A reflection on: Gestalt Organisation & System Development (OSD)
By: Qing Ping
Tags: Systems Thinking, Gestalt, Organisation Development, Reflections, Hope

Session 4 – 12/11/20

Gestalt emphasises the whole rather than being the sum of different parts

Does your current mindset serve you to make the change that you want to see? How important are these beliefs with what is happening in reality?

How can I honour who I am? My wants my needs my values

My wants my needs my values How do you centre and ground yourself — what is your ritual?

How did you see the process of Gestalt bring change to a system? — Pay attention to how you are making meaning, everyone is already practising gestalt, how do you empower them to grow in their awareness? Pay attention to your own world view — Meet them where they are at , don’t impose your own language or terminology that gets in their way

, don’t impose your own language or terminology that gets in their way How do you know if it is my work to do in inviting change to a system? Is it my projection that change should happen?

There was a resonant theme of journey back to ourselves, why is this not intuitive to us? And why do we resist so much or do we just forget?

Meaning making after — Journey back to self

A question that arose from the session, was this resonant theme from everyone was on this journey and quest back to rediscovering ourselves. It seems that many of our habits and dysfunctions stem from this longing of a relationship back to ourselves and how we can find the space for self love and care.

And unpacking a bit of that last night for myself was touching onto the questions of

What is my usual pattern?

What do I need to pay attention to?

My usual pattern in life is always the question of: what does life or the people or the systems need from me? Whenever I enter a social setting my natural tendency is to live outwards, sensing the world around me and trying to be relevant by meeting these needs. And this function has always served me in being a people pleaser and to have meaning in my life by knowing that I have helped to meet someone else’s needs. But also in this journey back to self it was for me to extract the flip side of that, what am I giving up in living my life for others? I think the void that I needed to confront was on the question of what do I need? And how can I serve the needs of myself?

I think this conversation of relationship with self has always been a difficult space to sit with, and I am not really sure where that stems from. But it just feels like the really hard question to ask myself is: why am I so hard on myself? Why do I expect so much? And why do I need to be always more? Im just curious where this comes from, and in a sense this guilt of privilege that I need to earn my place in the world and solve everything for everyone. I think in sitting with it, I don’t blame myself for this narrative, it has gotten me to where I am and has made me a better person in some ways. But I guess this phase in my life is an acknowledgement that I should live differently too. And a powerful quote that really stuck with my from last night was “How can I honour who I am?” And to understand that this current habit is not doing justice to who I am, and I don’t serve the needs of others without my own agenda clouding the relationship

Who am I? This brings me to the second question of “What do I need to pay attention to?”. I think for me is really to pull the brakes on my autopilot when I am in presence with others, to not jump out of my body and into the needs of others. And to find the boundaries and permission to actually tune into what I need in the moment. I haven’t quite got a hang of the process yet as I jump into the needs and emotions so instantaneously that I can only catch myself after it has happened. But the awareness and intentions are there, and the practice for me is to find compassion for myself to try again and acknowledge when progress is happening.

The vision would be for me to look in the mirror and know that I have the courage and the dreams to be more, but right now I am also enough. And to embody the phrase: I am at home with the world, and I have found a home with myself.

Overall the Gestalt OSD programme has been a great journey and community to revisit these themes of Gestalt and a reminder that the place to start our work in changing external systems, is the work of self mastery. I guess in going back into “the real world” I kinda get swept away with the global narrative of problem solving and fixing things, but these 8 weeks have given me the space to rediscover the importance in our journey back to self