Showing posts with label Open Heart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Open Heart. Show all posts

Open Heart

About six months ago I found myself very much in a need to simplify. Work was requireing much of me, my time, in a way that didn't feel right enough. A key relationship was really charged. I wanted so much to dive deeper into readings and learnings on energy. I was struggling to find enough of myself in my spiritual community. I was overcooked and in need of insight that was simple enough for me to hold. It came, in the form of three commitments that applied to each of these areas:

1. Be open in heart.
2. Be couragous in story.
3. Be clear in intent.

This open-heartedness is very alive for me this week. And as I think of it now, I recall several times where people have helped me to learn more of this.

There was the September Art of Hosting in Indiana at which one of the open space breakout groups harvested this: "an open heart is a safe space."

There was the November Art of Hositng in Pennsylvania at which the theme for the first day was open heartedness.

There were these recent words from Meg Wheatley and a group of friends, soul friends at I know Berkana Institute:
  • we are companions for the journey as the world insists that our hearts crack open, not to break, but to grow
  • broken-heartedness leads us out into the world where we can stand with people and offer our love
  • in the end, all that matters is people standing together in the fullness of being human
These threads have lead me to something that feels important today...
  • What would be different if we assumed that world does insist that our hearts crack open so that we can offer our love and stand together in the fullness of being human?
  • Sometimes I don't see because my heart isn't open.
  • Can we create and practice tools for opening our hearts?
  • From this love, all becomes different, whole, healthy. Our work becomes our human being.
I'm thinking of this framing, feeling it, as I move into new client relations, designs of meetings, hosting of phone calls. I'm also thinking of it at home. This changes how I show up, what I invite, what I hope to create with others. It doesn't remove me / us from "work." It grounds us more deeply to animate and ground our "work."

Art of Hosting Research

Today I was able to talk with Jeannel King in San Diego, CA. Jeannel is a friend I met through the Art of Hosting at Wooded Glen in Indiana earlier this fall. She is completing her masters thesis for a degree from Regis University in Denver, CO. Jeannel invited me to provide feedback on her thesis. The real inviation was to be in a learning relationship together. This is what I experienced.

One of the threads from our conversation was about simplicity. How do you speak of the Art of Hosting in a simple way (not easy task to write about this in an academic form) that preserves the energy of the experience and doesn't just end with "you had to be there." Jeannel's clarity was about hosting self, so as to be a resource for others. I heard this as a tuning, an ability to feel into what is happening in ourselves, the group, the space, the field. I liked the question we arrived at -- what is the self of the group? What does hosting that look like? Feel like?

I also shared with Jeannel this simple model that good friend Chris Corrigan spoke as a change model. This is the most simple I've heard that speaks oodles. Open hearts. Engage conversations. Enable movements. Open hearts. To look through this model at the "things" of an Art of Hosting is helpful for me. Open hearts -- participation, cocreation, rest, dreams, meals, play, listening, deep listening, connection to nature.... Engage conversations -- methods, silence, structured, unstructured, self, partner, small group, large group.... Enable movement -- harvest, convergence, simple clarity, tangible energy.

What if our work was to open hearts?
How would that change our plans?
What would that make available that typically is not?
What could our work also be?