Sometimes we get so focused on the task at hand that we forget to check in with each other. At Naqsmist Storytellers, we’re not afraid to admit that we’re not perfect and that we are working on our practice with Cultivating Safe Spaces every day. 

May has been an extremely busy time for us both personally and at work. Elaine’s second book, Coming of Age was released at the end of last month and so Elaine has been travelling to promote and sign books all across British Columbia. Elaine also did a keynote speech and two workshops for Moosehide Campaign day in Victoria on May 15th, with 300,000 people tuning in virtually to listen to her speak. We have been on the road, doing Cultivating Safe Spaces training sessions and other engagements. Personally, our team has been busy moving houses, starting new businesses, raising kids, and we even have a new puppy on the team.

Through this busy season, we have also been focussed on our main goal: creating and launching our online courses and our online community network. We are a small team and it’s been all hands on deck to get these offerings rolled out to our community and followers. The frantic nature of the season also meant that we started to work from a place of fear and miscommunication. With so many moving parts and overlapping roles, sometimes things get lost in translation or information overload causes confusion for our team. This is a common occurrence in workplaces, and in identifying and responding to this is where we have an opportunity, and an obligation, to turn back to Cultivating Safe Spaces. 

Two weeks ago our team had to stop and reset when communication broke down. Emotions were high and we had to ground ourselves and be honest with each other, even where it was uncomfortable. We took a step back and realigned ourselves with one another. Each of us was heard and understood and that gave us a strong path forward to keep going on the work that needed to be done together.

Last week we met in person. We all work remotely from different places across the province and so chances to connect and work together in person are something we all look forward to. We met in beautiful Penticton and reconnected, realigned, and shared our vision and where we’re going. One thing we always share about the Naqsmist team is that we’re not a super serious group. We spend a lot of our time together laughing, joking and hanging out, with a couple hours of dedicated work time mixed in. But we know that we wouldn’t be able to have these fun times together if we didn’t also have the hard conversations. We are connected and aligned because we put in the effort and we are honest with each other about where we are at. 

We finished our two days in Penticton on Okanagan lake, filming team content for our social media and marketing. It was a sweltering 35° day, and we set up a camera and allowed ourselves to just be who we are. We laughed and filmed organic content of our team frolicking on the beach, but also answered some questions about Cultivating Safe Spaces. One of the questions on the list that we didn't end up having time for was “What’s one thing you want leaders to know about Cultivating Safe Spaces”. While we didn’t get to answer this one on camera, I know my answer to this question. 

Cultivating Safe Spaces isn’t about being serious all the time. As a decolonial and trauma-informed framework, sometimes people are scared to start their journey with Cultivating Safe Spaces because it seems like hard work, all the time. And while it is hard work, and not a commitment to be taken lightly, it also opens us up to alignment, connection, and having fun with our teams and those around us. Cultivating Safe Spaces is hard work but it’s not meant to make life harder. When you practice CSS in your teams and everyday life, it opens up your heart, and you can feel the belonging, connection, and safety that you’ve built for yourself. 

With all the trials and tribulations, we are proud to say that we have officially launched our two new eCourses. 

The Cultivating Safe Spaces Enhanced add-on is designed to give you the tools to apply Cultivating Safe Spaces principles in your personal life or team workplace settings. 

The Cultivating Safe Spaces for Executive Leadership eCourse is a specialized Cultivating Safe Spaces course designed for leaders, executives, and decision-makers who want to take Cultivating Safe Spaces into real systems change.

If you haven’t quite gotten to that point in your Cultivating Safe Spaces journey yet, we suggest you start with the Intro to Cultivating Safe Spaces to gain a solid understanding of the CSS framework foundations. 

Registration into any of our courses will also grant you access to our Naqsmist Network, a learning platform and community where we bring people together from all over the world to learn, practice, share resources and ideas on how to lead bold, think different and contribute to systems change. The Naqsmist Network will be launching this month along with our subscription based paid community, which will have more resources, industry-niche channels, and even more opportunities to connect and practice Cultivating Safe Spaces. 

We have lots of new releases to explore, and we are so proud and excited to finally be able to share them with you. We hope to connect with you more very soon.