For years I have used the simple breathing exercise below as part a daily practice of setting my energy and intentions for the day. I also do the practice whenever I feel out of balance or off-centre. I encourage you to try it.

When you experience the immediate benefits — how your energy centres and settles — you might be inspired to take a few moments for this way of breathing before a big phone call, or meeting, or task.

The more you are able to integrate this centring practice into your daily life, the more it will be available to you in a time of crisis. You will have self soothed with figure of eight breathing (or a similar mindfulness practice) for so many smaller storms that it will be your automatic response to bigger ones.

Let me know how you find it.

Figure of Eight Breathing

1. Optional: take off eyeglasses, any heavy jewellery, and footwear made of rubber or plastic.
2. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, eyes closed, and your attention on your breath. Sitting or lying down works too, but standing is the easiest way to start.
3. Inhaling slowly, bring your awareness to your heart.
4. Exhaling slowly, imagine your breath is traveling down the front of your body and penetrating to the centre of the Earth.
5. Inhaling slowly, imagine you are drawing energy up from the centre of the Earth and up the back of your body, and into your heart.
6. Exhaling slowly, imagine that your breath is going from your heart up the front of your body as high as it can go – to Ether, the stars, heaven – whatever works for you.
7. Inhaling slowly, imagine you are drawing energy down from above, down the back of your body and into your heart.
8. Repeat this “figure of eight” as long as feels right – perhaps 5-20 cycles at the beg
   inning. When you are familiar with this practice, four or five cycles is enough to feel quite grounded.

To start, I suggest tracing the figure of eight shape with one hand, as a way to help your awareness move.

Small acts done with pure love have more value than grand accomplishments based in ego or competition. Being true to yourself or to your organization’s vision, how ever small the act, has more value than great accomplishments on someone else’s agenda.

This is not to say that great accomplishments don’t have value. Rather that the quality of intention and alignment matters more than the quantity of impact. To make the greatest contribution, take time to know your life purpose and calling. Become familiar with the texture of when you are on track. Trust that quality of energy, and allow it to guide you. This the best way to serve any group you are part of.

As you bring forth your authentic contributions you will open space for others to do the same, helping to bring your group and organization into alignment. As you pay attention to the quality of your essence, you will have the clarity and strength for “choiceless change”. It is no longer a struggle to bring forth your perspectives and offerings. You simply bring your best and release.

Making your authentic offering is fulfilling in itself, and releases you from needing a particular outcome. Letting go of outcome, paradoxically, is what creates the most space for co-creation. You help create conditions for magic. Find the quality of being that is most aligned to you, and cleave to that.

In 2003, two women internal to the bank wanted to make positive change. One worked in the Human Resources department; the other had the “Sustainability” brief.

Their first move was to invite everyone in the bank to a meeting to discuss, “What legacy would you like to leave?”. To their delight, seventy-five people showed up from all corners — across departments, generations and genders, and from bottom to top of the hierarchy.

With this strong response, and thanks to high-level champions, the original pair brought in two consultants to launch what soon gelled as a “Personal Leadership and Change Community”.

Listening for what had attracted people (the need), the group framed its core purpose:

“To live, plant, and support action at [the bank] towards more meaningful and inspiring work/life.”

They also identified ten guiding principles, including:

• We are nourished by successes and mistakes along our way
• We support and inspire each other
• We investigate and connect to other initiatives in [the bank] of a similar intent.

The group was not a department. It had no head honcho, and no budget. Instead what it offered were “spaces” — an intranet site, monthly circles, and quarterly World Cafe or Open Space events, where people were invited to share their ideas and dreams and to find others to join them in taking action.

The Change Community became the “go to” place for people with an idea, and spawned initiatives ranging from events and programs all the way to policy change for the bank as a whole.

Taking stock after five years, here is how they articulated their successes:

Benefits to the Business we saw…

• Nurturing internal innovation capabilities
• Shaping and igniting leadership capacities
• Engaging across diverse business units, functions, and cultures
• Developing design and hosting skills
• Attracting and motivating key employees
• Activating dialogue
• Expanding imagination and generating creative solutions
• Exploring and responding to tomorrow’s opportunities
• Developing collaborative potential
• Experiencing intergenerational discussion and wisdom
• Building trust, relationships and accountability
• Fostering internal personal and institutional resiliency

Supporting change agents supports change. When the purpose is making a difference, beneficial initiatives can come from anywhere in a system. Chaordic Design is a powerful framework for creating an environment that nurtures and connects change makers, whether for an organization as a whole, or for a self-selecting community within a larger context as in the Dutch bank.

In this particular story, a 2009 merger swept in new management. There was no longer high level support for the Change Community and there ceased to be monthly meetings. But the genie was out of the bottle. The ripples had made changes in forty-five departments of the bank. The new skills and experience of working “chaordically” cannot help but be part of ongoing stories of everyone involved. In fact, several of these Change Community members are now entrepreneurs using the Chaordic lens in designing their new ventures.

Related posts:

• Trust is the foundation of healthy groups (and everything)
• Effective Group Decision-making
• Why I’m writing “Make Light Work in Groups”

Here are her highlights:

• Use what you have. Get the most out of the letters that the game gives you.
• Don’t hold back certain letters hoping to get better combos. I.e. don’t hang on to “I” “N”, “G” hoping to make a fancy word. Keep things moving.
• If you find a great move, look for at least two other options. Challenge yourself to find a better option.
• Don’t be afraid to open up the board. Creating opportunities for your opponent also creates opportunities for you.
• At the end of each day, don’t worry if you’ve won or lost. The real goal is to keep playing, including enjoying the company of your fellow players.

Listening to Saskia, I realize that I have “Swimming Wisdom” — insights distilled from 40 years of swimming laps. Here’s one of my favourites:

• Just jump in! Standing on the edge doesn’t get you anywhere, and putting it off doesn’t take away the need to get into the water.

I bet, if we scratch a bit, that each of us has grounded, super practical wisdom from noticing what works and what doesn’t from some aspect of our life. And because this wisdom comes from within, it is generally custom-tailored to the particulars of our situation. Saskia’s Scrabble Wisdom might or might not be meaningful for you, but the practice of noticing what you notice (flirts) is gold for most of us.

In fact, I have to sidetrack to mention an earlier one, just in case you or someone you know is plagued by back pain: The Mind-body Prescription, by Dr. John E. Sarno. I read it five years ago and have been pain free, leaving behind — simply by reading the book — what had been decades of chronic neck and back pain, and hundreds of visits to a chiropractor. May it be as beneficial to you and yours as it has been to me.

Based on my experience with Sarno’s book, I paid attention when Mike mentioned Catherine Ingram as an author he quite likes, and later sent this link to an interview. The video is long (53 minutes), and it think that is part of its effectiveness. The slower start helped me trust her, and gives a helpful context.

What I particularly love is how Catherine speaks of “redirecting attention”. It’s a phrase that resonates: attention is like a train on a track and tends to trundle along where the track takes it. These past few days, thanks to Catherine’s inspiring talk, I’ve been more able to flip the switch when my mind is caught in unhelpful grooves.

No fuss. No muss. Just simple redirection.

One of the great benefits of doing inner work on a regular basis is (A) you more quickly realize that you are caught in an unhelpful groove, and (B) you are more able to “redirect” your attention — quickly, simply, and with minimal effort.

Some grooves are deeper and more compelling than others, but with practice one can cultivate a habit of redirecting to the present moment — free of tracks and grooves, and much happier for it.

Trust Theory

The core of Jack Gibb’s Trust Theory is a simple idea: higher levels of trust correlate to higher levels of functioning in groups.

Imagine a spectrum from fear to trust. Every group and organization is operating within a particular band along the spectrum from high fear to high trust. The higher the levels of trust, the more creative, innovative, dynamic and effective the group or organization will be.

Gibb distinquished ten levels of trust, along with their corresponding leadership styles and assumptions about how to get things done. According to Gibb, in most group contexts, individuals are scattered within two to three levels on his scale, and where there are wider discrepancies, it is hard for people to be in the same group.

TORI

Gibb also expressed Trust Theory in the acronym “TORI” which stands for Trust, Openness, Realization and Interdependence. TORI holds that when there is a high level of TRUST we are freed up to be ourselves, dropping roles and positions. This naturally leads to OPENNESS — information flows between people; people say what they think, know, need and care about. Trust and openness lead to REALIZATION — people express and create in ways that are deeply meaningful. When groups have high levels of trust, openness and realization, they naturally mature into higher levels of INTERDEPENDENCE, boundaries blur and there is ever more synergy and effectiveness.

TORI theory says that the best way to cultivate trust is to create a “high quality environment”.

By creating a high quality environment, you create conditions for trust to emerge. Once there is trust, energy flows, and that flow leads naturally to openness, realization and interdependence. It is that simple.

How to create a high trust environment

According to Trust Theory, the most powerful lever for creating a high trust environment is choosing one’s own internal environment:

“Clear evidence from biofeedback and from more clinical approaches demonstrates that supposedly “involuntary” and “unconscious” processes can be brought under voluntary and conscious control. I give myself my trust and my joy. I create my life. I create my own mindbodyspirit in ways that would once have been discussed only in the wildest fantasies of science fiction.” Jack Gibb, Trust: A New View of Personal and Organizational Development, Los Angeles, The Guild of Tudors Press, 1978. pg 69.

In other words, I can choose to trust both myself and my environment. I can shift myself out of fear and into trust. Making this choice has a profound effect on how I experience my environment, and it ripples out to profoundly effect how others experience the same environment. There is a contagion effect.

I think of it as throwing my hat into the ring. Or taking a plunge. I choose to trust myself. I am enough. I don’t need to take on a role or mask to protect myself and keep myself safe. I don’t need to be careful about what I say or do. I can trust what flows through me. I can let myself flow.

This trust in my essential goodness allows me to trust the essential goodness in others. I won’t be “killed”, or humiliated. I trust that I can handle what results from me being me. It is safe for me to unfold.

The environment is high quality BECAUSE I choose to see it that way and act accordingly. I create my own environment through my internal choices.

I can have this stance towards life, towards myself, and towards my environment, regardless of my formal role in the group or organization.

This is not so much about being a leader, as being myself.

The more I can be myself, trusting that it is safe for me to show up without leaving anything at the door, the more I create safety for others to do the same.

This emphasis on authenticity has a powerful impact on groups. When I drop the “role” of group facilitator, paradoxically I am much more effective at supporting groups to be effective. I find the same thing as a parent, coach and instructor. It is as if my stepping out from behind a cardboard cut out predefined role sends a signal that everyone else can be themselves too.

Try it for yourself. Trust Theory is the foundation of everything I do.

Related posts:

Why I’m writing “Make Light Work in Groups”

Effective Group Decision Making

At first I framed my inquiry in isolation: It furthers the Make Light Work body of work for me to participate in XXX conference. My intuitive response was “Yes”, but I sensed a hesitancy. This nudged me to reframe the issue, this time including more context: Taking into consideration all the ways I can further Make Light Work, it is a high priority for me to participate in conference XXX. This time I got a “No”.

Experiences like this remind me of my early encounters with computer programming, back in the days when one talked to computers through cards with holes punched in them. Until I was diligent about including every single step, my programs were “Garbage in, Garbage out.”  I.e. not the basis for making wise decisions.

Here’s a checklist of factors that you might need to include when tuning in about a specific decision:

• What is the appropriate timeframe — today, this week, this year…?
• What is the context — How much is on the table — e.g my energy on this project, my energy on all current projects, all my energy?
• What is the best duration? I.e. this action is a priority, but for 5 minutes, not 50.
• Am I aware of enough of the context and/or possibilities to tune in at this point?
• Is it appropriate for me to be the one tuning in? (It’s important not to usurp decisions that rightly belong with a client or family member.)

And here’s a wonderful catch-all statement: The way I am framing the inquiry serves the highest. If you don’t get a “Yes”, keep listening for what is trying to come through.

Put one issue/task on the desktop at a time. This singular focus helps clarify what is “signal” and what is “noise”, making it easier to pick up on your intuitive knowing, and easier for your life to be graced with helpful synchronicities.

It relates to another “focusing” idea that I heard in the same week (so I’ve taken ‘focusing’ to be a flirt!):

Most of us have long To-Do lists, often debilitatingly long. George Kao suggests that we create a real To-Do list that has a maximum of three items. You can move things on and off this list on different days or at different points in the same day. The idea is to keep at bay anything that is beyond your current 1-3 top priorities.

I love the clarity this brings. Reviewing my long list from the perspective of picking the top three has caused me to knock about half off the list all together. They are what Stephen Covey would classify as “Not Urgent, and Not Important.” An instantly lighter load!

For the items that make the short list, my effort is concentrated and I’m much more productive, allowing me to add the next top priority to the short list.

Let me know how this resonates.

The Findhorn Foundation staff group had gathered in the pale peach living room of Cullerne House, a grand and gracious mansion built from huge blocks of highland granite. Fifty plus of us sat in a ring of chairs interspersed with pillows on the floor.

Our purpose was to make the best possible decision about a highly contentious issue: Should associate members of the wider community be represented on “Core Group” — the precious inner sanctum of the community?

The group was split.  About half felt strongly that the Foundation had become inclusive enough, that associate members hadn’t invested sufficient time or money the way members had, and that the meaning and privilege of membership should not be diluted further.

The other half believed that it was time to open up: some associates were more dedicated and committed than many members; not everyone had the financial and lifestyle freedom to be members (e.g. people with families); the Foundation was evolving and Core Group needed to reflect the new realities.

People felt strongly on both sides. We took time so that everyone who wanted to speak had a chance to be heard. Faces were often red with emotion.

After two hours it was clear that we had gone as far as we could at the personality level, and a respected elder staff member, trusted to be neutral, led us in a brief visualization.

We sat in silence together, with a very few words guiding us to have an inner knowing about what served the highest for all concerned.

After the meditation, the elder suggested we share the bottom line — simply saying “Yes” or “No” to including associate members on core group.

I will never forget the energy in the room as we spoke, one after the other, all around the circle.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Yes….”

With each “Yes” the room got “soupier”, and in the end our decision was completely unanimous.

The unity was beautiful, profound, clean, unequivocal, and resonate.  It was momentus and miraculous. We had stepped into a new way to be together, and everyone knew there was no going back.

The inspiration

While such unity in a group is extremely rare, it is also profoundly important. It indicates what is possible, and shows powerful ways forward.

What happened that Fall day?  Why was such a profound shift possible?

Here are a few key factors:

• We knew each other well.
• There was strong shared purpose: We all wanted what was best for the community as a whole.
• We’d all been part of the community for 2 or more years.
• Everyone trusted guided visualization as a way to make decisions.

Perhaps the most important difference, though, was that each of us had experienced the difference between what happened when small “s” self was in the driver’s seat, and when we were wise enough to be guided by big “S” Self. We had a kind of maturity — to be able to surrender what we wanted at the personality level when this didn’t line up with insights from within.

This “difference that makes the difference” is huge, and is the impetus for the body of work called Make Light Work.

This is inner work run amok.  It’s ass backwards.

When you focus on clearing away “all the baggage”, you end up having more baggage to clear — endless amounts. Kinda like the “War on Poverty/Crime/Terrorists”.  We get more of what we focus on….

The only baggage you need to clear is what comes up on your way as you move forward.

Here’s a simple visual, thanks to some training I had in Psychosynthesis. (I don’t know how to get my computer to include the images directly in the blog….)

The upper triangle represents our higher self/potential, the lower triangle represents current reality, including our baggage.

As we move toward our potential, the two triangles start to overlap, and we are called to deal with issues — starting with just the tip of the lower triangle.

The more we achieve our potential, the more we must deal with issues.  But we don’t have to deal with everything.  There are big parts of the lower triangle that don’t need to be cleared for us to embody our potential.

Both our potential, and our baggage are infinite.  Optimum health is represented by a six pointed star that gets bigger and bigger.  Our humanity means we all, always, have baggage.

I’m appreciating the reminder myself: Only clear what comes up on your way to what you want.