The Call to Consciously Use Our Power

To say that we are in unprecedented times feels like an understatement. On a collective level our eyes are being opened to the intricate workings of systems that seek to hoard resources, manipulate the masses to maintain power for a few, and decimate the earth for colonization, war and profit. From the struggle for bodily autonomy, housing and voting rights, to the genocide in Gaza and the Sudan, the wars in the Ukraine and Congo to the countless beings impacted by capitalist driven climate collapse – our struggles are interconnected. Yet, within ourselves and our diverse collective is the power to transform our current reality, to de-structure oppressive and exclusionary ways of being and cultivate a culture that is rooted in equity, belonging, adaptation, reciprocity and accountability. We believe that consciously being aware of how we use our power and responsibility as individuals, groups and as a society compels us to hold the possibility of transformation on every level.

CEIO’s Seeding Conscious Co-Creation (SCC) program seeks to support individuals or teams throughout Connecticut who want to facilitate and practice the conscious use of power, what we call conscious co-creation, with others in their communities towards greater equity, inclusion, liberation and well-being. SCC's prevailing intention is to widen the awareness, practice, and use of conscious co-creation. Through Seeding Conscious Co-Creation, CEIO is using its power to cultivate a field where more seeds of change and liberation can be nurtured, watered, and supported so they can take root and sprout.

Do you see yourself as a group leader or facilitator who wants to practice consciously using your power and responsibility?

Are you interested in gathering folks together around a shared point(s) of connection to practice conscious co-creation?

Is what brings your group together invested in principles of equity, healing, liberation and systems transformation?

Seeding Conscious Co-Creation might be the support and resources you need to seed and bring your vision to life! Applications are now closed for the 2024 Cohort

Learn more about SCC below

SCC provides participants with the opportunity to...

Practice conscious use of power in a supportive community

SCC facilitators and participants will operate as its own community of practice centered around the learning and practice of being more aware of how we use our power to foster greater equity, inclusion and liberation in ourselves and our communities.

Receive training and coaching from skilled and thoughtful facilitators and support guides

SCC cohort sessions will include learning frameworks and practices to support individuals and groups in embodying equity and liberation. Additionally, SCC participants will be paired with a Support Guide who will inspire, assist and witness your process. Support Guides and the SCC team will be available to support the various needs of each community of practice throughout the program.

Attend additional CEIO and related programs

Invitations to attend and/or be sponsored to attend CEIO Core Development programs including CEIO Community of Practice Learning Days, the Community Leadership Program, Beyond Diversity 101, and Story Week.

Receive up to 1 year of financial support for eligible expenses

Eligible expenses include:

Honorariums or stipends for yourself, guest facilitators, or other contractors
Local transportation costs
Food & Accommodations
Supplies and expenses directly related to running your community of practice circle
Fees for use of physical and virtual spaces for gathering
Additional training and development opportunities

Retreat for diving deep

The SCC Diving Deep Retreat provides an inspiring and nurturing environment to deepen relationships with one another and collectively hold the dreams and intentions of your emerging communities of practice. This spacious 3 night retreat is intended to create an environment to support learning that strengthens your practice in a way that prioritizes rest, care, connection and nourishment. The retreat will center radical hospitality with accommodations, healthy, nourishing foods, and wellness/body care activities. We want to ensure that practitioners feel supported and inspired as they begin the cultivation of their projects.

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What is a Community of Practice?

Within SCC, we use the term “community of practice” to describe groups of people who come together around a shared connection, this might be an identity, interest, concern, experience, role or profession and often is an intersection of these to form a community. The practice part of SCC is about coming together to collectively learn and explore experiences, how power has historically been used and how your power might be used to cocreate more equity and liberation within yourselves, your shared connection and the wider community.

SCC communities of practice are often both unlearning old ways of being rooted in systems of oppression as well as practicing ways of being that center authenticity, inclusion, equity and wholeness. Communities of practice are a container to cultivate connection, accountability and practice more just and liberated ways of being with others.

Photo: From The People's Saturday School 2023 Praxis Group, 2022-23 SCC Cohort.

What is conscious co-creation?

Conscious co-creation is synonymous with “conscious use of power,” and is the core technology of CEIO. The practice of conscious co-creation reminds us that we all have power and responsibility in creating what is. It invites us to be aware of our individual and collective power as well as how groups and larger systems have historically used power. When we acknowledge the truth about how power is and has been used there is inevitably more space for justice, equity, inclusion, and belonging to take root.

Conscious co-creation encourages us to tune in to our whole selves (body, mind, heart and spirit) and to ask the questions:

“What has been my role - and what do I want it to be - in creating what is?”
“How do I want to be my authentic self and use my power as I am in relationship to my community and society?”

Photo: From the 2022-23 SCC Diving Deep Retreat

Exercising Conscious Co-Creation in Communities of Practice

Seeding Conscious Co-Creation is about exercising the conscious use of power as individuals and groups in the form of communities of practice. We believe the practice of conscious co-creation is the fuel and communities of practice are the vehicle as we move towards a more equitable, just, liberated, and connected community and world.

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What have past participants learned?

Leading this community of practice has supported me in connecting more with my own power as a leader, with self-trust, and with coming out of hiding and being, and expressing myself more fully and truly than ever before.

Lorena
2022-23 Cohort

I am learning to be a leader who can lead in vulnerability, which is the ingredient for trust.

Stephen
2022-23 Cohort

One of the first lessons I learned in SCC was that the more intentional you are about your position the clearer it is for people to see what you’re all about.

Amara
2022-23 Cohort

I realized so many people like me needed a community where they could also feel like they had support and people they could talk to about their dreams. When we work together, we can build together and nobody loses. We’ve been able to do so much with love and to build with love.

Loren

2022-23 Cohort

What does a SCC Community of Practice look like?

SCC communities of practice are beautifully diverse in how they gather, learn, practice and express themselves. They might be on zoom, held at a restaurant or cafe, meet in a coworking space or hosted at someone’s home. They might collectively learn about an issue together, bring in a guest facilitator to teach a framework, or read and discuss a book together. They might include making art, meditation, somatic exercises, or deep listening and radical truth telling. They might hold a community forum, a workshop, an art show or organize a collective action.

View the 2022-23 Cohort to Get Some Inspiration

Program Components

Radical Hospitality

Seeds are full of potential and they have the best opportunity to take root and sprout when covered in rich soil, watered, provided sunlight, and are cared for. It is our intention to practice radical hospitality for SCC practitioners throughout every aspect of the program. This looks like spacious meeting times, nourishing food, practicing slowness, tending to emergent needs and designing specific restorative experiences.

Intentional Community & Accountability

SCC is committed to intentionally creating a space for individuals to show up wherever they are in their growth process and experience connection, support and belonging. We seek to hold and celebrate each individual's fabulous independence and the reality of our interconnection. We encourage both individual and collective accountability in how we be in community and practice with each other.

Coaching & Support

We have assembled an incredible team of facilitators and guides to hold, encourage and coach you and your community of practice. Each community of practice will be assigned a SCC team member to meet with you regularly throughout the program. Their support might include thought partnership, coaching, facilitation ideas or training, referrals, or wellness and resilience exercises. You and your Support Guide will cocreate how they can best support you in both strategic and emergent ways.

Co-learning & Practicing

SCC is not about one person at the front of the room prescribing you to be, know or do a thing in a particular way. We seek to cultivate a collective learning community that encourages folks to share who they be and what they have come to know. We are all teachers and all learners. Togher, we practice liberatory ways of being and doing because as writer, facilitator and activist adrienne maree brown says “practice is how we become what we long to be.”

Full Systems Transformation & Care

We seek to transform systems on every level - individual, group and societal. We believe deep care is needed to steward transformation. This means lovingly attending to what is up in our bodies, our minds, our hearts and our spirits. It looks like seeing our patterns at all levels and bringing care to the process of unlearning old ones and starting new ones. It encourages us to look at the reality of the systems we live in and clearly identify how we want to use our power to transform them.

Witnessing & Amplification

Part of SCC is about you being seen in your power as you cocreate towards your vision. This witnessing happens through small celebrations and noticings throughout the program - we give you space to brag a bit! SCC also works to amplify your community and the learning and initiatives that come out of it to a wider audience. In years past we have held an SCC specific Deeper Change Forum. This year we’re doing things a bit differently and will be utilizing other creative strategies to promote what’s happening through SCC. This might look like videos, reels, podcasts, toolkits, pop-ups or whatever creative ideas we might co-create together!

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