Welcome to Resources for Change. I’m so glad you’re here.

In a world that makes it increasingly easy to disconnect from ourselves and others, I find myself longing for places of connection and community.

Resources for Change is a space for anyone seeking change, authorship, healing, and growth. Here, we will explore more about Virginia's work. I’ll share practices to help integrate the changes you want to make. And it’s a place for reflection and support, and also a way to stay connected to upcoming workshops and events.

I look forward to sharing this journey with you.

🧭 Welcome

Virginia Satir spoke about a third birth. The first, she said, was when the sperm and ovum met, the second was the physical coming out of the womb, and the third is when we become our own decision-makers. It occurs when we take charge of our life, and stand on our own feet. Authorship, if you will. I sometimes wonder if this comes with age, with time, with circumstance, or maybe it’s the weaving together of all three. Perhaps it grows out of a deepening relationship with Self, Other, and Context.

What I know for certain is that Virginia Satir’s work has profoundly shaped my ability to step into authorship, to take ownership of my choices, and to deepen the relationships that matter most to me.

That’s why I’m beginning Resources for Change and starting with Peace Within. Because before we can create peace between us, or peace among us, we must first turn inward. Real change begins here.

🔍 Peace Within, Peace Between, Peace Among

Jean McLendon created and mapped the 8A’s of change to Virginia’s change process. She spoke about Awareness, Acceptance, Authorship, Articulation, Application, Activism, Altruism and Alchemy. The A’s are a slightly different lens that looks at the process of change within, between and among.

Awareness, Acceptance, and Authorship she framed as Peace Within, Authorship and Application as Peace Between, and Activism, Altruism and Alchemy as Peace Among.

Peace Within is the starting point for meaningful change and connection. If we learn to look inside, know what’s there and love ourselves deeply, we begin to root in our own self-esteem, which for Virginia was deeply connected to knowing our own worth. We know that value comes from within, and from there we create agency, possibility, and a deep knowing that we are the authors of our lives. This is deeply empowering. Peace Within is the first step to meaningful change.

Change is beautiful, inevitable, frustrating, enlightening, sad, exciting and many more things. Through change, we can transform and move forward. It’s our vehicle towards freedom, choice, agency and wholeness, if we want it.

If we are willing to risk knowing ourselves, then we move toward greater wholeness and the life-giving force that comes with choice and possibility. And part of knowing ourselves deeply means facing the chaos, loss, and grief that arise along the way.

Transformation is also a multi-level process, evoking our intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical parts. Sometimes we begin with the intellectual because it feels easiest, but our cells and bodies are holding memories and experiences that we also need to shift. To reach a new status quo, we need to allow change on all of those levels. This means using multisensory methods, such as movement, art, breathwork, and dialogue, because meaningful change is not just a surface matter.

“Change rests on the full albeit temporary acceptance of the status quo” (Carolyn Lukensmeyer ). When we know and accept ourselves, view our behaviours, thoughts and feelings with compassion and acceptance, then real change can take place.

Accessing and anchoring in our resources is crucial to navigating the chaos and moving towards transformation into something new. We don’t have to rid ourselves of parts of ourselves; rather, we want to add something new. Picking up our courage stick in the chaos or our detective hat to help us stay curious. From this space, new possibilities arise and the transforming ideas that come with those.

When we move through the phases of Awareness, Acceptance, and Authorship, we arrive at Peace Within. And from there, we can begin to lift our eyes and expand our context to the world of others.

This dance is a continuous dance through the change process, with each loop bringing us closer to and more in touch with ourselves, and better able to connect with others.

From this place, change feels less like something happening to us and more like a river: moving with us, carrying us, and reminding us that we are part of its flow.

🛠️ Embodied Practice: Bringing It to Life

Practice Name: Centering ^{(for some reason, the British spelling just looks wrong when I speak about centering in this way. The British spelling feels like a place, whereas this feels like a middle)}

Centering makes it possible to become aware of our authentic self by taking a look, and being centered allows freedom of choice and action. It’s a starting point for Peace Within. Learning to check in with yourself so that you can know what’s happening and create choice for yourself, instead of letting your unconscious take over and act.

Frederick Perls in Gestalt Therapy Verbatim: “ If you are centered in yourself, then whatever happens becomes a passing parade, and you assimilate, you understand, you are related to whatever happens. Without a center … there is no place.. from which to cope with the world. Without a center you are not alert.. Achieving the center, being grounded in one’s self, is about the highest state a human being can achieve”

Practising getting connected and centered with yourself builds the muscle of awareness, the first step for peace within and the first step for real change.

What You’ll Need:
Yourself, time and a comfortable space

Steps:

1. Find a quiet place and set aside some time for yourself. I love being outside when I do this, but any place that is quiet and peaceful for you will do. A meeting room, your lounge, a park, wherever. ^{(If you want to, you can record steps 2 - 5 and then play them back with your eyes closed.)}

2. Sit or lie comfortably. Take a breath, and really connect with that breath. Breath is magic ^{(more on that later).} If it fits, close your eyes and follow that breath, let it take your awareness all over your body and allow yourself to feel and notice with no judgment anything that stands out. Just allow the awareness and the noticing, and follow your breath.

3. On your next breath, follow it to your solar plexus, your center, and take a moment to connect here with the magic life force you call by your name. The self that encompasses all of you. Notice anything that comes up as you connect to you.

4. Feel the grounded energy of the earth beneath you and the creative energy of sky and air around you. Allow these to combine with your energy and fill yourself up with yourself. Allow yourself to become full.. of.. yourself. Make a note of anything you notice as you do this. Remember to notice with no judgment.

5. When you are ready, take another breath and connect to yourself and full of yourself, open your eyes and step into what’s next, full and connected.

6. If you'd like, you can spend a few minutes journaling on what came up for you while doing this.

Optional Exercise:

A quick way of doing this is just to let your eyes close, be in touch with your breathing, be aware of any tight places in yourself: let them go and give yourself a message of appreciation. This one is fast. If you do this multiple times a day, it will help to keep you centered and build the muscle of being aware of and checking in with yourself.

💬 Leadership Application

The hubbub and pace of our lives in organisations, as well as all the tools we use to communicate, can easily distract and preoccupy us to the extent that self-awareness disappears. We begin to disconnect from ourselves, and quite quickly, if we are disconnected from ourselves, we can also become disconnected from others and the context at hand.

We are imagining what people are meaning, thinking, or feeling. We let our intellectual part rule all other parts, and we forget to be balanced and centered. When we are operating from this space as leaders, we are impacting or ignoring many things.

Our decision-making capabilities
Our critical thinking
Our ability to see and hear the system and what it might be telling us
Our own wisdom and insights
Our freedoms
Our empathy
Our ability to respond in constructive and congruent ways

Taking a moment to center a few times a day, or at the start of the day or before a tough meeting, can go a long way to helping you stay in your center and that empowering and life-giving force that comes with choice and possibility.

Try it and see what changes for you.

💡 Keep a Journal to track your thoughts, insights, or drawings from week to week.

🔁 What’s next

• This Issue: This is the start of a journey that will take us through the A’s of change, while we weave in Virginia’s model and other exercises for growth, change, and healing.

• Next Issue: Awareness, cultivating awareness, and the different kinds of awareness that can allow us to step into something new

🔛 What’s ON:

Resources For Change Foundations - Joburg: Saturday 20 September. ^{(If you have been to a taster or an intensive, you come for the venue charge only)}
Resources For Change Foundations - Cape Town: Saturday 11 October. ^{(If you have been to a taster or an intensive, you come for the venue charge only)}
Communication Workshop - Cape Town: October 20 - 21
Leadership Development Workshop - Chapel Hill (NC): 10 - 12 November
Parts Party - November 2025 - ^{Email for details}
Leadership Consulting Group - Online Starts Jan 2026

📚 Resource Corner

• Video: Here is a short clip of Virginia talking about the change at one of her training workshops.

• Bonus: Here is where I created a whole lot of centring exercises, and I will keep adding to them

❤️ Thank you

For now, Resources for Change will be a monthly newsletter. Feel free to share

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Until next time, with love and hugs,

Jo