The Heart of Action

Enlivening and Re-imagining Our Part in Social Change

with Marianne Murray and Mark Nicolson

Last offered Summer 2008

• Is your work focused on social change and service?
• Is there a weariness to your daily work?
• Do you feel yourself burning out?
• Are you confident that you’re making a difference?

 A workshop for those who want to deepen the alignment between the (inner) Impulse and the (outer) Expression of their work on behalf of the world.

Most of us who are working to bring about social healing and change come to a time—a plateau—when we feel stuck, doubtful, and out of touch with the passion and insight that originally infused our actions. To some degree, in the face of the world’s suffering, our creative energy entrains with old beliefs, limited patterns of thinking, and habitual ways of being. We feel the presence of weariness and disillusionment.

Often, we lack support to examine and express how we are affected through our contact with the world in which we work, and to alchemize our re-actions into creative Action. We lose our inner, energetic alignment. We cannot fully develop our innate fierceness, compassion, dignity, and courage, and do not discover the new possibilities for Expression inherent in these qualities.

How do we bring our ‘plateau’ into awareness; release patterns of restriction; and reconnect with the passion and creativity of the Impulses that move us towards Action?

This workshop will take you through a cycle of experience, reflection, and expression to deepen into the source of your impulse towards social action. By turning the attention within, and exploring the impulses themselves, you will invite in yourself a new and deeply grounded level of Expression.

Marianne Murray is a member of the core facilitation team, and serves on the Board of Directors. She has a Ph.D. in transformative learning and an MA in transpersonal psychology. She specializes in transpersonal practices in her work with individuals and groups, and is a breathwork practitioner, body worker, and systemic constellations facilitator.

Mark Nicolson is part of the leadership team of the Academy’s Ventana group for organizational inquiry and consulting. He has been a leadership consultant and coach for 13 years and was formerly a partner in Alexander, the UK firm which pioneered coaching in organizations. He is on the faculty of the Kennedy School Executive Education program at Harvard, of Stanford Continuing Studies, and of Esalen Institute. He holds an MA from Oxford and an MBA from Stanford.