Spaces for Growth Learning Our Way Out of a Crisis

In normal times we go about our lives oblivious to the structures, institutions, processes, and shared values that shape our behaviours. In powerful times like ours, deep structures of love, power, and justice are brought to light. International Futures Forum has been tracking three emergencies: a real emergency (the challenges we face in the world), a conceptual emergency (making sense of the world to take on those challenges), and an existential emergency (how all of this leaves us feeling). It is the existential emergency, the human consequences of living in powerful times, that dominates the scene. Together we need to support individuals, groups, organisations, communities, institutions, human beings in all formations to expand, to develop, and to grow, to rise to the occasion. This booklet proposes 3 steps: Section 1 explores the context of our times and how we can read the landscape more effectively, coming to feel more at home in it. Second 2 focuses on transformative growth, both what we need to develop in ourselves and how we can do so. Section 3 moves to transformative action that will shift our systems and patterns of activity towards our aspirations for the future.