About ABLE Being™: The Practice of Presence
“Isn’t it time for us to discover that it is possible to inhabit that larger knowing and perhaps free ourselves from the deep anguish of our persistent habit of ignoring what is most important?”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
What would the world be like if we consistently paid attention to what really matters? How can we be present with ourselves and each other in a way that honors our differences, deepens our connections, and changes our lives for the better?
Presence—open-minded, open-hearted being—has the power to transform our lives and our world. Every moment is both a gift—a present—and an invitation to be present—fully aware, open, and able to be with what is. When we are ABLE™, we accept the invitation and receive the gift. We offer ourselves and others the perfect integrity of whom and how we truly are in whatever situation we happen to be.
Since presence can be developed through intentional practice, we all hold the potential to dramatically alter our experience of ourselves and the world, as well as our capacities to be ourselves and serve the world. ABLE Being™: The Practice of Presence is a simple, yet profound practice for beoming more aware, developing greater presence, and inhabiting the world more intelligently.
In this one-day intensive workshop, you will:
- Learn how to give yourself and others the undivided, Integral Attention™ each of us needs and deserves
- Explore the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of presence
- Learn how to create conditions for greater rapport, mutual respect and understanding
- Apply ABLE Being™ using experiential exercises designed to engage your multiple intelligences and facilitate more whole-brain learning and holistic experiencing.
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Open Space Technology
What is Open Space Technology?
Open Space Technology (OS or OST) is an efficient, effective method for groups of willing, able people to take responsibility for what matters—fully engaging the most important questions, issues, and opportunities and producing truly extraordinary results every time.
Since Harrison Owen first conceived of Open Space Technology in 1985, OST has been successfully used by individuals, organizations and communities worldwide over 60,000 times in 108 different countries. From strategic initiatives to social ventures to conflict resolution to crisis management and beyond, Open Space is an inspiring method and context generating reflection and action, passion and commitment, work and play, agency and collaboration, being and doing, innovation and results.
More on Open Space
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How does it work?
By invitation only...
Through passion and responsibility...
Through practiced self-organization...
Just in time without wasting time...
Face to face in circles within circles within circles...
Location, location, location...
By invitation only…
Open Space Technology is based on self-organization through invitation. One or more members of your group, community, or organization works with one of our Open Space practitioners to craft a compelling invitation to an Open Space meeting, workshop, or event focused on a vital goal or theme—a strategic question, issue or opportunity that you wish to engage. Depending on your needs, your Open Space may be integrated into an existing meeting, workshop, or event, or you may choose to host an entirely separate Open Space event.
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Through passion and responsibility…
“Open Space runs on two fundamentals: passion and responsibility. Passion engages the people in the room. Responsibility ensures things get done. A focusing theme or question provides the framework for the event. The art of the question lies in saying just enough to evoke attention, while leaving sufficient open space for the imagination to run wild."
Harrison Owen, Founder of Open Space Technology and
author of Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide
By inviting people to attend (rather than mandating, demanding, obliging, etc.), you attract the people who have the passion and responsibility needed to get anything significant done and eliminate much of the wasteful, unnecessary, and let’s face it, often unpleasant dysfunction that occurs when people are formally drafted and/or informally expected to participate in things that they don’t really want to do. It’s not the number of people who attend but the inspired commitment of those who do that matters.
The trick, of course, is to really accept the fact that everyone in your particular group, community, or company may not attend, and that’s ok. That ensures that everyone who does attend is there because they really want to be there and when everyone’s there because they really want to be there, it creates the space for amazing, refreshing things to happen.
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Through practiced self-organization…
“In Open Space meetings, events and organizations, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create?”
Michael Herman, Executive Facilitator
During your Open Space meeting or event, your group is invited to self-organize your participation—from agenda to action steps—using a few simple and significant guidelines that create a highly flexible and functional structure for how you all will interact together for the duration of your event. Using these guidelines, you and other participants create and manage your own agenda, breaking out into small group sessions and regrouping in the large group as needed to accomplish what needs to happen. The role of your Open Space facilitator is to share and support these guidelines throughout your event, effectively opening the space for you to self-organize around what matters and generate the most meaningful results.
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Just in time without wasting time…
Open Space works in situations where there is a high level of complexity, uncertainty, and urgency—when there’s a compelling need to get a lot done in a short amount of time, but no one is quite sure how best to go about getting things done. A group of talented, passionate, and committed people focusing on a problem or opportunity using a few simple, self-organizing guidelines can get a lot done with surprising ease—combining often hidden knowledge, resources, and capacities with real-time planning, problem-solving, and innovating to produce unparalleled (and yet, often replicable) results. Simply stated, Open Space is a great method for real people with real issues to create real results in real-time.
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Face to face in circles within circles within circles…
“…circle is the fundamental geometry of open human communication. There is no head or foot, higher or lower, simply people being with people face to face. After all, we do not have a square of friends and on a cold winter's night it is nice to be part of the family circle. Place people in rows (classroom or theater-style) and they all face the source of power and authority, and it is clear who will talk and who must listen. In squares and rectangles, there is separation which may be useful to keep combative parties apart as in negotiation, but genuine, open, free communication tends to be at a minimum. Circles create communication.”
Harrison Owen
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Location, location, location…
Open Space requires open space—meeting space large enough for the size of your group (5 – 500+), break-out space for small-group sessions, wall space for posting agenda topics, group announcements, and anything else that may be generated and posted during the event…
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“I wish all meetings could happen like this!”
Open Space Technology participant
Custom Events and Retreats
We design and facilitate customized events and retreats for individuals or groups at the location of your choice. We can also host your event in the idyllic location of Bainbridge Island, Washington. Located in the heart of the Puget Sound. Bainbridge Island is just a half-hour ferry ride from Seattle.
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"Valuable questions are questions worth asking. They are questions of value that enable us to deepen who and how we are in the world--to grow, to change, to transform ourselves and others. They help us determine what really matters to us and what to do about it."
Karen Sella
Open Space Technology
What is Open Space Technology?
How does it work? |
