In March of 2020, I started participating in The Gaia Journey, a process and experience facilitated by The Presencing Institute.   This 3-month journey designed to bring people from around the world for communal sense-making during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, involved bi-weekly Zoom meetings with over 1,000 participants from all over the globe and opportunities to meet regularly in small groups. 

This was early in the pandemic when much of the world was in lockdown.  There were a lot of unknowns, we were all learning to adapt and wondering what comes next.  What the Gaia Journey offered was an amazing holding space for thousands of people to feel connected, inspired, and know that they are not alone.  It was a space for making sense in a time of crisis. 

 I remember being in the first Zoom session and seeing hundreds of unique faces with their names and far away locations discreetly displayed. There were over 7,000 people participating in the Journey on a regular basis.  This was my first time in such a large global online event where people could see each other, get into breakout rooms and engage with each other, and be called on to share in the whole group. 

 It was profound, just to be connected to all these people who were feeling the same things I did. It provided hope and as the weeks went on inspired me to dream bigger and imagine new ways I can show up in the world.  

This posting by Otto Scharmer, co-founder of The Presencing Institute, lays out a new term that expresses my experience well.  He calls it Action Confidence “the courage and capacity to step into something new and bring it into being”.   

Check it out.  I’d love to hear from you in the comments.  

What do you feel called to bring into being?

Action Confidence: Laying Down the Path in Walking