How can we work together effectively? And how can contemplative practices help?
The process of developing an innovative idea into a practical application is well understood, and there are many templates to follow—“soft skills” that can be taught and followed. However, those templates are less useful in the uncontrollable moment of inspiration, when there is a space of fear. Where there is no control or certainty, we must be together in not-knowing, without templates or programs that offer assured outcomes.
Fortunately, there are contemplative ways of being to help keep us attentive and open—to what is observable, to one another, and to new possibilities. These might be thought of as “life skills,” which cannot be reduced to rules or learned by rote. Rather, they only can be instilled as they are lived.
It is through life skills that we can hold each other in the moments of fear before innovation is made real. Pasteur suggested that “fortune favors the prepared mind.” We suggest that “fortune favors the prepared community.”
Vincenzo Mario Bruno Giogino, PhD has more than twenty years of experience in the field of clinical and applied sociology. Dr. Giorgino is an Aggregate Professor at the Department of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Torino.
Donald McCown, PhD, has more than twenty years of experience in the application of contemplative practices in clinical and educational settings. He is the Director of West Chester University’s Center for Contemplative Studies.
