Transcript of Nurturing Inner Development for Sustainability - Christine Wamsler

[Music] thank you we'll answer how inner personal development contributes to Collective and system change we need to get to the bottom of three key aspects these are the nature of our current sustainability crisis the nature of complex systems involved and the associated mind sustainability Nexus let's start with the first aspect the nature of our current sustainability crisis in contrast to mainstream thinking we are increasingly understanding that sustainability crisis such as climate change have one common denominator or root cause they are a reflection of an inner human crisis of disconnection or separation from self others and nature that is grounded in our modern society's social Paradigm this Paradigm is based on the understanding that our thinking mind is separate from our feelings and bodily emotions that we are all step right from each other that some humans are superior to others and that we humans are separate and superior to the rest of the natural world addressing sustainability crisis that requires a shift away from such exploitative paradigms to more relational regenerative mindsets so it's about becoming a more caring Society instead of relentlessly and increasingly exhausting ourselves others and the planet this brings us to the second key aspect since this change involves engaging in complex systems both individually and collectively and this is challenging because complex systems are fundamentally different for machines they emerge they undergo a self-organization process that ultimately shapes the state they are in and this state derives from the relay relationship patterns within the system so consequently system transformation is about changing relationship patterns and addressing inner Dimensions that influence these relationships addressing such inner Dimensions that requires an in-depth understanding of the Mind sustainability Nexus which brings us to the third key aspect in short my research shows that we can divide the intersection of mind and today's sustainability crisis into three categories our minds are a victim of related impacts a barrier to adequate action and as mentioned previously the key driver or root cause of sustainability crisis the net result is a vicious cycle of deteriorating individual Collective and planetary well-being put together the presenter three key aspects provide an understanding of how inner and outer change are co-created they show our potential and agency to support change and are tapping into this potential is about supporting capacities and conditions for reconnection such capacities are called transformative capacities or inner development goals that have been identified in emergent research in simple terms there are three key capacities it's about relational being relational thinking and relational acting a vast range of more specific qualities and skills is available to support them and they are to some extent individual and context specific as are the methods that can support them the inner development goals framework is a communication tool that is aimed to educate transformative capacities for sustainability theoretically these capacities are reflected in the so-called inner outer transformation model which were recently developed and this model shows that transformative capacities and Associated intermediary factors such as well-being influence sustainability because they relate to certain world news beliefs and values that delineate our connections our relationships with ourselves others in nature the model also indicates that there are three complementary ways to support such change across individual Collective and system levels at individual level it involves implementing measures like education training and coaching that can help a person to tap into their inner potential to support change measures at the collective or group level aim to support related learning environments to create a culture of growth and nourished fields of change finally measures at the system level aim to support policy integration in order to systematically mainstream the consideration of transformative capacities and intrinsic values into existing institutional and policy systems so to sum up the presented three key aspects show that inner personal development is intrinsically entangled with Collective and systems change thank you [Music]