How is Mindfulness Used as a Design Tool?
Conscious Social Change
For those who have begun a deep inner journey and have a desire to give back in some way to benefit others, we offer how to employ mindfulness and our inner wisdom as a design tool for social justice. We call it Conscious Social Change.
For those of us who have initiated or have gone through a deep inner journey – whether that is via a chosen personal practice, a challenging life experience, or other teacher – we may have found our way through fear, pain, and vulnerability to new places of acceptance, courage, and curiosity. We may experience a sense of compassion and inner contentment more often. We may increasingly feel connected to others, the planet, or something greater than ourselves. We may discover a new passion and a yearning to do more towards society’s wellbeing.
Still, it is not always easy to know how best to contribute, especially in ways that might avoid perpetuating the harms of capitalism, racism, patriarchy, ableism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression. Pursuing change in a way that is mindful, impactful, and sustainable requires skillful means. We at Global Grassroots believe there is a way to employ mindfulness and our inner wisdom - not only for our inner development, but also as a design tool for social justice. We call it Conscious Social Change.
Conscious Social Change (CSC), is a design philosophy and methodology of creative, compassionate problem-solving and solutions-building grounded in mindfulness and self-awareness. Global Grassroots has integrated inner and outer transformation into our core programs for nearly 20 years. We would like to share more about the philosophy and practical methodology of Conscious Social Change, such that it might guide others in pursuing social impact in mindful ways.
Conscious Social Change vs. Conventional Change
According to Robert Quinn, in Change the World: How Ordinary People can Achieve Extraordinary Results, most of society embraces a transactional model where individuals are driven to accomplish and attain what outer society values for the benefit of oneself or a group’s self-interests. In contrast, conscious change agents tend to be driven by their own internal sense of purpose while focused on serving the larger common good.
Mindfulness as a Design Tool
In the Conscious Social Change model, developed by our founder, Gretchen Ki Steidle, the key to effective leadership and social justice is a commitment to inner awareness. Change begins with self-examination, building self-awareness and understanding change from the inside out through our own inner work. We must learn to bear witness not only to the suffering of others, but also to the unconscious patterns of action within ourselves that uphold the status quo. As we become more self-aware, we begin to see change happening in ourselves. Through such personal transformation, we foster resilience, deepen our capacity to connect with and understand others, and improve our prosocial orientation and inner leadership skills. We recognize change can be difficult, and so we bring more understanding and compassion to others we hope to help transform. But it does not end there. We can methodically apply the capacities and insights developed via mindfulness throughout the entire process of understanding an issue and developing and implementing a solution. CSC uses mindfulness as a design tool in creating systemic change and social innovation: diagnosing a social issue, engaging in a participatory approach for solutions building, designing organizations, implementing interventions, and measuring learning.
How do we do it…
Conscious Social Change: The Methodology
Following are five capacities we develop through the CSC experiential and holistic curriculum, built into a five-step process for designing mindful social impact. We also include a few frameworks along the way to offer a practical taste of the work, though the entire process is layered and iterative, and goes much deeper than any single tool can convey. Essential to employing the model are the five key questions that guide us deeper into self-understanding as well as into our mindful design work. Click on the photographs below to explore the five capacities and key questions.
Bringing presence to our social justice work allows for radical creativity. Clarity among conscious change agents allows for personal agenda to make room for the best ideas to move forward. As an inherently interconnected and systemic approach, it ensures those working together are inspired by a common cause and energizes collective efforts. Conscious social change thus allows for the most effective and innovative ideas to move forward, which in turn are more likely to be sustainable because of their informed, inclusive, responsive and creative nature.