Welcome to Resources for Change. Issue 3

🐦‍🔥 Welcome

Deepening Awareness

The other day at tennis, I overheard someone say, “I’m 57 now, and all that childhood stuff is in a suitcase somewhere. I’m not opening it, there is too much stuff in there.”
It made me pause. I realised that many people are scared to look inside and open the suitcase.

So many of us feel that way that if we look too deeply inside, we’ll find something dark or unmanageable, that opening the suitcase means facing monsters.

But I also realised that when we look inside, what we often find are not monsters at all but scared little children longing for love, acceptance, and validation. They’ve been waiting for someone (us) to notice them, to let them out of the box, to whisper, “You belong here too.”

When we begin to love, accept, and validate ourselves, something shifts. Love starts to meet us more naturally through the world around us. We get the love we need, and it’s not always in the ways we wanted it when we were five or packaged the way we expected. When we learn to let go of those expectations of what should be, we can truly start to receive the love that is all around us.

Deepening awareness is the first step in this healing. It’s the courage to look under the hood of our own lives and ask, “What is going on here?” One of my favourite ways to do this is through the Iceberg Model.

🔍 The Iceberg – What Lies Beneath

The Iceberg Model didn’t actually come from Virginia herself. It was developed by John Banmen and Maria Gomori, based on their observation of the levels at which Virginia worked. The iceberg is a great way to help us understand that what we show to the world, our behaviours, words, and reactions, are only a small part of who we are. And a great way to unpack what might really be going on.

Like all things related to Virginia’s model, the Iceberg is not linear. We can dance through it and land in it in many ways. Sometimes we notice a behaviour we want to shift, and going through the iceberg helps to understand what the yearning is about. Sometimes we notice a difference between our expectations and our perceptions, and we want to understand what’s happening there. Sometimes we have feelings that express themselves in ways we don’t like, prompting us to make different choices for ourselves. I use it in all of these wonderful ways. Sometimes, I start at the bottom of the SELF-I-AM and just check in with that self before I start or do something. The more valued, loved, accepted and recognised I can keep the SELF, the more whole, balanced and congruent I am.

Beneath the visible tip are the layers that shape everything we do:

• Behaviours: What others see. Sometimes it's a choice, and sometimes it’s a reaction that happens before we know what’s happening. 

• Coping / Congruence: The choice to be congruent or to protect ourselves, and sometimes we cope ,and we didn’t even notice.

• Feelings: The feelings that bubble up based on what is happening, what we are seeing and sometimes the feelings about feelings.

• Perceptions: Our beliefs about ourselves and others and how the world works based on our first PHD

• Expectations: the “shoulds” of ourselves and others, the ‘rules’ we live by

• Yearnings: our deepest human needs—for love, safety, acceptance, validation, freedom.

• The Self I Am: the essence of who we truly are—whole, worthy, connected.

When we deepen awareness, we begin to explore these hidden layers. We can change our expectations or transform our rules, and we can begin to understand ourselves and sometimes others better. Best of all, we can give our little person what they needed to meet those unmet yearnings, and every time we do that, we heal a little and become more whole and free.
Our yearnings are sacred clues. They tell us what matters most. When they go unmet, we build coping patterns to protect ourselves. When we can see, name, and honour them, we start to meet those needs in new, life-giving ways—through others and, importantly, through ourselves.

That’s the heart of deepening awareness: going below the surface to rediscover what’s been guiding us all along.

Exploring the Iceberg gives us a deeper awareness of what’s alive beneath the surface. The next step is to reconnect with our Self-I-Am—to root ourselves in our own worth and value.

🛠️ Embodied Practice

Practice Name: Nurturing Self

This is a practice I adapted from Jorien Van Duijn. You can listen to the linked audio file or follow the steps below. This is about learning to root yourself in your value. To raise the esteem of the Self-I-Am so that you are operating from a feeling of wholeness and balance.

This practice is about coming home to yourself, filling up with your own energy, value, and light, so that you can meet life from a place of fullness rather than depletion.

What You’ll Need: Yourself and a quiet space

1. Find your space.
   Sit or stand somewhere comfortable where you won’t be disturbed. Take a moment to settle.

2. Connect with your breath.
   Take a conscious breath in and out. Feel yourself arriving in your body.

3. Ground into the Earth.

   • Feel the ground beneath your feet or seat.

   • Sense the solid, nurturing energy of the Earth supporting you.

   • As you inhale, imagine drawing up a little of that grounded energy through your feet, up your legs, and into your solar plexus—the center of your body.

4. Open to the Sky.

   • Now connect with the energy of the air, the sky, the heavens above you—the energy of creativity and inspiration.

   • Imagine that energy entering through the crown of your head, flowing down into your body.

5. Meet the Self I Am.

   • Somewhere in the middle, between earth and sky, sense the place you call “yourself.”

   • See it as a glowing light—the essence of you.

   • Let the grounded energy of the Earth and the creative energy of the Sky combine with this inner light.

6. Fill yourself up.

   • With each breath, allow this combined energy to grow and expand.

   • Feel it filling your body—from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head.

   • Keep breathing until you feel completely “full of yourself”—radiant, steady, alive.

7. Let it overflow.

   • When you feel full, allow some of that energy to spill over—

     • Back into the Earth in appreciation.

     • Out into the sky.

     • Outward into the space around you, expanding your circle of energy.

8. Affirm your Self I Am.

   • Quietly remind yourself:
     I am loved.
     I am valued.
     I am capable.

9. Return and integrate.

   • When you’re ready, open your eyes as your “full-of-self” self.

   • Carry that fullness into your day.

   • Notice what feels different—how you show up, how others respond.

   • Make notes or sketches in your journal about what you observed.

💬 Leadership Application

Like all of these magical elements of this model, there isn’t only one way to apply something like the Iceberg, but I will share one thought here.

Gerry Weinberg used to say, “A problem is a difference between a perception and an expectation.” I love that, and I see it all the time in teams, with leaders, and individuals. The expectations that people have of themselves and others are vast. People have expectations about how leaders are supposed to behave, what they are supposed to do, and what they are supposed to say.

People have expectations of their team members and how they are supposed to show up, participate, or perform. All of these expectations are floating around in an invisible and implicit way. People get upset with each other, misunderstand, or feel disappointment. One small, easy thing to do for a team, individuals, yourself, or your direct reports is to make these implicit expectations explicit. Then, discuss what’s possible, what isn’t, and what might need to change.

The second thing to be aware of and focus on is how to raise the feeling of value and acceptance of the Self-I Am for the people on your team. How can you help the people you lead feel valued, seen, and capable?

Reflection:

Use your journal as a way to reflect on what you notice about how people might be showing up differently, or about what you might notice about their expectations.

Awareness is about reconnecting to what’s true. Each time we pause to notice, to breathe, and to honour what’s within, we strengthen our Self-I-Am and open to more love, inside and out.

🔁 What’s next

• Next Issue: We will see what comes up between now and then and take a dive into what’s next

🔛 What’s ON:

Resources For Change Foundations - I’m looking for a venue that will allow me to make this accessible at different price points. I’m also looking for ways to connect with social work and support communities so that I can share this wonderful model with them.
Resources For Change Foundations - I’m looking for a venue that will allow me to make this accessible at different price points. I’m also looking for ways to connect with social work and support communities so that I can share this wonderful model with them.
Beneath the Surface Communication Workshop - Cape Town: October 27-28
Leadership Development Workshop - Chapel Hill (NC): 10 - 12 November (scholarships still available)
Parts Party - November 2025 - ^{Email for details}
Leadership Consulting Group - Online Starts Jan 2026

📚 Resource Corner

• Video: Here is a beautiful video of Virginia that speaks to the essence of what she was about. If you replace the word therapist with leader or coach it still holds true.

• Bonus: Here is where I created a whole lot of centring exercises, and I will keep adding to them - I haven’t yet.

• Research: Here is a new research article on Virginia’s use of touch.

❤️ Thank you

Feel free to share this with those who would benefit.

❀ ❀ ❀

Until next time, with love and hugs,

Jo