Transcript of The field of inner transformation for sustainability: Science and practice

good morning everyone my name is Christine and I'm professor of sustainability science at Lun University I have been working in the field of sustainability for around 25 years now both in theory and in practice and in the next 25 minutes I will give you a very small glimpse into my field of work related science and their application in practice so in simple terms sustainability science is about finding solutions to complex Global challenges that threaten the existence of humanity and the planet examples are climate change biodiversity loss disasters Mental Health crisis poverty or War sustainability science and practice thus focus on existential threats and their inherent uncertainty and our work is then about developing knowledge for guiding actions that allow us to meet our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and the idea is really to think into seven generations into the future sustainability science and practice um um are that's based on a very broad vision and I would like to invite you to please close your eyes for a minute to imagine and get a feeling for this Vision so sit back and get quiet for a moment close your eyes and take one deep breath then imagine how a sustainable world would look and feel like imagine a world without poverty or hunger a world where everyone enjoys good health well-being quality education and gender equality everyone has access to clean water and sanitation and the world is powered by Clean Energy everyone lives in sustainable cities and community ities Life Below water is thriving so is life on Earth life on land we all feel safe knowing that our peace and Justice is governed by care driven institutions and meaningful Partnerships that help us to stay committed and evolve and grow together see yourself in this world and how you help to sustain it then take one deep breath and then you're welcome to open your eyes again what I have briefly summarized in our short contemplation are the sdgs the 17 development goals that world leaders agreed on in 2015 and that we committed to reach by 2013 it's a beautiful vision and something that is definitively worth working for but unfortunately our reality looks different in fact our so society's trajectories remain deeply unsustainable it is clear that our dominant sustainability approaches have not catalyzed the necessary change one reason for the situation is that the vast majority of sustainability scholarship education and practice has so far mainly focused on the external World ecosystems wi socio economic structures and technology in fact sustainability challenges are generally framed as external threats or crisis and we therefore try to address them with external primarily technical measures and this is simply because the way we Define problems automatically deter determines our responses to them a second aspect of reality has thus been vastly NE Ed our inner lives and inner capacities but what is changing the narrative now is that we are increasingly understanding that the threats and crisis we are facing are in fact a reflection of an inner human crisis but what does this mean and how did we get there it means that we are currently facing an interesting point in time on the one hand many of us are probably living the Utopia of their grandparents we should not forget all the positive things how fortunate we are most of us are probably enjoying the privilege of aive with Modern Health Care democracy and human rights at the same time the advancements that we are experiencing also have a downside or a kind of unintended side effect so we are seeing an ecological catastrophe together with a mental health crisis poverty and political trim oil and this situation relates amongst other things to the fact that we are living in an increasingly complex highly interdependent and fastpaced Ro world where threats in one area quickly become Global threats and we are experiencing exponential technological development with internet social media Etc the result is what we call a vuka world and vuka stands for volatility uncertainty complexity and ambiguity it describes the situation of constant unpredict change that is now the norm in many Industries and areas of today's world and the situation also affects our personal lives forcing us to constantly rush and to reorient or reinvent ourselves several times during our lifetime it is very easy to feel overwhelmed but if we look deeper we can see that the vuka world and the increasing threats we are facing are in fact a reflection of an inner human crisis they result from a kind of alienation which is an integral element of Modern Life they result from Modern society's Narrative of Separation which assumes that our thinking mind is separated from our feelings and bodily emotions that we are all separate 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 we therefore call this inner crisis also crisis of separation or a crisis of disconnection it manifests in our day daily lives where we are relentlessly and increasingly exhausting and exploiting ourselves others and the planet and sustainability is Dos about our inner rather than our outer World Gustaf spth former chair of the United Nations Development Group expressed this in the following way I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss ecosystem collapse and climate change I thought with 30 years of good science we could address those problems but I was wrong the top environmental problems are selfishness greed and empathy or in other words what we can see so the crises that Define our world today are just like the tip of the iceberg that is visible to us but around 90% is hidden and these are our underlying patterns of behavior and Associated structures as well as our mindsets that are ultimately responsible for grading the crisis that we see today so based on this understanding the question therefore becomes how we can then move from the a situation where we are relentlessly and increasingly exhausting and exploiting ourselves others and the planet towards a more caring and less sustainable society and this requires us to ask and address existential questions that as questions about our identity how we relate and how we are connected to ourselves others and the world around us and in turn this requires us to to ask how we can then unleash our inner potential to care and commit to affecting change for a better life and to support individual Collective and planetary well-being so over the past few years I and other Scholars have increasingly taken up these questions and our work has led to the emergence of a new field of work and this new field has different names such as inner transformation for sustainability or integrated inner Auto transformation or even existential sustainability because of that existential question that it poses um and related work supports new narratives and Pathways that can better address the root causes of today's poly crisis as summarized in the Imagine framework so it is about imagining new narratives and Pathways and we do this or we want to do this based on an indepth understanding of the linkages between the mind and today's sustainability crisis which is um Illustrated here in this figure which shows the Mind sustainability Nexus so it shows that the mind can be seen as a victim of today's crisis like you seen form of um climate anxiety for instance it can also be seen as a barrier for adequate action to address these which relates to biases um and our short-term thinking for instance and at the same time as a root cause of the many crisis we see as I just explained so the Mind sustainability Nexus also indicates that it is possible to move from the current situation which is a vicious cycle of deteriorating personal and planetary well-being to a virtuous cycle of personal and planetary flourishing and it also points towards the inequalities and capacities needed to support this change and these capacities and the way they influence sustainability outcomes has been identified in in the so-called inner outer transformation model um and this model identifies five clusters of so-called transformative capacities and it explains how how they affect our relationships to ourselves others and the world around us which are expressed in our beliefs values and World Views and how this ultimately influences our choices and how we act in ways that can support transformation through the Regeneration of human and planetary well-being and the model also indicates the measures and activities that are needed to support transformation and to neutr transformative capacities now this scholarly work has also been taken up in practice and examples include the development and implementation of the so-called inner development goals the idts and I've been an official academic advisor um from the very beginning of the initiative and luxus my organization is one of the founding organizations of the initiative so the inner development goals framework is not a scientific but a communication tool similar to the sdgs um and it aims to advocate for the role of transformative capacities for sustainability it has already been adopted by several companies governmental agencies educational bodies and even a country which is Costa Rica and the framework of 23 capacities that are clustered under the headings of being thinking relating collaborating and acting and these clusters are very similar to the five clusters of inner outer of the inner outer transformation model um which I introduced before so now in the context of the work that you're doing um I would like to highlight here the importance of three capacities and these our inner Compass compassion and active hope and I and later I will also refer to the aspect of creativity and art so if we trace the roots of today's sustainability crisis through a culturally entrenched story of Separation as I explained before we can clearly see um the potential role of compassion in trans value orientation so that inner compass and hope um because nuturing compassion and an inner Compass entail an exploration of how we relate to ourselves others and the World At Large in reflective meaningful and responsible ways and this exploration then nurtures and gives rise to what I call Active hope or a mature expression of Hope which which I see as the aspiration to manifest our full potential trust that this is possible and an energy that is engaged in serving this unfolding for individual Collective and planetary well-being so sometimes you also talk about triple well-being because it has these three levels the individual the collective and the planetary level but nuturing certain transformative capacities like compassion is unfortunately not enough um as indicated by the inner outo transformation model that I presented before transformation can only be achieved if we systematically support inner transformation across all scales so the individual the collective and the system level um and measures at individual and Collective levels involve activity ities that can help us to tap into our inner potential help us to discover our individual thinking and the internalized cultural messages of Separation superiority and instrumentalization and develop alternative approaches and Fields of change now this can take the form of grading related education working environments networks art exhibitions or festivals measures at the system level aim to systematically mainstream the consideration of inner Dimensions so inner capacities and values into existing institutional political systems so it's about the institutionalization um of integrated measures that link inner and outer dimensions of sustainability so it entails modifying organizations vision statement policies regulations working structures all tools for project management resource allocation communication monitoring evalu you name it it's about everything it's about revising everything we are doing in a way that we take into account also the inner dimension of sustainability um so one example would be to change communication structures and mechanisms by moving away from the common meta message that support feelings of powerlessness and anxiety towards communicating a new theory of change that supports agency and hope in line with um what I ex explained before now importantly from an ethical standpoint it is crucial to highlight that the work of inner outer transformation um and across the presenter three SC or levels is not about saying that we need to fix or change other people's beliefs values and worldviews because this would turn people into objects to be changed rather than seeing them as change makers or agents of change so this would just preserve business as usual through a dualistic blaming fix it and fix others mentality that reinforces current unsustainable paradigms so instead from a sustainability perspective we need to create measures spaces and conditions that nuture a culture of inner development Mutual support and engagement from a place of shared Universal values and interconnection and this will then ultimately wle unsustainable Norms cultures and power structures power structures and art and creativity and Imagination can play an important role in this context so I hope that you will all embark on the Journey of linking inner work and sustainability in the context of your own work um now my own Journey um in this field uh led me to the creation of the contemplative sustainable Futures program 9 years ago go and I wanted to share a poem with here with you here now um per in in the form of a short contemplation because I think it helps to make the whole field a bit more tangible a bit more personal and understand what it is really about so I invite you to close your eyes again for a minute so please take a moment to let your body become still and close your eyes then try to sit with your back straight but not rich it and try to not lean back against the chair so instead sit a little bit away so that your back can support itself and then pay attention to the place where you feel your breath the most but just continue breathing naturally while you then listen with your mind with your heart and your body to uh my poem and the poem is called it's one story as a child I grew up with strong feelings a deep sense of who I am and what is important in life I felt one with the world talking to the wind in Autumn dancing with snowflakes in Winter listening to flowering in Spring and jumping with grasshoppers in summer living and caring where one as I became older culture took over the stories I heard began to color my life I went to school I learned that edles and experts know not children I learned that knowledge is external not internal kicked out of the world of Wonders and wisdom I started filling my brain with knowledge to find a new place in the world I went through Academia learned that the truth is complicated learned to express myself in complicated ways over time I ceased to understand myself hiding under layers and layers of othering to feel protected at one point my heart and body became rebellious my voice refused to repeat other stories my thoughts refused to ignore my feelings feelings of partiality imperfection of Separation I lost my voice then I saw the separation in the world how relentlessly we exhaust ourselves others and the planet around us how we see comfort in material distractions consumerism in chce climate change it's me it's us it's one story searching for new voice is scary and the strong headwind rolls out there but if you understand my silence you may understand my my words delving into Stillness you may hear my call so before we will end this short contemplation so keep your eyes closed and just move your attention to what is happening in your mind are there any thoughts that were triggered by the poem then turn to your feelings how do you feel are there any feelings that were triggered triggered by the poem and then turn to your bodily Sensations how does your body feel just try to rest in Awareness for some some time and then I invite you to take one deep breath again and you can now end this exercise by opening your eyes so the result of my own journey and the contemplative sustainable Futures program which I established n years ago um has led to different advancements or changes in my own context um so at lond University we work today with integrating transformative capacities um across different disciplines departments and levels and um so first we integrate um these capacities into various undergraduate and postgraduate course courses such as the course on sustainability and and transformation other the course on psychology and climate change and there's a living the sustainability life track something like that um second we also offer regular seminars to staff and students that relate to transformative capacities and the IDS third um the IDS are also included in some of our student Career Services um for instance at the school of economic and management um fourth several of the universities faculties are also engaged in research projects that explore how inner transformative capacities can be best integrated into education at all levels um fifth L University is financing some strategic collaborations that are related to linking inner and outer transformation such such as the existential resilience collaboration initiative and we also collaborate closely with the Lun Science Center where we will over the coming years systematically integrate the ivts into all internal and external operations and educational activities and finally there are other initiatives um at the administration and policy levels and here the focus is on discussions about how to integrate inner capacity such as the and develop a new one of new policies to improve uh the working environment of Staff now Beyond Lund University our work um and research and the models that I presented before have been taken up by many academic institutions and private sector organizations um around the world um as well as um stakeholders such as the um IPC c um IES UNP and many other um organizations and here you can see some related policy documents which we wrote for um undp um the inner green deal the mindfulness initiative and most recently the club of [Music] Rome and with this I hope that I have given you a small small glimpse into my world the field of inner outer transformation for sustainability um and if you want to read more about related signs um and the mentioned models you can find them here on our website and here on this slide uh you can find the hyperlinks to the references which I mentioned in my presentation um and with this I would like to um finish my presentation and I hope that we will find the time to discuss um the different issues that I presented in personis thank you so much