Stories Lived. Stories Told.

How do we embrace the unknowability of being alive? ... Today, Abbie and Lois explore social therapeutics and performance activism as avenues for “performing beyond ourselves,” embracing life as play (and play as life), and creating stages- not of development- but, for development.  ... As director of the East Side Institute , the research and education center for social therapeutics and performan...

What CMMish tools help us to end a conversation in a different place than where we started? ... Today, Abbie and Laura explore the stories of Laura’s evolving approach to therapy, including the introduction of paradox and counterparadox developed by the Milan Center; the adoption of a more strategic approach to communication from a pragmatic perspective; the shift in seeing the therapist as both o...

How do games like Dungeons and Dragons enable us to practice a CMM-informed way of relating, participating, and communicating?  ... Today, Abbie and Tom explore Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) as a powerful practice and metaphor for developing more relational, emergent, and collaborative ways of being and leading, touching on the value of experiential learning in scenarios our brains will remember...

Who isn't being invited to the conversation? ... Today, Abbie and Mil explore ways to create “grains of empowerment” that enable every individual to participate in community-based solutions to our global problems, beginning with each of us asking the question “ who is missing? ” in every space we enter; systematically inviting people with differing perspective, identities, and experiences to...

How do we create better social worlds at the intersection of mindfulness, innovation, and complexity? ... Today, Abbie and Mattia consider the responsibility humans have to mindfully engage with tools like artificial intelligence by prioritizing our own imagination; the lessons we can learn from experiences of uncertainty and ambiguity; the need for us to practice thinking in an agile way as we lo...

How can we learn to see more of our expectations and assumptions? ... Today, Abbie and Rachel are two 'embodied minds' exploring the neurobiology of sensemaking, including our brains being more prediction than reaction, the controlled illusion of acting out of our expectations, the 'felt sense' we experience that encodes all information about priors, and the perception practice...

How do we understand the complexity of who we are and who we are becoming? … Today, Abbie and Celiane use social construction as a framework to explore forming futures, intent v. impact, "good" design, and sustainability transitions. ... Celiane Camargo-Borges is an intercultural explorer, researcher, and facilitator with a passion for fostering collaboration across diverse communities....

What changes when you begin to recognize, name, and move through your icy blue, fiery orange, and calm green areas? ... Martie van der Reijden and Evelien van den Kerkhof are both Orthopedagogue Generalist / child and youth therapist and EMDR Europe Practitioners. They have been working together for years in their independent practice in Voorschoten (the Netherlands) and have a lot of experience i...

How can you speak in a way that allows others to hear you? And listen in a way that allows others to speak? ... Deb Nathan is a licensed art therapist and psychotherapist with extensive experience as an educator, artist, therapist and supervisor. In 2008, Deb founded Artsbridge, Inc. – an organization that utilizes a unique methodology to bring together teens from communities in conflict. Artsbrid...

What are responsible ways of engaging with ambitions around change?  ... Karina Solsø is a self-employed organizational psychologist, who works part-time at the Doctor of Management Programme at University of Hertfordshire, where she supervises Ph. D. students researching complexity in organizations. She also works as an external lecturer at Aalborg University supervising students doing a masters...

How are we generating possibilities in every moment? ... Rana Kökçinar is a Systemic Psychotherapist and Family Therapist working on unceded Kaurna Land, South Australia. Anokh Goodman is a Systemic Psychotherapist, Clinical Lead and Training Consultant with Sikh heritage and a working-class background, living in Leeds, North England. Passionate about relationships, narratives, social justice, poe...

Is your communication relationship-enhancing or relationship-destroying? ... Dr. Whitney is a global social entrepreneur. She is the founder of Corporation for Positive Change , a global consulting cooperative; co-founder of the Taos Institute , an international think tank dedicated to relational processes in business, education, families and communities; and a founding advisor to the United Relig...

How do we create conversations in the world that make us feel inspired? ... Pedro Martins , Ph. D., is a Brazilian psychologist. He obtained his Doctoral and Master’s degree at the University of São Paulo. He is interested in the practice of therapy as social construction in different contexts, and his main goal is to create generative conversational resources that bridge academic and practical kn...

What agency can you identify in the systems you are in? And how can you use it to invite others to design with intention together?  ... Josina Vink is a designer and researcher with expertise in health system transformation. They have extensive experience leading and facilitating participatory system and service design processes in health care, government, non-profit and community settings. Josina...

How can we design in ways that are "conducive to life"? ... Edona Arnesen is highly passionate about food, farming, food systems , relationships and regeneration in unison, and how we can co-create better communities and systems for the common health of everything on Earth; the human and the non-human, and Nature whom we're all a tiny, connected part of. She finds systems thinking a...

Please be aware that this conversation contains references to sexual abuse and suicide. ... Where in your life can you create the conditions for tenderness? ... In 1989, Richard Propes left downtown Indianapolis in his wheelchair with $20 in his pocket, a backpack on his wheelchair, and a handful of press releases announcing his "Tenderness Tour." A paraplegic/double amputee born with sp...

Where can you create care and connection in unexpected places? ... Chistiaan Rhodius is a Dutch doctor specialized in palliative medicine. Together with his wife and four children he currently lives and works in Oslo (Norway). He is convinced that 'if we ignore death we miss out on life'. He is passionate for stories and the shaping of new stories (through the process of improvisation)....

Introducing CosmoParenting! This new podcast from the CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution is a continuation of CosmoActivities - our free resources for kids of all ages. In this year-long podcast, host Abbie VanMeter is joined by people who are parenting, educators, therapists, and communicators to explore what it means to parent. CosmoParenting is designed to support all who are paren...

Where can you be looking back in order to look forward? ... Vernon Cronen is a co-creator of the Coordinated Management of Meaning theory of communication. In 1963, Vernon graduated from Ripon College and served for two years as Lieutenant in the US Army, Intelligence branch. After acquiring his Master and PhD from University of Illinois, Urbana, he went on to teach at University of Massachusetts,...

What are you constructing in your relationships? ... Sheila McNamee is Professor Emerita of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and co-founder and Vice President of the Taos Institute .  Her work is focused on dialogic transformation within a variety of social and institutional contexts including psychotherapy, education, healthcare, organizations, and communities.  She is author of s...

How can we leave ourselves open to more spontaneity by letting go of some of our expectations? How do we suffer when we try to fit ourselves into the mold of "should"? Why do we need personal AND social evolution to create a more welcoming and curious culture? ... Rik Spann  is an organizational consultant, applied musicologist, artist, and jazz musician . In his work, he is interested i...

How can you embody democratic values? ... Hossein is a clinical psychologist , with a PhD awarded by King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry Psychotherapist. He is also a researcher and a writer of both Novels and Psychology Books . Today, Abbie and Hossein explore the relationships between ignorance and knowledge; culture and behavior; and psycho-social factors and democratic values. Hosse...

What are the real ways that we can embrace the complexity of our experiences? How can we let go of a scarcity mindset in favor of a mindset of abundance? How can we see the stories of others as adding something important rather than taking something away from us? What does it actually look like to make more space for people and their stories? How can we start to “build a bigger table”? Instead of...

What power do you have in your community? ... Sue Wells is a New Zealander. Now living in the North Island's beautiful Kapiti Coast, she is originally from Christchurch in the South Island. There, she grew up, studied at Canterbury University, and had a highly successful broadcasting career in radio and television, including starring in her own show, "Susan Sells", on CTV. She moved...

How do we, as a community of individuals with individual experiences, thoughts, and feelings, come together to create shared meaning? How has our understanding of communication evolved to more accurately encompass the complexities and nuances of human relationships? Whether or not we consider ourselves "creative" or "leaders," how can we still find ways to create and lead? ......