PANEL: Structures that Support Patterns of Grounding and Co-Regulation
What happens when we become activated in meetings? With responses ranging from shut down, or moving into fight, flight, or freeze, activation can pull us from collaboration and impede our ability to make clear decisions.
What systems of support can we create to meet those moments in collaborative meeting space? How do we build in practices of connection and regulation so they become integral to the meeting environment?
Throughout this panel conversation, four facilitators and trainers who are practicing sociocracy in non-profits, worker co-ops, and community groups will share tools that can be used to ground self and co-regulate with others. Each will share personal experiences of how these practices were presented and received while in sociocratic processes. There will be space at the end for questions and reflections. This presentation is for facilitators who are interested in creating grounded, co-regulated group dynamics that allow for navigating tension in a generative way.
Michelle Tsutsumi (she/her) lives in Secwepemcúl’ecw and brings a depth of experience from her background in sensorimotor trauma therapy, organic farming, and communications. For over 20 years, Michelle has used a systems lens to co-create participatory spaces where justice and equity are more structurally present within the nonprofit, food justice, and co-operative sectors. Through the workers co-op that she co-founded, Michelle co-designs processes that enact anti-oppression, community building, and decolonial practices within self and organizations. She is especially interested in practices that facilitate emergent spaces and the stamina to navigate transitions.
Frieda Nixdorf (she/her) draws community into transformational experiences to remember our belonging, our interdependence, and our kinship with the more-than-human world. Her great love is supporting humanity in navigating the liminal space of transition from Business as Usual into the Great Turning. Frieda is a Work That Reconnects facilitator who has been incorporating WTR practices into everything she does since she first met Joanna Macy in graduate school in 2002. Frieda serves as a Weaver and co-director for the Work That Reconnects Network, which engages sociocracy for its governance and organizational structure. Frieda lives among the oaks and manzanita on the unceded ancestral homelands of the Nisenan and Maidu in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California. You can find Frieda at: www.lifeintheconfluence.com.
Leander Roth is the co-founder and mythematician of worker coop Spring Up, and co-host of the podcast Getting Free Together. He has a background in sociology, entrepreneurship, and restorative / transformative justice. Leander is a systems thinker and conflict strategist who enjoys supporting organizations in building shared power and decentralization. Some of their trainings through Spring Up include: Harm Systems Design, Power and Consent in Decision Making, Conflict and Consensus, and Getting Free Together. You can find Leander teaching SoFA Academy 1 or in the coop and ecosystem circles!