Making Sense Right Now
One of our favourite models for making sense of the world right now is the Two Loop model, created by the Berkana Institute.
The first loop represents a dominant system, paradigm or way of being in the world. Berkana rightfully posits that all living systems move through an arc of rising, stabilising or peaking and eventually declining, before the rise of an alternative system. It’s the same ideas essentially as a life cycle: birth, growth, maturity, death, before some form of composting or rebirth.
In this image, the dominant system is held together by stewards, people who only see this system. “This is just the way things are”. “Things are stronger than ever”. “Of course things will bounce back”.
But alongside this dominant system, at the bottom, is a second loop - the emergence of a new one.
Now, this new system is usually in its initial stages created by ‘innovators’ – people who see the flaws, problems and eventual collapse of the dominant system. They start to prototype and experiment with alternatives and new options, but importantly - innovators can’t do this alone. They need communities, networks, hubs to come together and share their learnings and strengthen their models for the system to emerge. Otherwise, they remain outliers.
But what’s fascinating to me about this model, is this space in between: this space between the demise of an old system – an old way of being – and the emergence of a new one.
By the time the old system is in decline, the new system is rarely strong enough to hold and just ‘take on’ the old. We end up living in a liminal space – a space between systems and stories, one that is often deeply uncomfortable and uncertain.
It’s in this time, that the old system needs care workers who can hospice its decline, help to ease suffering and reduce harm, alongside the others continue to build alternatives.
This concept and model fits well with what we teach in Finding What’s Ours to do in this time – that there are different roles we can choose to play as changemakers, with different skills required for each of them.
From Rise: Finding What’s Yours
First, we have disruptors, who work to halt the pain and suffering caused by the declining system. The work of supporting refugees & migrants, anti-racism, resisting authoritarianism, whistleblowing, blocking pipelines or coal plants and so much more falls in this category – often what we see as ‘traditional activism’. This work also involves highlighting the realities of decline to ‘stewards’ as well, so that we can faster transition toward an emerging system.
We have healers & guides who help support, nourish and directly care those suffering: care workers, conservationists, ecologists, social workers, nurses, doctors, therapists, somatic workers, volunteers, trauma healers.
And we have builders: those innovators who decide to prototype and experiment with something new or different to the dominant system: Urban farms and community gardens, regenerative economics, social enterprises, feminist business, citizen assemblies, democracy builders, transition towns, new forms of philanthropy and wealth distribution.
Now – like life – these roles aren’t always neat and tidy. Sometimes we weave between them, but knowing where our focus and work lies helps us to
Better support our wellbeing – and deepen our impact - by aligning with our energy, desires and callings
Identify the skills we need in this time
It may be that we benefit from the practice of nonviolence, and learning to restitch our relational fabric, ensuring we can work across lines of difference in ways that are genuinely transformative and healing.
It may be deep unlearning work of the dominant system, ensuring we don’t recreate it or mirror it as we move forward with an emerging one.
More prudent might be we learn to with grief and the unknown, the dark nights of the soul, how to balance our wellbeing, so that we can hospice systems and care for suffering, while not collapsing under the weight.
As innovators, it might be reconnecting with your creativity and imagination, releasing self-doubt, holding complexity and not becoming overwhelmed by it, that helps to facilitate your experiments and prototypes.
Amongst all of this though, as changemakers right now, we must build communities and networks to support one another, to learn and to develop the wisdom we need to better inhabit this time.
So my question to you: what role are you drawn to? And what support do you need in this time?
