Autonomous Creating
Hello Loves,
This week’s post is a completely intuitive riff on autonomous ways of creating and designing and my current thoughts on why this is imperative now more than ever.
I go into the importance of beginning to question and decondition from how we’ve been told creating needs to be, and what can emerge when we allow ourselves space to contemplate what we do and how we do it.
I finish up with some contemplations that we marinate within and explore in Weaving Worlds [https://www.aniazoltkowski.com/weaving-worlds], an online experience I facilitate on reimagining sustainability and new possibilities for fashion-textiles, design, creativity and beyond.
I hope you enjoy this quick snippet.
The transcript is below and I’m posting the contemplations here too for whoever it may be of use for. These are designed to be contemplated upon, meaning allow your entire being (Spirit + Heart + Mind + Body) to marinate in them.Let go of your mind trying to ‘work it out’. Allow them to permeate through you, giving space for what wants to emerge when and how it wants to emerge. This is not a linear process. Go about your day and see what unfolds ;)
Contemplations:
* What fashion-textile/ design/ creative/ business expectations am I carrying that are not aligned for me anymore?
* What expectations feel heavy and not mine?
* Where in my body do I feel excitement vs. obligation about my creativity/ work?
* How does my heart yearn to create?
* How might my creative practice serve both my personal heart’s desires and contribute to my community?
* How can I connect to my community more as part of my creative work?
* Through what rhythms does my creativity naturally want to move at? Where do I feel rushed vs. spacious?
* What aesthetics, materials, and ways of making feel most authentic to me?
* Where can I practice alternative ways of knowing and doing within my practice?
Based upon what emerges above for you, what is one micro-action you can take today toward this new way of being?
REMEMBER: It’s through micro, repetitive, intentional actions that larger shifts occur.
Feel free to share below.
Loads of Love,
Ania xxx
TRANSCRIPT:
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Hello everybody, so today I wanted to do an audio recording instead of a written Substack post.
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And what is big on my heart this week that I wanted to share is this idea,
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this concept of being an autonomous designer,
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being an autonomous creative,
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and what that means,
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and particularly the relevance and importance of that right now in our world as
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where so many of us are doing change and sustainability and regeneration work.
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And so we've been fed this idea through the overarching systems of modernity,
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coloniality,
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patriarchy,
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you know,
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the gist,
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that there is one way to be in the world.
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And from that,
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we've been fed this idea that sustainability looks a certain way and that creative
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practices look a certain way.
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If you're in fashion, there's very particular fashion definitions, design as well.
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And what's actually the case in our world is that we're all diverse beings and we
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all come from diverse places and
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And the spaces we inhabit,
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none of this is universal,
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even though there's been this overarching universal power structures.
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So everything is contextual,
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diverse,
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and responsive to locality and the particular experiences and life,
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human and more than human,
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that exist in that place.
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And so we can see right now in the world that these one size fits all models in our
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world today are actually failing us because they do not honour the local desires
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and the diverse community needs of each place and space.
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And this is happening in sustainability and in all fields.
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And so moving beyond this one size fits all model for sustainability is
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allows us to reconnect to our community desires and needs and visions,
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as well as the individual desires,
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needs and visions.
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And so here,
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this way of being,
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this way of thinking,
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moves us away from a homogenization that we're seeing so much in the world today,
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of everything looking the same,
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being the same,
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and we're all expected to think the same.
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We can see this so much on social media right now,
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where there is so much cancelling of anyone who has a different worldview,
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of anyone that has a different opinion.
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And this is part of this project of homogenization.
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And so how do we move away from that toward reconnecting to diverse creative
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expressions that are rooted in context,
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that are rooted in the places where we inhabit,
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and that are authentic to our communities of where and who we're designing,
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creating with,
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who we're designing,
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creating for,
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but also that they're authentic to us on an individual level.
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So what's needed here for whoever is a creative, a designer, a scholar,
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anyone in this field of work,
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is this sensitivity to balancing the communal,
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so the community needs,
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desires,
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as well as our individual needs and desires.
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So in this Western world of hyper-individualism,
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where separation is the underlying way we're functioning in this world,
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unfortunately,
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and we are moving away from that.
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How do we come into a more communal way of creating, designing, researching, teaching?
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But also, how do we honor still our creative individual expressions?
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So this idea of autonomy is,
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and I think sovereignty is very closely interlinked here,
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is about how do we start deconditioning from the ways we've been told are true?
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So these overarching worldviews of how we are in the world,
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but particularly for design,
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for creative fields,
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the way we've been told
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the way we've been taught in educational systems and in industry,
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how to design,
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what aesthetically looks good,
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how we connect to process,
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how we connect to materials,
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to tools,
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what looks good,
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what doesn't,
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what do we use,
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what we don't.
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So there's a lot of dogma and rigidity here.
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and rules around this which has stemmed from the overarching value systems of the modern world.
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And
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So we can look at this as a form of deconditioning as well as decolonizing,
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where we can start questioning the prevailing norms within modern Western design
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and creative industries and the largest systems and paradigms at play.
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so what if we deconditioned from fashion textile design creative industry
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expectations what could this look like what do we want it to look like what do we
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want our creative journeys our creative systems our creative outputs to be rooted
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in what value systems do we want them to be rooted in
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And I know many of you might be thinking,
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well,
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you know,
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how can I do this when I'm working for someone else and I'm stuck within their
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worldview,
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within their paradigm?
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And I get this question a lot.
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And like everything I explore here, none of this happens overnight.
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This is work we need to do for the rest of our lives if we are to see it come into fruition.
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And so what this is about,
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what I'm just suggesting and planting the seeds for,
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is how do we just start to question,
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am I happy with how I'm doing this,
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with how I'm creating this?
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Does this align with my values?
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What do I think I'm ready to leave behind?
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What would I like to try and experiment with next?
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So just beginning to contemplate doesn't mean we have to completely,
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you know,
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scrap everything we're doing because that's really not possible for many of us,
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for most of us.
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But how do we begin to start contemplating?
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And when we start contemplating,
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Do any aha moments come to mind?
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Do any ideas or revelations come to mind?
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Again, this is in the micro actions, so we start contemplating first.
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What are perhaps some belief systems that are not aligned with my values anymore
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that I don't really need to take on?
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What would we like to believe instead?
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And from this place,
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perhaps little ideas may emerge on how you might start to integrate this into the
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everyday practice,
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into your everyday practice,
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into your everyday life,
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business,
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and so on.
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So yes,
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many of us are working for others,
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but when we start to question and decondition,
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it creates space.
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for something else to emerge.
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And it might not come instantly, it might be very subtle.
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And then we might have an idea about a small process change that we could implement
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within our business.
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We might have an idea about, oh, actually, I think
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this material would be better suited for this,
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and I can see that its impact is smaller than this,
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but ooh,
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why didn't I see this before?
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Ooh, maybe we could create this community event as part of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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Maybe I'll propose this to my boss.
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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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From a space where we
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are asking deeper questions where we're allowing ourselves just to contemplate with
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no end goal in mind.
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Ideas can start sprouting.
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Practices might come to you,
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different processes,
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different systems might start coming to you as space becomes opened up.
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And of course,
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again,
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like I said,
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there's always going to be things we're going to have to do that we don't want to
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do because we are still living within the modern,
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many of us are still living within the modern Western world.
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I can't speak for everyone.
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And there are particular systems and power structures at play even though a lot of
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these are starting to crumble.
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But how do we start tuning in to and noticing with a sense of curiosity,
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even playfulness,
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what we've been conditioned into and whether that's serving us and going forth?
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So I really love...
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Adrienne Marie Brown's work around this,
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well,
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it relates to this,
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around what she calls pleasure activism.
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And she talks about this idea of
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of liberation and change work,
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which of course sustainability and regeneration fits in nicely here,
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and how it can be the most pleasurable and joyful journey we take.
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How we can disconnect and begin disengaging and disobeying again on the micro,
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from these overarching systems,
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but how do we make it the most joyful,
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fun,
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alive journey and experience we can?
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So again, this is about allowing ourselves to question, to contemplate, to sit in the unknown.
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As much of my work is about emergence,
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sit in the unknown in those spaces that are uncomfortable because we have been
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conditioned to
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feel like we always have to know the answer,
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we always have to know the outcome,
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we always have to be in control.
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And so these liminal,
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these emergent spaces require us to let go of all of that,
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to surrender,
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to not knowing,
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because really,
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we don't know much.
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And when we allow ourselves to be in those spaces...
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deeper questions emerge.
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And from these deeper questions, perhaps different practices may emerge.
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At least that's what I've seen within my own work.
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different value systems, different connections, different success markers.
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You know, how do we begin to measure success?
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That's not just profit-driven.
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Of course,
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there needs to be a financial exchange for our work in the world because that is
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the world we're living in right now,
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where to survive we need finances,
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and that's just how it is.
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As well as that,
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though,
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how do we measure success within our businesses,
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within our creative practices,
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beyond just profits?
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Perhaps it's through joy.
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How much joy am I cultivating on this journey?
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How many amazing aligned connections have I made?
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What community have I generated within my ecosystem?
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And this may also lead to different,
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like working through different,
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like ideas of working through different rhythms,
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seasons,
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different production and consumption habits,
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and so on.
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This is going to look different for everyone in each different community.
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And
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disengage or you know it's I don't know if it's actually possible to fully dis I
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don't think it is actually to fully disengage from
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current paradigms at play because unless we're going to live out in the bush,
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completely disconnected,
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which is not the path for most of us,
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for 99.9% of us,
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we are still engaged in these systems but finding space and finding ways to start
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questioning and start contemplating and sitting in the unknown and
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could lead to different results.
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And some questions I love to ask myself and be contemplating upon quite regularly,
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and this is something I take participants through in Weaving Worlds,
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which is a six-week
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journey experience online where we delve deep into holistic sustainability concepts
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and practices and how we can integrate these into not only our lives and creative
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work but everything we do and these are rooted in ancient ways of being and ritual
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energy work embodiment practices and more
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And so these contemplations we like to look at in this container,
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some of these include asking ourselves,
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what expectations am I carrying that feel heavy and that feel like they're not mine
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to carry anymore?
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How does industry pace conflict with my natural rhythms?
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How and what does my heart yearn to create?
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What pace does my creativity, my work, my business wanna move at?
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What would emerge if I followed desire and joy rather than what I've been told I have to do?
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How might my practice,
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my work,
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serve both my personal desires and dreams and goals as well as those of my
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community?
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How can I connect to my community more as part of my work?
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What actions and practices can I instill that create more community?
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And by community here,
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I just wanna know it's not just human community,
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but more than human community too.
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And so I'm gonna leave you with these contemplation practices
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And again, this isn't about overhauling everything all at once.
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It's not possible because many of us are working for others.
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We're within these systems and we need to
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live and earn,
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and this is completely fair in the reality of our world,
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but what I'm suggesting here is how do we start questioning?
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How do we start deconditioning in small microwaves and creating space for other ways to emerge?
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Because once we start questioning and contemplating, there is, in my experience, a
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surprising ideas,
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surprising connections,
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surprising outcomes do begin to emerge because we're starting to take a different
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route,
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even if it looks super micro and super subtle.
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So I hope you all have a beautiful day.
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I'm going to record more of these because I'm really enjoying recording actually.
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Lots and lots of love and if you have any comments or feedback or questions or
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perhaps how do you navigate deconditioning,
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disengaging with how we've always been told things have to be,
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In your own work and life, I'd love to hear from you below.
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Lots of love.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aniaz.substack.com/subscribe [https://aniaz.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]
