Navigation aids for a world beyond normal

In the past two years, the world has been rocked by three huge events: covid, the rapid acceleration of the climate crisis, and now by Ukraine. Most of us did not see any of this coming: a few people did, and the ones I know are telling us to brace for more major shocks ahead.

None of us relish the prospect of disruptions and uncertainty continuing to grow, but let’s face it, that’s far more probable than any ‘return to normal’. Somehow the Ukraine crisis has pushed me into accepting that normality is over: the decades where many basics in life were stable, where we believed crises could be resolved, and progress would continue.

Storm Eunice impact at the end of my road

My hope in this blog is to share some approaches which may help you to navigate in this new, turbulent, norm-less reality we’re all having to adjust to. Many of these ideas arise from recent conversations, which had a depth of insights and honesty that feels new, and seems to be one of the gifts our situation offers us.

Interrogate the situation: what I mean by this is, be persistent, creative, and patient in trying to discern some meaning in these circumstances which just look intolerable and overwhelming. Can you find an insight, a way to evolve a response, for yourself, your community, for society at large? I’ve shared what I’ve found below, but I urge you to do your own looking.
Aim to live in dual consciousness: the awfulness of these crises is real. I share the view of various teachers that we need to keep these painful feelings in our awareness, feel the discomfort, to give us the momentum to learn from them and grow through them. However, I realised a few weeks ago that when this is my only, dominant, reality, I sink into depression, and I can’t act constructively. Now, what I try to do is carry a second reality alongside this, described in the next paragraph.
Savour deeply everything that’s still good in your life: this is a bit akin to mindfulness, and to the contemplative approach of some Christians, such as Richard Rohr, but it feels more than that. Carrying a present awareness of so much awfulness has pushed me to a much more immediate and detailed sense of gratitude for even basic aspects of life, like my clothes, the air I breathe, the clean water I drink. I’m trying to do this many times a day, and on a good day I feel calmer and somehow expanded.
Seek meaning on different dimensions: you may recall Einstein’s famous comment that “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them”. One reason I talk a lot about meaning in this blog is that many experts believe a crucial factor in raising our resilience is finding meaning in our situation. This is the aim of the interrogation mentioned above. Here are some of the potential insights from my recent conversations and pondering:

Humans mostly see life as having just four dimensions (space plus time). Imagine there may be 10 or 20 dimensions, and the meaning of our current crises is on levels very hard for us to access or understand.
Responses to the climate crisis and other big challenges are limited by many systemic features of our society: social media manipulating us, fake news, vested interests in businesses… Maybe the only way to force the radical, positive transformation needed is through a series of huge crises.
If more of us accept that the old normal is gone, maybe we can meet this new, uncertain reality with positive qualities like compassion and co-operation. See more in this blog from Jem Bendell of Deep Adaptation.
Try exploring your current situation and feelings from the viewpoint of your soul. Imagine your soul chose to be with you here in these crises, and ask it, ‘What am I here for?’ See more at my new website: www.soulresilience.net.

To set your priorities, look further ahead: this takes courage and skill, when the future looks worrisome and uncertain. I’m suggesting that you try to feel into what life may be like 10 years ahead: don’t try to forecast details, but seek a flavour, and see how it guides you. I tried this recently when talking to a friend, and found myself saying that in 10 years’ time, features of life that we associate with ‘developing’ countries would be commonplace in the UK, Europe, US and beyond: such as food shortages, fuel shortages, power cuts, disruptions to public services. Which led me to feel that my priority should be to help my home community and others to develop the skills to handle all this without society collapsing. By skills, I mean the ability to express and hear strong feelings appropriately, to collaborate with others under pressure, and more. A sample programme for this is Future Conversations, which I helped to develop.
Double the rations: we need to recognise that the ongoing context we are all living in is abrasive and exhausting. Whatever in your life nourishes you and lifts your heart, double the supply!
Reach out: all this is hard to handle alone – it helps us a lot to talk about it with friends, family, or a supportive group.
Try prayer: we are facing huge crises where it’s impossible to see a solution on a rational, material level. Maybe there is meaning and positive outcome to be found in a superhuman or divine dimension. So why not respect this possibility by praying for a positive outcome in Ukraine, in the climate crisis, and more?

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Current Events

Men’s Elderhood Retreat | May 10-12

Our venue: Trwyn Tal in the Llanthony Valley, Wales A men’s peer group This weekend offers a shared space to explore as a peer group how we harvest the fruits, enjoy the blessings and adjust to the downsides of getting older: a chance to look afresh and consider the future we’d like to help create. How can we serve as elders in these troubled times, and be good ancestors to those who come after us? What’s the balance, in later life, between inner contemplation and outer action? This retreat is intended as a supportive circle for questions like these, or whatever we choose as a group. Dates: May 10-12 Location: Llanthony Valley, Black Mountains, Wales Bookings: For more info or bookings, please contact Simon Chinnery: .

Featured Blog

How can we raise community resilience?

The Facing the 2020s report As the pressures on all of us keep rising, we can see mounting discord about best priorities and solutions. One of the few topics on which almost everyone agrees is that increasing the resilience of local communities is getting ever more vital. This has been a focus of my work since 2012, so I’m offering an overview of some of my insights. As part of a project called Facing the 2020s, in 2012 I commissioned a substantial piece of action research on UK community resilience by Reos Partners, which included over thirty diagnostic interviews, extensive desk research, and exploratory workshops in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff with potential stakeholders, including national and local government, NGOs and community organisations. This blog is a summary of the insights I gained from this research. The terms community and resilience are so heavily used that a short explanation of what I mean by community resilience may be wise: the collective capacity of a group of people to handle and grow through crises and challenges. I’ve set out below some of the main aspects of resilience in this context: part of this capacity could come from organisations, including local authority, public services and non-profit groups. Material: some capacity to respond locally to interruptions in food, energy supplies, especially for elderly and vulnerable people. Environmental: response to ecosystem damage, eg habitat loss, pollution and to extreme weather, eg floods, droughts.Wellbeing: for everyone’s emotional needs, especially those who have mental health or isolation issues.Inspirational: maintaining and renewing a sense of vision, cohesion and purpose in the community in the face of a crisis.Connective: good communication within the group, including the skills of hearing, voicing, reconciling strong differences in opinions and values. The main insights from the Facing the 2020s research are these: Reproducibility: On most aspects of community resilience, there are successful exemplar projects somewhere in the UK. For a concise, inspiring range of examples, see the book The New Road, by Alf and Ewan Young. Why have these not been widely reproduced? One reason is that many good community resilience initiatives have depended on a few superhuman people, who just kept going against impossible difficulties. How can such interventions be systematised so that regular humans could implement them in a bigger number of communities? Recording what was done in an accessible toolkit form would help a lot. Sustainable funding: Many good initiatives have also depended on funding that was not reproducible, e.g. a slab of one-off grant funding as part of a pilot programme by an NGO. Sustainable funding sources could include raising capital from local communities themselves, (eg crowdfunding), or a social enterprise model, or a couple of larger foundations offering a grant scheme plus support to use it. Professional services: Many community initiatives struggle to find professional support geared to their particular needs, in finance, legal, property, HR and other areas. The emergence of specialists for this sector would greatly assist reproductivity. Systemic catalysts: In my dream of raising UK community resilience, a focal role would be played by trained advocate-facilitators, who would go into a community to understand its needs and dynamics, help gather support and a project team and could provide access to reproducible role models, sustainable funding, professional services and more. Working with minority groups and communities of identity: Some communities will be more vulnerable to shocks than others, and history tells us that unresolved social tensions bubble up at times of stress. Resilient societies and communities rely heavily on social cohesion. The benefits of working on community resilience now include the opportunity to pre-empt more severe ruptures to social cohesion which are likely to arise from the major stresses ahead. It is important to involve minority communities in the resilience journey, and communities of identity such as LGBT, instead of focussing solely on geographic communities. Wider participation: Many places don’t have a strong sense of community, and in most of those that do, only a tiny percentage of people participate actively in community matters. How could larger numbers of communities, and larger numbers of people, have a motivation to participate in community resilience, including ethnic and low-income communities? This is a crucial issue, which will become more acute amid the pressures ahead: it would be great to see a couple of enlightened large NGOs fund pilot projects and gathering of best practice to move this forward. Engaging local authorities: As funding for services has moved from central government to local authorities, many local authorities have worked to further devolve decision-making and budgetary decisions to local communities. This means that in some parts of the country, local communities are strongly engaged with the local authority, and structures exist to support these partnerships. This move towards greater local control highlights the exciting potential to tackle many priorities (environmental, public service reform, etc.) by adopting a resilience approach and involving local people in community action and resilience building. In recent years, some local authorities have become real innovators in new forms of service delivery, partnership working and more. The replication issue applies here too. Is there currently an easy way to access best practice and role models in this area? Building national resilience: Most approaches towards community resilience take place at a geographic community level. However, examples from UK history and from other countries indicate real benefits in national-level approaches towards resilience. Some of the countries that are considered the most resilient, such as Japan, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, have a strong national resilience policy. If the UK had this too, it would make local initiatives more effective. Online resilience services: A massive opportunity for innovation! If I continue to dream, I imagine social entrepreneurs and progressive NGOs helping to create new apps and web services, alongside businesses.

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