Regenerative Leadership Archives - Laura Hartley

The In-Between

by Laura Hartley | Mar 12, 2024 | change making, Leadership, Regenerative Leadership, Uncertainty

Navigating transitions – personal, professional, societal – can be tricky work.

So often when we find ourselves in that liminal space – the space in-between where we were and where we’re going – we want an answer. We want a clearly defined destination, proof that we won’t languish in the in-between forever.

We want certainty that everything will be ok.

Part of this is because liminal spaces are often filled with uncomfortable emotions; loss, grief, uncertainty. Sometimes in-between spaces are also unstable, financially and socially, generating fear and anxiety.

It’s natural that we want a way through and beyond these experiences.

But another part of why we resist them is that we often think they hold less value than the spaces that come before and after. That they’re a ‘holding point’, more than an alchemic space, and if we can just get where we’re meant to be going, the problems will be solved, solutions found and Hey presto! Everything is fixed!

But liminal spaces can’t be rushed.

Often in the liminal our old beliefs have been stripped away, we’re made to reckon with our identity and our views of the world.

They’re a time of gestation, allowing us to arrive to the other side expanded, renewed and hopefully with a larger embrace of the world than we had before.

The question better asked of liminal spaces is not how quickly we can exit them, but how deeply we can inhabit them.

How willingly we engage in the process of letting go, of holding lightly what is close to us, and accepting what is unknown, and unknowable.

Because we’re all navigating transitions; careers, relationships, landscapes, seasons, houses, bodies, identities, politics.

Societally, climate change has already determined that we will transition – whether we do so willingly or not, and whether to something more beautiful or not.

And what lays before us is born not out of the past, but out of how deeply and honestly we can inhabit the space in between.

So if you find yourself navigating a liminal space right now, here are some reflection prompts to help:

What’s asking to be held a little lighter?
If nothing in my life were to change, what qualities would I need to develop to embrace and welcome the space I’m in?

Laura x

PS: Want support navigating transitions in your life? Learn more about my coaching work here.

The Third Way

by Laura Hartley | Nov 15, 2023 | Activism, Mindfulness, Regenerative Leadership

Years ago, I had a conversation with my therapist around accepting certain family dynamics as they were.

You see, I’d been living in a paradigm that allowed only two options; tolerate what was intolerable, or resist, fight it with everything you’ve got.

And what I hadn’t known was that there was a third way.

There was the potential to step out of that paradigm altogether, but it would require a radical acceptance of what was.

And I’m not going to lie: I struggled with this.

I wanted things to be different so bad. I felt they should be different – that things as they were just weren’t right.

But, with great compassion, she pointed out to me that I could go on wishing, hoping, insisting that life – and other people – should be different, staying stuck in the stalemate of arguing with reality.

Or I could surrender my fight with what is, and see what emerged from total acceptance.

Now I wish I could say that things changed overnight, but – like all meaningful work – acceptance is a practice.

And with acceptance also came grief and a certain, intangible kind of loss.

But I came to understand that acceptance didn’t mean there was no potential for change, or that I wouldn’t still desire or enjoy a change.

Rather it meant that my wellbeing and sanity were not dependent on things changing.

That some things were what they were no matter how loud I insisted they shouldn’t be.

And through acceptance – through the third way that wasn’t tolerating the intolerable or fighting what was – that I could allow real change to occur.

Because from acceptance comes agency, power and creativity.

From acceptance comes freedom.

To choose who and how we want to be.

To choose how we want to respond and engage.

To live our values and to act with intention, care and precision.

It’s through acceptance – not resignation, not tolerance, not resistance – that we create the conditions for life’s myriad possibilities to unfold.

It’s in the third way that we can stop fighting paradigms, and transcend them.

So if you’re in need of a little acceptance today, here are my prompts for you:

1. Where might I confuse acceptance with tolerance or resignation, and how might they be different?

2. What do I feel if I sit with this moment, right now, surrendering the need to fix or change? What space opens up?

3. What might be different if my actions were rooted in acceptance?

Laura x

Hope in an age of despair

by Laura Hartley | Nov 4, 2023 | Activism, change making, Regenerative Leadership

Hope is a practice.

It is the stubborn commitment to believe in possibilities that we cannot yet see.

And in times of despair, we need hope more than ever.

But I’ve had so many conversations this week about hope; hope that seemed impossible to find, or naive to believe in.

Hope that lived slightly out of reach.

There was worry, what if I hope and things don’t turn out? What if I’m wrong? What if my heart breaks?

What if I’m seen as naïve or idealistic? What if people scoff?

There was despair; fear and pain pushing hope into the distance.

Refuge sought in cynicism and armour.

Guards at our heart to protect from disappointment.

The dull, bitter ache of apathy more tolerable than the sharp pain of life.

But I believe in the power of hope.

Not a naïve positive thinking, detached from the pain of the world.

Not an innocent longing, that knows nothing of struggle.

But a hope that is grounded in potential.

That knows there is a field with myriad possibilities; ones we may never see or touch but that nonetheless still exist.

I believe in a hope that is less feeling, and more practice.

So, if you’re in need of a little hope this week, I invite you to explore these practices.

1. Beauty-Making: The practice of finding or making beauty wherever we are.

Maybe it’s in the clouds, the sky, the birds or flowers. Maybe you can help make it through art, an act of kindness, a delicious meal. Maybe it’s a sunset or the lake at dusk.

Hope and beauty are close friends. Where can you find beauty today? How can you make it?

2. Imagine. Imagination is the lovechild of hope. If possibilities exist, what might they look like? What ‘third way’ can we find? Can we allow ourselves time to dream, play and create?

3. Grieve. Hope is not detached from reality; we cannot feel hope without the fullness of our emotions. And while hope often looks dark from the midst of grief, grief in an age of despair is a sign of our humanity. It is the consequence of our love, and to offer it ritual and honour is part of what makes hope possible.

4. Look backwards. We often think of hope as a forward looking thing – and it is. But sometimes we generate most by looking backwards.

Where in our lives has change seemed impossible? Where has it happened anyway?

Where throughout history might change have seemed impossible? Where has it happened anyway?

Who have you thought to be impossible of change? How might they have changed anyway?

Life is made of possibility.

5. Surrender. Part of our struggle with hope is our need to see the outcome. Our need for things to be a certain way. Our need to not be wrong, to know with certainty that things will turn out – often with a nice, neat arc and ending.

We confuse hope with control, hope with certainty, hope with knowing, hope with a fixed ending, hope with utopia, hope with relief, hope with the end of anxiety… each time missing what hope really is.

Because hope, at its most raw, is the willingness to live in a story that is not yet complete.

A story that we are not the only author of.

And a story that never really ends.

Laura x

Hot Take: Leadership Is Not The Same Thing As Power

by Laura Hartley | Oct 5, 2023 | Leadership, Power, Regenerative Leadership

Hot take.

Just because you’re in a position of power, doesn’t mean that you are a leader.

A common misconception we hold is that leadership means the same thing as being in a position of seniority or power.

You know – managers in organisations, or politicians, or the person up the front with the mic.

A vast swath of the internet will call these ‘positions of leadership’ when really they are just positions of power… and I think we’ve all known people in these positions that we wouldn’t call leaders.

We also confuse leadership with control.

With certainty.

That leaders should know what they are doing, and where they are going at all times.

That there’s a binary of leaders and followers and we should all want leaders, or want to be leaders.

That what we need in this time must be more leaders.

But what if our whole story of leadership in this culture was wrong?

What if leadership was about visioning and seeding the world we want?

What if leadership was a co-creative field? What if it transcended the binary, and required participation and consent?

What if the qualities of leadership were divergent?

What if leadership required relinquishing control; surrendering?

What if leadership required the willingness to be lost?

The way I define leadership is this: the ability to follow an inner compass, with wisdom and courage, for the shared benefit of the whole.

I keep this definition intentionally broad, because in an uncertain, destabilising world, we need a whole new understanding of leadership.

We need a leadership that is generative.

Regenerative.

Curious.

And willing to walk in the spaces we haven’t been yet.

And that’s not going to look anything like what comes up on Google.

Want to explore how you can embody regenerative leadership?

Laura x