The inspiration and laddership of this ecosystem have been sowing seeds here in Costa Rica. Things have been developing in interesting ways! :)

A few months back, I had the opportunity to share about a few experiments that are underway to bring generosity and love into public service. As an update, last month, we gifted a few visionary leaders and practitioners in the field of education a weekend retreat to combine meditation, empathic communication, design thinking, systems thinking and Theory U to think creatively about the role of empathy and compassion in transforming the public education system. There were many synchronicities in the process - a boutique hotel in the cloud forest even gifted us the space for the retreat!

We entered the retreat with no expectations in terms of the results, and yet amazing things were sparked by this weekend gift. The Minister of Public Education asked this crew of innovators inside and outside of government to help him prototype a new paradigm of education based on a system with no boundaries that sees itself as one with the communities it serves. I'm affectionately calling it a non-dual education system - one that conceives of no boundary between self and other. :)


Meditation and QiGong to invite presence that enables connection and intuition.


Celebrating with our participants: a handful of leaders and innovators in education, including the Minister and Vice Minister of Public Eduction


Facilitators' expression of gratitude, joy and renewed commitment to generosity and love :)

After the gathering, the Director of the National Learning Institute, who wasn't able to attend, invited us to build on the methods used during the weekend to help him design a longer process to invite presence, empathic communication and creativity into the process of transforming his 3,000-person organization! We're blessed to have the President's support to explore other similar opportunities to bring transformation to government. :)

It's humbling to realize that none of these results would have been possible if we had relied upon conventional planning based on our own ideas, but it all organically emerged when a group of us held our deepest intention to genuinely serve at the center of our process.

Thank you for inspiring us in Costa Rica with your example of what it means to be 100% committed to love as an organizing principle!