Awareness into Action: The Power of Living and Working as One, a conference held on June 27th in Chicago, IL, sponsored by New Momentum for Human Unity, explored the concepts of human unity, collaboration, leadership and the keys to sustainable, positive change.
The goal of the conference was to both inspire and motivate attendees by offering practical tools to help us create a better world through awareness of our unity — starting with our own lives, families, groups and communities.
The conference featured keynote speaker Betty Sue Flowers, host of the radio series, “The Next 200 Years,” consultant to NASA and editor of global scenarios on sustainable development and the future of biotechnology for the World Business Council. Betty helps people envision future possibilities while addressing real world constraints. She is co-author of Presence, an exploration of ways to see, reflect, and act for effective change, written with Peter Senge and others from MIT. Flowers collaborated with Bill MOyers on four books, including Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. Formerly director of the Johnson Presidential Library, she has embarked on a consulting career in New York.
Betty Sue Flowers commented that we have the power to tell a better story about who we are. “Every corporation is embedded in a story,” Flowers said, “and we need to understand the myths that have made us. She outlined four myths: Hero, Religious, Democratic Scientific and Economic.
She tells us that we are now in the “Economic” Myth, whose core Ideal is Growth (not Value). The new myth for us to aspire to is the Ecological Myth, which is about the Health of the Whole (not Growth), using the interconnectedness of the economic system. In this scenario, the global financial system is embedded in ecological terms, in which a company’s long-term growth defines the health of the corporation, not short-term gain.
Betty also talked about the “U-Theory,” which allows us to connect to our best future possibility and realize it:
1. See the interconnectedness
2. Make a commitment
3. The team begins to gather around you
4. Synchronicities begin to happen
Betty encourages us to start by observing:
– Leave your ego at the door (practice prayer and meditation)
– Drop your own mindset
– See our human actions from the whole
– Do rapid prototyping – don’t wait until it’s perfect
My next post will discuss the film premiere of City of the Dawn, a remarkable documentary about Auroville in Southern India, a modern, universal city with 2,000 people from 40 nations who are working to develop innovative and inclusive solutions in every aspect of human social life. Auroville provides a demonstration of what is possible when people attempt to live together in a community beyond the borders of nation, religion and race that often separate us.
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New Momentum for Human Unity
Francis Rothluebber organized New Momentum for Human Unity, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in 2006. Its mission is to create a better life on and for this planet through the evolution of human consciousness and the transformation of human relationships, by encouraging mindfulness of our interconnection and by the power of selfless love. Through programs and projects that offer tools and resources, New Momentum intends to help people create the inner shifts – the changes in perspective and motive – that lead to changes in the world that will become evident in renewed and improved relationships with each other and the environment.