In this introductory episode of “One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness”, our co-hosts Ina Gjikondi and Bonnie Buckner delve into the program’s vision and story. Grounded in the One Humanity Lab learning space and e-Co Leadership Coaching Program, they share how this show will develop inner capacities in order to truly expand outwards in service to others. From how the show was developed to what it aims to become, tune in and get ready to dive into the ecology of wholeness.
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One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness
I am Ina Gjikondi and I am the Director of Executive Education and e-Co Leadership Coaching at the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. I’m also the co-host of this show and I’m joined by my co-host, Dr. Bonnie Buckner, who is a Senior Fellow at the Center and the Founder of the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery. In this episode, we thought we’d talk a little bit about this project, our vision and our collaboration and give a little window into us and what we bring to you. Our partnership truly gives me great joy.
It’s great to hear from you. Ina, why don’t we start with you telling a little bit about how this show developed?
As you know, a few years ago, we launched the e-Co Leadership Coaching Program. Our intention was to bring together a program that focused on developing the coaches’ inner capacities to truly be grounded and deepening their capacity for knowing through the whole person and whole-systems approach. Along with that, we also launched a learning space which is called the One Humanity Lab. This space is designed to leverage the coaching capacities and invite other forms such as art, technology and nature and to activate the power of collective vision and wisdom to serve as a catalyst for a radical transformation in organizations and communities.
It’s about bringing the coaching capacities to shift and change community and culture. Not everybody wants to be a coach so this space would hold that vision and take it into a different audience and space. In this space, one of the Lab’s projects is this show, which we’ve named Into An Ecology of Wholeness. In the show, we explore the field of coaching from different perspectives and angles which is grounded in the work that we do in the e-Co Leadership Program. It is focusing on developing inner capacities so that we can truly expand outwards in service to others.
What that means is things such as focusing on our creativity, intuition and dreaming. Also, how we return and come back to our sense of connection with all there is. Coaching in this space is one of the containers in which we look at the ecology of wholeness but we also go beyond that. We seek to bring different voices in the field who contribute not only to coaching but developing a sense of wholeness in leaders and human beings. Bonnie, you’ve been a great partner from the beginning. I’d love to invite you to share a bit of what calls you into this space.
Thank you, Ina. The first thing that calls me into this space is our relationship and how it had its genesis in dreaming. Dreaming is a huge part of the modules I teach and what I bring to the program. The premise is both of us came to the idea of coaching that for a coach to be able to help others, they have to first clear their blocks and do their inner work.
The idea is to base a program that provides that space for each individual to do their inner work and transformation and then learn the coaching tools to go out and help others. That’s what brought me to the program. There are two specific modules I want to speak about here. Dreaming as a general practice is a tool for coming back into the self. It’s an embodied practice. It’s a practice of transformation.
In a very general sense, dreams tell us who we are and what we’re capable of, where we’re blocked and how to transform. Also, that includes showing us latent talents, potentials and new perspectives that are ready to be brought into waking manifestation. However, the tools that I teach for working with dreams to move to this level also serve to develop specific skills that are very important for coaching.
The idea is to base a program that provides that space for each individual to do their inner work and transformation and then learn the coaching tools to go out and help others. That’s what brought me to the program. There are two specific modules I want to speak about here. Dreaming as a general practice is a tool for coming back into the self. It’s an embodied practice. It’s a practice of transformation.
In a very general sense, dreams tell us who we are and what we’re capable of, where we’re blocked and how to transform. Also, that includes showing us latent talents, potentials and new perspectives that are ready to be brought into waking manifestation. However, the tools that I teach for working with dreams to move to this level also serve to develop specific skills that are very important for coaching.
In a very general sense, dreams tell us who we are and what we’re capable of, where we’re blocked and how to transform.
Skills like noticing and identifying patterns and skills for being able to hear a story but then move deeper through it to find the deeper meaning and put your finger on the real necessity. We tend to have a lot of moving parts and issues we’re trying to tackle. There can be many things wrong but there’s generally one true necessity. The dreaming work that I teach gives very specific practical tools for moving through that and finding these necessities.
Working with dreaming develops your creativity and intuition. The tools as well as develop and enhance social cognition, their ways through the imagery work, which is a way of dreaming awake that helps to develop these means of understanding others, the perspectives of others and working through conflicts to bring them to resolve.
The other quick thing to talk about is the Life Plan class that I bring to the program. It is about the embodied basis of emotion and gives a very specific tool for how to move past an emotional reaction to a feeling response and break habitual patterns so that new neural pathways and means of behavior can come forward. It’s those things that are brought to the program that like you, I’m very interested in hearing in this show. People who are leading systems change in their work and employ some of these capacities in their work and how they do that.
That’s exactly the kind of flavor that we’re bringing to this space and the guests that we have that we’ll be speaking to how they work in developing that inner capacity. Some people walk between paradigms of thinking and being who hold multiple perspectives. I’m excited that we’ve created this space. That means that we bring people from our program. Some of our grads, alumni and faculty can share their experiences with how they’ve moved into this work, how are they growing in the coaching work but also how they’re growing as human beings.
We also bring additional perspectives, people who necessarily are not in the coaching space. For example, I’m thinking of Karen O’Brien, who is a scientist. She studies human geography and her work now is focused on quantum social change. It’s around the question of how we all matter. Exploring mattering in times like this is important. We also bring people like Bruce Cryer whose focus is on creativity and the creativity of the heart.
Also, people like Mike and Ryan (Michael Paxton & Ryan Humphreys), who are two of our alums who work for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. They bring in their perspective on how they brought these kinds of inner capacities and how they develop the self in a space where it’s not always easy to feel whole and be whole at all times. I’m looking forward to being in this space and bringing all the people who are called to be in our conversation. I’m excited. I would love to put an invitation to all of you who feel called to join us. We’ll be putting these episodes every two weeks. We look forward to being in conversation.
Important Links
- George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership
- International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery
- e-Co Leadership Coaching Program
- One Humanity Lab
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/InaGjikondi/
- http://www.BonnieBuckner.com
- https://LeadershipCoaching.CEPL.GWU.edu/our-team/program-faculty-2/Bonnie-Buckner/
About Ina Gjikondi
Ina Gjikondi is the co-host of the podcast One Humanity Lab: Into an ecology of wholeness. Ina is a teacher, leadership coach, speaker, mother, innovator, poet, modern mystic, and co-curator of whole-person and whole-system learning experiences that awaken creative capacity for embodied intuition in service to love, joy, and peace. Ina believes that all life is interconnected and that our work as humans and leaders is to honor and hold in reverence and compassion our own lifework, and all living beings. Ina’s invitation is to bring forth all of our bits of intelligence and connect, reclaim, and remember our wholeness. Ina serves as the Director of Executive Education & Coaching and as the Founder & Director of the e-Co Leadership Coaching Program and the One Humanity Lab at the George Washington University’s Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. In this role she works with leaders across the globe, to cultivate their inner knowing, agency, power, and will, mobilizing the capacities of spaciousness, perception, imagination, inspiration, intuition, and creativity.
Ina is currently working on her dissertation at GW Graduate School of Education, which focuses on understanding direct knowing in the context of ecopedagogies “or more than human ways of knowing”, applied in leadership coach becoming. Prior to moving to the US, Ina was an active UN advocate, political campaign professional, and founder of several nonprofit organizations in her native home of Albania. She is inspired by her son Hadrian, who teaches her to slow down and show up for life with genuine curiosity. Ina’s calling for the world is summed up in four words, two of which have been attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as the last pronounced words before his death, “More Light and Love!”. Ina holds a Masters in Political Management from the GW Graduate School of Political Management, a Master’s in Human Resource Development from the GW Graduate School of Education, and a BA in Law from the University of Tirana.
About Bonnie Buckner
Bonnie Buckner is the co-host of the podcast One Humanity Lab: Into an ecology of wholeness. Bonnie is the founder and head of the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery (IIDI), which teaches and trains professionals, and develops practices, for applying dreaming and imagery work in various fields. Bonnie has been teaching dreaming and imagery to individuals and organizations around the world for almost twenty years. She has brought this transformative work to such diverse fields as leadership, coaching, government, the performing and creative arts, and academia. The Institute’s project Dream Your World Kids (DYW Kids) teaches these skills to young people from elementary through university age.
Bonnie is a Senior Fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Excellence in Public Leadership and Co-Faculty Director in their e-Co Leadership Coaching Certification program. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology, with an emphasis in media, and her academic work centers on the study and use of images as cognitive tools for behavioral change, and as the means by which we build communities, society, and culture. She is a PCC ICF credentialed coach, and a certified Imagery Practitioner for the School of Images. She is the author of Dream Your Self into Being.
Bonnie is a former adjunct lecturer for Fielding Graduate University in their doctoral and master in Media Psychology and Social Change programs and has spoken internationally on various topics of the imagination, cognition, creativity, dreaming, and role of images in media and society. Her past experience includes co-founding MicroFocus Media, a political-media research company with clients including presidential and other high-level campaigns, and spearheading numerous community development programs including serving on the launch board for the Wilshire Center-KoreaTown Business Council and the grant selection committee for the Los Angeles Mayor’s Community Beautification office. In her twenties, she worked in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, including running a film/television production company and producing documentary programming.