Tag Archives: groan zone

Slowing Down to Go Fast

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Our world moves so fast we all want it done now, or yesterday – whatever “it” is. The paradox is, we don’t have time to go fast anymore. But it’s not just about slowing down. It’s slowing down, adding in intentionality, purposefulness and patterns of movement – often non-linear and iterative – to take us to places we’ve never been before but that we’ve dreamed and know have to be possible. We want to get to this new place but we keep repeating the patterns that have never gotten us there before – Einstein’s definition of insanity.

Add into the mix, the complexity of today’s challenges generally means it is not a straight path from A to B and even if it is, your destination is probably somewhere else.

What does slowing down mean?  One is taking the time to acquire new lenses with which to view the challenges and complexity we face.  Another is learning how to use conversational methodologies well – tuned into purpose and intention as a guiding principle for how to design, enter and engage the questions of most relevance to what’s needed now – in growing learning, tackling innovation or bridging organizational divides.  It is not simply a learning and development opportunity.  It can be a formidable strategy to grow an organization, engage a challenge, conceive of innovative processes and/or products that serve the mission or mandate of your organization – as you already know.

These things are all possible using the principles and practices alive in Art of Hosting practices and frameworks.  Art of Hosting is not just a training.  Seasoned practitioners use it in consulting work all over the world – in every sector, for small and large initiatives, to launch new organizations and teams and to shift whole systems.  It is not just theory.  It is today’s complex challenges made real.  And it takes time.

For the training work we do, we often get asked about three days.  When money is no issue the larger question that looms is, “Is it worth three days of my time?”  Well, that depends.  On how aware you are of the value of slowing down to go fast – slowing down to allow insight to percolate, new perspectives to digest into new approaches and new strategies to emerge in animated and reflective conversation with other bright lights called to gather together in three days.  Because there are an amazing number of bright lights who show up for any training – of all ages, backgrounds and perspectives.

The beauty of being in 3 days or more with the same group of people is it invites the pattern of divergence-groan zone/emergence-convergence to show up.  There are many times when I’ve been asked at the end of day 2 of a three day training how is it going?  If I write that story, it is a very different story of what emerges because even subtle things shift and change in one more overnight or one more conversation evoked through a powerful question.  There is something in a three day pattern that lets us sense more fully into what our questions are, explore them in the company of others also asking powerful questions, seeing not just synergy but emergence – where we all gain something that no one person brought into the room, and we begin to imagine, often with extensive detail, how we will use what we’ve learned when we go back to work.

Not everything needs to slow down of course.  Not everything needs three days.  Some need less.  Many need more. But we refuse to take the time – we believe we don’t have the time, other things are more pressing, we will get too far behind – lots of limiting beliefs we carry individually and collectively.   But what about the things that do need three days and maybe longer? Percolation does.  New perspectives often do.  Imagining – really imagining the new – does.  Shifting paradigms does.

When we give ourselves permission to slow down we also invite ourselves to be surprised by what emerges and how fast things move with new clarity.  It is a wise investment of time and necessary for those of us imagining how to shift the shape of the worlds we touch.

Navigating the Groan Zone is an Art

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For a such a simple little concept, the divergence-emergence-convergence model we use in the Art of Hosting sure packs a punch.  It is a simple teach that can be done in 10 minutes – or longer – if time, space and the opportunity to engage others in the conversation allows.  It sheds light on design process, the groan zone and people’s experience.  Navigating the groan zone is an art form that often arises out of our ability to host ourselves well.  Stories from a recent Art of Hosting training a bit later in this post.  First a bit about the model.

Divergence-Emergence-Convergence – a simple model with an interesting challenge

The divergent phase of this model is akin to brainstorming.  We want as many ideas as possible to emerge so we can later select the best ones to develop further.  It has much broader application than brainstorming though.  It is about expansion.  It is where ideas are generated, information is collected,  issues or challenges are sensed into to gain more insight or shift perspective or simply where we holding open the space for possibilities to enter in.  It is not a time for evaluation.  We don’t need to know what we will do with the information.  We don’t even need to know whether the information is ultimately useful while we are in the divergent phase of the learning, the work, the project.

As we begin to feel overloaded, overwhelmed or uncomfortable, or we begin to question “the process”, or the leaders or hosts of the process, or we are just tired and grumbly, we are desiring understanding and often looking for convergence.  What does it all mean?  What should we do now?  When can we be done?  All questions that indicate we are near or in the groan zone.

In an effort to avoid discomfort, end discussion, or just get to the end now, we are often tempted to circumnavigate the groan zone by picking an idea, or a solution prematurely – any reasonably good one will do – and developing it into “the answer”.

Some things happen when we do this.  One is that we may miss the truly important things.  By prematurely closing a conversation, the essence or pattern of it often comes back.  We think we made a decision but the decision is questioned and we end up in a new round of conversation about things we thought were settled, growing frustration and dissatisfaction later on.  Staying with the discomfort just a bit longer might emerge a different idea or opportunity or a new understanding of where are at and why. What if we became curious about where we are instead of wanting to shut it down?  What might then emerge?  What if we ask the question, what else is going on here?  What is underneath the conversation, the unrest?

Navigating the groan zone is an art of discernment in many ways.  It is also a skill we can develop.  I recently had someone send me a note, asking me how a training was going.  The note arrived exactly in the groan zone at the end of day 2.  I thought about replying and knew it was just impossible to explain succinctly where we were in our process – unsettled, a bit disconnected as a group, unclear about what all was bubbling.  Sure enough, the next day things flowed together, the group became more cohesive and new possibilities emerged.  I had a new story to share about the groan zone and the importance of staying in it in our processes, not prematurely attempting to assess the success or failure of a conversation, a training or a process. We don’t just need to stay tuned to the groan zone, we need to be alert for convergence and good timing of it.

A couple of stories about the groan zone from recent hosting experiences.  These two stories come from the first AoH training for Rio de Janeiro in Brazil at the end of April 2012.  Two of my co-hosts (on a team of nine) were Jerry Nagel from the US and Maria Barretto from Brazil.

The first story is from the hosting/calling team.  We met, as is normal practice, the day before for our check-in and design process for the training that was in front of us.  In the couple of weeks just before the training, it filled so rapidly most of us had no idea we had reached our capacity of about 50 people in the lovely retreat centre we were at near Petropolis.  Even in this last night before we were to begin, people were sending emails saying they wanted to attend.  In the normal flux of what happens leading up to a training, some people were appearing, some were saying they couldn’t come and we were left trying to figure out what to do.  We had five people  on a waiting list.  There were two possibilities: begin the list for the next Rio AoH or refer them to an AoH that was to happen in Sao Paulo a few weeks later.  We circled around a decision several times, even as we tried to move on, but never landed.  We were clearly in the groan zone.  Maria was the first one to suggest this conversation was not about numbers, there was something deeper that maybe we needed to become curious about and pay attention to.

After two hours we agreed as a team that we would just say yes.  Full invitational energy.  You want to come?  If you can still come we will figure out how to make room.  Calls went out to the five people, three of whom showed up the next morning, two of whom had a 7 hour drive to make it happen.  What was our conversation about?  Letting go.  Inviting.  Trusting.  When we entered full invitation, we passed through the groan zone as a hosting team.  Something shifted for us. Beyond the decision itself. Into the collective space of being a team.

The second story – this time from the full group.  Day 3 of a 4 day training.  The morning is all about hosting self – embodiment, art, silence.  Not everyone is comfortable with meeting self.  We decide not do a collective harvest of the experience but to leave it with individuals.  The afternoon is Pro-Action Cafe – one of the best I’ve ever seen as my Brazilian friends take it to new levels, engaging the participants while the conversation/project hosts are reflecting on what they have learned so far.  “What does it feel like to host other people’s dreams?” is the question they ask, a question that touches me heart.

After the proaction cafe, we enter a debriefing space.  It’s been a long day.  First comments are quite positive and excited.  Then there is a shift. The comments and questions that are now coming into the space do not, in my perspective and through translation, seem to reflect the proaction cafe experience.  So, I become curious.  As I pay attention, I begin to wonder, what is the level of discomfort from the morning experience that seems to be bubbling up now?

The day before, Maria taught the divergence-convergence model, speaking about the groan zone.  In this moment, as I listen I know we are in the groan zone.  I listen for an intervention point and take the talking stick – a paint brush from the centre that many who speak are holding as if it is a microphone.  I step into the centre of the circle and begin to walk it.  I say, “Friends, yesterday Maria talked about the groan zone.  Today, now, we are in it.”

Someone says, “So we should be celebrating.”

I chuckle.  “Yes,” I respond, “We should be celebrating.” I pause, “We need to be careful that we do not assume that our individual experience is the experience of the group.  The things that really resonate with me might be the things you are most challenged by and vice versa.  This is an invitation for us to each own our own experience and to become curious.”

From here, I am not really sure where we want or need to go next.  I invite the hosting team into a transparent conversation about how we want to proceed.  There is one more thing we had been planning but we are now into the time for that process.  Things take on a life of their own and we enter into a fishbowl experience.  I’m still not sure how that happens, but we flow with what is emerging in the space.  As a host team we have a little conversation about what will serve best now.  Participants enter the fishbowl and offer their experience and their questions.  One person asks, “Why don’t you, as experts, just tell us what to do now?”  Good question.  We invite it to sit in the room with us til a bit later.

After hearing from more people one clarity emerges for me.  I  want to be sure we honour the stepping in of volunteers to host processes they had never hosted before and I feared itt was being lost in the ripples showing up in this groan zone.  The response to the question of why we didn’t just provide the answers for people?  “Looking for someone to provide the answers is a typical reaction when we are in the groan zone.  Learning to co-sense and co-learn into what is needed next is the learning edge we are all on.  An answer too soon might not be what we need at all.”  People are nodding.

As we have heard the feedback and sensed the room, I suggest maybe we need to wrap up.  One of the desires in the room is to end for the day and dance – beautiful Brazilian circle dance.  Jerry states, with a beautiful level of intensity, “I didn’t come all this way to just stop and dance now.  There is more learning to be offered.”  People around the room nod.  This is another thread very present in our space.  Maria finally suggests we wrap up for dinner and, for those who want to, we will reconvene after dinner to hear stories of where the methodologies have been used and the impact of them.  This is ultimately the path we choose.  Pretty much everyone shows up for the evening of storytelling.  There is a hunger in the room.  It is a good call.

In the middle of the groan zone we modeled how we can hold the intensity of it, offer up various points of view, and maintain integrity and depth of relationship in our field.  We feel the relief in the room and we know the tension we have been holding in this moment.  Many people later thanked us for modeling what we speak about, that it was a powerful moment for them.

The next morning, we know we need to converge well.  We invite triad conversations as a check in.  People are asked to reflect on their greatest learning and how they are going to take their learnings home.  It is a powerful convergence moment as people reflect on their experience and how to apply it.

Convergence is not necessarily something that happens half way through the process as is depicted in the diagram.  More likely it will happen 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through.  And, when we have navigated the groan zone well, it happens swiftly.

In a lot of our planning processes, I will often say they are front end loaded. If we take the time to sense into what is needed, and the time to be in conversations that take time, with the curiosity about why, we create the conditions for “magic” to happen. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a process where “magic” happens when we haven’t had to navigate the groan zone with attunement, patience and awareness.  There are ingredients that lend themselves to magic and navigating the groan zone with presence, patience and attunement are some of them.  It is sometimes the most challenging space we hold, but the rewards are bountiful when we do it well.  And whether we do it well or not, the learning is rich.

Hosting Lessons from the Field – Presence and the Four Fold Practice

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It is the last morning of our 3 day Art of Hosting training in St. Paul Minnesota in mid April 2012.  We have 40 participants plus our 6 person hosting team which includes 3 apprentices. The hosting team is starting our day by checking in. Day 2 was a good example of a groan zone kind of day.  The field felt a bit disconnected from itself.  There were little rumblings here and there that had been showing up since our opening circle on Day 1 that had our attention a bit and certainly our curiosity.  At the end of Day 2 during our check out as a hosting team, we noticed some of the dynamics that seemed to be in play, felt we didn’t have enough information to make informed determinations of what may or may not be in the field and let it go as we left for the day. On this last morning, the person hosting our check-in asks, “What are you anticipating in this day?”  The question gives me pause, although I’m not sure why — until I begin to answer it.  I start with, “Well, I’m anticipating a few good conversations with individuals – some of whom have already been identified.”  I hesitate.  What else am I anticipating in this day?  What do I want to anticipate?  Ah.  That is a good question.  My clarity begins to emerge. I continue, “I don’t think I want to anticipate anything else.  We know there are some dynamics in this field.  It is not fully clear what they are so I think I don’t want to anticipate anything.  What I do want to do, is be fully present and attentive, ready to tune into whatever emerges that needs tending, but without anticipating now what that might be.” This sentiment seems to resonate for all of us on the hosting team.  An invitation into being fully present, to not speculating, to not imagining how carefully we need to tend the field for certain things.  The first of the four fold practices – being present. The Four Fold Practice is a core pattern and practice in Art of Hosting and it has been receiving renewed attention lately in our teaches and our conversations. Self hosting. Not just being nice to self by going to the spa or eating dark chocolate.  Depth. Practice.  Discipline. The discipline of practice. Meeting oneself, sometimes in places one would prefer not to meet oneself. Being present is fundamental to good hosting.  This I knew.  What happens next for us as a hosting team is what has me reflecting still on the power of presence and what it means to hosting and, more than that, for me anyway, what it means in my life. As a team we decided not to try to figure out what may or may not be going on in the room, or who was holding the threads of what dynamics, but to let it go to sense into what was alive in the moment allowing us to more powerfully engage the next two folds in the practice – participating fully in those one-to-one conversations and contributing to the larger hosting process. Following our check in, I was coaching the proaction café team.  It was a large team, a bit chaotic to start, but everyone managed to find a role that worked for them with several teams of two hosting different sections.  I went off to find the members of the team to check in with them about their role and what, if anything, they needed from me. In entering the room, I began to encounter some of the people who seemed to be holding some of the threads of discontent and disconnect that had been popping up over the previous two days.  Spontaneously.  I didn’t seek them out.  I’m not even sure they sought me out.  We just bumped into each other. In this spontaneous connection in even just five to ten minutes, a depth of human to human connection happens on the level of story, being able to see and witness some extraordinary part of an individual’s journey.  What is even more surprising is that this spontaneous connection happens for many of our host team members. What we notice alive in our field now is that the threads of discontent and disconnect seem to dissipate and disappear.  They don’t go underground as often happens when not addressed, but they seem to disparate in the depth of human connection.  People feel seen, heard and acknowledged in their journeys in unanticipated and beautiful ways. Then, the proaction café weaves people, their stories and their gifts together in a beautiful way.  Nine projects/ideas expand in delightful ways.  The conversation hosts feel gifted.  The participants also feel gifted and honoured with holding and exploring other people’s dreams, realizing the power of contribution even when not directly connected to someone else’s project. One of the roles taken on in the proaction café is the deliberate and intentional holding of space – or the energetics in the room.  Two women stand on either side of the room, visibly and silently witnessing the room and hosting space.  When we debrief, they are asked to share what they have been doing and what their experience has been.  They describe the honour of it, of seeing the weave in the room, of deliberately fueling it with positive intention and love.  Participants describe their experience of it, what they feel corresponded to what they heard from the hosts of the energetic space.  It was one of the most deliberate explorations of what are we hosting really that I have been part of. When we do our closing, as often happens, we become aware of how powerful the three days have been for many who are there.  We are reminded of the power of the groan zone and how our assessment of where we are in our process influences our interpretation of whether we are successful or not.  On a day that ends in a groan zone it doesn’t always feel on track or successful.  Seeing the convergence in the next day reinforces the beauty and possibility of the groan zone. I’ve been through enough groan zones that I should know this but it is always a renewed awareness. As we close our hosting team circle at the end of the day, we bring curiousity about what has happened and a fresh wondering about the Four Fold Practice and the power of presence to shift the shape of the field and the possibility it can shake out some dynamics without needing to dive into them.  Is that what happened?  I don’t know with absolute certainty.  That’s my continued reflection.  Will full presence always be enough to dissipate shadow on its own?  Happy to experiment more to discover – rather than anticipate the answer to that. This experience has me reflecting on hosting self, specifically myself, my life and my relationships.  How often have I said about a situation, relationship or person, “I’m optimistic that…” or “I’m not optimistic that…” What is the anticipation that gets built into those kinds of statements?  What if I just met that situation, relationship, person, myself, in the moment of the experience and not as a precursor to what might or might not be but attentive to what, if anything, needs to be tended to in this moment?  How would this ongoing presence shift the shape of my experience now, shifting the shape of my relationships and my situation? I am deeply appreciative for the question, “What am I anticipating?”  It has made me aware of how much I do anticipate and how a lot of that does not serve.  The only journey I really need to pay attention to is mine.  Another person’s journey is not really my business and is certainly not my journey. My journey intersects with others, but they don’t define mine unless I let them.  I don’t define theirs unless they let that happen. Letting go of analysis and simply tuning in at the moment supports what wants to happen rather than fuels my own anticipation of what might or might not happen, possibly feeding something that didn’t need to be fed, creating something where it might not have existed except that my/our anticipation brings it into being.  Still ruminating on this one. Powerful lessons from the field on being present.

Prototyping Collaborative Leadership at Capital Health – Citizen Engagement and Accountability

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Citizen Engagement and Accountability Portfolio

In May 2009, the creation of a portfolio within Capital Health with the title of “Citizen Engagement & Accountability” presented a rare opportunity to create something that had no precedent.  The portfolio was launched in response to the strategic stream of Citizen Engagement that came out of the Strategic Quest work in 2007.

Lea Bryden was tasked with bringing together three functional areas under this new portfolio: Marketing and Communications, Community Health Boards and Patient Representatives.  In looking across the country, they found themselves virtually alone as there were no models to inform the portfolio development.

In January 2010, Kathy Jourdain and Tony Case, through Shape Shift Strategies Inc., were contracted to assist in shifting the shape of this portfolio.  The intent was to truly create a new portfolio with collective purpose, principles and streams of work and not just perpetuate the three existing functional areas under a new name.  Some of the functional work would be the same and new work would emerge through the process but all of it would be informed by the collective purpose.

This work was given context and framing by the following pre-existing pieces of work:

  • Our Promise
  • Declaration of Health
  • My Leadership: Being, Caring, Doing
  • Citizen Engagement Strategic Stream
  • 2013 Milestones

In addition to wanting to honour CEO Chris Power’s intention in asking the question: “What kind of future could we create if the vision of Our Promise and belief in our Declaration of Health showed up at each of our touch points in the course of our day?”, Lea also wanted to uncover the unique gifts and contribution of each member of the portfolio and understand how they came together as a collective.  And, it was  very much a mechanism to create a cultural shift to even greater transparency and accountability.

This process invited a design team to co-design the process.  There was initially a very specific invitation to a member of each of the three functional areas. As the process unfolded participation in the design process was completely open and transparent and those with the greatest interest and passion continued to participate in the process.  Some people showed up in the beginning because they thought they should and then kept showing up because they saw how their contribution directly influenced the design of each session.

This work took place over a period of four or five months to establish collective purpose, principles, priorities, and strategies.   It took into account other work that was underway in the organization, incorporating things like the budget planning process or the response to Capital Health’s community engagement recommendations right into the process so the portfolio could learn how and when to respond as a portfolio to other moving parts of the organization.

We knew we were making headway when we hit the groan zone.  The collective purpose and principles were articulated and we began to hear, “Oh good.  We have what we need.  Can we be done?  Can we get back to our regular work now?”  This was a signal to push back.  Lea did this by asking a simple question, “Where are we seeing evidence of our collective intention at work?”  The responses were amazing, informative and represented a turning point.

A philosophy of our work as consultants was to transfer collaborative leadership skills into the portfolio so it could flourish once our involvement came to an end.  The portfolio created a transition team to continue to guide the work and this team is also working collaboratively.

A key contributor to the success of this initiative was Lea’s willingness to foster collaborative leadership and her openness to growing her own awareness and skills in the process.

Like all significant culture shift initiatives, there are certainly bumps along the way.  But there is lasting change in the way this portfolio views itself, understands its work and engages with the public.

Can We Be Done Now?

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Last week, round about session 3 of my ALIA Module: Leader as Shambhala Warrior, as we were going back into creative process yet again, I recall sitting there thinking: “Can we be done yet?  I’ve had enough.  I’m ready to move on to the “real” work of the module.”

Immediately I chuckled at my own thought and the awareness that came with it.  Just a few weeks before, a colleague and I had been in that same question with a client about the status of the long term shift process we were in.  We told the client, we have reached the point where some of the people will begin to say: ” We have our document, can we be done now? Can I get back to real work now?.”

This raises two things.  The first is our concept of “real work” as something that does not happen in a conference, training or retreat.  If it’s not real, is it imaginary?  Un-real?  If it’s not real, why do we do it?  I love challenging this notion when it arises – this is real work too.  For myself, when I’m in retreats, I now think of  the outside world that does come knocking and “real” work happens in both places and many others in between.

The second thing is that when we encounter in ourselves or others this question of “Can we be done now?” it’s a pretty good indicator we’re in the groan zone.  The groan zone is a place that feels a bit murky because we lack some clarity in the moment about where we are and where we’re going – or how we are going to make use of what we’ve been learning or experiencing.  We may be tired or challenged and just want to get beyond it — or usually get back to wherever we were before we started.  And this is the opportunity in the groan zone.  Stick with it just that much longer and the opportunity for emergence and for clarity is primed.

What happened when I was in the groan zone last week around the creative process?  Well, we were being led, through exceptional leadership displayed by Jerry Granelli, to become a “blues band”, writing our own lyrics and actually singing them out loud while other people witnessed us – or really, while we witnessed each other.  I don’t sing. I don’t know musical form.  I can’t carry a tune.  I don’t write music lyrics.  The day we were asked to just hum the blues form, I felt a visceral reaction along with my sharp intake of breath… and then, I did it!  I told Jerry, he had butted me up against my fear.  He laughed, in a gentle and wonderful way.  I told him the good news was that in previous years, that would have been my terror I butted up against.

Last week, we had marvelous and thought provoking teachings from Meg Wheatley and Jim Gimian and I will write more about that in future blogs.  We knew though, as we were at “band practice” at 9:30 one night, that this band experience was bonding us into a community as we supported each other in writing our lyrics and setting them to the blues form and that this was the thing we would most easily and fondly remember as a collective.

In all my years of attending ALIA’s Shambhala Summer Institute this one stands out in my memory for the bond created within my module.

I traveled through the groan zone, pushed the edge of my learning, wrote my lyrics and sang them… sang them first actually (not because I volunteered though), finding a place of greater ease, peace and playfulness within myself and understanding the groan zone at a whole new level.

Thanks Jerry, Meg and Jim and my band mates!  Be warned – you now just mind hear me singing in places other than to my young children – like on the street when I’m out walking and “shape shifting, shape shifting in a soulful way…”.

The Groan Zone of Transition

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I’m in it! The gentle flow of it and the zany spin of it.  I am deep in the groan zone of transition – marriage separation, emerging new business and the birth of the second half of my life.

If I had posted this a couple of days ago when I first became aware that what I was experiencing was groan zone related, this entry would would have communicated an intense amount of stress and pressure related to all the normal groan zone challenges – resources, relationships, fear, questions around whether the vision for the new directions are even achievable.

But this is the beauty of the groan zone.  Wait a day, or sometimes a few hours or even just a few minutes, and the gentle flow of the path, or the zany edginess of it, will take you different place – thankfully.  So I write this post from a place of greater calm, groundedness, faith and trust in the path that I have embarked upon in this second half of my life – a journey that requires a greater amount of trust and faith than I have ever experienced.

On this path is the new company:  Shape Shift Strategies Inc.  What will it do?  Good question.  I’m asking it too, while knowing at the outset it will be the vehicle to continue my craft as a process artist – hosting, consulting, coaching – providing services to existing and new clients, working collaboratively with colleagues from the Art of Hosting network.  As I continue to step more and more boldly into bringing my healing gifts to the shifting shape of the world and the regeneration of its people…. well, who knows how Shape Shift will support this.

In this transition, my life is full of unresolved details – a new website (ready in a couple of weeks has been my mantra for awhile), attracting the resources for a move so full separation is possible, writing a book and book proposal for Healing Across the Ages: Releasing the Hold of Family Secrets, staying on top of client work, spending extra time with my dad, since my mom is in long term care for dementia,  following a minor surgery that put him in the passenger seat literally and finding time to do the things that nourish my soul: being inside of nourishing relationships, meditating, exercising and spending time with my kids.

In the bad moments….  the tension is palpable.  It is important not to ignore those moments and not to get lost in them either.  Fortunately trust and faith carries me far and the work of this second half of my life is so compelling I don’t have time or inclination to be lost for long.  I am able to focus on the flow rather than where the current is stuck.  Knowing all this strengthens my journey, builds my capacity and deepens my ability to stand boldly in my purpose.