Being Underwater Joana Breidenbach

Hier hört ihr den zweiten Teil meiner Folge zum Thema Die Metakrise und welche Zukunftspfade können wir gehen. Im ersten Teil beschäftige ich mich mit den Merkmalen unserer heutigen Krisenwelt. Ich gehe der Hypothese nach, dass die überwältigenden Schieflagen und Bedrohungen nicht nur die Folge von zunehmender Komplexität sind, sondern das die tieferen Ursachen mit unserer einseitigen und verzerrten Beziehung zur Welt und zu Realität an sich zu tun haben.



In dieser zweiten Folge beschäftige ich mich damit, welche Zukunftspfade sich aus den unterschiedlichen Annahmen über die Ursachen hinter den Krisen ergeben und welche Annahmen und Haltungen mir persönlich gerade am interessantesten erscheinen.

Als regelmäßige Hörer des Podcasts habt ihr vielleicht bemerkt, dass wir in letzter Zeit auf diesem Kanal ziemlich still waren. Ich habe einfach andere Dinge prioritisiert, aber heute möchte ich mal wieder meine Gedanken mit euch teilen. und zwar geht es um die Frage: in welcher Art von Krise befinden wir uns eigentlich und welche möglichen Wege in die Zukunft ergeben sich, je nachdem wie wir die Krise interpretieren? Ich hoffe, meine Ausführungen sind für euch hilfreich und wünsche euch gute Unterhaltung. Der Hörbarkeit halber haben wir diese Episode in zwei Folgen aufgeteilt haben.

In den letzten Jahren beobachte ich eine Entwicklung im aktivistischen Umfeld, die mir interessant und bedeutsam erscheint. Eine Reihe von Aktivist*innen reflektieren selbstkritisch die Prämissen ihrer eigenen Handlungen. Sie fragen sich, inwiefern ihre herkömmlichen Strategien ineffektiv oder sogar kontraproduktiv sind. Sie diskutieren untereinander, wie ein wirksamerer Aktivismus aussehen könnte.



In dieser Folge möchte ich einige dieser Diskussionen vor dem Hintergrund meiner eigenen Erfahrungen an der Schnittstelle zwischen äußerer Transformation und Inner Work beschreiben.



Diese Folge basiert auf einem 3-teiligen Blogbeitrag, den du hier findest: Part 1, Part II, Part III



An English version can be found here.



Ein paar Links, die in dieser Folge erwähnt werden, findest du in den Blogposts.



The Entangled Activist

Collective Trauma Training and Facilitation

Innerwork in New Work Webinar

The Wellbeing Project

Über Corona und Polarisierung

Becoming Unstuck With Relational Activism

Our interview today is with Adam McKenty. I got to know Adam about a year ago, after he had moved to Berlin from Canada and was in the process of starting the Church of Interbeing. A non-belief based ritual that meets every Sunday in Berlin. Before this, Adam worked in a wide range of areas: as a software developer, stone mason, gardener, technician, photographer, musician, facilitator, and builder of organizations. 

Through these activities, he has been a lifelong observer of ceremony, collective intelligence, and the peculiar ways in which human groups fail and succeed in their endeavors. 

In our conversation, we talk about Adams' very unusual upbringing in the Canadian wilderness. Resisting to portray his life in a linear way, we explore what it means, and what it takes, to craft an authentic life path with all its beauties and challenges. What really struck me, and what I believe you as a listener might also come to appreciate, is the way in which Adam's explorations never seem to be pre-fabricated and stale, but arise out of the moment. There is a slowness and deliberation in the way he speaks, which reflects the inner state of searching.

If you live in Berlin, you are very welcome to attend the weekly services of the Church of Interbeing. You can find it in the Genezareth Kirche in Schillerkiez, Berlin.

My guest today, Igal Harmelin, is an outlier. Unlike all of my other guests so far, he has devoted his whole life to a spiritual search and God. 

⁠Igal Harmelin⁠ grew up in Tel Aviv in the 1950s. Already as a teenager he was, as he calls it “infected by the spiritual bug”. He was introduced to ™, Transcendental Meditation, at that time a very popular movement founded by the Indian teacher Maharishi. Igal trained and taught for over 20 years in that tradition. He then moved on to study with Andrew Cohen, an American spiritual teacher, That community exploded after Cohen was accused by some of his closest students of psychological abuse and not practising what he was preaching. For the last 10 years Igal has been training with ⁠Thomas Hübl⁠, who is also my own spiritual teacher. In addition, Igal has been studying ⁠NARM⁠ , an advanced trauma therapy, and works as a certified Master NARM practitioner. 

Igal lives in New York with his wife, Rabbi Lisa Goldstein. In our conversation we examine Igals path into spirituality and his strong longing for connection with the divine. We talk about his experiences growing up as the son of Holocaust survivors. Igal shares his relationship to his spiritual teachers, good and bad, as well as his current deep interest in collective trauma. How did his life unfold? What were the drivers behind his search and the specific teachers he studied with?

For me, the grandchild of Nazi perpetrators, meeting and listening to Igal always has a special and I would even say sacred dimension. As Igal himself points out: "When a German and a Jew meet, the painful presence of the Holocaust is always in the room, even if we don’t address it explicitly." There is an absence, a gulf of overwhelm, shame, anxiety and not-feeling. I am very grateful for this conversation and hope you gain many insights from it too.



⁠https://www.igalharmelin.com/⁠

⁠https://narmtraining.com/transformingtrauma/episode-063/⁠

⁠https://thomashuebl.com/school-of-collective-trauma-integration/

My guest today is Carla Maria de Souza. Carla is a Brazilian social entrepreneur and founder of Project Tres - a nonprofit organization in Germany operating in India and Kenya, working with women in vulnerability, contributing to their personal and financial independence with educational programs and fair trade practices. 

In our conversation Carla makes a strong connection between her work and her personal and spiritual life. Carla has made use of her traumatic experiences during her childhood and teenage years as a tool to promote social impact and evolve as an individual. Her interests are in the topics of patriarchy, decolonization, and capitalism, as well as transgenerational trauma, inner work, spirituality, psychedelics, and indigenous culture.