Let Go and Renew the Self

Mark Nicolson, an executive coach specializing in leadership and team development for visionary entrepreneurs and catalysts for social change, made it his mission to help people and systems large and small discover the concept of renewal and become re-enchanted with their place and calling in the world.

As the co-founder of T12N, an innovative program for realigning self and career, he also helped create pathways for sustaining the changes individuals truly wanted to create. Mark sheds light on this rich topic in his upcoming workshop, Designing the Life We Want: Self-Renewal in the New Year, where he creates a space for us to be vulnerable, undistracted and present.

We spoke to Mark about some of the tools needed to create the changes we desire and have them really take root.

Esalen News: How would you define renewal?

Mark: Renewal is both a reconnection to our essence—our joy, our beauty, our purpose—and to our deep knowing about who we are and what we’re here to do. It's always available to us. We can lose our connection to it because of stress, grief and depression or whatever particular challenge we’re going through, but in the same way that everything goes quiet in winter, it does come again in spring.

What comes in spring is both new and returning at the same time. That, to me, is what renewal is. It’s both something new and something that is coming back that is always us.

Esalen News: What are some key components to sustaining change, especially after a newfound sense of renewal?

Mark: It's an old cliché that we are pulled by vision or driven by fear. But what I believe fuels everyone toward lasting change is the deep knowing that we’re all in this together. I see this with the work that I am doing with systems, or large systems, whether it be a city or a county, especially when people are given the opportunity to really speak from the heart.

Another component is the idea that, "I'm not made whole unless you are made whole." Meaning, that while I can absolutely experience my own joy and transformation, at some level it's only really going to feel like that it's sustainable if it's connected to everything else; if my "transformation" is a part of other people's transformation or if I'm a part of a group or system that is constantly learning and changing itself.

Esalen News: What have you seen as being one of the biggest challenges to establishing lasting change?

Mark: We all have these old ideas of who we are that formed when we were children and didn’t have the adult perspective. So we drew the wrong conclusions about ourselves. And I don’t say that matter-of-factly, I say that with deep respect for those choices we made when we were very young about who we thought we were, which, most of the time, were wrong. We have some unlearning and unpatterning to do.

Another piece that prevents lasting change is the epidemic of busyness. Busyness can make us feel valid, but it often is an escape from our true experience. We live such atomized lives and a lot of times we’re trying to do these things alone or we have to go from our homes to find all these places of support. Part of the beauty of Esalen is that there we are, for a whole weekend, or a week, in community together and in contact, and we can find our solitude if we want.

Esalen News: What are some of the psychological principles, movement practices and wisdom teachings that you’ll be presenting in your workshop?

Mark: A few things which are slightly different than what Western psychology is oriented towards. Firstly, Western psychology barely mentions white supremacy and the systemic oppression of racism and of sexism and homophobia. It barely touches on how the culture has been structured in a way that we have to internalize that these messages are oppressive.

I like to bring in the cultural context that we’re all working within; those things that we have taken personally, that are not personal, and to really unpack those.

Secondly, most of us, at some point, have experienced real trauma and rejection in group situations. Whether it’s feeling outcast in high school or whether it’s because we have a particular identity that’s not welcome in the culture. That group wound is very difficult to transform unless you are in a group.

So I aim to create the conditions in the group, whether within 48 hours or in a week, where somebody can have a completely different experience of being a group; where they can find a place to share so much of themselves that is joyful and creative as an antidote for how they’ve really had difficult experiences of groups in the past. I like to bring a combination of playfulness, deep listening and movement in as a part of that and to also create a safe space where people can speak from their hearts.

Esalen News: Can you elaborate on the peer support element you implement in your work?

Mark: I place a lot of intention on helping the group really appreciate and notice each other; bringing practices and inquiries together where people really get seen, both by the group as a whole, in small groups and by me. I support appreciation to happen in the room.

It’s not Pollyanna appreciation: it’s really a deep seeing of each other and how people have brought themselves courageously to this moment in all of their flawed beauty. A lot of time that will be spent is recognizing each other and being vulnerable. I really insist on protecting the space where people can be both safe and brave.

Esalen News: What are some tools each of us inherently have that we can call upon for self-renewal?

Mark: We all have an innate capacity for joy. There are parts of ourselves and of the world that we love. And when we access these parts, we know who we really are and what we need to do. Of course this is not easy. Sometimes we discover places where we have been broken-hearted or become resigned and we need to attend to these places.

But it is much easier in the company of fellow travelers who are risking sharing their hearts and minds with us and it is much easier when we really give ourselves the time to listen to ourselves and each other.

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