Pathway Tools Introduced by Gaia
We are each the project manager of our life. Let us bring consciousness to this project’s pathway. Let us be inspired to establish healthy commitments eased through our ability to renegotiate. Let us reflect and document with conscious awareness to yield maximum growth and effectiveness of the project and process. Upon completion, let us synthesize our experience and share the key outcomes of the project and our experience of the project. This often will include a reflection on what went well, what was challenging what we would do differently next time, sharing points of intervention along the journey and any next steps to take from where we have arrived. Tools we can use in this reflection and documentation include: Design Methodologies, PoDAPO, GTD, MTMP, Discharging Distresses, Competence&Attention, Worldview, Patrix Busting, and Zone 0 Cultivation.
PoDAPO
Greatest expansion this year has occurred for me with Presentation/Organization and Design and Action Learning. I am grateful for the continuous reflection in my presentations of the presenting/organizing quality and the need to reflect on my own Design and Learning. I feel pretty good with Process skills and haven’t focused on this as much during my precapstone year partly as I saw so much room and need for improvement as a Designer and a Presenter. Gaia has helped me understand that knowing things and conveying things to others are very different. I do get fairly good feedback from participants in workshops that I teach, while simultaneously, I can acknowldege that I can greatly improve my presentationalness with some simple tweaks. I believe I can ultimately reach larger audiences as well. I am fairly good at teaching in small groups as I can respond to questions. Organized Presentation will help me in both reaching larger audiences and clarifying the learning for myself as well.
Design Methodologies
During my permaculture Teacher Training that happened while I was working on my LCR with Gaia, November 2012, I recognized the difference between techniques, strategies and design. The analogy that helped put it in my body was one of dimensions. Techniques are a 1 dimensional skill that we can execute (i.e. double digging, intensive planting, mulching). Strategy is a 2 dimensional combination of how we combine techniques (i.e. organic gardening or biodynamic which utilize different techniques) Design is a multi layered 3 dimensional synthesis of strategies (Permaculture design may include techniques of biodynamic gardening and renewable energy and conflict resolution in a holistic design for a community). During my GaiaU orientation, I found being introduced to Design methodologies a bit confusing. In my most recent OP, I developed my own Design methodology and feel significantly more empowered in understanding my own design process. I understood from the start that we “unconsiously design” everything we do from dressing ourselves to cooking a meal; however, in many ways, I see consciousness as an integral aspect to design or else we very well may be improvising.
Key outcomes:
- Design functions best as an iterative process that we create and adapt with in the moment as new situations emerge including implementation realities.
- Design is best held as a loose structure to allow myself to improvise within. Room for adaptability is wonderful as design functions as the structurd boundaries to keep us going in the right track.
Managing Time; Managing Promises
I believed when I enrolled in Gaia that part of what I was paying for was someone to hold me accountable for documenting the projects that I wanted to/would be doing. I have been greatly pleased with how much I have learned through my experience with Gaia rather than simply hiring a taskmaster. The easeful renegotiation that Gaia supports resonates with my being and yet occasionally I crave more structure because I can see in myself a constant willingness and acceptance of renegotiation and simultaneously a drive and ability when a deadline approaches. Ultimately, I am grateful that Gaia leaves full responsibility for managing my pathway with me. Gaia, rather than giving me 2 years of structure (the proverbial fish), Gaia is teaching me to manage my own time (teaching me to fish).
Competence & Attention
I suffer from Hamlet's dilemna of analysis paralysis. In GaiaU lexicon, this is that I am overly competent without the attention. Ironically, I believe I have 'attention' and can notice when an intervention may be appropriate. Seizing this moment is perhaps what is difficult for me because perhaps the paralysis comes when I can see so many moments of possible intervention. I am examining my relationship to active experimentation and rapid prototyping.
Getting Things Done
Dave Allen’s lens on Getting Things Done helped me begin to articulate for myself how I get things done. Jennifer, my advisor, has also helped me see how I GTD by encouraging me to document what is actually happening/getting done.
Key Outcomes:
- The largest takeaway I get from Dave Allen is the importance of naming all the things that are on my list. So first off, simply putting something on paper frees the RAM in my brain to not deal with that.
- JUST DO IT. I am trying to embrace the active experimentation, the rapid prototyping and the “if it’s going to take less than 5 minutes, just do it.” I invariably spend excess time planning when to plan.
- "Don't Let perfection be the enemy of the Good"
- Get it Done, then Get it good.
- Now/Sooner/Later -- I love to do lists and this has been a great incorporation.
- iPhone Reminders and Notes -- I am beginning to transfer to digital tools to help.
Zone 0 Cultivation
Cultivating the internal landscape of our emotional, physical, spiritual, emotional, creative selves. Design what our needs are as we may design for the needs of a farm. How effectively do we design in time for exercise, healthy eating, friendship, love, creativity, connection with spirit and nature.
Patrix-busting
How does our learning fit into, support, subvert the dominant paradigm?
Points of Intervention
As I draw near the end of my precapstone year, I recognize that points of intervention are inevitable. And I am slowly assimilating the value of acknowledging them on my pathway. For my first two OP’s, I was more interested in the content that I was generating than reflecting on my process of what was working, what was changing, etc. I hope to spend more time in my capstone year registering points of intervention and articulating what happened. I want to acknowledge that whether the intervention and consequent renegotiation is coming from me or whether this is mandated by the universe; in both cases, how I choose to navigate is informing of my character.
Worldview
- I believe that we all exist within many worldviews simultaneously with all of our sub-communities. Conscious awareness around our own book jacket and the pervading worldview of each organization in which we are a part all the way up to the Patrix of our capitalistic country.
- I notice that the stories I tell and the language that I use inform how I see my world. For instance, I have been claiming that I am digitally illiterate which serves as an excuse and an explanation while effecting a self fulfilling prophecy perpetuating the cycle of digital illiteracy. I am interested in using language to describe myself as the person I am in the process of becoming: Backcasting of a sort. Describing myself as the future I want to be. This illustrates the unlearning of a hurtful label i have applied to myself. I would like to remain confident in my ability to claim ignorance about specifics but I don’t wish to mix my identity into generalized labels. I am digitally literate.