La Agenda Hemisférica:

For most of us our primary experience of being nurtured was from our parents They hopefully helped us to learn skills, praised us, supported and guided us They looked after our emotional and physical well-being

Throughout our childhood the atti- tudes of parents and significant others such as family members, teachers and doctors can lay down beliefs about the world and ourselves Comments they made probably related more to their own beliefs, feelings and desires than ‘the truth’ although we were unaware of this at the time We continue to be influenced as we grow older, our significant others becoming our partner, boss, guru or friends

The attitudes of both the critical and the over-indulgent person could have come from a place of wanting to nurture us, but could leave us holding beliefs that do not serve us any more Our gremlin can use these viewpoints to stand in our way

A critical person could have been finding fault to try and provoke improve- ment This could have left us with self- beliefs such as ‘nothing I do is ever right’, ‘I need to be perfect’ An over-indulgent person could have let us off the hook, allow ing us to not push ourselves or con- tinually doing things for us rather than

Life is the gift

Tell me, tell me Find your way home

Who are you? Who are you? In all your brilliance

In all your flaws Tell me, show me

Your home I follow your lead I am my own leader,

We travel together To distant lands

At home,

Here and there we stand Together apart With thanks for life’s intensity

Tell me, listen to me Wonder with me Gifts wrapped in disguise

To bewilder and amuse To throw us off course From life’s longing

Who am I? Who are you?

Who are we? We share Pulsating between The push and the pull,

Who knows where The current will take us,

Home home Feel our way home,

For life is the gift We are all looking for

One-to-One Relationships

allowing us to learn to do them ourselves We may now hold beliefs like ‘I don’t need to try’, ‘there’s always a way out’ or ‘I can’t do it by myself’

A nurturing person strikes the balance between the two and finds ways to encourage and support without undermining attempts to develop

When we nurture plants we help them to grow and provide protection; by observing their needs we can provide for them Their needs will be different at varying stages of growth We ‘harden off’ seedlings, getting them used to colder conditions step by step so that they are able to withstand the move from a warm greenhouse to the colder outside

When nurturing children we support them to gradually make the transition from the warmer, safer home environment to the bigger, outside world Nurturing other adults can be more of a two-way process, where there is give and take We can create encouraging environments We can have physical places that are light, spacious, cosy, warm and quiet, where it is possible to be nourished by just being there We can create emotional environments that support us in accessing our feelings and working through difficult emotions, by giving people the space to talk and acknowledging that it’s OK to share Social environments can encourage connections, support and feedback with open and willing communication

Timing is crucial There are times when we prune a tree and it benefits, and other times of the year when we would do more harm than good The same applies for our strategies for nurturing people The effects differ depending on when we do things, again illustrating the key need for observation before intervention or feedback Imagine you have been trying to experiment in the kitchen with a new recipe and you are unsure what to do next, then someone comes and takes over and you feel disempowered Imagine the same scenario but you now have people coming over for dinner and a backache – now it feels supportive for someone to come and take over We need to be mindful of the other person’s perspective rather than making assumptions Awareness and observation encourage us to see individual needs We can work from the patterns of support that we can give to the details of what is needed in the moment

When talking about cultivating a healthy mind I described the importance of being able to learn from our mistakes and how this can provide us with rich information and learning opportunities In our relationships there will be times when we have to step back and allow someone to take their own course, even if we can see a learning opportunity coming Sometimes we have to allow someone to make their own decisions which may bring undesirable outcomes in the short term, but will be more beneficial in the long run as they learn for themselves This is part of

allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolution We can provide the conditions to nurture someone but they have to do their own growing

Leadership of ourselves and others can include the qualities of a nurturing person: guiding but not directing; pushing but not forcing; stimulating rather than being prescriptive; supporting instead of doing it for them