(everything is alway incomplete - pls comment and improve - all referened slidesets have commenting rights)
The 7+1 Global Shadows
We can all see how the world is changing rapidly. With the framework of the 7+1 Global Shadows we can make better sense of what is going on. Most drastic events fall into one of the 7 categories. Once we see these 7 Global Shadows we can also see, how they are interacting and often enhancing each other.
See the slideset for more information: The 7+1 Global Shadows
The 4fold Connection
Can you observe with other and yourself the temptation to look away, not to read the news, because we want to avoid to get overwhelmed, feeling powerless?
If we are a private person this may be a valid approach. But what if I am responsible for a team, an organization? I need to open my eyes to what is going on and how we need to set sails - and at the same time looking at the Global and Local Shadows can be burdensome.
Being in connection with myself, others,Nature and/or the Greater can make the difference. Each connection can be a door to another one. For many it feels that connecting is a rememberance that the connection has been there all along.
People experience that when we are aware of this connection we can look at things with more open eyes, less reactive, with more capacity.
See the slideset: The 4fold Connection
The 9 Elements of the NewGoodLife
If we listen to people who offer us solutions for these Global Shadows (one or all of them), they often address one aspect: "Technology will save us", or "Back to Nature", or "we need to stand together" etc.
These approaches often ignore that we are dealing not just with a "polycrisis", many crisis coming together, but with a "metacrisis": Something how we are doing things is basically wrong.
You may have heard the quote that all complex problems have a simple solution - which is wrong.
It seems we need an approach for the big and our small problems, complex enough, while accessible for our minds and hearts.
The 9 Elements of the NewGoodLife are an attempt to offer exactly that.
We need different ingredients for a NewGoodLife. Each element can be too strong or too weak. Together they are complete. The application of an element in a certain context generates always new approaches. Life does not copy-paste.
The different elements and their gifts for a NGL (from left to right): Soil / Air / Breath / Metal / Tree / Stone / Fire / Water / Crystal / Lotus
Find here the slideset to go deeper: The 9 Elements of the NewGoodLife; all Patterns
Circles of Influence and Concern
Now let´s assume that now we feel centered enough to look at what is going on, and also have some understanding which ingredients / elements could support me: Where to start? How to avoid wasting my energy while forgetting relevant aspects?
In this model we differentiate different layers of control:
- What is it that I really control myself?
- Where can I steer, having significant influence and responsibility?
- Where can I influence without having the main responsibility?
- What is of concern, relevant for me and what want to do?
- Everything else is "noise" with the danger of sucking energy out of my system.
See here for the slideset to go deeper: Circles of Influence and Concern
Active Accepting Hope
When dealing with Global Shadows and their impacts on ourselves, our organizations, our children etc, we tend to experience very different emotions.
The model of "Active Accepting Hope" picks up the "Phases of Grief" (Kübler-Ross) and turns it into a dialectical approach: Holding the ambiguity of hope and hopelessness, action and powerlessness.
See the slides to go deeper: Active Accepting Hope
The Balanced Approach
Here is another approach to dialectically balance the polarities we experience, helping us to incorperate the healthy aspects while avoiding to tip into unhealthy extremes.
- Reflective Foresight: Emotional connection to future possibilities, envisioning positive outcomes (e.g., storytelling, imagining sustainable futures).
- Strategic Action: Proactively working toward long-term goals, systemic change, or innovation (e.g., policy advocacy, organizing movements).
- Mindful Presence: Gratitude, connection to the now, appreciating small joys (e.g., enjoying nature, practicing mindfulness).
- Grounded Action: Addressing immediate needs, taking small, meaningful steps (e.g., community gardening, acts of kindness).
Here the slides: The Balanced Approach
The Transformational Canvas
How can we make sense of change and transformation?
This framework
- enables us to differentiate incremental changes from vertical transformation,
- introduces the aspect of DNA (where does it come from, what is still alive, the essence?),
- offers the metaphors of "Museum" (the place for things that have been part of the past, but no longer have a place in the present),
- hints at the basement (things that are not dealt with and that may hinder the healthy evolution of the system),
- at the relevance of the environment that is impacting the system.
See here for the slides: The Transformational Canvas
At last now the
NGL Basic Premises and Challenging Invitations
The 4 Basic Premises
- A Great Turning is unfolding - and it needs a Great Turning from us as humans, as humanity.
- We do not know exactly what is coming.
- What we do know is that the way we are doing things now is a source of the problems we are facing. And it is no longer working for what is coming.
- The NewGoodLife is a container term for a Good Life in the future for all of us - a life we sense will be quite different from what we can now conceptualize, and whose specific forms remain an unfolding discovery.
The 8 challenging Invitations
- Realizing our shared complicity: We see it's not 'us vs. them,' but all of us interconnected within the system.
- Allowing and integrating our experiences of denial, anger, hopism, and grief.
- Answering the call to co-create the NewGoodLife - an evolving journey for ourselves, our loved ones, and all beings, present and future.
- Engaging as whole individuals - body, mind, heart, and soul - while seeking and offering connection, as we all need others to walk alongside.
- Embracing our agency: What each of us does makes a difference, and we move beyond using others' actions (or inactions) as an excuse.
- Integrating our diverse societal roles and responsibilities (private, professional, citizen) by thinking, feeling, and acting from a place of wholeness.
- Embodying the NewGoodLife now as we co-create its future.
- Approaching the NewGoodLife as an evolving inquiry: It offers direction, not dogma, and thrives on our collective input for continuous refinement.
see here to also see the german version and also to comment / suggest improvements: Premises and Invitations
As mentioned above: You are invited to comment in the document if you find mistakes, find something missing or unclear etc. Thanks!