Increasing inter-disciplinary collaboration in the field of sustainability - workshop

When: Tuesday, June 4th, 13-16
Where: Lögberg, LG-204  
Teachers: Professor Kristín Vala Ragnarsdottir, sustainability scientist and Mike Parker, liminal coaching practitioner

Registration

The workshop aims to both inform participants and involve us all in using specifically focused guided relaxation to facilitate greater inter-disciplinary collaboration in addressing systemic problems, in this case specifically sustainability.

An initial introduction to the science of our global climate predicament and the importance of cross-disciplinary approaches will be given by Vala Ragnarsdottir to be followed by an experiential session from Mike Parker.

The workshop finishes with an open discussion around how interdisciplinary approaches may empower more effective interventions towards goals of sustainability.

Background

In the current moment humanity is having to confront some of the complex systemic impacts of human activities, work out how to respond and how to move forward with positive solutions. This work for our common future involves a wide group of people from many disciplines and walks of life. This can sometimes be experienced as a competitive struggle for scarce resources to get one approach or discipline’s contribution supported as opposed to another.

This encourages people to remain in their particular silos of expertise and to see other contributors to the field as a threat to the success of themselves and the approaches they work on. The objective of this workshop will be to explore what happens at a neurophysiological level to shut down collaborative thinking in these circumstances and what can be done to counteract this narrowing so as to produce an environment in which multi-disciplinary proposals can be generated to address sustainability issues.

The experiential part of the workshop briefly explains the brain science involved and secondly provides a twenty-minute guided relaxation designed to dissipate tension, fear and stress replacing it with a sense of calm and clarity. In this state a metaphoric scenario is used which is focused on increasing both emotional and cognitive empathy in attendees at the same time as providing a means to control the degree of empathy to avoid overwhelm.

Attendees will receive a pre-workshop briefing with a short description of how Liminal Coaching sessions work and a link to guided relaxation recording they can download and listen to whilst going to sleep for a few nights prior to the workshop.

Attendees will also receive follow up in the form of a free professionally recorded audio of the relaxation session and a workbook containing a self-assessment grid and tools for helping maintain low levels of accumulated stress.

Liminal Coaching

Liminal Coaching is a science based secular approach to enabling an essential space of calm and using this to focus a range of cognitive abilities for specific ends.

Guided relaxation techniques work with people suffering from stress, anxiety and cognitive clouding. When high levels of accumulated stress and anxiety are drained out, the natural collaborative and solution creation capabilities of the person re-assert themselves. These inner changes can then provide a better basis for solving problems in the outside world, including complex problems such as climate change.