The Wheel and wide world change

At a time when so many challenging things are happening in the world, a reasonable question to ask is how can the practices of the Wheel support you and your communities, not only to navigate the challenges, but also to shift dynamics?

Naming patterns:

In her book, The Art of Receiving and Giving, Betty Martin talks about how the Wheel came together for her.

Part of it was a realization about a painful personal encounter:

"No reason is a good enough reason to do something to someone they did not agree to." 

And then beginning to see the same dynamics at play in the wider world: 

“Then the next thing hit. [That] doing things to people without their agreement—is the basis of our civilization. It is what our nation was built on. We (Europeans) stole the land, decimated the people living on it, and enriched ourselves on the backs of other people we enslaved.  Today we send our military to prop up petty dictators because it gives us access to oil, or ridiculously cheap labor to make our garments. Or bananas, for God’s sake… “

Included in this is the realisation that – mostly – none of us want to hurt our family, or friends. Most of us don't want to hurt people halfway around the world either. But often we feel disconnected from them, or what we’re struggling with is an abstract concept which we don’t connect to real people. 

Many people have found that the dynamics of the Wheel make all this so much more tangible.

Certainly this happens when we get to experience each quadrant within a consenting agreement.

But the reality is we’re often more familiar with how each quadrant feels when it’s outside of agreement, or consent.

Many of us are used to experiencing Taking as stealing, or Allowing as enduring, or Serving as burnout, or Accepting as entitlement (and these are just a few examples).

This diagram below shows how the Wheel illuminates more of the dynamics that happen outside of consent.

Which ones do you see happening in the world right now?

Embodying the change we want to see

The practices of the Wheel enable us to see where oppressive dynamics are alive in our own bodies and experiences; when they are no longer invisible to us, we can shift them. 

Equally important, we get to practice relating differently.

For example, we may begin to regularly ask the question, "Where am I out of integrity?"

We may start to ask, “If this is not what I really want, then what else do I want instead?”

In relating with others, we learn to be delighted when someone says says no, or expresses a limit.

When we start to work together towards agreement, with each person in our fullest agency and expression, we shift away from power over towards power-with. 

How have you experienced the Wheel shift what you see about yourself? Shift your relating?

We'd love to hear from you. 

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