This stream focuses on how people are holding and being affected by the current moment in their roles and lives. It creates space to be with what is difficult to hold without needing to perform certainty, produce solutions, or carry the weight of organisational representation.
Across the interviews that informed this gathering, we heard from leaders who are responsible for dozens of livelihoods, who do not know what is coming, and who have no space in their professional lives to say so. Some described wanting, before anything else, a space where they could offload what they have been carrying. This stream is a response to that need.
The stream will be held by practitioners drawing on indigenous and Afro-descendant traditions of holding individual and collective grief, overwhelm, and transition. It will include somatic and embodied practices alongside reflective conversation, supporting participants to attend to what is happening in their bodies and their relationships to the work, not only in their thinking. This is not therapy. It is a recognition that the capacity to respond to what is happening in the world depends on the capacity to be present to what is happening in ourselves.
Participants may find this stream most useful if they:
Are carrying significant personal weight in their role and need space to be with that honestly.
Are experiencing fatigue, overwhelm, or a sense of isolation in their leadership.
Want to connect with others who are holding similar pressures, without the expectation of producing strategic clarity.
Are looking for embodied and relational ways of processing what they are going through, not only cognitive or analytical ones.
This stream may not be the best fit if you are primarily seeking strategic exchange, organisational problem-solving, or systemic analysis. Other streams are designed for those purposes.
There is no expectation to share more than feels right. The space is held with care and without pressure. What is shared here stays here. There are no OSF colleagues present in this stream at any point.
This stream also functions as an open space within the gathering. If at any point a participant finds that their chosen stream is not right for them, they are welcome to move here. This is the one stream where movement in is always possible.
Somatic and embodied practices for processing and grounding.
Small group and pair-based reflection.
Guided practices for attending to grief, overwhelm, and transition.
Spacious pacing with significant room for silence and rest.
Held by practitioners with deep experience in collective care under conditions of destabilisation.