What do our values mean in practise?

Slowing Down

We slow down, so we can focus on process, means over ends, the ‘how’ as much as the ‘what’. Getting things done is important, and responding to the many crises we face can easily lead us to miss ‘noticing the others in the room’, that we fall into the patterns and ways of being or thinking that created the problems we are trying to solve.

Slowing down is about where we place our most precious of qualities: attention.

In practice, slowing down could look like:

• Including play, humour and gratitude in our work, as much as the need to get things done. In practice, this could be starting a meeting with a gratitude exercise or a warm-up game.
• Build time into group tasks to reflect on the process itself. This may be a role for one person in a group to monitor the process itself, and prompt the group to stop and reflect.
• To practice embodied awareness, a body scan meditation could help us connect with how we physically feel. Stress can cause us to narrow our focus, so slowing down and checking how we feel can alert us to when a process may need changing.
• Putting process goals into work plans, and when gathering feedback after a project.
• Ask others to hold you to account, to critically check in with you to make sure you are not putting outcomes before process, and that you are open about the decisions you are making in the community.

Questions we might live by:

• What does a community look and feel like, that places as much importance on how we work together as what we’re working on? How does your vision match reality?
• How do we make sure we are focusing as much on how we do things, as what we’re doing?
• What are the rhythms of work like in the community? Are there seasons, times to celebrate, pause, reflect, give thanks and play?
• How well does the community hold uncertainty and paradox? Is time given to explore what is challenging, over what is efficient?