I think this little excerpt from David Whyte’s poem beautifully illustrates the paradoxical nature of being human.

We each have an outer Onstage life of work and family and relationships. These are the things that other people can see about us, perhaps the things we want them to see about us. These include our professional and social masks, our different roles and responsibilities at work and home, our social media presence, our qualifications, expertise, reputation and influence.

The Onstage life is very much the focus of our western culture. The work that we do, how much we achieve, and how we look while we’re doing it. These things are highly regarded, so this encourages us to focus our attention externally.

But the flipside is we also have a Backstage Life, that private and personal internal part of our Self that we may seldom share with others.  This is where we hold our deepest values and beliefs, the things we love and hate, our hopes and dreams, self-doubts, fears, and prejudices. Very few people may get to meet our Backstage self because it doesn’t feel safe to share her openly, so we keep her hidden away.  It doesn’t help that many workplace cultures encourage people to leave their personal inner lives at the door with a clear separation between one’s professional and personal life.  Sometimes we hide our inner self so successfully, we risk losing touch with her ourselves.

But when we strive to be authentic and to show up as our true selves in our life and work, our inner and outer lives need to be in closer alignment.  This is much easier said than done though, because just as David Whyte’s words suggest, the relationship between our inner and outer lives is in a constant state of flux.
 
For instance, if you’ve ever had a sense of overwhelm with too many competing demands and flooded with urgent emails, or perhaps you’ve felt overlooked or unappreciated for a job well done, then you’ll be aware of how negative feelings can chew away inside and affect your outer mood and openness. Similarly, when we have positive inner feelings, these brighten our outlook and our mood. The way we show up in our outer life and interactions reflects our inner state, and this in turn, affects the quality of our interactions.
 
So there’s a constant interplay between our inner state and the way we show up in our outer life and the situations we encounter. One affects the other, and vice versa.  We’ll have some days when things are going well, and we show up with an open heart and an open mind.  And then there’ll be other days when some interaction may have sparked our inner fears which causes us to be more defensive than usual and less open to feedback we don’t want to hear. I imagine you’ve all experienced days when you’ve felt disheartened on the inside but have worn a brave face for the world. 
 
This is why regular reflective practice and growing one’s self-understanding is as important and valuable as developing one’s professional knowledge. Personal and professional development need to go hand in hand.   Authenticity and trustworthiness cannot be plastered on externally. This comes from within, and it requires an ongoing exploration of one’s inner ground, of getting to know one’s ‘whole’ self - both the light and shadow, strengths and limits, hopes and fears.  As Parker Palmer says, the most important thing we bring to our work and leadership is our Self and our ability to weave connections between ourselves and others, and the work we’re trying to do.
 
Connecting ‘who we are’ with ‘what we do’ lies at the heart of the Courage & Renewal® approach. Courage & Renewal retreats offer a unique and transformative approach to personal and professional development that deepens reflective practice, self-awareness, and interpersonal skills; replenishes well-being; and fosters closer alignment between one’s inner and outer lives.  This work is based on the belief that personal and organizational growth, and meaningful change always begins within.  Our internal life is central to our overall well-being.
 
When we know and trust ourselves – who we are and what we stand for – we’re better able to recognise and manage ego-led behaviour and show up in our outer lives with courage and integrity. Trustworthiness and courage are hallmarks of authentic presence and leadership.
 
You can find information about my next day retreat here.  If you’d like to learn more about my work, please don’t hesitate to contact me.  I’d love to hear from you.  

• What are your hopes for the year ahead?
• What questions does 2024 hold for you?
• Are there skills and practices you want to develop in yourself and your organisation?
• Are there tensions in your life and leadership that you would like to explore and hold more creatively?
• What growth edges are you facing?

Courage & Renewal retreats offer focused space where we explore important questions like these for personal and professional development. Professional and personal development always go hand-in-hand because profound change begins firstly with people’s inner transformation, which then shows up in their outer lives as deeper self-understanding, greater clarity of purpose, more courage to follow dreams and to step into leadership, and improved capacity to create trustworthy and effective community.

It takes courage to show up in our lives and work as our authentic selves, to stand up for what we believe in, to face our fears and challenges, and to lead meaningful lives of integrity.

So the question then becomes: What would you do with more courage?

If you would like to experience this unique approach to personal, professional and organisational development, my colleague, Greg Sunter and I are offering a weekend retreat - Growing Edges: Tending the inner ground of our life & work - in Auckland in March 2024. You can find further information at the link above.

Don’t miss out on Early bird registrations which close on 31 January.

At Courage & Renewal retreats our personal and shared reflections are guided by metaphor and insights from poets, storytellers, and various wisdom traditions. So here’s one of Mark Nepo's evocative poems for your reflection ….

Breaking Surface

Let no one keep you from your journey,
no rabbi or priest, no mother
who wants you to dig for treasures
she misplaced, no father
who won't let one life be enough,
no lover who measures their worth
by what you might give up,
no voice that tells you in the night
it can't be done.


Let nothing dissuade you
from seeing what you see
or feeling the winds that make you
want to dance alone
or go where no one
has yet to go.

You are the only explorer.
Your heart, the unreadable compass.
Your soul, the shore of a promise
too great to be ignored.

- Mark Nepo -
(Retrieved from marknepo.com)

AT THE EDGE
 
It’s scary and breathtaking living at the edge
of our lives
just us, the edge and the vast unknown
and echoing down the valley of our hearts
the constant call to trust.
 
Yet how quickly that edge becomes a settled place
without an echo
a niche to line and realign till we feel satisfied
lulled into complacency by the now safe edge
our satisfaction undermined by a new awareness
calling us from beyond the edge
​of who we have become.
 
Noel Davis
– Together at the Edge: Trust Me, 2011.

​The arrival of spring always lifts my energy and spirits.  One day I notice the bare wintry branches of our huge oak tree have suddenly become a light green haze of emerging leaves, then only a few days later the tree has been transformed into full leafy green and once again the herons are busy flying in and out building their nests.  
 
Spring always takes me outside and into my garden. My mind goes to the season of growing ahead. I start to make new plans, my enthusiasm grows along with my desire to get my hands in the soil, and I head off to the garden centre for inspiration.

Spring is also a time for me when I reflect on my own personal and professional growth. What’s wanting to emerge in my life? What am I feeling drawn towards? Right now, I’m feeling the urge towards embarking on new learning. I’m not sure what yet, but the thought is definitely buzzing around, and I’ve been mulling it over while I've been planting my new seedlings.
 
Spring is such a good reminder of how life moves in constant cycles. We all have times of abundance and times of scarcity in our lives, times of joy and times of grief, times of knowing we’re doing exactly what we’re meant to be doing and other times when we seem to have lost track, times of growth and times of consolidation, sometimes stagnation.
 
It doesn’t matter our age or stage in life and work. There is always the possibility of something new emerging in our lives – a new idea, a new understanding, a new undertaking, a new purpose. 
 
Spring is a reminder of these growing edges in our lives and work. These are our personal learning edges between what we know and can comfortably do, and the unknown new territory we may be feeling drawn or pushed toward.  Sometimes we resist going beyond the familiar into zones of discomfort, because, as poet Noel Davis says, it can be scary at this learning edge when we must face our fear of ‘not knowing’ and the possibility of getting it wrong. But our growing edges are also exciting places, rich with new life and tremendous potential for personal and professional growth.
​

• What growing edges are you facing at this time in your life and work?
• What are you feeling nudged or drawn towards?

If you’re interested to explore the growing edges of your life and work and the challenges and possibilities they bring, this is an invitation to join me and my Australian colleague, Greg Sunter, in Auckland next March for our Courage & Renewal® weekend retreat - Growing Edges: Tending the inner ground of our life & work. This will be a unique kind of professional and personal development that aims to deepen self-awareness and interpersonal skills, and renew personal energy and vitality.
 
Organisations also have growing edges, and the Courage & Renewal® movement in New Zealand is currently in an exciting period of new growth with three new Facilitators-in-preparation - Sandy Robertson, Michele Coombridge and Sarah Court. I’m delighted to be sharing their learning journey  and am looking forward to the new ground we will explore together in the future. 

​If you'd like to learn more about my work, please get in touch.

I’ve always been a keen gardener, and when I first turned my green fingers to vegetable gardening, I was thinking more about aesthetics than the harvest. So I planted colourful silverbeet and red cabbages amongst the greenery, which looked fabulous, but I knew little about how I might include them in our meals. So at first, much of my harvest was wasted.
 
My crops of courgettes, beans and broccoli flourished but it was a few seasons before I had learned to co-ordinate their harvest with our supermarket shopping list. It’s all very well being able to grow vegetables, but harvesting your crops requires an entirely different set of skills.
 
Vegetable gardening has been a personal journey of discovery for me. I realised that my scarcity mindset was behind my early resistance to harvesting my crops. Once I’d picked something, it was gone, my mind told me – finished.
 
This led me to learn about generative cycles of planting, growing, harvesting, and the need for fallow time, and now my garden always has crops underway at different stages. I think it’s a beautiful metaphor that reflects the various stages of all the things that might be going on in my life at any one time. New life events happening and ideas hatching, other things reaching fruition, while some are nearing their end and are ready to be composted. The garden teaches me about life cycles within life cycles.
 
Today I’m much more attuned to harvesting the fruits of my garden, although I currently have an abundance of tomatoes on my kitchen bench that is causing me some harvest stress. I’ve taken some to the community surplus fruit and vegetable stall down the road and I’ve had my first attempt at making Annabel Langbein’s Harvest Tomato Sauce which is delicious, so now I’m learning how I might preserve my harvests for future use. I know there are other life lessons worth exploring in this analogy.
 
I’ve also learned that certainty and perfection are not in a gardener’s vocabulary, because every year conditions are different and I need to deal with what shows up and to try new approaches.
 
And so my garden continues to teach me ….
 
Harvesting our Gifts is the theme for my upcoming Courage & Renewal day retreat in Tauranga on Saturday 20 May 2023 - Harvesting our Gifts: Drawing on the Wisdom of Autumn.

This is an invitation to give yourself some time away from life's busyness to reflect on your life and/or work, your personal qualities and gifts, and the opportunity to gain some clarity about where you're at, where you're heading, and what matters most to you at this time in your life. Please note Early Bird registrations close on 20 April.
 
Meanwhile, happy gardening!

Here we are nearly at the end of 2022, and upheaval and disruption continue to be the norm.  

Weekly we hear stories from around the globe of extreme weather events, environmental disasters, and social upheaval – often heartbreaking stories of flood, fire, human hardship and loss.
Inflation and economic uncertainty are the latest bad news stories to be stirring up fears for the future, and meanwhile, the horrors of the war in Ukraine have been going on for nearly a year.
And of course, COVID is still with us, now part of the New Normal that we’re all learning to live with.

I feel like these past couple of years have been a crash-course on how to live with uncertainty and disruption.
So how are you faring through it all? What have you learned along the way?
 
There have been times this year when I’ve felt overwhelmed by the sheer mountain of bad news and human and environmental suffering. I’ve had to work out how to hold my feelings of guilt and powerlessness. 
 
But I’ve also noticed a growing change within. These days I feel more “at home” with myself, more deeply connected to who I am and the things that matter most to me - those things that bring a deep sense of purpose, connection and love to my life. My family, my garden, my home, my various communities, my yoga and mindfulness practices, Mother Earth.  My Courage & Renewal work remains a central focus to my life, but today I’m less busy, less striving, less driven to achieve things, less of a perfectionist. Every day I feel a deep sense of gratitude. And also contentment (which sometimes can feel like a radical act in our achievement-focused culture).  But there is so much in my life that I’m grateful for. 
 
As I look to the New Year ahead, I’m delighted and excited to be part of a growing community of talented Courage & Renewal practitioners here in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the new opportunities for personal and professional development they will bring with them! I'll be notifying dates and details of upcoming events early next year.
 
Meanwhile, I’m sending warm wishes to you for a joyful, restful, and connected Christmas break with your loved ones, and also the gift of some end-of-year questions as you reflect on the year that was and the New Year that lies ahead:
 
What gifts did the year bring you?
What have you loved and learned along the way?
What seeds did you plant this year?  What came to fruition?
How has the year changed you?
What do you choose to carry forward to the New Year and what do you choose to let go of?

Take a moment to imagine an organization or community where mutual trust is a core value.
Where people respect and care for each other, both personally and professionally.
Where they trust each other to do their jobs well and with integrity.
Where they feel safe to speak truthfully and know they will be heard with an open mind.
Where they have permission to make mistakes and learn from them.
Where people keep their word. They do what they say they’re going to do.
Where people are courageous. They don’t avoid difficult conversations and issues.
Where trustworthy relationships with all stakeholders are a top priority.

Imagine the possibilities.
For growth, achievement, enjoyment and satisfaction.
For personal wellbeing and success.
For corporate wellbeing and success.
Imagine how quickly we could get things done.
How much more readily we could deal with conflict and change.
How creativity might flourish.
Imagine the positive impact on the triple bottom line.

I get excited when I imagine organizations like this. Trust is the foundation for doing good work together. This is the kind of place I want to be part of. Doesn’t everybody?

So why isn’t the need for a high-trust culture top of most organizational agendas? Could it be that trust struggles to get a foothold amongst the competition and ladder climbing common to most corporate cultures today?

Perhaps it’s because it is fear that prevails in these cultures, not trust, which means people are more motivated to keep their heads below the parapet. And they don’t have each other’s backs because they’re too busy watching their own. In these places creativity is likely to be stifled, decision-making to be risky and tortuous, and stress levels high. The people who thrive will be the politically savvy ones. The ones who have worked out that it’s important to cc as many people as possible into emailed instructions to ensure they spread the net of responsibility for decisions they’ve made. The ones who schedule their emails to go out at 10.30pm as evidence of their long working hours and dedication to the job.

Trust? I don’t think so. In these kinds of places, trust doesn’t have a look-in.

The problem with the traditional approach to leadership is that it’s based on a need for power and control, which is achieved through the dynamics of hierarchy, the setting of objective, measurable outcomes and a reporting regime of hard data as proof of achievement. There’s no place here for uncertainty or ‘beginner’s mind’ or wishy-washy concepts like trust.

And then there’s the hectic pace and demands of our work lives today that keep our attention scattered on the many outward tasks to be achieved. Multi-tasking becomes our second nature and “I’m too busy” our common catchphrase. Under these conditions it’s difficult to justify putting time aside for introspection and personal growth.

But trust comes first in the Rebel’s Guide to Leadership. True leadership can’t be faked. It can’t be plastered on to a shaky personal foundation. True leadership comes from within, so we must begin with ourselves, with inner work and self-reflection and a commitment to understanding what makes us tick. I’m talking about our deepest values and motivations. Our strengths and our limits. Our hopes and our fears. Our light and our shadow. Yes, it’s a recurring theme in the Rebel’s Guide, but this is the vital groundwork. How can we trust others if we don’t fully know and trust ourselves?

When we have a deep trust in ourselves, this flows naturally into our outer lives. It’s mirrored in the actions we take, in our choices, responses and relationships, in our leadership. It gives us the courage to show up with authenticity and integrity. The courage to extend trust to others, to loosen the shackles of fear that keep us quietly suspicious of others’ motives. Can I really trust this person? is a question we often ask ourselves of another. When we offer trust to others, we’re more likely to receive trust in return. In this way we grow trustworthy relationships in which people flourish, as does creativity, collaboration and the conditions for positive change.

Building trust doesn’t happen overnight though. It emerges as a result of our ongoing daily interactions with one another. Trust builds up, and can be knocked down, just like the balance in a bank account. When we are authentic with each other, when we keep our word, when we acknowledge that we’re all human, that we’re not perfect, that we don’t know all the answers. When we allow our personal lives to become part of our professional lives. Many workplace cultures require people to leave their personal lives at the door. Then we wonder why people are disengaged at work and attrition levels so high (Gallup).
​

• Is there a part of yourself that you leave outside your work life?

So how do we create the conditions for trust to grow? Trusting one another doesn’t mean we have to be best friends. However, it does mean we need to care for and respect each other and our differences.

1. Put aside hierarchy and power dynamics, show up as human and create the conditions for others to do so. Ask for help when needed, be prepared to show vulnerability.
2. An effective way of disrupting traditional power dynamics is to establish group guidelines for how you want to work together. For example, in my work as a facilitator and organizational consultant, I use Courage & Renewal Circle of Trust® guidelines known as touchstones. These touchstones create the boundary markers for trustworthy space in which people can show up with authenticity and integrity and engage in meaningful, open-hearted conversation.
3. Let go of perfection and the need for certainty, the need to know all the answers.
4. Welcome diversity, creativity and curiosity.
5. Practise and encourage deep listening. Welcome others’ perspectives.
6. Ask generous, open questions that invite exploration, enquiry and authenticity.
7. Foster community, collaboration and shared leadership.
8. Model reflective practice. Combine personal and professional development. Develop and encourage mindfulness practices.

·        COURAGE & RENEWAL TOUCHSTONES
​                             (a brief version)

• Give and receive welcome.
• Be present as fully as possible.
• Extend invitation, not demand.
• Speak your truth in ways that respect other people’s truth.
• No fixing, saving, advising, or correcting each other.
• When the going gets rough, turn to wonder.
• Practise asking open, honest questions.
• Attend to your own inner teacher.
• Trust and learn from the silence.
• Commit to and maintain confidentiality.
• Know that it is possible for the seeds planted here to keep growing in the days ahead.

      (Find a full version of the Touchstones here ) 

© 2020 by Mennie Scapens
An excerpt from The Rebel's Guide to Leadership

I’m back.

You may not have missed me, but I’ve been in retreat from social media networks for a few months now. I’ve been in retreat from quite a lot actually - lying low - trying to figure out what on earth was going on and what I needed to do. I understood that I was impacted by these pandemic times, but I'd been beating myself up for my lack of resilience. What did I have to complain about when so many people were so much worse off?

But at my Circle of Trust retreat this past weekend – Navigating Life’s Changes with courage & integrity – it all came home to me.  

​I realized I was lost in the liminal space created by the Covid pandemic – that disorienting space of transition between letting go of ‘what once was’ and ‘what is yet to come’.

I asked participants this question:
 “Are there things you need to let go of to open more fully to what is to come?”

And I realized that I was holding on to and weighed down by a deep sense of resentment against the pandemic for how it has disrupted everything I know and love. I also recognised the abundance of choices I'm fortunate to have, and that the only thing holding me back was my resentment. Today it feels like a weight has rolled off my shoulders and I’m ready to embrace life again and have a go at the New Normal.  

When change happens in our lives, it always requires a period of transition when we must live with the change, experience it, adjust to it, until it becomes absorbed into our lives as the New Normal. Change always requires a letting go of what we once knew as Normal, and that’s what I have done.

Phew!

With deep gratitude to my mentor and friend, Judy Brown, for her poem ‘Trough’, which we used at the retreat to explore the theme of liminal space.

My birthday seemed an auspicious date to launch my new eBook - The Rebel’s Guide to Leadership.

The book weaves together stories from my personal rebel journey as co-founder and former principal of Matahui School in NZ with new theories of leadership and education. My purpose in writing the book is to encourage people to take a stand on things that matter to them, to challenge the status quo if necessary, to do what they can to help create a more compassionate, just and sustainable world. If you're uncomfortable with the idea of leadership, you may like Meg Wheatley’s definition of a leader as ‘anyone who is willing to help’.

In publishing The Rebel’s Guide to Leadership, I'm raising my rebel flag against the traditional, hierarchical leadership model, and also our society’s emphasis on achievements, affluence and appearance. Our culture has become so externally-focused, too many of us become disconnected from our own hearts and deepest values.

You can find out more about the book and download a free chapter here​.

Imagine  
 
Imagine with me for a moment –
don’t worry, I’m not saying it’s real.
Imagine, if you can, that there has been
not a calamity, but a great awakening.
Pretend, just for a moment,
that we so loved our threatened earth
that we stopped going on cruises,
limited international flights,
worked on cherishing the places
where we already are.
In this pretty fantasy, everyone who possibly can
stops commuting. Spends the extra time
with their kids or pets or garden.
We have the revelation that everyone
needs health care, sick leave, steady work.
It occurs to us that health care workers
are heroes.  Also teachers.
Not to mention artists of all kinds
who teach us resilience and joy.
Imagine, if you will,
that we turned to our neighbours
in mutual aid, trading eggs for milk,
checking on those who are elderly
or alone. Imagine that each of us
felt suddenly called to wonder
In this moment, what does the world
Need from me? What are my gifts?
Yes, I know it’s just a fantasy.
The world would never change
So radically overnight.
But imagine.
 
Lynn Ungar

On Saturday, at our final Circle of Trust retreat for the year, we considered the lovely paradox of giving and receiving, how giving and receiving can be simultaneous and interconnected acts, like breathing in and breathing out.  How we can’t have one without the other.  The idea that in giving, we receive.  In receiving we give.

Lots of joy and laughter was shared, and also a few tears, as we recalled the best gifts we have given in our lives, and the best gifts we have received.

For many of us, giving comes easily and naturally.  Receiving, on the other hand, can be more challenging.   

Perhaps this is because giving is linked to generosity, a desired virtue. 

Receiving isn’t usually seen in the same light though.  Receiving is often thought of as simply getting something.  It has a more ‘selfish’ connotation, which may be why many of us find it more difficult to receive, or to ask for something.  We don’t want to be seen as selfish or self-serving.

I’ve come to recognise this in myself, how I can too quickly brush off offers of help, even compliments, without considering them, not allowing them to penetrate an invisible wall I’ve created.  This may also be because I’m one of those people who likes to be capable and in control.  So, for me, there is also a sense of vulnerability that comes with receiving or asking for help. 
 
     What gets in the way of receiving for you? 
     What gets in the way of giving?

We humans are complex beings, and a comfortable relationship with giving and receiving may continue to be a work-in-progress.   But this is important inner work, because it offers a deepening understanding of our interdependence.  Giving and receiving are at the heart of our life-giving human connection, our need for each other.

Which leads to a couple more questions …..

     Can we give in a way that makes receiving easy?
     Can we receive in a way that makes giving easy?

Giving and receiving are at the heart of the Circle of Trust approach, which is based on the work of writer, teacher and social activist Parker J. Palmer.  In a Circle of Trust we give and receive the gift of welcome and non-judgement, we give and receive the gift of deep listening, we give and receive the gift of invitation and non-invasion, we give and receive the gift of silence and space for personal reflection and renewal.

The principles and practices we learn in a Circle of Trust can go with us into our personal and professional lives to help us grow and sustain trustworthy relationships and be more effective and resilient in the face of life's changes and challenges. 
 
If you'd like to experience a Circle of Trust retreat, please check out my 2020 calendar of day retreats.  And of course, you're welcome to contact me if you’d like to know more. 

Meanwhile I send you warm wishes for a restful and renewing break over the Christmas period, for happy times with loved ones, doing the things that sustain you and bring joy to your life.