Category: My work

Coming out of hiding

It was a tense part of the meeting, when the neighbours were challenging city staff about who the city was going to invite to an upcoming meeting. It was one of those moments when I’m quietly telling myself: this is tricky, so make sure you say the right thing or this is going to go off the rails!

(Long story short: residents have lobbied for years for city hall to take action. City hall is now taking action and a small team of city staff met with a group of residents to update them and plan how to engage the rest of the neighbourhood.)

Who are you going to invite? Just the residents? Why should others have a say if they don’t live there? Property owners or everyone who lives there? What about developers from the outside? What about developers from the inside? What if the voice of outsiders drowns out what residents have to say? How will we know who is saying what? If everyone was mixed together in a room, residents and outsiders, how would residents be heard?

If everyone was mixed together in a room, residents and outsiders, how would residents be heard?

One resident kept asking the sticky question: who are you going to invite? The group had a long conversation about how to have many voices in a room, have them be in conversation with each other (rather than a line-up of people at a microphone), and distinguish who said what. Again the sticky question: who are you going to invite? To clearly hear the voice of residents, then only residents could be in the room. 

She just wanted to feel heard.

And when we heard that, we found our way. We identified a means to both hear local residents and invite the wider community that felt good. It took us a bit of time, we had to work through the discomfort of different opinions, but we landed on something that residents felt good about, and city staff felt good about. 

They heard each other. They accommodated each other. 

10 days ago a trio of wicked communications and marketing brains (read friends) gathered in my living room to help me put together promotional material to promote me and my coming book, Nest City. I was very uncomfortable being the center of attention. I was very uncomfortable talking about how to actively make myself more visible.

With supportive friends, I relaxed into being hosted, rather than being the host of the conversation. One served as a scribe and helped organize what I was saying so I, and we, could see it. 

They asked me the tough questions that I often ask them. They relished “Bething” me, putting me in the hot seat.

With their challenging support, two big realizations surfaced: 

  1. It is time to come out of hiding. 
  2. I am well conditioned to put myself in the background. 

I have been writing in hiding. I have a book that I have been working on for 13 years that few people have read. Since 2009 I have posted 434 blogs (this is the 435th) and the Nest City News started a few years ago. The readership of public writing is loyal, but not huge. (I love you dearly.) 

I don’t “toot my horn” because I’m well trained to not do that. The inner critic in me is active.

I don’t “toot my horn” because I’m well trained to not do that. The inner critic in me is active:

  • Only people who are full of themselves promote themselves 
  • You don’t have anything worthwhile to say
  • Don’t dream big because it won’t come to pass anyway and you’ll end up heartbroken
  • No one can actually do the work they want to be doing, so why should you be any different? 
  • No, no, don’t put yourself out there, it’s too risky
  • Don’t get involved in social media, you don’t have the stomach for it 
  • The best and safest place for you is in the background 
  • You’re not smart enough for people to listen to
  • You don’t have anything to say that people want to hear
  • Who do you think you are? 
  • Your writing is awful. 

I feel like this inner critic voice in my head is not me. But it certainly works hard to run the show. 

When I am with a group of people, I “hear” things others don’t hear. With the residents and city staff the other night, when we were talking about who to invite, I heard that what was most important was for residents to feel heard. If I wasn’t in the room, it is possible that that understanding might not have been reached and the tension may have brewed into blockage, leaving the shared project on rocky ground. 

When I am with a group of people, I “hear” things others don’t hear.

I hear how people misunderstand each other. I help them find clarity in what they want to express, and speak it in ways others can hear. I support people to hear the other, even it is uncomfortable to do so.

At times, I also hear what is happening in the room when nobody else knows it is happening. I can sense into “the thing” that is unsaid, and I’m willing to say it. 

I notice patterns in our behaviour that keep us from being our best selves, and I design conversational processes that erode those bad behaviors. I notice patterns in the complexity of how cities work that help me (and clients) navigate the systems of the city. 

I love to create social habitats in which information, or feedback, is received—even if it is hard to hear. Most importantly, I love to do this when it involves ways to improve our cities. 

I’ve just come out of hiding a bit. Just now. 

I’ve named two things that are my essential work, that I both love to do and clients want to do with me: 

  1. Create the conditions for people to hear each other.
  2. Navigate complex city systems. 

I’ve said this out loud, here.

What’s coming is a new website with a new look and feel that puts me, my work and my writing out front. I will continue to write to you, but it will come your way with a new look, under a new name. The “Nest City Blog” will turn into “Beth’s Blog”. The “Nest City News” email newsletter will turn into “Writing From the Red Chair”. 

I expect to write faster, which means more frequently.

I expect to have more readers. 

I expect to have readers that appreciate what I offer, and readers that don’t get me. I will look for healthy criticism and put negativity aside. I will appreciate the appreciation. 

I expect to have relationships with readers, not just clients. 

I expect to enjoy putting myself out there, being bigger. 

I expect to be in more conversations with people who are listening for what is in hiding, in self, others and our cities, and welcome both the challenges and the joy of hearing, of revealing rather than concealing. 

Welcome both the challenges and the joy of hearing, of revealing rather than concealing.

What are your practices to hear what is hiding in you? In others? In your city?  

50 and powering up

Monday was a big birthday. For the last few months of my 40s I’ve been thinking about all the people I’ve known over the years who power down in their 50s. I will be powering up. I’m only getting started.

Those “freedom 55” commercials when I was a kid told us that work sucks, so go do the thing you love at 55. The sell: you don’t have to wait until retirement at 65, you can leave that awful job 10 years earlier. You can be free of work.

I long ago decided that whenever I am able, I want to be doing the work I love, that energizes and challenges me, and feels meaningful. There are times when I do things I don’t feel like doing, or took a job because I needed the money, but what I look for now is work that aligns with my soul, what I feel called to do. 

And so, over these holidays that have just wrapped up, in my last days of my 40s, I woke one morning with a clear realization: I am in the middle of my “work life” and I plan to work for 30+ more years. 

I am in the middle of my work life and I plan to work for 30+ more years. 

Over the last 30 years, from twenty, my “work” on the surface changed many times. I went to school, had a few jobs, and then set up my own consulting company. And while consulting I started this blog and wrote a book. I expect what my work looks like over the next 30 years will shift too, as I keep learning more about where I am going. 

I’m not signing up to do the exact same thing for 30 years. I’m signing up to be activated and energized by my work. I’m signing up to grow with my work. It’s also a good test: On the whole, do I like the work I’m doing enough to do it for 30 years? If not, I’m not doing the right work. 

I’m signing up to be activated and energized by my work. I’m signing up to grow with my work.

I invite the challenge of doing the work necessary to notice the work I want to do and do it. I am not powering down at 50. I am powering up by actively choosing to be more ME. 

This means: 

  • Sending my book, Nest City, out in to the world (Edmonton launch, April 18, 2020)
  • Writing more (blogs, and I can feel another book coming)
  • Teaching (Nest City ideas)
  • Working with citizens  and cities to support their efforts to hear themselves, in small and large ways
  • Working with citizens and cities who desire to discern where they are going, and how to best move in that direction 
  • Clarity around the work to which I say YES (and no) 
  • Clarity about the energy I invest in professional and personal relationship (hint: I’m looking for emotional maturity and choice to learn and grow, even when it’s tough) 
  • Playing big and sharing explicitly what I think, feel and see in ways that energize me

Over the last few years, as challenges have popped up in life, I’ve experienced the fear in others when I play big. When I left the big job and started my own company, some expressed worries (theirs, not mine) about my livelihood. When my marriage ended and I headed out into life without a spouse, some were upset and distraught in ways even I was not distraught (their upset, not mine). When I landed a publisher for my book a dear one told me my writing is shitty (their upset, not mine).

I’ve learned that when I play big there are significant forces to stop me. There are some people close to me, and others further afield, that desperately want me to play small. Some are explicit, while others are insidious, telling me nice things, while sliding in wee jabs here and there. (They aren’t courageous enough to acknowledge that their upset is their own.) Even more insidious is how these external voices collude with my own inner critic voices, working very hard to convince me to keep my head down and play small. 

I’ve learned that when I play big there are significant forces to stop me.

In many ways that count, I’ve not been putting my head down. I’ve made big choices for myself and stuck with them despite forces (in others and myself) to have me shrink back to what I was. A few desperately need me to shrink because they are not comfortable with my growth and the accountability I ask of them. All I know is that their need for me to shrink is their need, whatever the reason—and I most palpably feel it. The result: we no longer have close relationships because to do so means I have to shrink to meet them in their no-growing zone. 

Choose not the sterility of safety, but brave space to live into where we are going. 

I choose relationships where we are honest with each other and choose not the sterility of safety, but brave space to live into where we are going. I choose relationships where our bigness is welcomed, not threatening. I choose relationships where we hold each other accountable for the consequences of our actions (harm happens, intended or not.) I choose relationships where we each are doing the emotional labour to be our best selves. I choose relationships where we remain open-hearted to the mistakes we all make. Me included. 

I’m powering up. 

Do want to power up with me? Who are you powering up to be? 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding peace

circle-at-old-timers-cabin

Have recent global and local events of tragedy and terror left you overwhelmed and despairing? Do you wonder how it’s possible to see all that is good and true and beautiful when suffering is so prevalent? Would your hope and personal capacity for weathering this turbulence be restored by having occasion to talk and listen with others who, too, are deeply concerned for the well-being of our precious world?

Would your hope and personal capacity for weathering this turbulence be restored by having occasion to talk and listen with others? 

If so, you are invited to join a circle conversation to explore these and other questions. A space where:

  • our stories are safe and sacred
  • we speak with intention
  • we listen with attention and curiosity
  • we offer no advice or critique
  • any answers and insights we might come to are our own

The details:

November 20, 2016 (7-9pm)
Westminster-Steinhauer United Church
10740 – 19th Avenue
Edmonton, AB
NO COST
Here’s where to register. Space is limited.

Your hosts:

Your hosts in this conversation are Beth Sanders and Katharine Weinmann, local teacher-practitioners of The Circle Way, a lightly formalized and structured methodology for respectfully engaging people in meaningful conversation.

Space is limited so please register as soon as possible.

 

Learning journey contracts

NestCity-BlogPostWe signed a 30-page contract with a client last week, full of legal details and formalities. It took about 10 minutes to sign it all. As I was getting the corporate seal and my fancy blue pen all ready to do their work, I realized that this formal contract is not as important as the contracts behind the contract. Continue reading Learning journey contracts

Follow what resonates and sparks

NestCity-BlogPostI didn’t know it, but this time nine years ago, I was almost ready to leave my dream job. While full of adrenaline and ambition, it was no longer nourishing me, but I wasn’t ready to let go. Little did I know I was putting the psychological pieces in place to set out on my own. Continue reading Follow what resonates and sparks

The gifts of generations

The gifts of generations

Who put honey
in your heart of fruition?
in your belief in your soul?
in your fantasy?
in the love in your living room?
in the trust in your own perseverance?
in your steadfast transformation? 
in your calling?
 

Continue reading The gifts of generations

A shifting course

 

A shifting course 
 
A hersterical shifting course
lives in us 
profoundly donating self
to the sponge
of self and other
here for me and you 
to receive
without words
mystical moments
that bless us
with lifted veils
I am 
held
 
thank you 
 
for a home
for my candle
of sacred grace
burning, singing
a delicious legacy
of source energy
that trusts 
in me
and how I sit
in 
 
 
_____ 
A poem caught in the moving check out of The Circle Way Practicum I co-taught last week with Katharine Weinmann, Ann Linnea and Christina Baldwin. October 4, 2015, Strawberry Creek Lodge, Alberta.
_____ 
 
 

The fiery gifts of the dragon

First – look the dragon in the eye

Two weeks ago, a board I serve on was brave enough to look the dragon in the eye and see the truth: it was time to let our organization die with dignity. Despite her fading spirit, we were expending excessive energy keeping her alive. Before it faded too far, we needed to find a new home for her spirit, a place to serve what she longs to be today, without the substantial, gloomy baggage that has been bringing her down and holding back her potential for years.

The people closest to her heart, the board of directors, knew the status quo was no longer possible. We named the decision to celebrate her dignities and wind down her current ‘home’ so she could have a fresh start in the fullness of possibility. As we started to talk to others, in confidence, to figure out how to do this with the greatest of care, a colleague and friend tweeted the news out to the world. We were chucked under the bus, unable to get up when battered with accusations of misconduct and hate mail. Our ability to respond well to reasonable demands for information were lack-lustre. We weren’t ready because we were just figuring out how to handle the news ourselves. Everyone was hurting.

But let’s pause here for a moment . . .

The dynamics in play are bigger than the people involved, including me and my twitter friend. It is a cultural norm to do whatever is necessary to deny endings, and in doing so we refuse to see the possibilities that come with an ending. An ending does not have to be an end. It is only a catastrophic birth – a transition from one stable state of being to another stable state of being with a messy, awful feeling in the middle.

Assume for a moment my colleages and I were accurate in discerning a diagnosis of “terminal illness” for our organization (I’m always open to a second, informed opinion). As we reached our decision that day, we realized that we had been experiencing the stages of loss and grief (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/) humans feel when facing death in loved ones. Our love for our organization and the loss and grief of its end are no different:

  1. We denied the reality of the situation. We found endless reasons and means to keep her alive. We blocked out the facts.
  2. We were angry. We looked for other people to blame for our situation.
  3. We were bargaining. We looked for excuses, recognizing that if we had only (insert action here), we would be ok now.
  4. We were crying. We were sad and low, full of regret. We wished it didn’t come to this, wished we could have done a better job. We wished the facts didn’t say what they said.
  5. We accepted that death was inevitable. This wasn’t a matter of giving up, but rather choosing to be in a good relationship with our organization – and her membership –  for her last days, enabling us to retrieve all her goodness to share with others. We no longer needed to know why, no longer needed an explanation.

This is what transition feels like, when we move from one reality to a new reality. A typical first reaction is that we don’t want change so we deny the transition is needed or we get angry. These are natural human reactions my colleagues and I recognized in ourselves, and we knew would be experienced by the members of our organization.  This is exactly what happened after the tweet and the ‘diagnosis’ spread: demands for facts, new facts, better facts, precise facts; anger and fury and frustration; and even bargaining to find a way to keep her alive.

My sadness in this whole endeavour comes not in the death of the organization, because I accept that it is the right thing to do, but in our inability to tend and care for the people affected by the diagnosis. We did not have an opportunity to figure out how to do the ‘ending’ work with care. In an effort to make me feel better, a friend said to me, “the band-aid came off quick and at least the band-aid is off now.” My colleagues and I feel like someone swooped in an punched us in the face before pulling the band-aid off. Mostly, I feel bad that there was no opportunity to care for people, even to feed them the facts they were looking for. We had just reached the realization ourselves and it wasn’t as simple as, “the cancer has spread throughout your chest cavity and is inoperable.”  It’s like the doctor’s friend took on sharing the doctor’s diagnosis because it seemed like the patient shouldn’t have to wait a day or two, even though the doctor had a role to gather the evidence in a way that would be helpful for the patient. It was the doctor’s information to share, not the friend’s.

Second – trial by dragon

I feel a dragon in my midst.

The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down.
Jospeph Campbell

The dragon isn’t my friend, but rather the feeling of betrayal, swooping down on me each day, breathing hot fires of sickness and disappointment on me. Searing tears from a wound deep down in my soul come forth, rocking me, demanding a deeper-than-usual inquiry between my ego-self and my Higher Self. A Higher Self that is not from a ‘high’ place, but a deep place. I need new language to describe my Higher Self, but I’m struggling to find it. My Deeper Soul-Self?

… it’s not about what the dragon looks like; it’s about what the dragon activates inside of us that makes it so difficult to face.
Sera Beak

The metaphor, or symbol, of the dragon has shown up a few places this week, calling me to look at what is difficult for me to face inside me, not in the outside world. The friend that betrayed my confidence is a metaphorical dragon. What does the betrayal activate?

The important thing to remember about dragons is that they guard our buried treasure. When a dragon appears, it means gold is right behind it… if we have the courage to stand our ground and fully meet it.
It is Meeting time…
Sera Beak

Here’s the gold I met behind the dragon: the truth is I don’t believe I am good enough. Deep down, my ego-self believes I deserve to be taken out at the knees. Deep down, my ego-self believes I deserve to have 200 colleagues continue to kick me while I’m down.

The true betrayal is that I have betrayed myself.

We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
Tom Robbins

The betrayal has nothing to do with whether I was right or wrong when it came to ending an organization. That was right. The betrayal was my lack of confidence in trusting the decision we made, and feeling shaky about that decision in the face of powerful forces that work hard to keep change from happening, that keep improvements and evolution at bay. It was a much deeper betrayal.

It was a test of me, revealing that my ego-self does not trust my Higher Self, my inner authority, or my Deeper Self, my Soul Authority.

That is the power of the status quo – it works deep inside of me. Even when I feel I am immune to it, I am not. It is deeply at work, tricking me into feeling weak, tricking me into thinking that transition is not what I want. All along, it was lulling me into indifference, denial, anger, bargaining and tears. Then undermining even my acceptance of Me.

Wow.

The powerful force in the world that does not want change works on my ego as much as it works on others’ ego.

Third – receive fiery gifts 

In unwrapping the betrayals I am experiencing, I have so far received 10 fiery gifts from the dragon’s mouth.

What I now understand about the world around me:

  1. There are unconscious energies running the show. Huge forces are at work, at every scale, to keep us where we are. They are all around us and all within us, at times healthy and at other times unhealthy.
  2. And they take whatever action necessary. The systems in which we work are attached to the status quo and will work hard against anything new that will cause upheaval. The systems, and the people in it, will go to great lengths to maintain the status quo.
  3. We spend vast amounts of human energy on denial and anger. We deny transition, often without even thinking about it. We hunker down in anger and join in mob-like defiance of realizations we don’t want to acknowledge. We are quick to fuel the status quo, often unconsciously, saying things we regret later. A friend and colleague was saddened by the sharp words he spoke in the emotion of the situation: “you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
  4. The words ‘this isn’t personal’ are code for ‘this is personal.’ When angry, we often say and think that our attacks on others are not personal, that we do not mean to hurt others. The truth is that the speaker is hurting and the words allow the speaker to deny the hurt within himself or herself. It is personal, just not where s/he thought. Transition hurts.
  5. Possibility for the new is more nourishing than the anger and denial that fuels the status quo. There’s a tipping point where serving the status quo, or some hybrid of it, takes more energy than switching gears to fuel a fresh start. But the myth of stability and the status quo will tell us this is not so, fuelling us with denial and anger and a misplaced investment of our energy. There is a point in the transition from the old to the new where there is more energy for the new possibility. The trick is in noticing when this happens.
  6. The birth of a new system is impersonally personal. Even though our reactions to change are personal – it hurts – the changes themselves are not personal. Perhaps it is the impersonal nature of the world around us that hurts us. The Universe is not conspiring to personally attack you or me, but it is sending us experiences from which to learn. Maybe it is personal; just not how we think it is.

What I now understand about me in the world:

  1. I am capable of listening to, and hearing, a great deal of anger aimed at me. While not fun, I am capable of sitting through hours of what a colleague named as a “public stoning.” I recognize hate mail as an expression of anger and denial – and hurt.
  2. My ego-self is hurting, but not all of me. The parts of me not hurt are able to listen to my ego-self and hear her story. My Higher Self and my Deeper Soul-Self are able to see the bigger picture and support and witness the agony of my ego-self.
  3. I do not need to ‘fight’ to make my ego-self feel better. I do not need to hunker down into anger and denial of my own feelings and fight back. That makes it impossible for others to begin to hear themselves.
  4. The friend is not the ‘enemy’. I am just as capable as others of making decisions that hurt other people. My twitter friend is as human as I am. The trust is gone, but not the human I know and recognize as part of a powerful game bigger than the decision to share confidential information. If I put my personal energy in conflict with the friend, I give my energy to the forces that demand the status quo and suck the life out of anything new.

From a short distance of time, I see that the essential kernel of truth is out there – that the status quo of our organization is no longer possible. While sad we were unable to share this realization in a healthy way, I trust that this is how it needed to happen. An effort is underway to renew life support, and perhaps this long absent cry for life will embolden her spirit, or, better yet, fuel the fresh start that is waiting for our energy.

My fresh start is elsewhere.

This is my next discernment.

Fourth – the catastrophe of birth

These words of Joseph Campbell – the catastrophe of birth – help me see that what feels catastrophic is a flag for transition in me.  I am letting parts of me die off, and welcoming deeper, truer parts of me.

A calling may be postponed, avoided, intermittently missed. It may also posess you completely. Whatever; eventually it will out. It will make its claim. [It] will not go away.
James Hillman

I am engaging in extreme – but humane – self-inquiry, and I have a choice to make. Will I midwife myself into being more Me?

… there comes a point in your path where you need to fiercely embrace that which you are still in the process of becoming.
Sera Beak

There is a fiery Beth emerging. In dancing with dragons, she will shed her skin over and over again, renewing and regenerating, ever finding ways to live from and embody her Soul.

Every ending is a beginning.

The Ultimate ride for me isn’t about losing any part of my Self; rather, it’s about coming into conscious alignment with every part of my Self.
Sera Beak

 

 

Transition cycles

 

Death is taking people around people dear to me: the violent murder of a co-worker, the suicide of an old friend, the passing of a dad who’s lived a full life, and an uncle released from a long battle with mysterious illness. In contrast, spring is about to pop out in bright green glory.

As life comes to a close, whether peacefully or violently, new life comes.

Transition is life – and the relationship I have with the transitions within and around me is essential to how I make my way through the world.

I pause to notice transitions and the potential within them…

  • The end – today – of 5 years service to the Alberta Professional Planners Institute
  • A book substantially complete and the question of where now to put my energy?
  • A call to serve my city – as a living museum
  • A call to work with cities as habitats that need the care and attention of their citizens

I pause also to notice that these transitions are cyclical. While the content and questions may change, it is a natural and regular occurrence to feel wobbly and uncertain. It’s not possible to manage change. It is possible to live well with changing.

What transitions are alive and cycling in you?

 

 

 

 

Story is sacred food

 

Story is sacred food: this is what community leaders found in Durant, Oklahoma, a small American city, as they embarked on a journey to step more fully into who they truly are, and lean into who they want to be.

As they settled in to their work together, some meeting for the first time, others have the conversation for the first time, a hosting team of Canadians, and Oklahoman and a Californian. We first broke bread together, and after the meal we sat back to listen, from the edge of the circle, to each voice, and the story of what brought us together.

Here’s the essence of our starting point for a journey that will take months and years:

 

Sacred Food
 
Story is
sacred food
a sacred pride
in community
in personal generosity
I’m a live one
serving, giving
the spirit of home
in my heart
to the promise of Durant
to the promise of being here
where I choose to be
to grow
with our family of well-being
standing out
(of our own way)
we are live ones 
embracing the village story
on our shoulders
our sacred food
 
 

What truly nourishes you?

What is your sacred food?