Focusing on the Ecological Crisis: Felt Sensing Our Way to a Better World

Wednesday, July 29, 2020 from 1:00pm-3:00pm Eastern Daylight Time (US)

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

The TIFI Membership Committee is pleased to offer this series of Focusing Roundtables designed especially for members of the Institute. If you are not a member, please join at http://www.focusing.org/membership, then return to this page to register. This program will afford members a valuable opportunity to engage in casual peer-to-peer conversation with other members who share Focusing-related interests.

Climate change is now the climate crisis. We are also facing related ecological crises of species extinction, habitat destruction, or pollution. As the forecasts and current impacts worsen, many agree that sustained corrective action is crucial. And yet, many of us are not sure how to respond. Through Focusing, we can listen to our bodily wisdom of why we might be stuck and learn what bigger role we’d like to play.

Whether we are entering the climate conversation for the first time, or already active and wanting to take our impact to the next level, our felt sense can show us the right next steps. The actions we take can be in our own lives, at the local, regional, or national policy level. Whatever roles are right for us, this Roundtable will help us to carry forward our process together.

In this Roundtable, some questions we might explore with Focusing together are:

• What aspects of the ecological crisis are of particular concern to you?
• What emotions arise in you as you consider the ecological crisis?
• What’s in the way of your moving forward with more impactful action?

Other questions may emerge from our mutual exploration during the Roundtable.

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable? Anyone curious about this topic, including Focusers with experience in ecological action, as well as Focusers who want to get more involved in combating the crisis and are interested in using Focusing to carry this forward.

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

What to expect from Focusing Roundtables: Each Focusing Roundtable is designed to promote informal peer-to-peer conversation. Rather than acting as expert presenters, the Hosts will serve as conversation moderators to encourage sharing and exploration of the topics from the participants’ own perspectives.  All participants’ sharings are welcome and valuable, no matter what level of experience or knowledge you have on the topic. To preserve the nature of informal conversation, the program will be offered live only and no recordings will be available. Registration is limited and on a first-come, first served basis. Participants are encouraged to create follow up opportunities for connection among themselves after the Roundtable.

Focusing Roundtables are presented as a free benefit for members of TIFI. If you are not currently a member, you may attend this Roundtable by becoming a TIFI member at http://focusing.org/membership, and then return to this page to register. By joining at the $25 Friend Level or higher, you will be eligible for this and all future Focusing Roundtables and other benefits of membership during the year following your membership date.

About your hosts:

Annette Dubreuil is an environmentalist and Focusing Trainer living in Toronto, Canada. She is passionate about using the pause and embodiment to catalyze sustainable change with teams—for their organizations, communities and the planet. Most recently she led communications at Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission. Annette has done the Presencing Foundation Program in Theory U at MIT. She has an MBA in sustainability and non-profits from the Schulich School of Business.

Peter Gill is a Focusing coordinator and teacher based in the UK. He has spent the last few years training in Facilitating Nature connection and its connection to Focusing. More recently has been exploring the place of welcoming grief as a doorway to deeper engagement with our ecological crisis. He recently offered a TIFI Focusing Highlight class on that subject called "Navigating sorrow and the griefs of our time”. His website is www.livingfocusing.co.uk.

Grady McGonagill had an independent leadership development and coaching practice for 30 years. In 2013 he felt a calling to work full-time on climate change. This led him to found and lead the Massachusetts chapter of Elders Climate Action. The mission of ECA is to mobilize people of retirement age to bring their voices into the movement to preserve a livable planet.

Frank O’Neill is a Focusing Trainer living in Boulder, Colorado, USA. He was active in Green Party politics in the early 2000s, and has since explored small footprint living in 9 intentional communities. He now leads groups crossing Focusing with Non-Violent Communication (NVC) for the purpose of generating connection and mutual inquiry. He sees these modalities as each possessing certain skills of presence which can shift us from evaluative dialogue to emergent dialogue.