I've got the bug 🤓
I completed my MSc in Systems Thinking 💃🏽. I started a part-time postgrad distance-learning masters whilst working full time and parenting solo. Why? I wanted to destroy limiting beliefs, deconstruct my thinking, and elevate my professional 25+yr skills. This particular masters was the only postgrad on 'systems thinking in practice' available. Originating in the early twentieth century (with roots in Russia & Europe) systems thinking was formalised in the 1950s at MIT in the United States. Here's what I discovered throughout:
- Systems thinking is a comprehensive cognitive framework that illuminates the dynamics within complex systems. Understanding complexity is within reach, as long as we explore, reflect, and remain open.
- We should all do hard things more often - we make things too easy for ourselves.
- My 20+ years in Communications and Public Relations prepared me in ways I hadn't expected. A big part of my profession is navigating complexity, curating ideas, and managing stakeholders with competing and often antithetical views.
- Research is more than a google or an LLM entry - of course we know this but we don't do anything about it.
- Completing the part time degree was meant to be 3+ years but condensing into 2 was not part time Serena 🙈 but I managed it because I was keen to move to the next thing.
- Systems thinking should be taught in schools ...
- ... life and all that occurs within it is not happening in isolation. To make our children and citizens more resilient we need them to actively see how any incident or dilemma is connected and related to the many other things happening all at once (and it's why I am still writing and completing my book 'Many things at once' in time for a Christmas release - pushed the release as I added another essay and altered the structure and style of the book to reflect a multidisciplinary approach).
- I learnt that I can absolutely do hard things (which I knew having solo parented post-adoption for almost 15 years and navigating societal systems for my child's complex needs and neurodivergence), however... adding more complexity and more challenge is absolutely within my grasp to handle.
- When we embrace difficulty we realise how much we underestimate ourselves, and how much we internalised the subjugation and judgement from others.
- I learnt just how damaging and self-altering negativity, neglect, and the spectrum of abuse has on your psyche even when you think you've overcome it. It's systemic, and it literally constructs an inner psychological and physiological network that has all sorts of trauma trains coursing and crashing within you yet we are encouraged to grin and bear it. I underwent a daily practice of somatic release using my knowledge and professional practice of movement and bodywork. Somatic release is when the body discharges stored physical tension and stress resulting from trauma and unresolved emotions. Devoting myself to daily somatic release alongside working from home, completing my research dissertation, and making daily concoctions for sustenance in my kitchen for my daughter and I was the lab I needed.
- It's only when you go into the 'lab' to deep focus on something completely new that you get the birds eye perspective on your life you were missing (I gain perspective like this when dancing or painting but I'm not strictly doing these as routinely as postgrad study which forced me into 'the lab' daily).
- Most of all... I am not done yet. I have caught the bug for deep work, deeper insight, and cultivating further to deeply contribute to this complex and wonderful world we're all in. It's not about accolades or titles. It's about reaching into our inner networks and observing how we can assemble more sophisticated thinking structures to become more of what we were intended and created for.
It's time to release the book so add yourself to the release list if you haven't already. It's also time to dive into Puck's House - a think lab for deep exploration. Thank you for staying tuned, tuning into yourselves, and being open to reflect with me.
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