Fear knocked on the door. Love answered and there was no-one there. (Sufi maxim)
Love and fear are rarely talked about in the workplace. We believe that many if not most organisations and indeed relationships are run by fear, and the impulse to love and serve has got buried in a plethora of self protective mechanisms. Fear is like black clouds that block the sun which is always shining. And it is so difficult to acknowledge because there is shame around it and also because it hides itself. Some of its symptoms which are not recognised as fear come out as blame, avoidance, competition, comparison, excessive self protection to the detriment of the whole, the need to be right, anger, prejudice and so on. Love is also avoided because society has built elaborate defences to protect us from the vulnerability that expressing it entails. It is considered soft and touchy feely whereas focusing on productivity involving short term benefit strategies, often built on fear, to the detriment of a bigger picture, is considered more useful.
In these two workshops the first one will be taking a closer look at fear and what a huge impact it has on our lives and the world in general. In a willingness to be vulnerable in sharing it, we get into closer relationship with each other. The second what we might mean by love in a workplace context and how we can help love become a powerful force there and beyond.
Course Content
Presenter
Helena Clayton is an organisational consultant supporting leaders at all levels to create healthy workplaces cultures where people can flourish. With 25 years experience, she works across all sectors, designing and running leadership programmes and is also a coach and a coaching supervisor. She has been researching love in organisations since 2018, developing and running pioneering and bold workshops and programmes for organisations and beyond.
Robin Shohet has been supervising for nearly fifty years beginning when he met Peter in 1976 and they staffed a therapeutic community for people coming out of psychiatric hospital. They combined to write Supervision in the Helping Professionsin 1989 which is now in its fifth edition. He co-wrote In Love with Supervision with Joan Shohet and his next book, Supervision as Spiritual Practice, an edited one, is due out in December 2024. He has organised two international conferences on forgiveness and is aiming to do another for 2026. He is a long time student of A Course in Miracles.
