summit.

Let me just say - all of this was not without clashes and triggers. Some of it's been bumpy, and self-doubt has crept in - rather frequently. I know how to handle it now - after almost 6 decades, but it still takes practice.

Which is why - last week (with a little help from Leslie Lawton ) - I also pulled together all the pieces to offer up a re-run of the 7-week Positive Intelligence Mental Fitness program - which launches on November 1st. (And you're invited - see below.)

So here I am - in my self-declared "Decade of Impact" - weaving together these 6 (or more) different threads - representing my life, my passions and my work. I wish I could see the tapestry of it all from my earliest days up until now. I sense it would be quite colorful and eclectic.

Imagine each of these as a different color and texture:

1. The (green, thick) thread of (grand)mothering where life is full of family and food, and poignant sit-coms, and poopy diapers?
2. The (red, roughhewn) thread of friendship and adventure where I get to hike in the mountains in Utah with my boyfriend and best friend?
3. The (teal, handspun) thread of meaningful work where I facilitate a strategic planning & growth session that has little to do with climate change or collapse - and everything to do with growing people, and meaningful lives through challenging projects and work (a.k.a building people while building "cool sh*t")
4. The (yellow, silky) thread of inspired co-creation where we (Kevin and I) weave together JEDI leadership development, and workforce development with doughnut economics and the inner development goals - and invite buildings industry leaders to catalyze and accelerate deeper industry transformation and a more just and equitable future
5. And the (purple, knotty) thread of dancing with human and systemic awareness - and the great reckoning, turning, simplification, or collapse... the worldwork of arkH3 where we grow ourselves, so that we can stop outgrowing our planetary carrying capacity. And that's where the Positive Intelligence Mental Fitness program fits in too.

We all have this colorful, unique tapestry - the tapestry of our life up until now. I believe that the colors and textures that we weave have a lot to do with our quality of presence in the moment, and in the next moment, and the next.

"What if today is all there is? All there ever is, or was... Now, how do you meet each living thing?"

This quality of presence - it's sounds simple, almost poetic. But actually, cultivating our capacity to live in deep love, appreciation, focus and calm in the present moment is perhaps our biggest test as humans.

And sometimes it seems like life is coming at us like a firehose - that this VUCA world is essentially weaving us - with external challenges testing our limits and sending us off on unexpected paths - where we feel less "at choice". Less free to choose our colors and textures.

Maybe it feels like that now.

In the US, it's election season. Non-stop political ads, talking heads, social media strife, and outright BEGGING for $$.

Let's get direct. We can deal with all this VUCA. But not at the same level of thinking that's creating it. We need to level up our capacity to become present - and choose.

How do we want to meet each living thing? When VUCA is swirling around us?

We need to get in our "right minds" - and conjure up our "Sage" - the calm, focused, clear, compassionate version of ourselves.

That's why I'm added "one more thread" into my tapestry - because now, more than ever - we need to be in our "right minds".

And you are invited to navigate the next 7 weeks with me starting on November 1st. I am hosting the Positive Intelligence Mental Fitness program - which includes a new toolset - to help you surf the waves of your external VUCA world with clarity, calm, and positive intention.

Here's what you can do to learn how to use the tools of Positive Intelligence, starting next week. ? ?

I’m offering a free webinar on Tuesday, October 29th. Introducing Mental Fitness Practices. ?

It starts at 2 pm Eastern time. Do consider joining us to learn about your own personal Saboteurs and how to turn their voices down and tune them out.???

Then my complete mental fitness course starts on November 1, just in time to ease our way through an election in the US that’s scary (depending on your politics) and divisive, to say the least.?

And I'm offering a 4 for 1 discount for Friends and Family. It's a bit nuts from a business perspective, but it's what I want to do. And it's my tapestry. I choose.

Will you join me in this personal journey, and co-weaving of our tapestries? I look forward to the next 7 weeks with the 25 people who say "Yes".

As always, I'm available for a variety of conversations, engagements, and collaborations. I love to support others in weaving their own unique tapestries - moment by moment.

Take deep breaths. Long walks. Love yourself. Love others. Be well.

(Grand)Momma Melissa