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Wayfinding with Dana Carman

Andrea Rodericks and Dana Carman write after our workshopping coLAB on transformative spaces…

WHAT TIME IS IT IN YOUR LIFE? WHAT TIME IS IT IN THE WORLD?

Our 13th AR+ co-LAB session on Transformative Learning Spaces began

…with each of us bringing in an element of nature that held strong meaning for us. We showed each other pictures and artefacts from the natural world – cactus, bits of bark, trees, stones, huge pine cones… that anchored us, reminded us of a life lesson or deep connection… a moment of joy, wonder, surprise. In doing so, we shared a part of ourselves that usually remains hidden in zoom meetings. This sharing of our connection was a prelude to a case brought to us by Dana Carman, that centered around a process called Wayfinding. This process unfolds in nature, opening a different way of being and moving in the world.

The term “Wayfinding” is used by many.

For Dana, in coaching executive leaders and teams, he and his partner Joel Yanowitz, have shaped it to be a leadership building practice that begins with an experience in nature to inspire and open space for new possibilities and to unwind barriers or tensions they may face.

“When I look at major transitions in my life, the natural world has always been my refuge… I bring my tears to the natural world and I discover again and again that I am the natural world.”

For Dana, the process of Wayfinding emerged from his own experience and practice when faced with significant challenges in his own life, now adapted to work with those he coaches. The way it usually plays out is…. after beginning the coaching process with some kind of assessment (such as the Leadership Circle 360, intended to surface their strengths and their blind spots), those on this journey begin to discover these blind spots as doorways to transformation. They begin to get in touch with the gap or dissonance between their heart’s desire or deepest integrity and what they are actually doing in their lives. Dana then accompanies them as a guide and friend into the natural world. This may take the form of a walk in the wilderness in silence, for hours or days.

Key to the process is a ceremonial space or threshold

that participants step into and go into silence, allowing themselves to practice being lost, as a foundational skill for leading adaptive work. They begin to connect to Kairos time and the rhythms and cycles in the natural world, letting go of the day-to-day pressures, barriers, timelines and inhibitions that come in their way. In this space, they focus on a few meta questions:

• What time is it in the world?
• What time is it in my life?
• Who Am I and what is my work to do now?
• How do I live the rest of my life soulfully?

With the end-of-life perspective that these questions bring, they walk in silence, slowing down, checking in sometimes, allowing nature to become a mirror to them. In this liminal space, the leaders/ team walk a path toward greater alignment with their purpose. They almost always uncover some illumination or insight on what is in the way and a perspective for how it may change. As a Wayfinding guide, Dana and his partner also walk in these spaces, stepping over the threshold into this space of not knowing, allowing what they are experiencing to guide the journey. The process changes them too.

As we listened to Dana, it was clear to us that this work is his passion. He spoke about the extraordinary people that have come to ‘Wayfind’ with him and his partner. He firmly believes that this approach has transformative potential for individuals and teams, much needed for the kinds of challenges we face today. Dana wonders how he can spread this process, making it accessible to many, many more people. And beyond just spreading the method, he wonders how it could spread with the depth that makes it so powerful. He shared that over the past year he and his partner were making efforts to share this work more widely. They built a website and recorded a podcast. In doing this, their own process was becoming clearer. Dana spoke with a sense of urgency. He believes that there are many leaders of organizations who are in critical positions to cultivate trust that opens the door for courageous action in shifting the purpose and paradigm that their organizations are working from. The challenge he put to the group was:

“How may the Wayfinding process be made accessible to others with depth, so that it can touch hundreds of thousands of lives over the next ten years?”

The group sat with this question and all that Dana had shared, not necessarily to provide an answer, but to mirror back any insights, experiences and reflections connected to his question. They shared these reflections in the group.

There is also a sense of sadness

…that only certain people have the courage or the resources and support to engage in this level of change. The power distribution in the system and its homeostasis hold things in place. But our hope comes from a recognition that non-linear change can happen, and is happening. Perhaps it isn’t only by bringing in more people into the same experiences that this work may scale.

How do we avoid the inevitable backlash to work like this in the system.

There are plenty of examples where leaders have taken the risk to do something different and encountered huge breakthroughs. But when they attempted to take this deep work into their organisations, they were blocked.

Inspired by Meg Wheatley’s work on communities of sanity that Carol described, some in the group wondered if there is a way to build islands of sanity with a group of developmental friends or a leadership team where people can hold these powerful Wayfinding questions… spaces where they can be real with each other, support each other, and lovingly hold a mirror up when they are not being their best selves.

Julian pushed back against the idea that the focus necessarily needs to be on a leader in a system (top down). He reflected on himself as an individual and many others like him who feel a strong calling in the directions that Dana’s work moves, with so much energy and passion to create change. How do we bring them into community… into a movement?

Others in the group reflected that perhaps the cultivation of these spaces is not something you do, but something you recognise and nurture. The change may already be happening, and we need to be present with what is, witness and share this energy, creating opportunity for it to emerge (bottom up). Many indigenous communities work from these principles.

There is arrogance in thinking we have the answer.

Beyond the polarity of top down or bottom up, there may be paths that require venturing into the unkwnown, listening and trusting in the unfolding from the questions. This is the wisdom of Wayfinding into the unknown.

Dana responds:

• Turning to the wisdom of all these reflections, Dana thanked the group. He felt he was leaving with something clarified for him. And he later framed his biggest insights from the discussion:
• The process of growing Wayfinding as a movement will need to be a fractal expression of the process of Wayfinding itself.
• The key questions of Wayfinding: What time is it in the world and what time is it in my life create a powerful crucible for inquiry and deepening our integrity between our deeper life and our current life.
• At the heart of Wayfinding we are creating space for those who say yes to bring the view from the end of our life to this current chapter of our life. This view can illuminate deep clarity and create the space for courageous choices to be made.
• Discovering that we are nature and illuminating our true nature in the mirror of nature is where the magic is.

If we who are embarking on this adventure to embody the above questions and principles in everything we do, and if we allow ourselves to be lost and keep walking I trust that the fruit of this endeavor will be greater than we can imagine right now.

More about Dana and wayfinding here: https://www.wayfindinghorizons.com/dana-carman