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In this Issue. February 2009Feature Article - Meltdown 
Resources, Tools and People We Would Love to Share
Where in the World is Syzergy?
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Dr Christine McDougall lives to support the emancipation of the human spirit by bringing light to truth, expanding world views, and being a model of integrity in action. She specifically designs, teaches and embodies new models of relationship; to self, to work, to business and business systems, and to the larger systems that underpin everything. She currently works with complex, multi stakeholder systemic change issues with a group of brilliant and diverse masters from around the world.
Syzergy Christine McDougall Positive Deviant Network The Constellation
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This is a time for change. If we are not all really embracing change head on, then it will be likely that we will be sidelined when it hits. I do believe that most people in the Western world will go through their own Meltdown in the next few years. We can either look at this with fear and trepidation, or with courage, daring and exhilaration. There is so much opportunity, yet to see this we need to change our glasses. Please let me know if you are experiencing your own meltdown, or have done so already, or can sense it in the wings.I am working with many people deep in their own process at this time. On the other side for me has been so much opportunity around sustainability, particularly in the personal sustainability area, plus the social technology of sustainability, and in the leadership field around generative and transition leadership. I am watching my world unfold with a sense of trust, and awe, never certain from one day to the next what will show up, yet embracing it all. Sometimes there is a residue of fear, but for the most part, there is calm. My daughter is no longer a school age child, and so, for the first time in 18 years, the next page to be written has more of me on it. This too is exciting. Wishing for you safe travels through the transition, warmly,
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Feature Article - Meltdown
Life gets really interesting when you let go and surrender to Universe. I stand aside from myself and watch the strange and mysterious events show up, ever in wonder at the miracle of it all. We are in a Meltdown. The whole world. Individuals, companies, states, nations, and the environment. It is affecting us all. I have just surfaced from my own private meltdown. People all around me are either on their way out of a meltdown, on their way in, or have no idea that its about to hit. Many of my friends and colleagues have already forged the path through and are looking at the world with new sight. I do believe that for those of us who are already through will be needed in force to help the masses as they awake to the fact that the fabric of their existence has been ripped apart. In particular, Positive Deviants will be required, for their natural tendency is to find the way through, when others cannot.Their ability to innovate, be creative, operate from difference, tilt the world view axis, are skills that will have increasing currency. This is a time of deep structural change. A global shift. No longer can we get away with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. All of us need to face the massive change inside and out. There is no running too...only delay of the inevitable. If you are up to date with science, you will know that everything is connected. There is no such thing as having a thought in your head in isolation. There is a collective way of being, a global mind set, cultures, tribes, and world views. So using a term like “meltdown” is not to be taken lightly. As Buckminster Fuller would say, we must always start with Universe. And our current situation is not just another recession. No, this one is a confluence of events-a crash of the titanic forces...the environment, the economy, our values system, globalisation, technology, peak oil, energy, any form of fundamentalism, poverty, the increasing gap between the rich and poor... Isn’t it interesting that the collective word for this crisis is “meltdown”? Also “credit freeze?”. Caroline Myss, one of my beloved teachers, has talked about the great depression and the language that was used at that time. People and nations where ~crippled~. At the same time the world was also dealing with a polio epidemic, in which people, including the American President who lead the people out of the depression, was crippled. It was only after the economy was no longer crippled, and the prevailing psyche was also no longer crippled, that we found a cure for polio. We had to move through the collective language and experience and find a place that was not crippled, in order to come through. From an archetypal point of view, expressing our global economic crisis as a meltdown links this event directly to the meltdown in our environment...the emergence of climate change..the melting of the ice caps. The economic crisis simply cannot be disconnected from our environmental crisis. They are two faces of the same coin. A credit freeze, somehow speaks of free flow of money being caught in the ice - in the ice caps? If so, we need the ice caps to melt in order to free up the flow. Are we seeking to continue to rape the environment in order to free up the God called cash? Is this what we are asking from the expression of the collective unconscious? Or is the freeze simply our paralysis? Extreme fear blocking flow? Just like the crash of ‘29 crippled people, our crisis is causing meltdown, in a holographic way and on every level. The very parts of us and the world that we have held as being solid are melting before us. The prevailing feeling is of walking on ground that is unstable, shifting, unpredictable. Humans like certainty,constancy, and mild to zero change. Positive Deviants embrace the uncertainty, dance with change. We all must embrace change. Because it is the strongest event in the room right now, and it is blowing a gale. What is the change that is required of us to move through this? What is it that needs to be restructured inside us all? What parts of ourselves need melting down? These are the questions we all must ask, and explore. For as surely as the wind blows, the work to be done is both internal and external. For myself, I had to look at some of the big questions? What is money, what is wealth? Success? What do I value? What parts of myself are no longer valid and needing expression, and what parts of myself will emerge through the meltdown. Do I have credit freeze? AKA--are there parts of myself that are frozen and not in flow? (Internal) Finally, given all this, how do I now express myself in the world? (External) What value do I offer that is required in our post meltdown world? Or, even, how can I support people and companies through the meltdown? My meltdown was not pretty. I wasn’t sleeping, crying a lot, occasionally paralyzed with fear. I spent a lot of time speaking with my coaches, and my mastermind group. I wrote in my journal. I prayed. I went through waves of hopelessness, and completely lost all sense of possibility. There were puddles on the floor, literally. I discovered that slowly, over many years, I had lost parts of myself that are essential to my being. These parts had been buried, because other parts had become dominant. Kahlil Gibran describes this in words far more eloquent than I am able. And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors? Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires. What I needed to meltdown was the parts of myself that had become my master. Things like working like a fiend to be able to buy more stuff. Spending money I didn’t have. And the belief that had overtaken me that said that in order to get my goals met, I needed to do x,w and z. And that I was responsible and that only I could create this via my actions. Be in action--create--create. The burden was on my shoulders. I also needed to meltdown what success means to me. Hmm...would I rather a big goody bag, or a life of rich experience? And then to really choose a life of rich experience. That is not to say we cannot have both. But to take on life, really go for it, surrender completely to it, and be completely OK with what shows up. To get that there is a bigger plan than I have any idea of, and that the daily, moment to moment surrender to this is where my joy lives. This is a successful life. To be in uncompromising integrity to self and others. And to do that I need to slow down and listen, the let go and trust, before I take action. To act from spirit and with grace by my side. To take Universe/God on as my full business/life partner. To embrace all aspects of my Positive Deviance. The parts of me that I have found again, that were frozen within (my interior credit freeze) is the belief in the miraculous. That life doesn’t follow some straight path of cause and effect. There is a whole other dimension here that is beyond our comprehension and will be forever so. I had to remember the world of grace, and synchronicity, and the mysterious. I have known this all along, however I discovered I had forgotten how to access this...and that more than anything, this is my starting point. I found the path to this by recognising that I had also lost connection to a daily experience- a full bodied experience- of beauty. For me I find this through music, classical, instrumental, that I can ~be~ joy in a heart beat. More than just looking at a sunset, being a sunset. Being joy dancing bare foot on the beach. Again quoting from Gibran ~But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, I needed to meltdown those rigid structures to find the immense well of beauty and love and truth that have always been and will always be. That this is the life I choose. First and foremost. Watered by the springs of compassion and shared with beloved friends. Is there anything else? What joy...
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Resources, Tools and People We Would Love to Share
For one of the clearest views of the global situation today, visit Hazel Henderson at Ethical Markets, or read her latest As the economy unfolds, there are many new forms of currency popping up. The Alliance for New Humanity has a site dedicated to taking a vow of peace and non violence, see http://www.itakethevow.com/ Get your free edition online of the great EnlightenNext magazine. I have subscribed to this mag for years...always has great articles. To understand more about what coaches can do for you, see this article from the Harvard Business Review. http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/hbreditors/2008/12/what_coaches_can_do_for_you.html Imagine living a rich, meaningful life with no arms or legs...this video clip will certainly make you feel better if you have any complaints about your life.. Great reading in the book "Peak", by Chip Conley. This book uses Maslow's Hierarchy of needs to look at building a successful company for all stakeholders, the customer, the staff and the share holder. Conley writes using a storytelling style, making this excellent book easy to read without compromising on the value of the models and thoughts discussed. Definitely an Integral model for the future of business. |
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Established in 1997, Syzergy is an international training and coaching company specialising in enabling people to speak the truth with compassion. Our flagship program, Dare to Care, has been delivered to audiences around the world, to great acclaim. Just in Time Coaching offers coaching solutions to organisations in ajust in time, innovative and efficient way. |
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©2010 Syzergy Pty Ltd 
Dare to Care - Positive Deviant Network e-news is published on a bi-monthly basis. You are receiving this newsletter because you have purchased a product, attended an event, or subscribed. You can unsubscribe at any time. We will never release, sell, or give your name, email address to any unauthorised third party or organisation. You will only receive email messages that contain requested information, new monthly articles, or announcements of new services. Although we want to hear from you, PLEASE DO NOT REPLY to this email or send questions to this address. Simply direct your questions and correspondence to info@syzergy.biz, or the editor, Christine McDougall, at christine@christinemcdougall.com |
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It has been quite a while. As you will see from the feature article, I have been through my own Meltdown. I am happy to say that this is written from the other side. 
How do Positive Deviants handle the Global Meltdown? My story.
Over the last few months I have been busy working on a new web site.
