Reflections on my Worldview Learning Journey -Teacher Training
Overview
The essay below was submitted in part, to secure a certificate to facilitate Educational Worldview Learning Journeys, in my own programmes as well for other aligned institutions and organisations. The course was primarily designed, evolved, researched, validated and verified by Annick de Witt and colleagues at her non-profit foundation Worldview Journeys. Also launched, tested and partly developed within the Pathways to Sustainability programme at Utrecht University.
The six week programme ran through April to July 2024, online with almost all higher education professionals, mostly from Europe but also spread throughout the world. Because of our shared backgrounds Annick kindly suggested I help with her some light tech support on Zoom. So I was very pleased to share my presence, guide some short introductory impactful meditations, and also offer my personal support to Annick for the delivery of the whole programme. I found the subject matter intensely interesting and engaging, plus I was so inspired I decided to share this reflective essay with the wider public.
Worldviews are big stories developed over time to explain reality as it emerges, the essay below expands upon this description somewhat. Course content and in depth explanations, were offered through online videos studies asynchronously. A private, personal, reflective learning journal was provided, to record impressions insights and reactions to the content and five phases of the course. The centrepiece for me of the learning journey was the mostly fortnightly online learning gatherings. The highlight of each session being, the one-on-one stream of consciousness dialogue sessions. Exploring a set of five or six open questions pertinent to the topic being examined that evening. The reflections that follow are inspired by the insights prompted by these questions.
Introduction
Almost all the considerations below are gathered from my responses or reflections to the stream of dialogue questions which are/were a core part of the learning journey for this training. So what follows is less a reflection on the course or or structures or organisation of the worldview map, more a collection of reflections stimulated by topics contained within the stream of consciousness questions. Though I do offer in some paragraphs, speculations and insights, about what might transpire in a fuller manifestation of an integral worldview
The one-on-one dialogues enabled me to give free flow to my reactions, thoughts, ideas, intimations, associations and intuitions related to each area of inquiry. So half formed notions, sentiments, latent insights, liminal data points, constellated together and gave rise to new formulations, revisions, renewed appreciations in each area of enquiry. I really enjoyed relished and revelled in the opportunities for exploration and co-enquiry that these interchanges enabled!
Opening to the Magnitude of the Moment.
To me the true value of worldviews right now, is to offer a wide enough lens, a big enough story, to make sense of this current moment in the Anthropocene. This is a unique and unprecedented moment in human and planetary history. All previous sensemaking explanatory narratives, demonstrate rapidly diminishing power and relevance, given the exponential pace of multidimensional change in a swiftly deteriorating world.
I am drawn to the inherent descriptive power and ambition of Worldviews as well as the epic extent of the story that this framework attempts to tell. Plus this framework attempts to makes sense of the collective experience of the world, with respect to present day life conditions. I find endless reserves of energy and hope, when engaging in the perennially compelling Big Questions of ontology, of epistemology, of axiology, of anthropology, of the social imaginary. I find the propounding of these Big Concepts together with the Biggest Questions totally thrilling, because I feel they are the most grounded means, to meet the magnitude of this Anthropocene moment that we are in as a species.
Evoking the More Beautiful World
Additionally as a long term practitioner of self enquiry many of the stream of consciousness dialogues questions lit me up. Generated new insights and enabled me to verbally channel and evoke, emergent possibilities and potentials. Also the questions posed enabled me to frame, reframe, inquire, revisit and recultivate, these core questions and unearth new or recombinant formulations and envision novel pathways towards an integrally informed civilization. I illustrate how the dynamics of what the stream of consciousness questions provoked in my descriptions below:
‘How would I like my integrative or regenerative worldview to ‘evolve’ over the coming years? ‘
‘I’m super interested in social, cultural, spiritual evolution. So I think my primary question is ‘How can I become a better instrument for a more beautiful world?’ ‘How can I develop myself and my sensitivities and my capacity to be and become an agent of an unimaginably transformed world ?’
I think the regenerative or integrative worldview is not about arguing, persuading. It’s not about advocating, telling, showing, it’s about emulating and embodying another possibility. Thus it is only through the evocation and embodiment of that potential, that something more compelling or convincing is communicated. Far more than just a bunch of performative words, which abound in our entrepreneurial, academic, social and technical worlds. These domains are saturated with well meaning positive words, but not necessarily backed up with living in integrity according to these statements and claims.
So I think the regenerative/integrative worldview is about evolving and expressing and being, more and more in alignment, with deeper intrinsic ecological values. If I would take it a step further, to evolve this worldview further, I would say it is to transmit unreasonable hope and possibility of life, of life as a whole, of life and as life evolving. Even in times of extinction and collapse, it’s still possible to be a beacon of joy, of hope of possibility, and exemplify that others can just live their lives more fully irrespective of collapse, climate breakdown, irrespective of species extinction. That somehow we can cocreate, more beautiful, elegant, graceful lives together where the emphasis will pivot to the relational from the material.’
Advancing Adult Developmental Maturity
as an Embodied Integral Worldview
One of the key points raised in Annick de Witt’s video in preparation for the second learning session mentioned identity. This prompted a renewed recognition for me that in any worldview, if the weight or soul force of a person’s identity, is wedded or fused with a specific worldview. Then unencumbering or differentiating from, the values or perspectives of that worldview is fraught with danger and difficulty.
An interesting insight that was a counterpart to this realisation, struck me, in particular in a stream of consciousness dialogue when two of us were interacting with a self professed Christian, who clearly held a sincere belief in her faith. What occurred for me was that, I saw that the core values she professed did not inhibit her from exploring and enquiring into the Big Questions before us. In this way her practice of her faith seems more inclusive and engaging, where in other cases strongly held beliefs, can severely inhibit or constrain truly open dialogue. These interactions pointed to a potential of fluidity and release of energy in genuine exchange, across and between worldviews. When self or identity disengages from a specific worldview, the potential for value and co-creation of meaning and new meanings appear to me to be unlimited. The shared currency of co-enquiry then assumes huge importance for the co-evolution of all worldviews.
Integrally Embodied or not?
Another reflection that I have pondered for a while, yet reawakened by the course, is that an integral worldview is a novel emergence and as such, is mostly cognitive and has yet to fully land in the heart and gut intelligences, of those that are integratively informed so to speak. If this suggestion is correct. This means that an integral worldview is yet to be fully enacted in everyday human behaviours. While that gap between what is said or understood cognitively and done, seems to be a perennial issue whatever the worldview. One stream of consciousness dialogue after the second set of learning materials, prompted me to think about how an embodied or even ensouled version, of an integral worldview might be expressed and enacted. I was thinking of my (our) behaviour at home, in the intimacy and sanctity of familial relationships. How deep familiarity may often suspend the censoring function, of the superego and how my possibly, more primitive instincts, come to the surface and result in injurious behaviours to my (our) nearest and dearest.
These sentiments combined with two or three instances that happened recently, that really helped me crystallise some latent thoughts about adult emotional maturity through hopefully the lens of an integral worldview. A participant at a different public gathering, I attended in the spring, poured her heart out, expressing the need, in general for more mature human relationships. As I understood it, this was less about her personal situation, more in relationship to the massive problems we face as a species. Or my version, how the whole human species needs to move from adolescence to adulthood or integrally enacted behaviour almost irrespective of age or life experience. At the same event her statement evoked from another co-explorer an adjacent wish. About the need to be tender with ourselves, when experiencing powerful emotions. To be able, to feel, experience and hold these powerful emotive currents and not be owned by them. While I have a really dim recollection of what was said, this is the impression that remained with me.
In my personal relationship and life it may not surprise the reader, that some of my ingrained relationship patterns, trigger flare up and create discord, between me and my loved ones, mostly with my wife. However one pattern recurred very recently, which created some friction. In the past immediate ‘feedback’ or reaction to or on these patterns, may have induced rage, defensiveness, analysis, or increased separation. Yet as we were both more conscious about what was occurring. I could make space, be present, listen and allow my wife to express her displeasure and instantly, just the hearing was healing, tension dissolved and a sense of deep connection emerged. She later reflected to me that this moment helped her see through the illusion of reality her strong emotions created. Not that what triggered them was not true. But that her inner resultant maelstrom, was far easier to let go of than she expected.
In the crucible of intimate relationship combined with the notions above, I uncovered or rediscovered, a much desired learning edge of how to navigate rage, strong displeasure, extreme discomfort and stay in relationship and not create separation or rupture. I think this is also a part of expanding adult maturity or ripening into an integrally informed worldview, so it is enacted in daily life within whatever family constellations we inhabit. Which is more an art and a constant practice than most of us would believe. I find I feel quite inadequate, when attempting to express unpleasant emotions in responsible adult ways. I also find myself pretty inarticulate in terms of naming, or objectifying a whole range of unsettling feelings and emotions. For too long and even currently, perhaps rage has been or is, too easy a default response.
Additionally it occurred to me that there may be some clues in having tenderness towards or, for our more primitive instincts. To aspire to be responsive not reactive, to prefer relationships over rupture, contains some kind of codes and clues of how to navigate coming collapse or inevitable ecological crises. These point to a kind of spaciousness for ourselves, openness towards others, that in the heat of the moment is not always as accessible as we would wish, therefore to me, this provides hints how an embodied and practised expression of an integral worldview might land as an embodied phenomena.
Incorporated Nature?
Another element of the stream of consciousness I dialogues I really appreciated, was the exchanges focussed on primarily surfaced on our Nature walk. What follows is an amalgam of reflections prompted by questions related to uncovering my (our) relationship to nature.
In my dialogue I shared ‘ I don’t feel there’s any difference between my heartbeat or the silence that is on the inside, is totally the same as what powers the universe, which powers all consciousness. So in terms of philosophically and spiritually, ecologically, as much as I’m having and humans are having a negative impact or creating the Anthropocene or collapse or extinction. I still feel deep down, humanity’s presence and my awareness, here in this moment, is nevertheless very important and significant. The significance being accepting the mantle and role, of being a steward obligated to regenerate the planet.
I find that in the contemplation of nature it is critical to include the cosmos or the universe. Which can be immensely enriching, you know, scientifically, when it’s done well, by say Carl Sagan. Or by evolutionary cosmologists, these people can mix mystery and science, they embody, enthuse and transmit poetry as science and science as poetry. I just love it when art and science integrate and together express this refined joy and beauty and appreciation for the planet. This cooperation is essential for the integrative worldview to flourish and develop, as I see it.
An integrative worldview to me has nature or the cosmos at the centre. It also offers the opportunity to sense into the epic, the mythic proportions of the evolutionary journey. Not only the dry quantitative scientific proofs of evolution. When I or we, get in touch and feel it in an embodied way, it has massive potential for the degree of personal coherence and alignment. For example feeling you’re in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, for the right reasons, not because you’ve got an ideology that matches. But somehow the whole evolutionary process, the intricacy, the incredible delicacy, the immensity of what’s evolved over six, or thirteen billion years has brought us to be able to communicate today. If you start to sincerely contemplate the immeasurable expanse of this phenomena, then its inherent value, automatically creates joy and delight of being. Just through leaning into the existence of this myth, of this epic, even in times of collapse, we can really contribute by imparting faith and trust to each other and build a new world from there.
I feel nature at its core carries cosmic intelligence. There’s natural intelligence in the cosmos. It’s not God, or some externalised deity. It’s just what is embedded in the cosmos. And when we tap into that true genius, and I don’t mean personal genius, I mean nature’s genius, to give and respond as nature, of nature and to nature. That’s when I or we, start to reach our highest potentials, and then I (and we) can begin to express our highest possibility. Now more than ever, not just as a singular person, but as humanity together, in groups, in systems and as collectives, because we need to do that, to roll back the ecological damage just to restore nature to some degree of balance.
I think that these are critical insights in the midst of the Anthropocene, species extinction, or impending collapse. These dangers that our species is facing are partly to bring us to that deep appreciation of life and for our own existence here. So that’s what I would hope to transmit and encourage and help other people through my presence, not necessarily through only saying it, but radiating that kind of joy, engagement and alignment with life, just through being that, in who I am and everything that I do.
I would say, one developmental benefit of an integrative worldview is to potentially reorientate the human spirit, human eyes, human perception, towards possibility and potential. I’d really love to see that happening in collectives, so that cooperatives that work together, are orientated towards the unimaginable and the unprecedented, not only fixing the harms of the past and correcting and reparation and problem solving. I’m not saying that’s unimportant, but I’d say the full focus should be, ‘Where is the potential of this ecosystem?’ To find, ‘Where is the potential of this group, to be everything, that it can fully be together?’ ‘How can we co-participate and cocreate, not an immature idyllic problem free utopia. Not to preempt the fallouts, the breakdowns, the miscommunications, not to negate them. But to show up as developmentally adult with each other and not break apart and not polarise?’.
So that’s how I think I can exemplify an integrative worldview. ‘How can I be developmentally mature enough to face into the global crisis we’re in and still express that beauty at the core of life?’. Also share that and be an example, like a lightning rod that is able to bring that flavour in, when it’s appropriate, not just all the time, every time, not like some Sunday preacher. Not indiscriminately, but appropriately and bringing it forward at pertinent times when it’s needed. I pose myself the challenge and question of ‘How can I reinforce the best of the human spirit whenever it’s expressed?’.
Conclusion
Having reflected joyfully upon the narrative power of worldviews, of embodying the potential of an integrative worldview, as well as speculating on how an integral worldview might inform, psychological and developmental maturity in the crucible of intimate relations. Plus exploring how the central role nature and cosmos can provide sources and resources that guide our species to act, behave and reform civilization in life aligned ways.
I nevertheIess think the most critical takeaway, that I derive from the all the inputs from the course, as well as the joyous co-exploration in the stream of consciousness dialogues. Is not the structure or content of the worldview map per se, as useful, stimulating and interesting as it has been. More, it is the ultimate necessity and centrality of embodied inquiry, curiosity, and co-exploration in deep dialogue, concerning the existential issues of our time.
While the stream of consciousness dialogue component of the World View is critically important to this specific learning journey. To me this dialogical process needs to extend far beyond the limitations or constraints of one course in one faculty, but expanded into almost any social science or arts, higher education department. It may also have further value in the hard sciences to explore the moral, social and ethical dilemmas that new scientific or technological processes are bound to encounter.
So I now qualify what I state above that the shared currency of co-enquiry, should assume huge importance for the co-evolution of all forms of learning and education. This is to enable participants/students to experientially encounter the realities of our time. Plus to institute an integrative learning perspective, in the centre of education that acknowledges that inner subjective and intersubjective truth, have as much value as the well established canons of rational and scientific truth.
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About the author Dave Pendle; I am synthesising almost 30 years experience in non profit enterprises with over 40 years of deep personal development experience. Passionate about enabling others’ sense of fulfillment, impact and trust, to engage wholeheartedly with inspiration and commitment to 21st century work and life.
My website Generative You, explains my interests in more in depth, so do sign up for my newsletter or express an interest in my services, or share there how you best like to connect with me. I also run conversation and podcast series titled Phenomenal Conversations co-exploring with particpants, life defining topics, with pioneering changemakers who embody systemic and regenerative change. The next version of my programme Co-Creating Regenerative Cultures will be launched early September 2024.