The Age of Thrivability

"The same human patterning instinct that has brought us to this precipice is also capable of turning us around and onto a path of sustainable flourishing. We have the capacity to build an alternative worldview around a sense of connectedness within the web of life—a sense shared by indigenous cultures around the world from the earliest times.

I’ve seen this idea disparaged as a New Agey, kumbaya-style mentality even by otherwise progressive thinkers. However, modern scientific findings validate the underlying connectedness of all living beings. Insights from complexity theory and systems biology show that the connections between things are frequently more important than the things themselves. Life itself is now understood as a self-organizing, self-regenerating complex that extends like a fractal at ever-increasing scale, from a single cell to the global system of life on Earth."

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The Age of Thrivability

Our economic belief system is designed around hoarding – accumulating ever more stuff, in constant fear of not having enough and especially of not having as much as our peers. And look where that’s gotten us: to the edge of extinction, among other ills.

In place of hoarding, what if we designed for healing?

The root of the word is “to make whole.” Healing as ever-greater wholeness, through care and generosity.

Healing our hearts and bodies. Healing our relationships with each other and with the Earth’s countless other species. Healing the soils and the waters. Healing our communities.

If we tune in, we all know intuitively where healing is needed and where we can contribute. We are wired to care, unless our belief system tells us we should not.

What would feel healing and nourishing to you today?

What if the next conversation you have with someone contributes to just a little healing? What would that look like? It might be as simple as a smile or a thoughtful question. Or it might be more profound.

What if our every purchase were guided by the opportunity to contribute to healing? What would you buy? How would you buy it? Maybe you would recognize that (as I wrote) “it takes a village to raise an entrepreneur,” and so you would buy something locally.

What if each meeting were designed as an experience of healing? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.

What if each company dedicated itself to offering healing to people and planet, in its own special way? Patagonia, Interface and others are leading the way. Regenerative farmers, too.

What if elected officials saw themselves most of all as healers, creating more wholeness for citizens and communities through connection, participation and maybe even play? The UK offers a pioneering example, not at a national level but in its local community efforts.

From hoarding an ever-expanding quantity of stuff to cultivating an ever-deepening quality of healing. From fear of never having enough to delight and curiosity in discovering what more is possible.

Let’s design for *that.*

[originally published at michelleholliday.com/from-an-economy-of-hoarding-to-an-ecology-of-healing/] ... See MoreSee Less

The Age of Thrivability

"The more that the changing climate forces us to help each other and to heed 'the better angels of our nature,' as Lincoln once said, the less relevant our differences may become. The more that nature demonstrates its undeniable power, the more reverence and responsibility we may feel for all life."

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