Writer, Speaker, Researcher | Lucid Longing | Companioning For Profound Transitions
We can't control the future. We can cultivate the conditions in which new possibilities become visible and worth testing.
For the last six years, I have helped hundreds of clients in 20 countries who have recognized our reality and asked,
¨What is possible now?"
They say:
“I don't know what I want anymore.”
“My career doesn't fit.”
“Everything feels uncertain.”
“I feel stuck.”
BIG QUESTIONS FOR THESE TIMES
I am exploring these two questions:
¨What happens to human imagination and agency when the future feels constrained, uncertain or threatening?¨
and:
¨What might restore our sense of what is possible under these conditions?
WHAT I´M LEARNING
Our longings offer tender information worth investigating.
I developed Lucid Longing as a way to understand what our longings reveal about what matters to us. Through attention and imagination, we make previously unclear possibilities light up as interesting options.
People feel more awake, curious, and experimental.
And things begin to change as they respond in new ways to what was already there.
GET INSPIRED BY WHAT´S (STILL) POSSIBLE
I offer a 7-day Lucid Longing Intensive and a 30-day Lucid Longing Immersion.
Both are designed for those who long(!) to:
- cultivate attention instead of reacting or disengaging
- create the habits and habitats that align with their values
- commit to engaging more fully in their local community
- craft adaptive capacity that is robust and improvisational
WHAT THE PROCESS LOOKS AND FEELS LIKE
One client, Lena, described it as ¨like having a series of epiphanies while walking with a friend...every day for a whole month. :-)¨
But you don´t have to take her word for it.
ONGOING RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL APPLICATIONS OF LUCID LONGING
Lucid Longing lives in the spaces between:
♦ collapse awareness.......................and action
♦ ecological grief.................................and awe
♦ environmental psychology......and attention
♦ contemplative practices............and art
♦ behavioral science..........................and agency
♦ systems thinking.............................and adaptation
♦ imaginative futures.......................and audacity
By lacing together the related learnings, we can understand what our human experience of adaptation requires.
Learn more about my research on my /Now page.
WRITING AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
In addition to my research and work with clients, I share my insights via print interviews, podcasts, and speaking engagements.
FROM MINDFULNESS TO ATTENTION: THE EVOLUTION OF MY WORK
Meditating in a Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka, 1982.
For five decades, mindfulness has taught me how to pay attention to what is here now.
My work is increasingly exploring what happens when we become curious about what else deserves our attention:
♦ what matters now
♦ what we long for
♦ what we might imagine
♦ what becomes possible when we follow those threads
I´m starting a new version of my Substack newsletter called Lucid Longing.
It´s about exploring the transformative power of longing to help us clarify and cultivate our budding futures.
Part field notes and part storytelling, this is where I share the questions and findings in my research and stories from clients about how they are choosing to engage more fully and joyfully in their lives.