Even as the crises of the world each contain the others in an unholy matrix,
the same is true for the responses. To respond to any is to respond to all.
Charles Eisenstein

The first week of October I felt disturbed by several waves of confronting news: the world’s leading climate change experts warn that urgent changes are needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty. Wild animals and plants are on their way to extinction and several communities are threatened in their existence. In Flanders scientist released that the poverty rate  doubled in 8 years’ time to 14%, which means that one in seven people live in poverty. In several cities even one in three children are born in poverty. Child right activists protest against the regular practice that children and families seeking for refuge are locked in detention centres. A practice of which is scientifically known that it has a profound negative impact on the development of children.

The accumulation of news made me feel frozen for a while and I started talking to people surrounding me. Grief and pain touched our bodies and a lot of us felt a deep sense of helplessness. Not one of these messages was new, and still the thoroughness of them and the cumulative power made us stand still and reconsider the question: do wo do enough? A lot of us are engaged in social work, ecological movements, working on corporate social responsibility, facilitating communities and businesses to better cooperate together, starting up social enterprises, …. But is this enough?

This raised the question: how can we act individually and collectively to create places of sanity? How can we act in our own lives from a place of inter being and connectedness? How can we contribute and co-create – with human beings and all that surrounds us – businesses and communities where all can flourish?

For a lot of businesses and communities this is a true transformation. It challenges us to stay present with all that is, both individually and collectively, and to start working from there. As we are all in this together, what kind of leadership do we need to embody in order to host such a challenging transformation process?

Valérie Carrette
caller of the Art of Hosting training, Nov.’18