Over time @Chris Burton has created a living hub to discuss inner development, sustainability and regenerative futures. This in person session took place in Switzerland on Tuesday evening. We discussed pressure, presence, and creating behavioral shift with the help of a facilitator. I was really happy to catch up with so many vibrant professionals! What conversations have you been having this week to nurture you and the social field?

Over a decade ago I took the 8week course created by Jon Kabat-Zin on Mindfulness Based Stess Reduction and it has been a game changer. Here is a fabulous new article written by Christine Wamsler and her colleagues making clear linkages to the importance of cultivating a healthy inner world to be in true connection with each other, our communities and to nature. Here is an excerpt from the article: “Understanding the roots of today’s polycrisis points to the cultural narratives underlying modern societies. Scholars and practitioners increasingly identify a dominant social paradigm of separation or alienation as a key driver of today’s interconnected crises (Eisenstein 2013; Göpel 2016; Wamsler and Bristow 2022). This paradigm assumes that human thinking minds are distinct from feelings and bodIES, that people are separate from one another, that some are superior to others, and that humanity is separate and superior to the natural world (Scott et al. 2021). In modern societies, many people are increasingly unconscious of their emotions, bodily sensations, and deeper values, influenced by factors such as trauma, denial, digital distractions, and pervasive busyness. As a result, individual behavior is often driven by fear- or incentive-based motivations rather than by social, affiliative, or caring ones. Modern societies dominated by consumption, power, and achievement increasingly marginAlize values of care, connection, and affiliation. To make matters worse, these disconnections—from self, others, and nature—mutually reinforce each other, and disconnection from our environment mirrors and reinforces disconnection from ourselves (Hawken 2021; Wamsler and Bristow 2022). For instance, diminished body awareness impairs empathy, weakens social identity, and undermines a sense of meaning and belonging (Bristow et al. 2022; Scott et al. 2021). Today’s polycrisis is therefore also described as a crisis of perception or meaning, intrinsically linked to what has been……”https://rdcu.be/eRJFj

@Nadene Canning last week mentioned a webinar on a new kind of economy, and really interesting it was. Joe Swinson, a former UK MP and leader of the Liberal Democrate party summerised the new economy as Regenerative rather than extractive; Interdependence rather than Neoliberalism; and long-term timelines. Chris Monaghan of Metabolic most interesting finding from their report is a need to "fill the Burger". Namely, the gap between Policy & Grassroots and replicating & scaling up what works. The number of organisations involved in the New Economy and the diversity of funding was nice to hear. As was more political and economic involvement. Interestingly the report suggests that language, as in specific terminology, was not considered to be a barrier. Though clear accessible language gets people involved and willing to learn more. A really interesting webinar. The New Economy is one we all need to help put in place.

Neoliberal capitalism might be nearing its end. A new kind of economy is being built. Its happening in real time. Zohran Mamdani caught the headlines, but something just as radical is quietly bubbling away in Europe. Crazily, its coming from the very places that birthed Colonialism and Empire, the very extractive systems that continue to underpin modern day capitalism. The number of organisations working to build a new, holistic economic system is accelerating in Europe, with almost half of them founded in the last decade (link to the full story in comments, below). As the map below shows, there is a growing West-East divide on where those organisations come from. The UK, Germany, France, Spain and Belgium have the highest number of organisations dedicated to building a new type of economy, spawning new ideas such as housing collectives and community energy projects. That number begins to plummet the further east you go, with ingrained cultural resistance playing its part. Still, we all feel the exploitative roots of neoliberal capitalism. Minorities have long known this more than anyone - from the indigenous Sami people, under threat from the extraction of their ancestral lands because of 'self sufficiency' directives from the European Union, to British Bangladeshis like my own family working low-pay, dangerously frontline gig economy jobs during the Covid pandemic. If you're interested in learning what a new type of economy might look like, come and join my online conversation with Jo Swinson at Partners for a New Economy and Chris Monaghan of Metabolic next week with Alliance magazine, on Thursday 20th November (registration and time details here): https://lnkd.in/eienFCjm Thank you Shafi Mussadique for this!

Here is the new updated guide with the explanation of each them and related competencies. Also included is the Translator version for those of you working in other languages