Our Commitments & Assumptions

This document can be understood as asking a question:

what would happen if we lived and worked together with these as a common foundation?

So far the results are thrilling and delighting.

Commitments

  • I commit to seeing everything that happens here as part of a learning experience.
  • I commit to listening non-judgmentally to myself and others.
  • I commit to speaking only out of and about my own personal experience and understanding. (When others speak, I recognize that it is their experience they are speaking about)
  • When faced with a choice between being curious and being defensive, I commit to being curious.
  • I commit to offering no praise, no blame, and no apologies; and to reveal, acknowledge, and appreciate instead.

Assumptions

  • Everything we know and everything everyone knows is only a model inside our heads.
  • We are co-creating an unknown together; no one is in control of what happens, and everyone is response-able.
  • “Not knowing” is a necessary and creative state, as part of understanding and action.
  • No one is right, no one is wrong, no one is to blame for anything.
  • We can trust ourselves and what we most deeply want.
  • Everyone wants closeness with others, and autonomy – and these are compatible.
  • Everyone wants complete acceptance of themselves as they are, and wants to change – and these are compatible.
  • Being fundamentally happy is a worthwhile and attainable goal.
  • Everything is interconnected, everything is constantly changing, and everything we do affects the whole world.

The Circles Maps are copyright 2001 Jean Robertson.

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