During a 10-months journey, participants at LEAP YOUth experience the Inner Development Goals framework in 5 modules to explore the main dimensions of conscious leadership: Being – Relationship to Self; Thinking – Cognitive Skills; Relating – Caring for others and the world; Collaborating – social skills and Acting – driving change. Besides input webinars and workshops, they are supported by 1-1 coaching sessions, peer groups, are invited to engage in personal reflections and can enjoy 2 main onsite meetings.
Ending our LEAP journey, from November to December participants went through the ACTING MODULE – driving change. In this module they explored how to foster the skills of perseverance, courage, optimism and creativity to take decisive actions towards challenging and disrupting existing structures and views.
During this last module, they could dive into frameworks that supported their learnings towards acting and to enjoy a closure session of the program with the topic of how to move forward after LEAP.
For the Acting Webinar participants explored the topic of Active Hope with The Work That Reconnects and the Right Livelihood frameworks guided by Della Z Duncan. Using the model of “Three Stories of Our Time”, Della invited participants to take a fresh look at the challenges humanity is facing through having a conversation about the 3 stories we live in now – Business as Usual, the Great Unraveling, and the Great Turning. She assisted them in both making sense of what we see and experience, and also in reflecting on how we want to live our lives and to engage in the work of change, keeping our perseverance.
Afterwards, Della presented about the different possibilities of engaging courageously, optimistically and creatively with “The 3 Dimensions of the Great Turning”. Those are positive actions in the world that are happening simultaneously and are mutually reinforcing:
1) Holding Actions – activism or direct actions to stop or deal with the destructive and unjust practices that are taking place on the planet right now.
2) Structural Change- to evaluate, revise and build new societal forms, structures and systems, ways of being together and organizing etc that support life to thrive.
3) Shift in Consciousness – a perceptual, cognitive, and moral shift to biocentric values and worldviews that affirm our human responsibility to life in all its richness and diversity and to future generations.
Della invited participants to dialogue about how they see these stories and dimensions happening in their personal lives and to reflect about the actions they are starting to develop and might want to be more involved with as they move forward in their paths as changemakers.
To finalize the session, Della walked participants through the concept of Right Livelihood inspired by a quote of Frederick Buechner- “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”, facilitating the space for conversations about one’s Right Livelihood – how to format our actions and work in the world based on one’s deep calling to contribute to a more equitable and life-sustaining society.
The last session of the year for the 2022 cohort was an embodiment closure with the leadership development manager of LEAP, Roberta, and the facilitator and long dear friend of LEAP Chris Taylor. Chris and Roberta guided LEAP participants and volunteers to a 3 steps process of:
1) Review and reflect about the LEAP journey – what were the learnings during the year, how their sense of belonging and community developed, what are the ways of being and doing that they are letting go of and what are the new possibilities they see for their present and future.
2) Celebrate – connecting and dialoguing about the special LEAP stories and people they were grateful to, celebrating ourselves and the completion of the program.
3) Moving Forward – Connecting to the Acting Module, participants were looking at and sharing their commitments and next steps after LEAP.
We end this successful year sharing how the community described in a word their LEAP experience:
We are looking forward to the LEAP cohort 2023!
