We are the system becoming aware of itself
We are the system becoming aware of itself.
Woah. That framing shifts things.
You know the old spiritual adage “We are the Universe becoming aware of itself?” Well in this day and age of mass social awakening it can be also said that we are the system becoming aware of itself, and in particular becoming aware of how we as a system negatively impact people and planet. A process that comes with heavy doses of old psychic baggage, collective wounds and moral injury, as well as the promise of new possibilities and empowerment.
I come from a longline of practitioners who study the social, political, environmental, and economic systems we live in. We commit ourselves to shifting the structures that be in order to create new outcomes for society. Outcomes that are regenerative, decolonized, fair, just, balanced, sustainable. Outcomes that are even beautiful.
Often as a practitioner, I’m studying the system as if it’s a specimen outside of myself. I’m removed from the thing that I’m studying and developing interventions for. I’ve been taught to analyze, assess and diagnose. To apply sociological frameworks and economic analysis to what’s happening in the world.
While this type of macro-level, “birds eye view” of things is necessary, and while attempts at objectivity are laudable, I can also see how viewing the system as something separate from me reinforces a worldview that, well.. reinforces separation. When I only see the system as something that’s outside of me that needs to be fixed, it reinforces the idea that I as a practitioner am separate from the system. And it makes me wonder how this quality of awareness impacts my work as a change maker?
Otto Scharmer, senior lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and co-founder of the Presencing Institute, has been exploring this question for the past 20 years. He’s found that, “behavior within systems cannot be transformed unless we also transform the quality of awareness that people in these systems apply to their actions, both individually and collectively. The quality of results within a system depends on the quality of awareness from which the players in that system operate [1].”
To identify with the system is to learn to hold all of the many complex realities that make up the system. It’s a call to take responsibility for the ways it abuses and doesn’t work for all. To celebrate the ways it does work well and do amazing things. To hospice and grieve its history and the injustices we still face today. And to build on the strengths and achievements we want to carry forward.
To identify as the system becoming aware of itself invites in a new way to relate to the world and our roles within it. I believe that if we have the proper support in place to hold the many complex realities of being the system - support like the We Heal For All Circles’ healing-centered community space - then we’ll be better positioned to shift the structures that be and give birth to the world our hearts know is possible.
Join the Presencing Institute’s Global Forum 2021: Stepping into the Decade of Transformation with a focus on collective healing. June 15-16.
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Hi, I’m Liz Moyer Benferhat. Writer, facilitator, coach, and development practitioner dedicated to the subtle interplay between how inner transformation feeds the outer transformation we need in the world. Welcome 🌿