<p dir="ltr">Thank you Harold for this topic.</p>
<p dir="ltr">What came to mind for me: Safety and Wave Riding! </p>
<p dir="ltr">Open Space invites us to be wave riders of our own life.</p>
<p dir="ltr">A compelling theme, an invitation, a circle, a handful of principles and a law... </p>
<p dir="ltr">How can it be that a process so deceptively simple can unlock and release so much inside us?</p>
<p dir="ltr">For most of our lives, we may have been playing it safe... Or not. Consciously or unconsciously.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Each person is different. The circumstances of our lives are different.</p>
<p dir="ltr">What can feel safe for one can feel totally unsafe for another. It's all relative, moment by moment, and personal too.</p>
<p dir="ltr">For so much of my life, I worried about the safety of others. A form of control I'm sure. By doing so, I realized through Open Space that I was depriving myself of wave riding my own life and possibly interfering with the lives of others.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In the end is it really my responsibility to try and make it safe for others? If I intervene, is there not the risk that I will deprive or delay others from finding their own courage, the courage to take a stand, to speak out and to do. To live fully. Can others make me feel safe? Do I want them to take responsibility for my safety? Not really.</p>
<p dir="ltr">To witness the pain and struggles in ourselves and others around safety is not always easy... </p>
<p dir="ltr">Yet it is something that we must allow the space for, trusting that we will each find our way, alone and with others.</p>
<p dir="ltr">And when we give each other that space to discover and experience the courage of our own choices, there is something pretty magical that happens. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Always amazes me in the context of safety to remember how it felt in the opening circle and how different it feels in the closing circle. Like coming home...together. It totally feels safe.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Suzanne<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></p>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sep 21, 2016 2:16 PM, "Harold Shinsato via OSList" <<a href="mailto:oslist@lists.openspacetech.org" target="_blank">oslist@lists.openspacetech.<wbr>org</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Dear People(s) of Open Space,<br>
<br>
What is the importance of safety? What, if any, work is needed in
the "pre-work" to help ensure safety?<br>
<br>
It seems that safety is doomed if the "givens" are that the people
in the organization must either be silent or agree with the "powers
that be" on everything.<br>
<br>
I'm seeing two aspects to this. At one level, systemic oppression
(such as explicitly killing, imprisoning, or otherwise effectively
punishing dissent) clearly would shut down any opening in an open
space.<br>
<br>
And at another level, safety is something we can be responsible in
ourselves. With enough passion and courage, we can take
responsibility for own safety. And also, it can be easy just to stay
silent, or not to look beyond the smallness of our comfort zone
because of the lenses we look through. And then we won't even try
something out of fear, when something powerful could have been a
result of us taking a small step (or a small series of steps to the
center of the circle).<br>
<br>
What do you all think about safety, and helping to encourage people
to source their own safety, as well as working with the "powers that
be" to help ensure some level of safety?<br>
<br>
Thanks!<br>
Harold<br>
<br>
P.S. I did find one interesting post about this in the archives from
the late Father Brian Bainbridge. <a href="http://www.mail-archive.com/oslist@lists.openspacetech.org/msg01333.html" target="_blank">http://www.mail-archive.com/<wbr>oslist@lists.openspacetech.<wbr>org/msg01333.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<div>-- <br>
Harold Shinsato<br>
<a href="mailto:harold@shinsato.com" target="_blank">harold@shinsato.com</a><br>
<a href="http://shinsato.com" target="_blank">http://shinsato.com</a><br>
twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/hajush" target="_blank">@hajush</a></div>
</div>
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