My vision
A world that is vibrant with creative energy, deep care for all (including the nonhuman world) and trust in human nature, and a Scotland that is a beacon for the rest of the world for its governance structures, its ability to attend to everyone’s needs in a systemic and bottom-up way and its relationship with the land which nourishes body, mind and soul.
My purpose
To increase individual and collective collaborative leadership capacity with people and organisations engaged in bottom-up change and community building initiatives.
Why I am attracted to and qualified to do this work:
- I have years of experience facilitating groups, delivering trainings and coaching individuals. I love teaching and hosting transformative learning spaces. It’s core to my vocation
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Over my decades of living in Scotland, I have developed relationships with a number of people who are anchored in community work, and have an extensive network of people deeply committed to making Scotland a thriving place.
- I have worked alongside people from marginalised communities and lived in a poor neighbourhood for many years. This gives me lived access to concrete rather than aspirational principles
- I am part of a team creating a global and self-managed organisation (NVC) whose aim is to foster collaborative leadership and applied nonviolence. I therefore have intimate familiarity with the obstacles that exist on the path of creating collaborative organisations, as well as a blueprint and a set of tools and principles to bring about this reality
- My work is anchored in a broad set of skills, approaches, and practices that offers versatility in matching resources to needs
- I am committed to maintaining a conscious relationship with my privilege and inviting others to do the same in support of everyone’s liberation
- I am deeply committed to nonviolence. This fuels my capacity to learn and share the art of collaborative leadership
- I have a dedicated practice of stillness, embodiment, loving compassion and truth seeking. This supports my personal liberation and deepening into Being
- I have a chronic pain condition which has taken me on a challenging but rewarding journey on how to be with pain, suffering and loss of capacity without giving up hope and agency
- I love being in and nurturing community in support of overcoming patterns of separation and deepening into trust, connection and relationship
- I have an unwavering trust in the value of practice. This serves many needs including aligning ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ (values and purpose), and learning new ways of being and working together
- I endeavour to bring joy, presence, and depth wherever I go. This relaxes those work with and inspires trust
- To work towards a Scotland where attending to human needs and the needs of the non-human world is the core organising principle
Values
- Truth
- Solidarity
- Systemic awareness
- Depth of learning and engagement
- Loving Kindness
Mission/Goals:
- To share concepts, frameworks, principles and practical skills to facilitate people’s and teams’ journey towards nonviolence and collaborative leadership
- To make my contribution more visible (including the skills I have) amongst people who are actively working or would like to work towards a sustainable and ‘needs-based’ Scotland
- To strengthen the intellectual anchoring of my work through reading, writing, teaching and broad-ranging conversations
- To continually engage in ‘experiments with truth’ with myself, in relationships, in communities I belong to and as part of the work I do
- To resource myself to do this work from a place of integrity, sustainability, ongoing growth and inner resilience