Gisela Wendling

Turning Toward One Another in a Time of Crisis

The more I try to grasp the many dimensions of the global crisis that has so fundamentally changed our lives, the more I care about how this crisis is affecting us emotionally. Unexpected disruptions can come with a range of emotions that are often challenging, perplexing, and rapidly shifting within us. Turning to one another and finding support in each other’s company through deep listening can be a place of relief and comfort. And with this relief comes an inner spaciousness and renewed sense of wherewithal, and the possibility to invite and perceive a future that is truly new.

I experience this rapid shifting of emotions myself. For example, while I am often still in shock about the pervasiveness of the impact of the virus, I also feel I am letting go of the familiar, finding moments of acceptance. In these moments, I get glimpses of new possibilities and feel a sense of hope. But these moments pass, sometimes quickly, and I find that I am actually angry. I notice this when I am reactive in situations where I am usually more patient. Then later, I may feel so […]

giselawendling2020-04-03T23:56:14+00:00March 31st, 2020|Change, Dialogue, Transformation, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Responding to the Global Emergency from the Inside Out

A heightened sense of interconnectedness of our human community is awakening around the world. It is an interconnectedness that is threatening in one way and is life affirming in another. Being confronted with this paradox is a dizzying experience. I believe we are experiencing a global reset that overshadows all other attempts we have made to make pervasive and needed change in the world. To meet this challenge, we need to cultivate an inner resourcefulness and resilience.

Compared to how we have responded to mitigating climate change thus far, this crisis has intervened in our lives in previously unimagined ways. No one is exempt from this impact. There are two pieces of good news. First, for the first time in a very long time the earth is taking a breath of much cleaner air. And as local, regional, and federal governments respond, and as many of us do what we can to not spread the virus, a global protective shield or safety net is developing. Of course, we don’t know what this will mean in the long term for our global community, our economies, and our daily lives. What we do know is that as this […]

giselawendling2020-03-26T21:15:40+00:00March 24th, 2020|Change, Global Learning, Leading Change, Social Change, Transformation, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Recovering an Indigenous View of the World: The Sundance

The Sundance Ceremony of the North American Great Plains People (which includes territories of the Cree people in Canada) is a prayer for life, the renewal of the world and thanksgiving. Dancers make spiritual and physical offerings to ensure the well-being of others.

In the previous post, I wrote about the possibility of recovering an indigenous view of the world and how building bridges of understanding between indigenous and non-indigenous people can help create shifts toward a more holistic, ecological, spiritual, resilient and life affirming approach.

In this post, The Sundance, I share my personal experiences participating in the ceremony. I describe shifts in my awareness, my felt sense, and the energetic movements I experienced. Several times, I apply what I have come to understand from my long-time exploration of ceremonial practices to my experience of the Sundance. I also share a few comments about the traditional meaning and purpose of the Sundance while trying to avoid details that I feel are not mine to share, especially as as a non-Cree and non-Native

I offer this post to give a sense of what it is like to encounter an indigenous view of the world by […]

giselawendling2020-02-17T19:33:34+00:00September 15th, 2019|Aboriginal Culture, Culture, Global Learning, Indigenous Wisdom, Social Change, Spirituality, Transformation|1 Comment

Working with Crucibles of Change

One of the central topics that David Sibbet and I explore in The Grove workshop Designing and Leading Change is how to identify and work with crucible-type situations in organizational change processes. The Liminal Pathways Framework which we introduce in this three-day workshop indicates the crucible phase as the center of the transformative process—at the threshold or place of transition where one is no longer the old and not yet the new.

In metallurgy, crucibles are used to melt metals and combine elements under strong heat. Alchemists used crucibles in an attempt to turn base metals into gold, and they explored how their own magical interactions might cause a transformation to occur. So the crucible has become a metaphor for human containers (or processes) that can handle a great amount of tension – generative and challenging – for a shift or for something new to occur. The container needs to be strong, and at times also malleable and flexible, depending on […]

giselawendling2021-08-06T17:49:31+00:00February 20th, 2016|Change, Dialogue, Indigenous Wisdom, Organizational Consulting, Transformation|3 Comments

An Invitation from the Greek God Hermes

Statues at the Louvre

I just returned from an inspiring trip to Germany, Netherlands and France. David Sibbet and I led a public workshop on visualizing change for organizational consultants in Amsterdam and we spent time with several of the Grove Global Partners working on various new projects. The workshop focused on mental models and metaphors that capture increasing levels of complexity within systems as well as examining patterns of change—within individuals as well as organizations and larger system. We also looked at patterns of change by reviewing the Liminal Pathways Framework. It is always wonderful to see how quickly this framework for change resonates with workshop participants and clients.

While in Europe I also took a few days to visit Paris and read The Principle of Individuation: Toward the Development of Human Consciousness, written by one of my favorite Jungian writers, Murray Stein. The reading led me to explore the Greek God of Hermes and his archetypal role in transformational processes while all along being inspired by the historical […]

giselawendling2018-09-25T23:51:49+00:00July 9th, 2015|Change, Culture|1 Comment

Gisela Wendling Welcomed at The Grove Consultants International

This brief article about my work at The Grove Consultants International was published in their Winter 2015 Journal. The Grove’s renewed focus on organizational and social change has been met with an exciting amount of interest and projects, including organization change and multi-stakeholder projects. Our increased focus on The Grove’s Learning and Exchange Network is generating a variety of new public offerings here in the US, Europe and Asia.

Introducing Gisela Wendling, PhD, The Grove’s New Director of Global Learning

By The Grove

Gisela Wendling, Ph.D., joined The Grove in June 2014 as a new senior consultant and Director of Global Learning. She brings to The Grove a fine-tuned mindset and deep experience in organization change. Gisela describes transformative change as a process occurring over time, with distinct phases and a momentum that, if guided well, can overcome obstacles and resistance.

New Grove Intensive: “Designing and Leading Change”

At The Grove we are finding a growing need for organization and culture change work. Getting long-term results involves dedicated effort over time and significant shifts in values, focus and ways of working.

One of The Grove’s new workshop offerings to address this need […]

giselawendling2019-01-29T16:43:04+00:00February 21st, 2015|Change, Multi-Stakeholder, Social Change|2 Comments

Change: Ancient and New

Change and transformation are central to the human experience. The patterns and rhythms of change follow archetypal processes that can be observed wherever the cycle of endings and new beginnings spirals its course—in nature and in the human community. Transformation is the renewal function of any living system.

Cultural traditions from all over the world have a rich repertoire of knowledge about these pattern and rhythms and how to best support them. These perspectives add much depth to our contemporary Western models of change. For example, indigenous traditions teach us the interdependencies between change and stability, and the Eastern traditions about the principle of impermanence.

Here is a perspective on change and stability from oldest culture living on Earth today, the Kalahari Bushman/San people. In Bushman cosmology and their story about the workings of the universe, the process that endlessly changes form is considered to be God. This Big God has two sides: the stable side and the trickster side. Their circular interaction creates change and generates growth, maturation, and transformation.

According to a Cgunta Bushman healer, “Our most important idea is thuru. That is, the process in which one form changes into another […]

giselawendling2018-09-20T20:13:21+00:00November 20th, 2012|Change, Indigenous Wisdom|0 Comments