The past week I gave with Jane Corbett from the UK an advanced Theory U track at the ALIA conference ‘Courageous Leadership.’ It was received well and we had a good time ourselves. It was great that a lot of young people attended the conference and that they were already familiar with Theory U. Many connected to it in their schools and universities. We did several exercises that brought people closer to their comfort zone and especially increased their co-sensing capacities. Jane brought in ‘Heartmath’ and together we felt the impact of the practices on ourselves and on us as a group. The ‘social field’ deepened and we were more ‘present’ with each other. We practiced peer group coaching with a touch of Social Presencing Theatre. That was a nice remembrance of the Theory U track of last year when I led it with Arawana Hayashi, the wonderful dancer and Shambala teacher.
For myself it was good to feel myself again in new ways. I stirred the pot a little during the halfway faculty dinner (“I want more male energy in here” and “We need to connect more to the ugly outside world, watch the House of Cards”) and was concerned after wards. Was I too hard and too masculine? The next day Jerry walked across the room to thank me for the “spirited conversation” the other day.
So what’s up for next year? Probably some more masculine energy, right action in combination with sports (When do you tack your boat to win the race? When the wind shifts. Where does movement start then? When the wind shifts, or when your brain gives your hand the order to push the rudder?) and maybe a topic around resilient or in Buddhist terms ‘enlightened’ communities. That is close to Society 4.0 as Otto Scharmer calls it and the Sarvodaya Societies in Sri Lanka. Thais Corral is into it in Brazil in her valley near Rio de Janeiro. Sounds interesting to me to bring all these people together next year!