Marnie Jackson interviews Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller for Enlivening Edge Magazine
I recently had an opportunity to connect with Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller about Love, Power & Purpose, a 8-month program launching in January 2020 at the Whidbey Institute in Washington State, USA.
The program, offered by Evolution at Work, invites an international cohort to explore concepts of love, power and purpose and co-create narratives of a world where human endeavors serve both people and planet.
After having experienced Christiane’s facilitation in last year’s Language of Spaces Coach Certification program, I was eager to learn about and sign up for this new offering. Here’s our conversation about what I and other registrants can expect to experience.
Marnie: Christiane, what can I expect to experience in this program?
Christiane: We are going to look at how we perceive the world today through questions about what matters to each of us, personally. I deeply hope we are going to get more specific than “the climate crisis.” Yes—and what specifically compels you? That’s where we start.
Then, we’ll explore love and power. What is love for you? How do you express love in your life? How do you experience love in your life? Likewise, what is power for you? How are you connected to power? How does it play out for you?
Then, we’ll dive into correlating new narratives. Just imagine love and power united—if we are fully powerful and connected to love, and can use those two drives in all aspects of our lives, what becomes possible?
We’ll imagine this reality, for humanity. What does that world look like? Another way to look at this is to ask, “What do we have, and where do we want to go?” We’ll be exploring what becomes possible when love and power are connected to serve people, planet, and the greater whole.
“What becomes possible when love and power are connected to serve people, planet, and the greater whole?”
Can you tell me more about the arc from Module 1 in January through Module 2 in May and Module 3 in September?
In the three sessions, we’ll go on a hero’s journey, an archetypal journey. After exploring what love and power mean to you, you’ll be asked to consider what’s holding you back from tapping into your full power. What must shift in order for you to connect with your maximum capacity to love and to be powerful at the same time? To express love and power fully in the world? You’ll dive deeply into what is holding you back—what blocks are standing in the way of your really, truly stepping into your authentic power.
On this journey, you’ll reach that point where you step over the threshold. This is the pivotal point, from which you can say, “Now I know how to move forward.” From here, you’ll be ready to explore ways to express your power more fully and to embody wholeness—united love and power—in all aspects of your life. You’ll discover, specifically, what that looks like for you.
After going through this exploration, we’ll collectively revisit the new narratives we co-created in the first module. Have they become more specific or more concrete? Can we envision the world we want to co-create even better now? And, translating our experience into practice: how can we organize to start co-creating this world?
Looking at the bigger picture of the program, you will travel through three major phases: starting with co-creating new narratives, then experiencing the individuation process, then starting to making it real through coordinated action.
“Express your power more fully and embody wholeness—united love and power—in all aspects of your life. You’ll discover, specifically, what that looks like for you.”
Whom do you expect to serve through this program?
Have you ever wondered, “What is my purpose, and how can I be of service in the world?” Have you looked for ways to contribute to causes you care about, or sought like-minded communities of change-makers? If so, this program is for you. This program will primarily be of service to those seeking a deeply transformational experience, and people interested in evolving themselves in service to something greater than themselves.
This program can be of service to individuals or groups working in purpose-driven enterprises. Five people are coming from Japan because they want to take this work into a new enterprise they’re starting. You might participate because you want to bring love, power, and purpose forward more in your work, or because you want to uplift a personal project, any aspect of a world where love and power are united in service of purpose.
Who will be facilitating the program?
My colleague Peter Kessels and I will be facilitating the in-person sessions, and we plan online sessions with guest presenters from a variety of backgrounds. We’ll be cultivating a very co-creative space, in the sense that our outputs and outcomes will emerge individually and collectively.
What’s the “big picture” story here? What need does this program meet in the world?
The power hierarchy has been a successful and useful tool, but it has created a world that overtook its own usefulness. We live in an incredibly complex, speedy society that was created because of successful corporate structures, but at the same time it has created enormous problems—ecologically, economically, socially and spiritually. This requires us to create alternatives.
This program is about creating clear alternatives and not giving in to the seduction of what “used to be.”
The program is addressing systems at a much higher level than the organization. What in our world can shift? Education, health, politics, business, agriculture, our relationships, including with animals and nature? Anything! Just imagine the shift that becomes possible when our understanding of power evolves. We need to be powerful together, in love, caring for the greater whole.
“What in our world can shift? Education, health, politics, business, agriculture, our relationships, including with animals and nature? Anything! Just imagine the shift that becomes possible when our understanding of power evolves.”
Marnie Jackson works primarily with the Whidbey Institute, an educational non-profit and a Symbiotic Enterprise with a mission to nurture the conditions for transformational learning. She’s a writer, editor, graphic designer, and Language of Spaces coach. She’s passionate about social justice, equity, and animal rights and uses much of her creative energy on projects that serve a future in which humans, other animals, and our planet thrive together.
Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller is a seasoned entrepreneur and pioneer of self-organization. Fully living the principles of self-organization for a decade and learning from the experience of what it means to make such a fundamental shift, both for organizations and for people, Christiane today is Founding Member and Partner of Evolution at Work LLC, creating spaces for people to go through the transformational journey into self-organization and to embody what is needed for human endeavors to serve people and planet equally.
Enlivening Edge is glad to be an affiliate partner of this program.
Also published on the Whidbey Institute blog.
