Relational Agreements
Cultivating healthy relational culture lies at the heart of our vision and values and the transformation we long for in the world. Our Relational Agreements provide a point of reference for co-creating this relational culture throughout all our community relating.
We understand that human dynamics may not always be harmonious and straight forward and that rupture is inevitable. We believe that, while this rupture can be uncomfortable, it is a rich opportunity for transformation and holds the possibility for both deepening and strengthening our connections. We also acknowledge that it isn’t always possible to find resolution – and surrendering to this in itself is part of what it means to be human.
As members we commit to proactively doing what is necessary to align with and be held accountable to these agreements, whilst holding each other with compassion and recognising that these are aspirational and none of us are, or need to be, perfect and that we will likely all stumble along the way.
These agreements are work in progress and as new situations arise there may be the need to review and make additions. We hold these as ‘good enough for now, safe enough to try’. We hope you do too 🙂
* Cultivate self-awareness: We find ways to increase our self-awareness in relationship with our: needs, impact on others; relationships with power and our conditioned ways of being, relating and communicating.
*Practice self-responsibility: Each of us knows ourselves as empowered and in our sovereignty and do our best to act and speak from that place – whilst also encouraging this in each other. We consider the following agreements around self responsibility to be a radical shift from the ways we have been conditioned to relate and commit to doing our best to shift our consciousness in this way.
We find ways to deepen our capacity to take responsibility for:
– The consequences of our choices and actions
– Our own feelings, needs, judgements and projections
– Not taking things personally
– Asking for support when we need it
– Offering and receiving feedback in healthy generative ways
– Engaging in the process of both rupture and repair.
*Cultivate safety and courage: We are committed to deepening our capacity to cultivate emotional, physical and psychological safety for ourselves and each other – as well as the courage it takes to continue relating with self-responsibility when parts of us feel activated.
* Transform trauma: If we are aware of a trauma response being triggered in ourselves, or someone else, we/they find ways to lovingly give space and support for self-regulation so we can come back together in a good way.
*Welcome difference: We find ways to welcome differences in opinion, states of being, needs and responses and welcome and get to know the parts of ourselves that find this difficult.
* Share and receive gratitude & appreciation: We find ways to cultivate and regularly share appreciation and gratitude to nurture connection and our relating.
*Find healthy ways to meet our needs: We recognise that:
– we all have needs (even if parts of us would rather we didn’t!)
– all needs are valid and need meeting
– if we do not consciously find healthy ways to meet our needs we will unconsciously try to get them met in ways that may have challenging impacts for ourselves and others.
– it is not up to another person or this community to meet any of our needs unless there is an existing agreement around it.
In light of this we intend to actively identify our needs and find healthy ways to meet them either by making requests without any expectations or demands that the other person/community will meet them, or by finding ways of meeting them outside the community.
* Cultivate empathy: We find ways to come into connection with our own feelings, needs, judgements and projections so as to be able to empathise when these show up in others in the spirit of ‘What’s it like to be you?’
* Communicate consciously: We find ways to communicate with empathy, care and compassion for ourselves and others, including: listening as much as we speak; being mindful of the impact of interrupting each other; supporting all voices to be heard; owning our judgements, feelings and needs; making clear requests for support to meet our needs; seeking agreement around and holding confidentiality as appropriate; and speaking from our hearts.
* Offer and receive regenerative feedback: We do the work needed to get better at offering and receiving feedback in healthy, generative and consensual ways in the spirit of radical self-responsibility, even and especially when it feels uncomfortable, and to respect any agreed community processes around this.
* Turn towards rupture & repair: We do our best to move towards rupture when it happens, by staying connected with our hearts and trusting we are all doing our best and are perfectly imperfect. We find ways of becoming more able to allow ruptures in relationship to unravel and to initiate and engage in the repair work needed to cultivate trust and safety. We commit to following any agreed community processes around this.
* Be resourced & available: We work towards becoming well resourced and available, both physically and emotionally by: cultivating balance in our lives to avoid burnout; finding ways of balancing our own needs with that of the group; and saying ‘no’ when we need to.
* Be accountable: We do what we say we are going to do and communicate clearly and promptly when we are no longer able to.
* Honour a power greater than our human selves We find ways to honour a power of our own choosing (it could be Gaia, Mystery, Love, the earth, Life, Goddesses, God etc) as the foundation of our relating – whilst staying awake to the protective parts of us that might want to use this as a convenient excuse to abstain from responsibility.
These relational agreements , alongside the community agreements and values, will form the basis for calling on the exclusion process if members are judged to be repeatedly out of alignment with them.