Consciousness Shift – Culture Shift

This page is about understanding the Covid and Climate Crisis as essential feedback on our way of life under a system that is literally killing us, not to mention dividing us against each other, something we know loads about here in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland/North of Ireland.

It’s about how to respond to that feedback so as to BE THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE, not just having that as an an empty slogan living only in language. But experiencing it moment to moment in our daily lives as we awaken to new possibility.

We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, iniquity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hat and lack. We should long to return my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.
Sonya Renee Taylor

The Zero Waste/Circular Economy Strategy we jointly conducted with DCSDC in 2017 said implementing it will require council to lead, in partnership with others, “a culture shift in both attitude and behaviour”, transforming the region’s approach to dealing with ‘waste’. That’s what we are about. And while our focus is on the careless wasting of resources the culture shift required to correct that, touches every aspect of our relationship to Earth and each other.

It will require a Global Green New Deal and a just transition into that. The good new is the connection, joy and meaning it brings forth in us as we go. That’s not to oversimplify things either, the consciousness shift will challenge us to the core of our being. That’s the individual change the culture shift requires.

In this understanding of “building back better”, it’s towards a world where the key measures of collective progress are not GDP but wellbeing, circularity and regenerative prosperity. Let’s Go…

In regard to wellbeing, could Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs, for all its useful insight, unintentionally wrong footed us as the the secret of wellbeing? Read this fascinating article reflecting on the contribution of Siksika Blackfoot native american philosophy to Maslow’s reflections. It places a community, that regards each of us as already self-actualising, and facilitates us to make our unique contribution, as the key to both individual and community wellbeing.

The circular economy is part of a larger, system-wide transition that we are committed to alongside our partners at Derry and Strabane District Council. We can all contribute as individuals but more powerfully still as a growing community of change agents citizens.

Here’s a few important hashtags if you twitter….

#journeytozerowaste #circulareconomy #nogoingback #normalwasnotnormal

Here’s a very concise article on how lockdown might be the catalyst for flipping us into The Great Turning (see The Great Turning explained in the context of ZWNW here)

In regard to how we lead the transformation here’s links to both parts of a free two part delivery on Daring versus Armoured Leadership Part 1 and Part 2 from Brené Brown, although you have to sign up to Spotify. And here’s her brilliant Wholehearted Inventory Instrument that assesses your current strengths to better see your opportunities for Growth.