Exploring the IDGs: Relating
The IDG category up next is one close to our hearts. Relating: Caring for Others and the World.
How do we feel appreciation, care for, and connection to others, and how broadly does this extend? Our families? Our neighbors? Our colleagues? And what about future generations? Animals? The biosphere? This kind of deep care and contact helps us create more sustainable systems and societies for everyone. A world that works for all.
With any assessment or looking deeply within, we first invite in self-compassion by setting aside any internal criticisms or judgments and start by asking ourselves a few questions.
Do I notice myself relating to others and the greater world with a sense of appreciation, gratitude, and joy?
Do I have a sense of connection within my local community?
How often do I find myself acting to care for the greater whole, based on the needs of the situation without only prioritizing my own needs and wishes?
Do I relate to others with kindness, empathy, and compassion?
Do I relate to myself with kindness, empathy, and compassion?
Do I consider nature and the environment with care?
How often does my response to suffering lead to compassionate action?
In Being & Relationship to Self, I offered a Values exercise, which is equally relevant to developing your relational skills. In our busy lives, we can so easily lose contact with what is most important. This is especially true in stressful and challenging situations. A values exercise helps you connect with your core values to support you in taking meaningful action in every moment of your life.
The IDGs offer a free online toolkit. And under Relating: Caring for Others and the World you’ll find many exercises to cultivate these skills and qualities. It includes tools to develop compassion and self-compassion, and an exercise to Meet Yourself at 90, a guided exercise that helps you be present with your hopes, dreams, priorities, and values by envisioning yourself at your 90-year-old birthday party. Below is a simple version of an ancient practice, A Nature Quest. You may also consider turning to nature for her wisdom and can be included in coaching engagements as an Earth Dream Walk.
Nature Quest
People mainly protect and restore the natural world for the sake of relational values: due to attachment to a special place in nature and in general due to the feeling of being connected with nature. Our level of connection to nature increases with time spent outdoors, especially with time spent in wild nature. Nature quests can further develop emotional connection to the natural world, and deepen our awareness of the environment and the relationship between humankind and the natural world.
How might it help? Expanding our sense of self so that it includes the natural world can foster pro-environmental behavior, as we will be less likely to harm it because harming the natural world would then be experienced like harming ourselves.
How to practice
Find a spot in nature that's “calling you,” a place in a forest, a park, or by the water where you want to be. Find a safe place to be in this space. Focus, relate, and relax into your surroundings; Observe what is already there and let the beauty guide you.
Profoundly connect the Inner with the Outer. Open your listening to the sounds around you, feeling the ground that is holding you, smelling the air, tasting it, and sinking into your visual field. The aim is to leave everyday habits and patterns behind so something new can emerge.
Let your thinking mind wander; observe your thoughts move like clouds in the blue sky. Notice, and let go.
Relax into the moment. Connect with what inspires you and reconnect with your deeper purpose.
Here are a few inspirational poems to read before a Nature Quest or Earth Dream Walk.
You’ll find more on their free online toolkit. This is an emerging library of tools to explore the IDGs in practice and help people and organizations accelerate progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Note, this is a beta version and is based on research from the 29k. 29k is a non-profit organization and community on a mission to make personal growth available for everyone, for free.
Visit the IDG website for more information.
I’d love to hear from you if coaching could help support this developmental discovery for yourself. Unlike some assessment approaches, I don’t take a gap analysis or start from a place of deficiency. We start where you are and explore the threads together. Reach out if you’d like to chat.