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The Language of Violence

The Language of Violence

by | Apr 1, 2022 | Business, Capitalism, Uncategorized

“You’ll smash it.”  “You’re making a killing“.  “Shoot over an email”.  “Find your target market”.  “Just keep banging it out”.  

How often in business & life do we use the language of violence?

It might seem silly, but the way we work matters – and that includes our choice of words.

The way we speak is reflective of the way we think, the way we feel, the conscious & unconscious ways with which we view & make sense of the world.

If our language of celebration is reflective of destruction – you’re killing it, you smashed it, you owned it, we crushed it – what does that say about visions of success? Must it always come with a cost to someone else?

If our language of operations is reflective of pain – shoot an email, target this audience, find the right execution – what does this say about our work? Is it a place of service or a place of conquer?

The same applies to activism. Words like struggle, resist, strike, fight; how are they then reflected in our approach & embodiment of work? 

What would it be like to step beyond the language of violence? 

To embody the language of beauty, creativity or regeneration instead? 

What phrases would you change?

The Past & Present Together

The Past & Present Together

by | Feb 21, 2022 | Uncategorized

While Covid has dominated the news (and my own world) the last few weeks, it’s been heartening to hear some different news where the Colston Four were found not guilty in the UK.

If you haven’t followed, in June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protests were sprouting around the world, four activists in Bristol helped topple a statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston. They faced charges for causing criminal damage, and after a two week trial, were recently found not guilty.

Now, this email isn’t about statues, or what should happen to them.

It’s about the moral reckoning with our history – and our present – that is just in its infancy.

The UK (and much of the colonised world, including my home country, Australia) has a moral duty to reckon with its past, to recognise that much of its prosperity has come off the back of slavery and other atrocities.

But we also need to reckon with our present.  With the violence & inequality inherent to capitalism, the continued exploitation of the global south, our extractive relationship to the natural world, and with all the ways structural racism & white-bodied supremacy still exists today**.

You see, capitalism and supremacy culture both have roots in colonisation (which reminds me of this simple but useful chart from Rupa Marya).

And they’re both products of profound disconnection.   

Disconnection from the natural world, allowing endless extraction.

Disconnection from each other, our shared humanity, allowing exploitation.

Disconnection from our bodies, losing their wisdom and allowing their overwork.

Disconnection from our heart and spirit, allowing growth and profit to become a new form of worship. 

And so, part of healing the root of capitalism & supremacy culture must be to practice an active reconnection.

With nature. With ourselves. With each other. With truth. 

And we must rebuild our systems to be rooted in connection – with empathy, truth, justice at their heart.

Connection can sound naïve; I don’t dispute that. I also don’t presume that the exploitation or trauma of the last 500 years will be healed through kumbaya.   

But I also know that we can’t have the moral reckoning we need without first un-thinging each other and the natural world, to feel & know the animating spirit (life) that weaves between each and every living being. 

Reconnection is also at the heart of two programs starting soon – if you’re wanting to dive deeper, stay tuned for dates, workshops & more soon. 

Internal Revolution: Ending Burnout Cycles & Culture, which is really about reconnecting to our bodies and honouring what is true for us. 

Business for the Revolution. Weaving anti-capitalist & anti-oppressive practice, it’s designed for solopreneurs & small business owners to create a thriving business beyond capitalism.

As always, let me know what you think – I value every response. 

Love & courage,

Laura

Now Is The Time

Now Is The Time

by | Jan 10, 2022 | Uncategorized

Happy New Year!

Collectively we look at a new year as a time of new beginnings.  A chance to wipe the slate clean, to reimagine and recreate our lives anew. 

New beginnings are everywhere though.  In every moment, in every choice, we hold the possibility of something new.

The question is what we want to choose. What new beginning we’d like to experience. 

If you’ve read Conversations with God, you may be familiar with a line that says “the purpose of life is to create your Self anew, in the next grandest version of the greatest vision you ever held about Who You Are. It is to announce and become, express and fulfil, experience and know your true Self.”

What is the grandest version of the greatest vision you hold about who you are?

What is the grandest version of the greatest vision you hold for how the world could be? 

None of us hold the power alone to direct the world.  We carry that power together.  But it’s in every choice we make – indeed, every thought we think – that we have the option of affecting change and redirecting the way we collectively move and live.

In reality, our choices are never for us alone.  

As we move gently into this new beginning, I’ll leave you with you a poem that is speaking to me.  

I’d love to hear what is speaking to you. 

Now is the time.
Now is the time to know
That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God?

Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you can finally live
with veracity and love.

Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
That this is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is Sacred.

~ Hafiz

Love & courage,

Laura 

WTH is internalised capitalism?

WTH is internalised capitalism?

by | Sep 15, 2021 | Uncategorized

Do you ever feel like you need to be doing more? Or perhaps feel guilty for resting?  How about prioritising work over pleasure?

I have.  And if you’ve also felt this way, you may also have internalised capitalism.

This isn’t a blog about the virtues or problems of capitalism, but rather how our collective systems are reflected within us and as us.

We live in a highly individualistic society.  Our systems tend to value a growing economy, profit, productivity and output more than things like meaning, rest or pleasure (or I dare say, even life).

This value system – of output & growth above all else – is then reflected in how we approach ideas of success, impact or wellbeing. 

So as an example while there has been a boom in corporate wellness programs and mindfulness in recent years, it hasn’t just been because it’s good for our health or wellbeing, it’s been attached to the idea of increased productivity.  Mindfulness will help you work even faster!*

Whether we consciously subscribe to these values or not, we often embody traits that are reflective of capitalism. Being always on, 24/7. Attaching our value to our productivity.  Prioritising work over pleasure or rest (even when our bodies are crying out for it).

We extract our inner resources in the same way we endlessly extract from the Earth.

We glorify being busy – as if busy is a sign of success, value or impact.

if you’re taking a break from working right now, how are you feeling? Do you feel slightly unproductive? A little guilty for not completing something or doing more?

We sometimes try to make change happen by using the same culture that capitalism extolls.   Work harder. Work longer.  Do more.

There’s an embodiment of scarcity – there’s not enough time, there’s not enough people to do the work, there’s not enough funding, change isn’t happening fast enough. 

We neglect our health, we link our value and worth to what we produce, and we feel guilty when we rest.

And of course, all of this, results in burnout.

Now, internalised capitalism isn’t the only reason burnout happens, but if this sounds vaguely familiar, I’d like to invite you to join a free workshop on Ending Burnout for Activists & Changemakers. 

You can find your best time zone option by selecting:

Sunday: 26 September: 9:30am UK | 6:30pm Sydney | 8:30pm NZ.
Tuesday, 28 September: 3:30 Pacific US | 6:30pm Eastern US
Tuesday, 5 October: 7:30pm UK | 8:30pm CET

NB: This isn’t to diss mindfulness – I teach meditation & mindfulness because they can be life changing.  But we need to be careful not to use it as a way to extract more from ourselves. 

Feeling anxious about the world?

Feeling anxious about the world?

by | Aug 25, 2021 | change making, Uncategorized

Embodiment for Eco-AnxietyFeeling anxious about the world? Yeah, me too.

We live in uncertain times.

From the climate crisis to racial violence to COVID and the pandemic – the scale and urgency of it all can be overwhelming. Our nervous systems can feel like they are in hyper-drive, each piece of news building on the anxiety and stress we’re experiencing.

How do we calm our overwhelmed bodies so that we can respond effectively – and compassionately – to the crises we face?

How can we create meaning amongst the uncertainty and anxiety?

The answer – at least in part – lies in our body.

It’s pretty natural that we try to escape the body when we’re stressed or feeling anxious – it’s not exactly a comfortable place to be (think butterflies, digestive trouble, back pain, muscle tension, headaches – to name a few).

And so we do something to check out – we pick up a drink or a snack, we dive into work, we distract ourselves with Instagram or dive back to the safety of our mind (if you’re anything like me you’ve probably spent some time trying to ‘think’ your way to being less stressed).

Rarely though, do we find the safety we’re looking for through escaping the body.

You see, when we’re feeling anxious about the world or stressed we’re seeking refuge, we’re seeking comfort, we’re seeking safety.

Safety isn’t found in our mind, but in our body.

If this resonates with you, you can join one of our regular workshops on Embodiment for Eco-Anxiety. It will cover some simple body-based practices* to help us explore our relationship to these times in our body, and to bring a sense of safety to our overwhelmed nervous systems.

What would you do if you were not afraid?

What would you do if you were not afraid?

by | Aug 19, 2020 | Fear, Uncategorized

What would you do if you were not afraid?

Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of pain, fear of loss.  I’ve been sitting with this question the last week. Fear holds us back far too often.  I don’t think we even realise it half the time; we often phrase it being practical or realistic.  We hide it behind cynicism, and demands of “if only other people/my family/the government would…”. We limit our imaginations, our ideas becoming stunted, by making choices based only what can see, not what we dream.

What would you do if you were not afraid?

I mean really do – that thing that’s been clawing at your belly and living in the back of your mind for all this time.  I believe that we have gifts to offer the world, gifts as unique as the patterns on our skin, our strands of DNA, the snowflakes that cover the ground each winter.  When we think that we have nothing to give, we forget we live in a world made of diversity, that there is nothing else out there exactly as we are.  Every one of us is making the world through our actions, how can we plant the seeds of beauty?

What would you do if you could not fail? What would you do if you were not afraid?

I believe our lives are supposed to be bold, daring, audacious adventures*. They don’t always feel like this though.  And even though a bold, daring, audacious adventure sounds great – it’s also terrifying af, none of those words are synonymous with safety.  Too often though,  we become mentally trapped by systems we never chose to be a part of, rather than find and craft a different way.  We allow jobs that we don’t enjoy to dictate how we spend our lives, to determine our mood and attitude on certain days (Monday blues, Happy Fridays, Humpday Wednesdays).  We tell ourselves we’re too small to make a difference – but what if you could?

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Would you go to therapy? Heal the traumas that keep running your life? Would you do the inner work? Or what if you stopped doing all the things and just breathed for a while? Allowing what is within you to arise, even if it scares the hell out of you?

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

For a culture that loves the shallows, exploring our own depths is a rebellious act.

What else would you do if you were not afraid and you could not fail?

Would you work to wage peace? End poverty? Regenerate the earth? Heal relationships? Make art? Travel the world? Start a movement? Change politics? Change the world?

Why not?

Our lives are short, and I believe that life is asking more of us. Life is asking us to live it, to trust it, to embrace it.  To take everything we love and everything we feel called to do and take that first step.

Our job is not to fix the world, it is to love it.

And yes, fear is normal, caution wise. The world is a terrifying place sometimes and we all want to belong, feeling loved and safe.  One day, however, there will be a day that is our last, and none of our fears will matter so much as whether we truly, ever lived.

*Bold, daring, audacious adventures look different to everyone; what this means is to live a life with choices true to you, that align with your values & make you feel alive, rather than following the idea of what you are ‘supposed to do’.