Aayla Ahmad is video blogging about our Building Conscious Use of Power module because in her words, "...what use is training and education if you don't share?" We asked her if we could post her video blogs so you could get a sense of the program and perhaps benefit from her first hand experience.

The inaugural “Building Strong & Respectful Relationships” program was a resounding success.  Participants from all walks of life attended the intensive six day program on Gabriola Island.

I recently heard an interview on my local public radio with a young woman on her struggle to learn the violin. She wrote a blog piece about it called The Virtue of Being Bad and concludes that being bad at something and persevering nonetheless is a virtue.

I'm a cyclist, and in summer, I spend hours and hours sharing the road with cars. Mostly I try to avoid very busy roads, but at times, it's inevitable. Thanks goodness I've never had an accident involving a car, but there have been a few tense moments, mostly involving Winnebagos on Highway 101 on the Oregon Coast. They always seem to pass me just as the shoulder gives way, on a steep ascent coming around a major headland, with a 20 mph gust of wind coming from the north, making my bike wobble in one direction, while the draft of the Winnebago pulls me sideways in the other direction.

(First of a five part series of unconventional reflections on race)

We all enter into new relationships full of hope that our dreams and passions for life can be expressed and fulfilled with and through others - whether with a life partner, family member, friend or colleague.

And all of us get stuck somewhere as these relationships play out. Often the root of where we get stuck is the desire to be "right" about our world view. We let our self-righteousness trump the potential for working through differences with others.

So where do things start to go sideways?

The inaugural “Building Personal Mastery” program was a resounding success, 31 participants from all walks of life attended the intensive eight day program on Gabriola Island.  People left the program with a renewed sense of what is possible and the tools to identify and work through their self-limiting patterns.  They went back to their lives with a genuine felt sense of being able to change and not be at the mercy of old patterns. 

"Truth is such a rare thing; it is delightful to tell it." - Emily Carr

In my own journal-writing, I always try to tell the "truth". Of course, I know I do not have a handle on the truth; it's a slippery business, infinitely changeable and completely dependent upon who is telling it. In the context of journal-writing, rather than trying to tell "the truth," it makes more sense to aim to tell "my truth," which is an entirely different matter.

If you want to bend your mind around a new way of considering the dynamics of social change, check out this video. Frances Wesley, a well-known academic and writer, presents her ideas on the need for collaboration between emergent forces (social activists and innovators) and institutional forces (the "dominant regime").

WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEO

In our daily lives, we strive away at accomplishing our ideals. If you’re a change agent, these ideals are often linked to a better world (no small task). So we strive to make a difference in a social justice issue that impacts those we care about or to bring greater awareness of an environmental issue we are passionate about.

Our ego is a set of instinctive and automatic defensive routines and unconscious strategies, developed over the years, driven by an urge to protect - or inflate - the image we have of ourselves, and the one we want others to have of us.

We've developed remarkable defences to ensure we don't re-experience the things we are afraid of and we focus our energies on the things we want to prove to ourselves and the world. In the meantime, we get exhausted.

Our evaluation of our worth is mostly benchmarked in comparison to others.

Listening is a challenging skill.

We often stop listening when we think we’ve got the gist of what the other person is trying to communicate without checking if they are complete. We simply switch our attention to what we want to say or disengage entirely.

The result is the illusion that communication has taken place when in fact our inability to listen has limited our understanding of interactions we have with others.

Ask Yourself

Nelson Mandela is one of my heroes. The 92-year-old former president of South Africa and Nobel laureate has used his own self-knowledge and compassion to avert major bloodshed in his country. His compassionate understanding of what was in the hearts and minds of his opponents guided his actions. He was able to maintain his vision and integrity while navigating through the many pressures leadership brings.

The difference between racialised and ethno-cultural identities

In the previous blog I unpacked the notion of privilege, with the question "when am I White?" Now I know some of you were thinking, "but I’'m not white, I'm Jewish or Irish or Italian" etc. And while this is true "culturally speaking", we live in a world that is racialised; where people are seen for the colour of their skin and treated based on it.

C’est la première fois que j’écris dans la blogosphère  je suis un peu inquiète, me demandant si ce que j’ai à dire vaut la peine d’être lu! J’ai reçu une demande et, comme je ne sais pas dire « non », j’ai dit « oui ».

Pourquoi « Branchés, débranchés »? Parce que je suis irritée et inquiète quand je vois des gens interrompre une conversation pour répondre au téléphone cellulaire, écrire des textos dans une assemblée, répondre à des courriels pendant une session de formation.

The blog on the 'joy' of feedback got me thinking about my own learnings about giving and receiving feedback in ways that promote transformation and connection rather than isolation and fragmentation. And how much that has informed my personal life, my activism, my work as an educator and psychotherapist. But then I got to thinking about my current experience, living in an environment where this kind of engaged sharing does not happen much. I've been in Rwanda the past eight months and, aside from rare moments, I've had to learn how to live without feedback.

What's hearing how others see you got to do with being an effective change agent?

While the idea of philanthropy is far from new, its implications have become much broader. While the definition "a love of mankind" does resonate with me, I would alter that slightly to 'a compassion for humanity, a feeling and understanding for the suffering of the world'.

You know them, all in your face and demanding for their causes, but have no clue about themselves, all self-righteous. Yes they’re passionate and yes they are fighting for a voice, but they fail to see the power they do hold; they only see the power they don’t. In particular, they fail to see the power they hold that helps get their voice heard.

I got an email the other day from a colleague and I felt like my tail had been stepped on, I was 'pinched'. My mind chatter went off in its usual direction when I think I am being controlled for selfish reasons. I was convinced they were putting their excessive need for order right into my lap. I was annoyed and dismissive immediately. If I had sat down and reacted right away, its tenor would likely have reflected my righteous indignation with over tones of "why can't you be more like me" carefully woven into my "reasonable and rational" response.

With my best intentions in place, my hope for co-creating with others has easily slide through my fingers. In those times, my allies look like enemies and I feel the threads of burnout pulling at me. And my mind chatter is telling me I am going to have to do this myself - or it will never get done.

I'm sure you despair like I do over whether we humans will survive the next century. Can we shift our consciousness and create a compassionate civilization? Can we expand our capacity for empathy and become a compassionate global community working together to save our shared biosphere?

I think so! We are soft wired for compassion.

Ego Mind Chatter: "So you're going to write a Blog are you? First off, make sure that by the end of the blog, you have convinced readers what a smart person you are. And see if you can work in how funny and wise you are too. Oh and don’t forget to watch out for that self centred Mr. Know-it-all thing you do."

Heart & Spirit: "But why can't I just speak honestly without all the image management stuff?"

What could building personal mastery mean to you as a change agent?