Unlock the Gridlock in Your Life, Work and Community

Gridlock is a prevalent pattern in almost every context of life. Maybe it’s the heat, but I suspect it is merely that we are used to putting our focus on small snapshots of isolated parts of larger problems, and wonder why little gets solved. We stay stuck in a repeating pattern and run like rats on a wheel oblivious we are turning the wheel with our every thought.

We are conditioned to focus on events as if they were the whole truth. Media plays out the short-term events and we get fixated.
In our complex world, the important thing to pay attention to are the slow, gradual processes that are eating away the very stability we long for. The erosion of our educational system and environmental decay are examples of processes that happen over long periods of time.

The remedy is to set up ‘slow down’ periods where we can observe the subtle as well as the dramatic.
It is simply not prudent to continue to operate from isolated perspectives. The parts are connected to the whole just as our own cardiovascular and neuromuscular systems are part of our body. If we come from the thought pattern, “we are all part of the whole of humanity” then deep down inside we know that cutting off any part of the whole will hurt. I am choosing the hopeful thought that I can carefully, thoughtfully and with intent for no harm, make decisions about how to live my life with others in community and with the health of our planet as an underlying intent.

Enduring the Heat Without Getting Burned

There is a call to each of us living in these magnified, exorbitant cultures from extreme poverty on one end to extravagant wealth on the other end of the continuum. Hatred and loathing on one end to acceptance and truth along the continuum.

The call is to be open to expanding our skills so that collectively we can create more of what we want!

It is time that we each develop a tolerance to sit in the fire of group conflict and be fully responsible for the outcomes we co-create. If there is diversity in your family system, you are being called. If there is difference and tension within your community about any subject, such as water rights, then you are being called.

My question today, “are you ready to respond with open mind and heart to listen?”

There are skills that allow us to sit in the fire and not be burned.
To quote one of my favorite teachers:
“IF we don’t permit simmering hostilities a legitimate outlet, they are bound to take illegitimate routes.” Arnold Mindell
Can you co-create forums that allow diverse voices and beliefs to be heard?