PRESS RELEASE: WOBURN, BEDFORDSHIRE – 18 November 2009 – Today at Woburn Sculpture Gallery, Bedfordshire Businesswomen (BBW), a not-for-profit networking organisation for women who live and/or have business interests in the Bedfordshire area, now in its 21^st year, announced their annual business awards for outstanding achievement in various categories. Amongst the six winners for the 2009 awards, which were sponsored by Barclays Bank, was Lynn Serafinn, a Bedford-based community leader, transformation coach, personal development trainer, public speaker, radio host and bestselling author of the book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self. Ms Serafinn received the BBW award for “Working within a Community Organisation or Not-for-Profit Organisation” owing to her work as Founder of the Global Wellness Circle, and also as the Chair of Transition Bedford, a new initiative that is part of the worldwide Transition Network addressing climate change and fossil fuel dependency.

In spring 2008, Ms Serafinn noticed that there was a large faction of practitioners in the holistic health and wellbeing industry who felt isolated both professionally and socially, having no way to promote their businesses or to educate the public about the benefits of living a more natural, holistic lifestyle. In response to this, she formed the Global Wellness Circle (GWC) in May 2008, first in Bedford, but within a few months it rapidly expanded to other parts of the UK. GWC is a community of independent holistic practitioners and members of the general public, whose primary aims are to provide the public with information, education, support and access to a range of quality services and products in holistic and natural health, as well as to provide a truly inclusive social environment fostering open-mindedness, light-heartedness, fun and overall positivity, thus creating an atmosphere of holistic wellness. Now with five chapters (Bedford, Cambridge, Northampton, Milton Keynes and Hemel Hempstead, with another proposed in Dunstable for 2010), and having grown to a wider community of nearly 500 people in central UK, GWC is currently in the process of applying to become a CIC (Community Interest Company/Social Enterprise), with the aim of expanding their ability to help the wider community lead happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives.

Being truly passionate about helping people feel greater connection to themselves, to each other and to the Earth, Ms Serafinn had the opportunity to expand the parameters of her community work when, in June 2009, she was asked to serve as Chair of the newly formed Transition Bedford, a volunteer community initiative whose objective is to create a plan for a sustainable Bedford, addressing everything from climate change and energy, to education and community. Transition Bedford is part of the larger Transition Town Network of over 1500 towns, villages and urban neighbourhoods worldwide, which is a grass-roots initiative addressing the shift away from fossil fuel dependency and towards a sustainable environment by taking definitive, community-driven action in response to climate change and the impending impact of peak oil upon our lifestyle.

As Chair of Transition Bedford, Lynn leads awareness-raising events, community meetings and steering group meetings, and represents the initiative in a variety of public settings. Borrowing from her skills as an online promotion expert and personal development trainer, she also created and maintains their blog, coordinates their online social networking, writes articles and media releases, and offers both free and low-cost training to the public.

She says, “The link between the Global Wellness Circle and Transition Bedford is really pretty seamless. GWC in central UK can easily provide a link between the health and wellbeing sector and the Transition Town initiatives in our local regions, by helping society make the transition to a healthier lifestyle in which we relearn many of the human skills, such as herbal medicine, natural remedies, organic farming and food production, that enable us to be well, rather than compelling us to invent new technologies to fight disease.

Ms Serafinn is no newcomer to community work. Originally from the US, she worked in the 1990s with the Interfaith Action Coalition in Phoenix Arizona, helping to coordinate large-scale events that crossed cultural and religious boundaries and brought together thousands of members of the community who would not otherwise have been connected. In 1997, she was one of the founders of a worldwide non-profit organisation called GOKUL, which sponsored and coordinated world lecture tours of some of India’s leading spiritual teachers. In that capacity, she also created and managed their website, and was the anonymous audio transcriber/editor of several books on eastern mysticism published by that organisation.

Lynn is also no stranger to receiving accolades. Coming from a long history in the music industry, she was the recipient of the National Defence Foreign Language Fellowship in the 1980s, which enabled her to study music and philosophy in India, and she co-wrote and produced a number-1 electronic dance club track in the 1994. In 2005, she received the Microsoft UK Innovative Teacher of the Year Award for her creative use of technology in the Further Education sector. In 2007, her coaching company Create-a-Life won the “Best of Bedford Business Awards” for the best Health and Beauty Company, after only 7 months of practice. And most recently, her self-published book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self became an Amazon bestseller in both the US and the UK when it was released in April 2009, outselling such prominent authors in the same category as Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle and Neal Donald Walsch. As a result, she is in demand as a speaker and coach on the topic of self-publishing and book marketing, and has also received countless letters from readers, thanking her for the healing her writing has brought them.

In addition to her community work in central UK, Lynn extends her influence to people all over the world via her weekly Internet radio show “Lynn Serafinn’s Garden of the Soul”. She says her core belief is that every human being is the hero of his or her own life, and that all facets of her work are aimed at helping others unlock their natural-born hero.

Transition Bedford, whose official launch event is being planned for mid-2010, will be working closely together with groups like Zero Carbon Castle, Sustainable Oakley, Goldington Golden Gardens, the Global Wellness Circle, Mile End Allotments and many others, as well as with Bedford College through their Education for Sustainable Development programme. The long-term goal will be to develop educational programmes, skills training and community projects that will not only raise public awareness, but will also help the town make the transition towards a more vibrant and self-reliant community in such areas of food and energy production, natural health, economy and environment.

“Our approach to climate change is not all doom and gloom, believe me,” says Ms Serafinn. “The real purpose of Transition Bedford is to help people feel uplifted and connected, and to allow them to see how essential a factor they are in the revitalisation of their town, and the world in general.”

Transition Bedford invite any and all members of the greater Bedford community, whether individuals, groups or businesses, to contact Lynn Serafinn at lynn [at] lynnserafinn [dot] com and get involved. You can also visit their blog at www.transitionbedford.org

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ARTICLE REFERENCES

Bedfordshire Businesswomen website: http://www.beds-businesswomen.org/

TRANSITION BEDFORD CONTACT INFO:
Contact: Lynn Serafinn
Email: lynn [at] lynnserafinn [dot] com
Web: http://www.transitionbedford.org
Forum: http://groups.google.com/group/transition-bedford
Tel: 44+ (0)845 880 25 28

TRANSITION TOWN NETWORK:
Web: http://www.transitionnetwork.org

LYNN SERAFINN CONTACT INFO (AUTHOR, SPEAKER, TRAINING):
Email:lynn [at] lynnserafinn [dot] com
Web: http://www.lynnserafinn.com

LYNN SERAFINN COACHING AND TRAINING ENQUIRIES:
Email: info [at] create-a-life [dot] co [dot] uk
Web: http://www.create-a-life.co.uk

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And many thanks to Urus Fret of Norway (a member of the Garden of the Soul social network) for sharing this wonderful video.

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Whether we are aware of it or not, the members of the Initiating Group (IG) at Transition Bedford are now evolving from the “forming” stage into the “storming” stage. Can you feel it? Entering the storm means we are making real progress, even if it seems unclear right now. So, at this important juncture, in hopes of taking us even further into the eye of the storm, I’d like to share some ideas which have been swirling about in my mind ever since my Transition Training in London. It has to do with media, our responsiveness to it, both conscious and unconscious, and our role as leaders in the community. After much reflection, I believe in our work within the Transition network, it is essential that we bear in mind

1. That we as an initiative will need to understand and address public emotions that may be stirred up by the media in all its forms (TV, film, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, pop culture, music, advertising, Internet, social media, etc)

2. That we will also need to become acutely aware of how WE ourselves are impacted by media, whether consciously or unconsciously

3. That we will need to know how to protect ourselves against succumbing to any unconscious unwanted impact, so we do not become “reactionary machines” instead of creative, resilient human beings, both individually and collectively.

4. That we will also need to become acutely aware of our own impact upon our community as we reach out to them.

5. That we will also (and most importantly) understand how to avoid unintended impact upon the community.

It is important to understand that these statements do NOT mean that we, as part of the Transition Network, are not entitled to our emotions. It would be an unreasonable expectation to think that we as humans should never feel angry, overwhelmed, grief-stricken, bitter, hopeless or cynical, especially when we are facing issues of such importance as climate change. Nor is it true that, by being part of a Transition Town initiative, we are expected to become super-humans or non-humans.

In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite.

We have to become human, pure and simple. And human means to understand emotions and how they impact us, so we can use them for our own expression, rather than feeling used by them. To be human does not mean controlling or suppressing emotions. Rather it means learning how to express them openly so that others also feel safe to express their own emotions in our presence. For in this process, trust is activated. And if our ultimate goal is to create community, trust is the most essential ingredient. Without it, there can be no community. Without community there can be no consensus. And without consensus, there can be no effective transition.

So if trust is the move essential ingredient, what does it mean to “protect ourselves” against unconscious impact? Doesn’t this sound like the opposite of trust? Not at all. Protecting ourselves means to be able to trust our own selves—our instincts, our feelings, our thoughts and our actions. It means knowing with certainty whether our actions are true responses to what is needed, or simply autonomous reactions to our own fears. And when we are able to make this distinction, and be truly confident in our self-trust, we have found the difference between enslavement and freedom.

But that works at an individual level, but what about at a community level? How does a community learn to trust itself? I have spoken with many other TT groups, and the question always comes back to, “How do we convert the unconverted?” In other words, “How do we get one part of the community to trust and believe another part of itself?”

If we ourselves are, consciously or not, enslaved by our own emotional reactions, caught in a web of our own fears, anger and frustrations over the state of the World, we would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would wish to come within 10 paces of our energetic range. And really, why in the world would they? If we flood people only with urgency, they will either swing towards us in a panic, or they will swing away from us in a panic. But if we stand powerfully within our own peacefulness combined with passion, love combined with laughter, optimism combined with sense of ongoing purpose, chances are far greater that people will learn to trust us just enough to listen to the more “urgent” message we might also wish them to hear, so they understand the matter fully. The answer to the question of converting the unconverted therefore is simply this: we will create precisely the energetic reaction in others that we ourselves project. If we wish to bring people into our wonderful vision of the future, we must first and foremost create the energy of that vision within ourselves. But if we are holding only the vision of what we wish to avoid and fear most, it will only drive people away from us. If we TT groups end up frustrated, wondering why we are having so much difficulty expanding their community, the first place to look should be our own emotional state. Within that lies the seeds of the impact we are creating in our community, whether intended or not. Our first responsibility, therefore, is to cultivate our own self-awareness. Without this, no action can take root in any lasting, effective way.

How do we start building this self-awareness? One way to start is simply by observing the energy shifts that media and other influences create both upon the public and upon ourselves. For instance, I notice that since I stopped watching television in Feb 2008, my anxiety about the economy has decreased radically, while many others around me (who watch the news on TV regularly) appear to be more stressed than ever. Of course I am not suggesting that everyone stop watching the News; I am merely noticing the impact. And in this noticing, I have valuable information upon which I can base my decisions for how I wish to communicate with others, and respond to the issues around me.

That is a very simple example, but the deeper we look, the more subtleties we will find and the more aware we will become. And as we become more aware, we become better at standing neutrally within our circumstances without impulsively reacting to them. By observing, we eventually will come to know what needs to be done and when in order to make the system work. With time, we will learn that it is sheer futility to try to nullify negative energy by pushing against it, and that if we do, we are only allowing our own energies to be drained away in the process. For the secret I have learned over the past months is this—the Transition Town movement is not only about creating sustainable energy for our technologies; it is also about creating sustainable energy for our hearts and minds. It is about creating a World and a lifestyle in which we ultimately feel more alive.

And what we might find in our quest for aliveness might surprise us. Falling back on the old “familiar” systems of fund-finding, establishing registered charities and other bureaucratic models may or may not result in breathing life into our community. We may feel these work well for us, or we might choose to toss them out altogether and create entirely new models. In the words of Buckminster Fuller, “You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” So the really important question for us now, as we begin to start the process of change together, is this: “How much fear are we ourselves holding onto that is preventing us from diving fully into the chaos of true creation?” It is vital that we deeply understand our own self-imposed limitations before we attempt to go out into society and expect it to change.

With regards to taking action, it was emphasised in the TT training, and I agree 100%, that while it is an easy temptation for us in new Initiating Groups to default into “jumping into action”, the more important thing is to understand ourselves first. If we jump into action primarily because our anxieties are being triggered, then we are simply reacting as a means to remove or avoid a discomfort. While emotions like anger or fear can stir us into action in the short term, they are not sustainable sources of energy. We risk burnout; and when we do burn out, we will find ourselves at the other extreme of passivity and apathy. When we simply react to stimuli, we get caught in the relentless pendulum swing between passive and aggressive. And we all know that a pendulum just keeps going over the same ground again and again, never really moving anywhere. It’s just like political systems that move continuously between Conservative and Liberal year in and year out. Reaction is not action, because it doesn’t take us anywhere.

To be effective as a Transition Town, we must learn deeply about the inner mechanisms that propel us to act or to react, both as individuals and as a community. It is only via this understanding that we can begin making a real “transition” away from the old paradigm and into the new. Our TT trainers stressed this over and over again and I would be remiss, especially as a life coach, if I didn’t hold the stake for this vital point.

And while I agree that “talk is cheap” if not backed by action and commitment, it is also not enough for us to jump into action, even if these actions bring about some degree of good. Everything we do inevitably creates an impact both in our local communities and on our Planet. Let us choose our impact carefully and not be satisfied merely with an endless stream of reactions. Let us create a legacy that results in the long-term transformation we envision.

So, as we begin our journey together into the eye of the storm, I encourage us to take time and care to really “land” this concept. If we want to make lasting change—and I know we do—we must first learn to operate within a new paradigm wherein we no longer simply react to stimuli, but we understand our own inner workings, and create vibrant solutions to the problems we may face. Ironically, to do that, in the beginning it will actually be necessary to take our focus away from the issues of climate change and peak oil for a little while, and to look first at who we are as human beings and what intrinsically joins us together beyond the “crisis”. This is not merely my own belief. Our trainers Nick Osborne and May East made expressed similar beliefs during our TT training. I don’t think I would be here at Transition Bedford if this were not the underlying ethos of the Transition Network.

I know some of my points may sound like “waffle” to some people. I know it might even create impatience, restlessness and irritability. And that is ok. All of that is symptomatic of the “storming” and “chaos” (to use M Scott Peck’s term) in the inevitable evolution of Transition Bedford becoming an actual community. I have faith in the process. I hope you do too.

Earth ~ Humanity ~ Connection

Warm wishes,

Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC
Author, Transformation Coach, Trainer and Speaker
“Turning up the volume of the music in your heart!”

Lynn Serafinn’s Cosmic Universe (main site)
www.lynnserafinn.com

Training for the Inner Transition:
www.lynnserafinn.com/transition-trilogy-2009.html

It’s a paradox. Effective “awareness raising” is in many ways “awareness grounding”.

What I mean by that is that we tend to think that “raising” awareness in people is a matter of telling them facts and details so they may understand the urgency of an issue as crucial as climate change and peak oil. But it is my observation that when people become over-saturated with sensory and mental data, far from this raising their consciousness, they actually go numb. It’s called “overwhelm”. I used to be that way earlier in life (and I get back there occasionally when I don’t take care of myself). When the issues of life became too much for me to bear, I became numb, disconnected and resigned. This is a spiritual tragedy for any individual. But when an entire culture becomes numb, it is not only a tragedy, it is a recipe for societal self-destruction.

My good friend Karen Maycey, who came from Manchester to speak at the Bedford Wellness Circle on Monday, went through this process of overwhelm when she was first diagnosed with stage-2 breast cancer last year. Karen has always been a very active “go-getter” in her work as a coach and workshop leader, and prior to that as an international tour guide. She had always been on the constant run all over the planet. But shortly after she was first diagnosed, and via a very intense group healing session in which I participated, she intuitively came up with a motto for herself, which was, “When we slow down, there we are.” And what she found when she did that, were all the answers to what was needed to restore balance and make herself well. At that point in time, she opted to refuse modern treatment of chemotherapy and radiation, and embarked on a highly demanding regime of natural therapies. This required immense commitment from her, but the truth is, when she slowed down long enough to listen to her body, she realised that it was what she needed to do to restore balance to the entire system.

Similarly, my colleague Shane Hughes from the Bedford Transition Initiating Group told me, “Permaculture is supposed to be 90% observation. I’m currently going through a process of observing insects in a field and it’s amazing how much more I see the longer you observe. It’s as if in the first instance my senses are almost numb and need tuning and then go through several step changes in my level of perception and sensitivity to what is actually there.” We can only truly understand a system when we slow down and come to understand what is actually present within it and how it is moving. And when we see the underlying way that the world is operating, we come to understand more deeply what it needs. What we invariably find is that these needs are not met simply by addressing external issues, but must satisfy the spirit and essence of the greater system, whether it is an individual person, a society, or a planet.

From my experience, as a college teacher, a coach and a person who has lived over half a century on the planet, taking initiatives without the “inner transition” never sticks. We teachers used to have to set so-called “SMART” targets for students. The end result was that while they might indeed complete their work (but frequently not), the learning and the life-change was negligible. The reason for this is that these not-so-smart targets only ever addressed “issues” (i.e., getting the coursework done, etc) and never got beneath the surface to dreams, motivations and all the things that are sustainable. Similarly, our Transition Bedford initiative (and the greater Transition Town movement) is not only going to involve looking at the “issues”, but it absolutely will require each of us getting very deep into the hearts and minds of the people of our town, and then creating a plan that addresses what we find, so we can sustain the inner energy of the people.

When I coach, people come to me with “issues” too; what I find invariably is that the issue is simply a symptom of an imbalance between body, mind and heart, which in turn creates a detachment from essence/source. People will continue to pillage the earth and exploit each other until that inner balance is restored and they begin to feel reconnected. Therefore, it is very important first and foremost that everyone who takes on a role within a Transition Town initiating group is given the opportunity to processes their anger, fear, doubts, frustration and overwhelm, within a collaborative and aligned support network, and then moves towards the connection, compassion and trust that is needed to carry out this incredibly profound “turning” in our history. From this place, we become a much more powerful entity, as we become no only connected to ourselves and to each other, but also to the energy of the space (i.e., the town, the rest of humanity, the Earth, Existence) itself.

From a personal perspective, this is where I see my greatest contribution can come into the Transition movement. I personally take it upon myself to work with others towards cultivating that inner transition—the “Great Turning” of human spirit. I trust that capable people, such as Shane and others in my initiating group and other groups throughout the world, will learn and carry out all the necessary work for the “outer transition”, such as the fundamental reskilling of food production, teaching permaculture, creating energy alternatives, and so many other wonderful things, which will actualise the intentions we set.

The desire to jump directly into action towards this outer transition is likely to be our natural tendency. As our inner transition evolves, and our eyes begin to open, we begin to notice more and more things in the world around us. And as we are all creative by nature, it is our human response that we feel the urge to act. For instance, these days, because I am more aware, I have been noticing more and more food-bearing trees and plants here in Bedford. I even enjoyed plucking and eating some juicy wild yellow plums along Goldington Road last Saturday. Then, the other day I noticed that there are probably at least 30 fruit-bearing cherry trees on Howbury St. There is also a massive apple tree and pear tree, both in the car park of a business (and unlikely to be harvested or of use to the owners). So of course my mind went into creation mode and I thought, “How about piloting the abundance project (harvesting and distributing) local fruit) with a ‘Howbury St Abundance Project?” But then, of course, I admittedly don’t even know if the cherries are actually edible. This requires someone more knowledgeable than myself. Harvesting also requires someone knowledgeable, some tools and a group of people to do it. Distribution would require coordination, and publicity would need to be designed and executed.

All of these are the “doing” things. These are the actions needed to carry out such a project, even on a small scale. But before we take any action, we need to create the “message” and intention to address the question of ”Why bother?” that people will surely ask. They will inevitably ask, “Why bother harvesting trees on Howbury St? Why should I care? How can this make a difference? How can this save the planet? Isn’t it like trying to empty the ocean one teaspoon at a time?”

And here again is how “numbness” happens with people. When the mission seems so overwhelming that they cannot envision it, people will simply give up. It is important to remember that this shutting down, or “numbness”, is actually one of our natural, emotional reactions to fear. It happens when our brains get flooded with too much info, and we begin to feel small and thus overwhelmed. It actually happens to us at a physical, mechanistic level; the amygdale at the base of our brain reacts by shutting down and tuning out when the sense of overwhelm triggers too much fear for it to handle.

If we start this Transition Town movement on the foundation of our own sense of fear and urgency, the likely result is that we will overwhelm others and they will become (or continue to be) numb. But even more importantly, if we fuel our own energy with a sense of fear and urgency, we will also flood our minds and bodies with stress and frustration, and we will burn out and give up. Just as fossil fuel is a non-sustainable energy source because it is non-replenishable, fear and anger are also not sources of sustainable emotional energy. They may be very useful in short-term crises, but when something requires sustained action and attention, they impair our inner sustainability and resilience.

It is, therefore, important for us to access different sources of energy for our own inner resilience. We need to tap into a sustainable supply of emotional energy. The most vibrant source of sustainable emotional energy is our ability to envision and hold the “bigger picture.” What is the bigger picture? The bigger picture cannot be focussed on what we are trying to avoid; it must be solely focussed on what we wish to create. One of my mentors, Patrick Ryan, is a race car driver and he says that when a driver goes into a spin, if he thinks, “I mustn’t hit the wall,” his attention automatically goes towards the wall and he is more likely to hit it because that is where his eyes are focussed. Instead, race car drives are trained to look at the centre of the field, so when they find themselves in a crisis, their natural instinct will be to drive directly to safety.

In much the same way, in starting our Transition Town initiative, we must set our eyes upon one thing and one thing only. Rather than putting our eyes on what we wish to avoid, we must clearly see the world in which we want to live, and that in which we want our great-great-grandchildren to live. We must dream bigger and more beautifully than we ever have before. During this process, we must not ask ourselves “How will we get there?” or say things like, “That seems impossible.” We must simply say, “This is our dream.” Once we are filled with the dream, we will have enough sustainable inner energy to address the “how to’s” and begin to create a practical plan of action. If we move into action without the dream and the inner connection to it, we will simply be focussing on the nightmare. And if we are focussing on the nightmare, the public will sense it, and they will collectively respond to it with anger, fear, resistance, overwhelm, numbness and apathy.

As we move towards this transition, it will be our job to hold that dream, that “bigger picture” and inspire the public, so the vision of this future becomes so powerful that grabs people by the heartstrings. It will then become such an irresistible force that they will simply insist they are a part of that dream. It will be our role to reach the positive emotions and natural creativity of people so that they are literally ringing us off the hook to get involved. If we make the dream so visible in our own eyes that others cannot help but see it themselves, they will become eager and active participants in the action to move towards it.

So to start the process of “awareness raising,” we must first start with ourselves. We already know the issues. But issues are not “awareness.” Become aware of our own sources of inner resilience and groundedness. Create the dream together. Be visible. Make the dream visible to others. Stay resilient. Learn how to recover when you are out of balance and return to being grounded. Then, take hold of the dream again. Claim it. Just keep being visible. Every time you are visible, holding the dream, someone else will want to step into it. Have no doubt that we will eventually, whether within our lifetime or not, reach a tipping point where the dream becomes the status quo.

And this is how we will transform the world.

Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC
Transformation Coach at Create-a-Life
Founder of the Global Wellness Circle
Chair, Transition Bedford Initiating Group
Author of The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self

Lynn delivers bespoke workshops for Transition Town groups. See her offerings on the “School of Everything” website, or contact her directly at lynn [at] lynnserafinn [dot] com