Rewiring our Psychology to reboot our collective empowerment

As a result of the influences of the past, which have been particularly imbalanced toward the male principle: goals, action, thought, achievment, plans, desires, goals, what is known and emphasis on the qualities of the individual.   All of these things are absolutely fine, when in balance with the feminine principle.  When one principle asserts dominance and superiority over the other, a number of familiar problems arise.  Imbalance toward action and goals creates deprivation in being and fulfilment in the present.  Overly emphaising the importance of the individual erodes the resourcing and functionality of the collective and what transpires is the collective becoming subordinate to the individual - as we have become all too familiar with.  The truth is that when this level of imbalance becomes normalised, the desires, imagined intelligence and remoteness of the individual can no longer connect with the individual and unique needs of the individuals that are the collective. 

Over time the collective becomes attuned to this imbalanced and selectively deprivational model and forgets how to resource itself in order for people to feel empowered, confident and resourced to be able to manage themselves without the guidance of the leader figure they have become dependant on.

This project is about stepping out of that now outdated/corrupted model that is now unable to manage what it has created, while simultaneously it has provided us with the solutions to transition, to evolve to a new/old functional progression where all of our needs are important and with essential needs met, mutual respect and sense of connected collective empowerment, we are able to realise collaborative intelligence: the ability to put all of our brains and wisdom together for all of our benefit.

In order to achieve this it is necessary to create a transitional container, the goal of which is to identify all the sources of stress, trauma, deprivation (of confidence, empowerment, basic needs*, communication skills, sense of purpose/motivation etc) and individually and collectively weave together a path out of our normalised seperation* and over individualisation toward the safety (empowerment, confidence, self knowledge) and skills (communication without judgment, re-inhabiting the body* re-empowerment from deprivatioonal attacment styles and self integration*).

 The key areas that we are currently weaving together into both visual models and skill development pathways are as follows.

• Understanding and balancing individual needs with Group/Community needs
• Trust (Fear)
• Trauma/Stress/Safety/Grounding
• Non-Judgmental communication skills
• Attachment styles and ability to connect.(both in one's own body/self and with others)
• Self Authority

There is much to go into in all of these elements, and a thorough version is being developed for presentation very soon, but right here this is just an overview to give a general insight into each element and also how they fit together.

Understanding and balancing individual needs with Group/Community needs.

We started with an understanding of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. How can any individual, even before they participate in a relationship/group, function optimally, confidently and effectively when they are having to deal with both basic and also complex needs?
Firstly, understanding one's own essential needs, then the needs of a group and then how to balance both so that there is an understanding and also a realistic relationship between the two we see as essential to the building of any sustainable relationship (both with self and outside of self).
Furthermore, when the balance is understood and is healthy, the cycle of resourcing can sustain both.

Trust (Fear) - [see also: Attachment styles and ability to connect]

The balance of Trust/Fear within our present will undoubtedly have roots within our past and when it comes to collaboration, specifically in our past experiences of relating to others.
From Parents to siblings, other children, teachers, lovers, employers and society as a whole. Within these experiences our ratio of fear will also define our ratio of self protection and correspondingly our ability to connect and trust both ourselves and others.

Trauma/Stress/Safety/Grounding

We have discovered over the last 10 years of specific study into this subject, that trauma and stress are a key element in how people relate to each other.  The essential component in understanding this is the fight/flight/freeze combination that reside to varying degrees within the body and can be triggered by any number of responses from both situations and other people.
Feeling safe is a perquisite to feeling grounded and when we are grounded we are not reacting from tension or stress but are able to respond from a place of calm confidence.
The implications of this within a collaborative environment cannot be underestimated but is routinely done so.
Tension, Stress and Trauma are all located in the body so when people trigger each other and then attempt to resolve the situation using words and concepts have little real chance of success because they are not even beginning to address the real source of the difficulty.
There are a number of techniques to release tension, stress and trauma from TRE, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Brainspotting to massage, physical activity or simply touch!

Non-Judgmental communication skills

Marshall Rosenberg, the developer of Non Violent Communication [NVC] said "Our attention is focused on classifying, analysing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others need and are not getting."
When it comes to learning how to communicate and interact with others the kind of teaching we get is extremely varied and except in families that are non judgemental, most people are more likely to experience judgement as a common feature of interaction.
Consequently, we generally don't understand just how this default way of communicating is playing out continually and most specifically within relational environments that feature any level of collaboration.
We see learning NVC as an essential foundation block of any serious sustainable organisation/community/relationship.

Attachment styles and connect-ability

How we learn to interact with others.  The normal or default expectations we have of any relational situation and when it comes to collaboration, understanding the degree with which we can connect and the degree with which we need to protect.  This is a vital understanding both in terms of self understanding and also what the boundaries are with others and how and where precisely they can be extended.

Self Authority

Where do we get our authority from and can we work out reliably what is true, what is our motive for doing things and can we estimate the same in others. 

prerequisite