This kind of bliss pushes us to come alive — to do the things we were meant to do. And to do them boldly. It heightens the responsibility of your bliss — don’t bliss out in small ways. Do it big, and do it for others. Come alive.

At The Outside, a great deal of our work as we help organizations and movements co-create change is the seeking and opening of more keys—individual ones as well as collective. Together, we wonder: if there’s a trick to good listening, could it lie in the vicinity of good inquiry?

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, that will be enough." —Eckart Tolle
Is it too woo-woo? We wondered about that. But no matter what you believe or practice, this is the season of reflection. We say goodbye to one year and usher in the next. We can’t help but appraise our effect on the world, or proximity to our ideals, and our dreams and to-dos for our next spin around the sun.

BALLE — The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies — gathered some of the most brilliant minds in the world, both urban and rural, who practice macro ideas at the micro level. While the scope and scale of everyone’s individual work runs the gamut, everyone at BALLE gatherings shares one thing in common: they root their impact in real-life, beyond the conceptual or academic. 

Sometimes, the past can be a teacher for the worse. If we’re looking for it, the past gives us plenty of evidence for why we should resist change (It’s failed before), protect the status quo (Let’s choose the devil we know rather than the devil we don’t), or dig our heels in with certain people, ideas, or organizations (We just don’t mix). But if we frame it the right way, the past can be a teacher for the better. The past can point us right.

This week, we’re cheering loud and proud for all the young people taking up space and making noise for their birthright: a livable and sustainable planet. Can any one of us make it happen? Nope. No way. But together, the mindset shifts and heart shifts are tectonic. Go kids go!

Friends, I’ve been tired. Very, very tired. On the edge of burnout-tired. The work is good. I love the work. But this was a kind of tired that was settling deep in my bones, not solvable by a good night of sleep or even a week off. I had stopped hearing my own song — my own knowing and inner compass, so over-stimulated with new input and responsibility. Have you felt that feeling before? When we do, we need a dedicated pause to find it again.

No day we spend together—as long as we're trying our best—is misspent. Even when something has been irrevocably blown down by the conditions around us. The more important thing is not what has been lost, but how we rally in the chaos to come together and create something new.

‘Change’ designed to fit on a billboard is constrained by the size of a single billboard. We all know that. I’m not sure any of us would see that in the airport and think, “Right on! My organization needs to address child poverty / invent new energy / distribute more food / design the city of tomorrow. I’m going to book a call with ABC Consulting and get it done by next Tuesday!” But when we’re working towards long-game change, you’re going to be uncomfortable. Which is exactly how you’re supposed to feel, if the change is going to be real.

Have you ever had a year like this? When an unprecedented professional leap (movement, idea, project) emerges, it comes with a pretty substantial to-do list of personal growth, and you’re left spinning. You know you need to leap your self ahead in-step with your career—and fast. I knew what was to come, and had a sense that I’d have to change to accommodate this big shift.

Happy birthday to us Outsiders—from launch day in March 2018 to now, we’re into our second year of existence. Tim and I got together to reflect on such a big, challenging, and exciting year—one rich with expansion and travel, new movements and longtime colleagues.

As a drama theorist, Augusto Boal’s work went way beyond theatre. He helped people find more new ways to switch on openness, both as individuals and as a collective. His work was surprising, shocking, and delightful for participants—and all of the above in how profoundly effective it’s proven to be as a pathway to optimism and action.

Think of how kids play, learn, and integrate new information. As we explore and push the boundaries of what's familiar, we endure (and perpetrate!) countless bumps, scrapes, and meltdowns. This is the formative glue of long-term learning. Without challenging days, we’d lack the context to capitalize on our best days. And without a playful spirit, the most serious blocks might break our best efforts apart.

What if all the most pervasive challenges we face in our communities, organizations, and movements are less about external shortfalls and more about what we're missing, person to person? How can we switch on the full potential of what we already have? Welcome to big-hearted systems change, folks.

Treated with care, the heat of friction can cure how we live together—not a ‘cure’ as the word refers to the eradication of disease, but the kind of curing that makes things solid, resilient, and fully-formed. Preservation, flavouring, osmosis. The kind of cure that requires patience.

How do we not mistake a bigger cage for freedom or transformation? How do we know it’s time for transformation? And how do we allow ourselves to liquify enough to do it? How do we hold multiple truths and still move forward together? You sought the future: How do we focus on what we have not yet even imagined?

Sometimes, we forget—especially when we’re new to our audience—that we’re not just talking about equity and systems change. We are demonstrating it, whether we intend to or not. In the following conversation, Tim and I examine how we come across as representatives of what could be—should be—a better way of working towards a better world.

Change need not be a big deal. Not changing the entire system, shifting infrastructure, addressing oppression or “swallowing the ocean” as a colleague of mine says. But, rather, taking a sip, seeing a small impact that is entirely within our ability to make, getting started, seeing what happens, and moving from there.

It does feel to me like the chaos has only increased over the lat 13 years: the number of ecological disasters, increased economic uncertainty, massive social unrest, the breakdown of trust between citizens and governments, corporate greed running rampant. That got me to thinking about why Nova Scotia is such a great place to be.

It’s hard. Sometimes it sucks. No one at my house (including me) is happy about these two back to back trips, but I know I’m making the best decisions I can while navigating an engaging, intense, inspiring family and work life. It’s not a matter of importance. They’re both important. And when you have more than one important thing in your life, things don’t always line up perfectly. That’s the truth, and you just gotta figure things out from there.