Lien De Coster - Corepower, Leadership from your Core.: a Guide to Power, Love, Wisom and Inspiration

THANKS TO

My parents who have, consciously or unconsciously, given me exactly those impulses that made me look for my core.

Bibi for the trust and support.

Wannes and Elias for teaching me what is truly valuable.

All of my teachers who inspired me to walk my own path: Mia, Diana, Freerk, Dirk, Bea, Marleen, Ivo, Guy, Gisle, Yvonne

Q.Y. for the beautiful cooperation and support.

Mike for everything you have done for us.

Baud

Mum, for putting me on the path towards my Corepower

Juan, for reminding me of myself when I forget

Marit, for feeding and challenging me

Karin en Rasmus, for all the beautiful solo spots

Katrien, for the inspiration and sharing

La Gomera, for the soft beating of the waves in the background while revising this book

Sweden, for the sound of the heaven harp

Lien

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Olga Putilina, for editing the translation

John, Jacqueline and Doris for proofreading

By Looby Macnamara

In this planetary time of change and challenges the world needs people who are willing and able to step up and speak out. Unfortunately though, there are many ways in which we play small in our lives. We have learnt this at school, in our homes, out on the city streets. We hide our light, we try and fade into the background, we shy away from new experiences, we are overly modest about our strengths. But does this really serve us, and does it serve the world? We are at a time in the Earths lifespan when the choices we make as humanity will make a significant difference. And the choices we make as individuals become part of these greater tides of change. We can choose to be part of the problem or we can choose to be part of the solution.

These ways we play small are learnt behaviours, we learn them implicitly or explicitly from those around us, the cultures we inhabit, and as defence mechanisms. But now is the time for us all to relearn to be our full selves, to wake up to our power and our wisdom, and have the courage to share our strengths with the world.

What Baud and Lien have gifted us with here is a myriad of exercises to help us get in touch with more of ourselves and to connect with something much larger. This is a treasure trove of exercises that enable us to connect with our inner resources and build our stamina as well as accessing the support of the cosmos.

One of the most important lessons I have learnt in my journey with People and Permaculture is that we need to attend to both our own self-care and our contributions to positive change in the world. We need two wings to fly - inner sustenance and outer work in the world. I have learnt that if we want to walk our talk in the world we need to resource ourselves as fully as we can. Our own personal well-being influences and is influenced by the well-being of those around us, and the health of the Earth. What is offered here is a way of balancing our own needs and supporting ourselves by accessing more of the energy inherently available to us. We are encouraged and guided through activities that remove blocks to our flows of power, love and wisdom. Corepower is packed full of goodness a superfood for our consciousness, providing us with nutrients to feed us on our all levels from the cellular to the energetic and emotional.

My own goal in life is to use and develop my skills to support the growth of the permaculture ethics of earthcare , people care and fair shares in the world. My experiences have shown me that inspiration, transformation and empowerment come most when I can let go of playing small and be myself; when I trust the magic comes. When I appreciate myself my energy can flow more freely and I am able to connect with others more.

Through Corepower we can gain familiarity with our inner landscape that enables us to flourish and be resilient. The invitation here is to find ways in which we can dream big, act effectively, focus our attentions, and to come from a place of loving kindness, where we are grounded and connected to the Earth and to our innate wisdom. We can be the best for ourselves and the world.

Looby Macnamara, permaculture teacher and author of 'People and Permaculture'

www.loobymacnamara.com

About Baud, Lien and Corepower

Personal leadership has been the main recurring theme in my life for the past ten years. When I was working as a youth worker on the streets, trying to build up and restore social bonds, I found myself in extreme situations on a daily basis. I had a strong need for something that would strengthen my level of leadership, because even though I did not have any formal power over the people I worked with, I stood in front of them in a certain position of authority. This meant that I had to stand very strong. To achieve this I had to further develop the ability to guide myself. By being in balance with myself and working from a place of integrity, I had a much bigger impact on the street. In my private life, also, I noticed that working on living from my core sparked positive changes.

After a couple of years, the huge impact of personal leadership from the core was evident. I, therefore, no longer only used it for myself but started to develop it as a method to be used by other people and groups. Since then, I have used the Corepower method in innumerable situations: doing aggression trainings with nurses, with (international) youth workers, with volunteers from the European Voluntary Service program, with groups of managers, trainers, coaches, seniors, adults, children and adolescents with aggression or defensiveness problems, in bullying classes, as team-building for new teachers, etc, Thanks to my experience with Corepower in such a wide array of contexts I have been able to refine the method further and further.

Corepower as it is presented in this book, is ideal for every individual who wants to work with groups. It can be particularly beneficial for people, such as managers or aid workers, who work in difficult contexts.

Baud

Ever since I was in primary school I wanted to become a journalist. I loved to write and I wanted to make the world more just. When I finally started working as a professional journalist, it did not take long before I realized I was missing something. I found it hard to always have to take an analytical view of the world. I longed for a deeper connection with the people I wrote about. Apart from that, more and more, I found it harder to send negative stories out into the world. Instead of stimulating change in people, I saw a lot of readers sucked into feelings of powerlessness and indifference.

In the mean time, I also started doing yoga. I started to live less and less in my head and more and more in my body. I felt more balanced as a human being. Then Corepower came into my life. It developed into a story that wasnt written from the rational mind, but from a deeply personal process. By doing the Corepower exercises with Baud and by putting them on paper I grew closer to myself. The writing of each chapter equated to holding a big mirror in front of my face.

Prior to Corepower, I viewed the world with an arrogant attitude: I saw what was wrong with it, and I was working on changing it through journalism and activism. This time I went deep inside myself, confronted my own blockages, and discovered a completely different world. My attitude to life now springs much more from love and connection. This frees a lot of positive energy to start fundamental change.

To work with Corepower and to share the method with others feels like one of the most useful things I have done up to this point. To really have an impact on the world is to act from integrity, a necessity. Let this book be an inspiration for individuals, groups and organizations to make this come true, at home, at work, and in the world.