How climate action starts: loving more and dreaming bigger
I’ve been littering my articles with talk about love for some time now.
I see that some of you are also beginning to say the L-word too, which is excellent. Perhaps we can join forces and work together?
Why? Why do I keep talking about love? Why do I keep talking about it in relation to climate action, sustainability and sustainable development?
Because it is the starting point of true innovation and action.
My way of calling it is the Tao of Innovation. The ‘how’ of things, ‘how’ things happen, unfurl, unfold.
Love, with all of its spectrum, “is the white light of emotion” according to Diane Ackerman in A Natural History Love and each of us is a prism. Barbara Friedrickson, calls it the micro-moments of connection with yourself and with others in Love 2.0.
For me, love is the ground zero of your imagination and creativity: how your unique, unprecedented self is unlocked and unleashed to bring your incredible solutions.
When you look through this lens of love — for yourself, others, the planet — you gather your courage to explore and create your best solutions. You can’t look away from the impact further down the line on people or planet. You are forced to keep coming back to designing solutions around flourishing.
In Love Letter to the Earth, Thich Naht Hanh writes:
“We are a living, breathing manifestation of this beautiful and generous planet. Knowing this, we can begin to transform our relationship to the Earth…We will fall completely in love with the Earth.”
Here’s a task, set by some young students that I’ve worked with.
Dust off your organisation’s values. Whether you’re a solopreneur or a micro-business or a global brand. Is ‘love’ one of them? For most of you, the answer is no.
What if it was? What if you and your organisation had to live ‘love for the planet’ as a value?
What has to change? Might you have to relinquish a growth business model for a model of flourishing? How would your business processes change? How would people show-up and do their job? How would you show-up and do yours?
Imagine it. Imagine how things would be different. Imagine how incredible this real, disruptive innovation might be. It is so much more exciting than lazy duplication that promotes a status quo for a few.
Maybe it’s time to break your own rules? After all, every journey starts with a maybe…
I’ve often been urged to deliver messages more softly, to ‘pick pockets’…Meh!
I’m working on it but the opposite of love is fear, avoidance, scarcity; and we’re seeing tidal waves of that everywhere. I don’t much like tidal waves, so I feel there is a need to be direct. You need to start breaking rules!
Do the exercise. With some urgency. Then take action. You don’t need to go alone.
I wish you love and a kiss on the brow for courage. This is the how of things, the Tao of Innovation, how things happen, how things start.
Originally published at www.flowinaction.org
