The older I get the more I appreciate people who have developed the ability to ask, especially in difficult situations, "how am I contributing to this situation?"

As a facilitator and someone who sometimes tries to support people in resolving conflicts it seems to be an ingredient that predicts progress, success, and transformation vs stuckness, stagnation, and cycling through the same patterns repetitively.

A facilitator or holder of space, I can help set conditions for it. Someone modeling vulnerability can help make it easier for someone else to do the same. But no one can do this work for anyone else. (I have a friend who says no one can do someone else's adaptive action).

It's not just a capacity for one-on-one or organizational relationships, either....

I believe it is the same skill we need need different groups of us to cultivate in order to respond to climate change, undo white supremacy, patriarchy, economic exploitation, extractive economics, and so on. How are we contributing to our own suffering, and that of others?

Anyone anywhere doing the work to be better able to do this, or to support others at doing it, is helping loosen up stuck places, I believe. And it is hard, exhausting, and rarely recognized work, from what I've seen.

But so essential, with so much riding on it.