Curiosity. Compassion. Effectiveness. Radical welcoming. Relevance. Holism. humor.
One of Yana's best qualities is that she doesn’t function as a superstar. The work is about the group she is working with, and her personality is neutral. She doesn’t use her charisma and personal power to get people to “move.” She holds the vision and the space that we all want to live more peacefully and harmoniously. Because of the wonderful neutrality and space that she creates, we do our best work. A genius, she is.
--Ann Fussell, Bellingham Cohousing
Curiosity...
is the grease in the wheels of personal growth and social change. Disagree? Get curious about why. In conflict? Let’s inquire as to the roots instead of throwing gas on the fire. Struggling? Let’s assume there are good reasons and work together to uncover them.
Compassion...
is a manifest thing, not a simple sweet thought. Yana believes that we are all in a journey of deep culture change, and that the best lens to see that through is that we are all in this together and we all make mistakes. Compassion means taking responsibility for how our choices affect others, and being kind when mistakes happen. It also means that she, as a practitioner, is under an obligation to help groups see themselves as having normal, understandable experiences of struggle. Part of her job is to normalize these experiences and help groups keep moving along the path while connected to each other.
Effectiveness...
is critical because there's a whole lot of bad process out there. Often a lack of understanding about the need for consensual structure and discernment puts a cap on how much a group can concretely achieve and whether they can effectively address problems when they arise. Yana grounds her work in data as well as experience.
Radical Welcoming...
means two things. First, Yana places a high priority on justice and anti-oppression work, helping to create spaces that go beyond politely seeking diversity and into spaces that are authentic and welcoming of a range of people, look unflinchingly at power dynamics, and addressing harm when it manifests.
Second, it means her default is to create cooperative, consensus based systems and culture. That means that everyone is heard and taken into account, especially on decisions that affect them most directly. It also sees cooperation as a key tool for ecological and economic resilience and security.
Relevance...
means that her work is practical, grounded in years of real experience with groups and developing sustainable systems, and checked against many peers in the field. If it isn't relevant, why do it?
Holism...
means that Yana’s work integrates ecological, economic, social, political and personal approaches and technologies for a strongly holistic view of what real cooperation and sustainability take. It is also profoundly hopeful, based on seeing hundreds of successful projects that are already embodying a new world.
Humor...
because we gotta. It's a rough moment to be an awake human around here, and if we can't find the humor in our struggles, growth and daily lives, we're sunk.