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COURSE

Transforming The World From Within

With Lucy Draper-Clarke PhD

This course is for all who wish to be of service in building a more inclusive, cohesive, and life-sustaining future. We often fluctuate between hope and despair, or get overwhelmed and feel powerless, when looking at the state of our world. Through the archetype of the Spiritual Warrior, we’ll learn to find inner strength, by facing our shadow aspects. Then, we can move into the world with courage and compassion. By living with a clear sense of purpose, we can tap into our innate joy and altruism, perhaps even inspiring others to do the same.

Explore the practices of contemplative changemakers, in order to be of service to the world.

10 Days

1.5k students

4.8 stars

15 min / day

English

About this course

Samatha

Shadow Work Visualization

Purpose Discovery

Meet your Teacher

Lucy Draper-Clarke PhD

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Saltash, UK

Lucy Draper-Clarke PhD is a retreat facilitator, mindfulness mentor,and researcher-practitioner in the field of mindfulness and compassion. After obtaining a doctorate in mindfulness and teacher education, she now offers public courses and is a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. With a focus on joyful activism, she works with those engaged in social transformation and healing to alleviate stress and increase resilience through awareness and compassion. She leads popular retreats around Southern Africa, exploring embodied awareness. As a practitioner with the Karma Kagyu School of Buddhism, she attends regular meditation retreats to deepen her own practice.

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10 Days

1.5k students

4.8 stars

15 min / day

English

Lesson 1

Contemplative Engagement

Contemplative changemakers are seeking to birth a global society that is socially just and ecologically regenerative. In this session, we’ll explore what we can we do, in our individual and collective lives, to be worthy ancestors of the future. More importantly, we ask ourselves what qualities are needed to engage most skillfully. Two distinct modes of mind are necessary, and we will practice shifting from doing mode to being mode. Cultivating a state of awareness is a creative mode of mind that allows us to solve current problems in our family, society, or the world.

Lesson 2

Sense Of Purpose In Life

This session reveals a guiding truth found in cultures and religions worldwide. It is known as our calling, raison d’etre, ubizo, or svardharma. It asserts that we are happier when we live a purposeful life, using our unique skills, interests, and qualifications in the service of others. Through a guided practice, we’ll explore how to find our own purpose. This doesn’t necessarily mean we change what we do in life, but rather change the way we do it. By being clear on our intention, we can benefit both ourselves and others.

Lesson 3

The Spiritual Warrior

The archetype of the Spiritual Warrior is found in many ancient wisdom traditions. These wise and compassionate beings are awake and aware enough to notice suffering, and courageous enough to take action. They have sufficient inner strength to be vulnerable and stay open to the world around them. Warriors live in the present moment, asking themselves, “What can I do to make this situation better?” We’ll learn about three types of spiritual warrior and then, practice a meditation for cultivating compassion.

Lesson 4

Our Warrior Potential

During this session, we’ll hear a story about the Bodhisattva, known as Green Tara. She exemplifies the potential for each of us to be the change we need in the world, and to act to bring about that change. Spiritual warriors navigate paradoxical qualities such as stillness and action; compassion and ferocity, in order to meet the needs of each moment. Once we discover our own innate goodness, it is easy to see goodness in all others and to offer kindness to everyone we meet.

Lesson 5

Circles Of Safety

Before moving out into the world, we need to do the inner work of transformation. This can be slow and arduous, and requires us to feel safe. This session identifies our widening circles of safety with others and within ourselves, and offers ways to cultivate them, in order to face our shadow aspects. We’ll identify the emotions that can cause a sense of threat and find ways of responding to our fight, flight and freeze reactions, with a sense of self-kindness and understanding.

Lesson 6

Transforming Difficult Emotions

While changemakers have a strong commitment to help others, we also have weak spots. These often take the form of strong emotions such as hatred, arrogance, or jealousy. This session lays out the evolutionary necessity behind the emotions that we perceive as difficult or destructive, so that our weak spots do not trigger us into harmful actions. We will learn to identify the sequential movements of the mind so that we can self-regulate and ensure our actions are as skillful as possible.

Lesson 7

Facing The Shadow

During this session, we’ll come face-to-face with our shadow aspects and observe how the Spiritual Warrior can be subverted into the Military Dictator or Martyr. We come to realize, often unwillingly, that the injustices we wish to address in the outer world are also taking place within ourselves and our own organisations. Burnout is also a formidable barrier to the sustainability of activists and organisations, so we will learn how to resource ourselves by attending to our feelings and needs through daily meditation.

Lesson 8

Dimensions Of Engagement

This session reveals that we can bring the same intentions and care to our work, at whatever scale we choose to engage, whether in our own home or community; in our country or in the world. We find the circle of influence that best suits our own personality or life stage, and commit to that. We also find a role based on our unique talents and interests by listening deeply to ourselves. This diversity in focus and skill set is our strength, as long as we are united through a shared vision.

Lesson 9

Compassion In Action

The most energizing force for changemakers is our motivation to help others help themselves. Sometimes we are driven by anger or empathy, but contemplative neuroscience research has revealed that the most powerful and sustaining motivation is compassion. Compassion is an innate quality, which can also be cultivated. It gives resilience and even allows us to find joy in the midst of heartbreaking work. The challenge we face is to ensure our compassion expands beyond our in-group, and encompasses all beings and the world itself.

Lesson 10

Joy As Insurrection

The final session invites us to recognize the paradox that working for the benefit of others' circles back to bring us a deep sense of joy. It is a virtuous cycle and makes life better for everyone, ourselves included. When we are doing work that enlivens us and supports other people, it has immeasurable benefit. Joy has a sustaining power, so that we can engage with the sorrows of the world, by allowing our hearts to become tender. By grieving moments of loss, we can wholeheartedly celebrate moments of success.