Unlearning: For Change Agents

About This Course

Our perceptions shape our stories, our solutions, and our world. When our narratives and assumptions are unquestioned, we end up weaving threads of the problem into the changes we want to make. To exit the well-worn ruts of the usual solution-templates, we must somehow see and question assumptions that we may not even be aware of. 

In other words, we need to “clear the field” on a personal level and a social-political level. We need to “unlearn” the things we assume we know.

Where will this journey of unlearning take you? I hope, to a place of knowing a little less than when you started… a fertile place where something new can grow. My intention is that this unlearning offers a space of reflection that strengthens you to become more effective as a change agent in whatever area you’re working.

These unlearnings can be applied in many ways. They are based on patterns of perception that are nearly universal in our culture. Once you see the patterns, you’ll begin to identify them everywhere. And it will give you a lens by which to view the world in a different way.

Session Information

This self-paced short course is a four-session series of “unlearnings” and assignments asking you to observe and “fast” from current habits in four areas:

• How you form ideas about the world (e.g. the news)
• How you form ideas about others (e.g. judgements)
• How you form ideas about yourself (construction of identity)
• Interpretations of the above that lead to despair, burnout, or self-importance

These interpretations shape our personal narratives and the solutions that we think will change the world.

Each session consists of three core videos and, following those videos, an invitation into a specific practice of Unlearning, which you might also call a “fast.”

You can work at your own pace, but I suggest you give each session about a week to allow time for it to integrate. Along the way, you can share your experience with others in your personal community.

Which Side Are You On?

In the first session, we begin by noticing subtle aspects of our being, our assumptions, and our way of interacting with the world and others. We start by questioning the tacit agreement of the entire news media on what is newsworthy, what issues to care about.

(Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash)

What is it Like to Be You?

In this session, we discuss unexamined habits and assumptions that interfere with our connection to others. We explore the power of naming the gifts we see in others, because the way we see and narrate another person creates an invitation that they can live into.

(Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash)

Listen to Your Inner Guidance.

In this session we explore an alternative that opens the door to change without forcing it, trusting instead a natural evolutive process. This new habit of self-invitation carries over into our work with others and in the world at large.

(Photo by Natalya Letunova on Unsplash)

We Are All In This Together.

In a story of interbeing, every act done in service and with love — no matter how small — has an effect on the world. In this session we explore a “theory of change” based not on force but on morphic resonance.

(Photo by Alejandro Alvarez on Unsplash)