Aspirations & Ancestors
As the year winds down, it’s a natural time to pause and reflect. Amid the busyness, it can be supportive to consider the lessons, growth, and accomplishments that have shaped your year. Reflection connects us to our progress, offering a satisfying sense of clarity and gratitude. But I’d like to invite us to dare to explore our deepest desires and aspirations—not just what we’ve done, but what we truly long for. In doing so, we step into the role of a good ancestor, recognizing that the choices we make today—our dreams, actions, and care for the present—shape the world that future generations will inherit. By nurturing our aspirations and tending to the conditions that allow them to flourish, we lay the foundation for a sustainable future.
The Week
I recently hosted a group viewing of The Week. It is a powerful group experience that creates space for people to have brave conversations about the climate emergency, and what can be done about it right now. Here I share my reflections and point us to the wisdom of feeling our emotions and what is possible when we do so.
Exploring the IDGs: Being & Relationship to Self
Over the next few weeks, I’ll look at each dimension of the Inner Development Goals and share some questions and ideas to help you identify skills that can bring focus to your developmental goals and commitments. And I’d like to start with the category that is the foundation of my coaching practice.
Relationship to self involves cultivating our inner lives and developing and deepening our relationship to our thoughts, feelings, and body to help us be present, intentional, and non-reactive when we face the complexity of our relationships and world today.
Exploring the IDGs: Thinking & Cognitive Skills
I’m diving into the capabilities, qualities, and skills emphasized in the Inner Development Goals framework and sharing some questions and ideas to help you identify skills that can bring focus to your developmental goals and commitments.
The next category is Thinking. Something we are doing constantly! But how do we expand our thinking skills to serve the bigger picture and purpose?
Exploring the IDGs: Relating
This category is about how we feel appreciation, care for, and connection to others, and how broadly we feel this. Deep care and contact help us create more sustainable systems and societies for everyone. A world that works for all.
Exploring the IDGs: Collaboration
The fourth IDG focus is Collaboration, which is a critical skill to support making progress on shared concerns. To collaborate and co-create, we develop our ability to include, hold space, and communicate with stakeholders with different values, skills, and competencies. To solve big problems, we need each other!
Exploring the IDGs: Acting
The final dimension in the Inner Development Goals framework is Acting. How we move forward, how we enable and drive change. This involves skills such as courage, optimism, and perseverance. But you may be surprised to consider how our creativity and imagination move us forward, not only individually but also for the greater good.