Awareness Based Systems Change: Deep Resonance
By: Helio Borges
Tags: Innovation, Stories From The Field, Insights, Systems Thinking

Iceberg model of Systems Thinking. Image, Presencing Institute

Awareness Based Systems Change can be described by the following three sentences. “You cannot understand a system unless you change it. You cannot change a system unless you transform consciousness. You cannot transform consciousness unless you can make a system see and sense itself.” Otto Scharmer

Where We Are

Antoinette Klatzky opened the Deep Resonance Inhale session of the GAIA Journey by inviting us all to extend beyond ourselves to connect with one another. She shared that we would hear from three speakers, Thomas Hübl, Niphun Mehta and Jon Kabat-Zinn throughout the day; a packed day with five full sessions, holding close to six thousand people.

Antoinette then gave the floor to Otto Scharmer, who shared that he would lead us through a process of systems sensing and an embodying practice. The goal was to see and sense both what might end and emerge for each of us in our small groups, and in effect, see what might emerge for us as a global community.

Our Journey. Image, Presencing Institute

Awareness Based Systems Change

Otto began with a question, “How are we addressing the situation we are currently in?” He then went on to describe the Iceberg model (shown below), grounded in systems thinking.

He explained further, “All systems thinking starts with the distinctions that you see here, Symptoms at the top, and the root issues below the waterline. The root issues include Structures and Thoughts. These types of root issues picture the evolution of systems thinking over the past half-century or so.”

The Iceberg Model

Otto continued, “ Source is the one you want. It has been emerging on the evolution of systems thinking over the past decade or so. It is the source of our intention, of our individual and collective creativity. Instead of source, we could have written awareness here. What you learn in profound systems change is that changing structures is important. That is necessary however it is not sufficient. Changing the paradigm of thought is also important. That is also necessary but not sufficient. In a really profound change we need to address all four levels. A way of summarizing this approach is Awareness Based Systems Change.”

Awareness Based Systems Change. image, Presencing Institute

Awareness Based Systems Change can be described by the following three sentences.

“You can not understand a system unless you change it. You cannot change a system unless you transform consciousness. You cannot transform consciousness unless you can make a system see and sense itself.”

The first sentence, “You can not understand a system unless you change it”, is from Kurt Lewin, the founder of action research.

The second system is a sentence that summarizes Theory U, and certainly summarizes my past 25 years of experience. “You cannot change a system unless you transform consciousness”. Another way to put it is, “You cannot change a system unless you address all four levels here. You cannot change a system unless you become aware of these deeper dimensions.”

This sentence then transitions naturally to the third, “You cannot transform consciousness unless you can make a system see and sense itself.” Otto shared, “I want to draw your attention to the second word — Sense. Traditional systems thinking would say … ‘unless you can make a system see itself’. But that is only half of it. What we believe is that the sensing part of the sentence here is critical.”

“What State of the Art Systems Thinking does is add systems sensing into the body of systems thinking methodologies. Unless I sense the pain of the collective, the grieving that we can feel, the pain of the other, unless I open my heart and feel it myself, profound change is not going to take place.”

Stuck Exercise of Social Presencing Theater. Image, Presencing Institute

Otto reminded us of the Social Presencing Theater experience we performed in the last Inhale session, and invited us to relive it with a deep resonance mindfulness exercise.

Deep Resonance

He began by asking us to replay the process on video, to watch it, feel where it resonated with us, and then articulate that resonance by answering four questions. He asked us to write the answers to these four questions either into a journal or the chat.

He reminded us to pay attention to this experience in these ways: Attend to the video clip and to your resonance with your mind and heart wide open. An open mind means not judgment, and an open heart means no separation. Not only to see what´s in there but also to sense and feel it so that the boundary between subject and object begins to collapse, as it does it in any experience of resonance.

Otto shared that “the intuition for this kind of deepened perception was, among others, articulated by the German poet and phenomenologist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who said, “Every object well contemplated, opens up a new organ of perception within us”. That is what we are trying to practice.”

He continued with, “when you see someone else’s sculpture, it is a window into another person’s soul. But it is also a window into our own soul and into our collective soul. By which I mean our collective process of transformation that we are in here together, and that is at the core and the essence of the entire GAIA process. That’s the invitation.”

(Dear reader, if you want, you can participate in the deep resonance experience, following Otto’s instructions and writing your insights on a piece of paper or in the comments below)

Collage of sculptures 1 and 2 of SPT

The video clip began to roll, and an announcer repeated the three sentences that the people on the clip were saying while they were making the sculptures. (You can watch the video clip starting in min 37.30 of the session recording here)

Change. Surrender. Tiredness in the body / I grasp but cannot see. Free feet, grounded fly. Letting go / My hands are tied and I cannot move. It´s ok, let it come. Acceptance that we cannot just stay here / Anxiety, Heavy burden, inability to move. Yes, yes, yes. Hope / I am exhausted. Release. Stop controlling things that cannot be controlled in the physical realm / I feel scared, I cannot see the future. I am ready to move forward. Accepting this moment to notice what the future is asking from me / Tension, unstable. Peace, openness. Acceptance / I know. Reaching out. Let courage in, letting go / Discouraged, no energy. Widely open. Hoping / Suffocation. What is beyond. Being reborn. A new seed wanting to emerge / I feel small. I meet you, not below, not above, but at a high level. A movement to the collective / Don´t want to see. Available. Open up to others / I feel heaviness on my shoulders. I feel moving and I feel the energy. Sensing patience / I am confused. I am connected. Self-knowledge.

The announcer continued, “let’s stay for a moment in the resonance of what we saw, sensed, and felt. Now write in your journal or into the chat:

1) What resonated most with you in terms of the images we just saw, and in terms of the movement we saw from sculpture one to sculpture two?”

Antoinette began reading the chat with a soothing voice. From close to open. Letting go of control. The openness of the movements, the freedom. So much similarity across humanity, from constriction to release. A tremendous sense of grief, sadness on the collective. From fear to trust.

My own experience: Trapped. Going around. Freedom.

2) “How does what you just saw resonates with your own sculpture one to sculpture two practice that maybe you did on the Social Solidarity Circle, or in the last inhale? On the other hand, if you did not do any of these practices how much does it resonate with your own experience of sensing both, what is ending and what is wanting to begin right now?”

Answers from the chat. We are seemly sharing the same experience. Connecting with my longing, connecting my heart more and more. I also was closed in pain and fear and moved to freedom and emerging courage. We are not sculptures but movements. I keep seeing myself on an open field looking up totally exposed.

My own experience: I see an evolution from fear to freedom.

3) “How do you and your Social Solidarity Circle resonate with the current global situation now?”

Answers from the chat. We see the pain, don´t see how, going together going forward. Share the pain with amplified hope coming together, possibility. Going back and forward solely, keeping in mind what springs us forward. Awareness that this is a moment to shift, to pay attention to the possible.

My own experience: Deepening into my own suffering to heal it.

4) “If you really go back to the embodiment of your own experience, moving from sculpture one to sculpture two, try to connect to what allowed you to go through this metamorphosis with this journey of transition. What enabled you to make the shift?”

Answers from the chat. Connecting to the grief. Accessing our inner pain, feeling it to find the powerful center beneath. Leaving the social field of pretending for the social field of sharing and enacting. Listening and moving on the trust of what I am sensing. Sensing exhaustion and letting go to allow the tension to seek its resolution. Turning towards the pain. Letting go, acceptance.

My own experience: I stopped pushing and became aware that I could flow.

Otto closed the session by thanking each of us for our participation in this process, both in the creation of the sculptures, but also for joining this current moment to resonate with our sculptures. He shared that this process allowed us to go into the deepest co-sensing of what is truly happening in this moment.

He expressed gratitude to Arawana and the other members of the Social Presencing Theater team who pioneered the event with this methodology, stating “I believe [SPT] is very significant for which is ahead of us, for leading into this deeper collective realm that Thomas Huebl would call “walking with our shadows”, walking in the woods of Danya, those agreements that we have with each other, often unconsciously, that produce collective results that no one wants.

Then he shared his final takeaway - that he could deeply feel the collective way of seeing we all just experienced together. This experienced allowed all of us to have a window into the collective transformation that was at the heart of our community in this time together.