Discover the Gift of Loving Conflict
Waterline Co-op exists to carry the medicine this time is calling for. There is a better way to be with the conflicts that are currently polarizing our communities, our organizations, and our world. There is a way to move towards liberation and justice for all while bridging divides and healing relationships. Let's create a new possibility together.
Waterline is an alchemical space where people come to learn how to heal and transform themselves and the larger systems they are part of. Waterline is a space to uncover and remember that engaging conflict can be loving, and that if we dig deeper, we can relate wider.
We support leaders, educators, facilitators, community organizers, and changemakers in engaging conflict as a site of learning and transformation. Rooted in the values of positive social change, environmental sustainability, and Transformative Justice, we provide training, coaching, facilitation, and mediation that strengthens decision-making, deepens relationships, and builds the capacity to engage tension and conflict with greater skill and care.
Our vision is a healthy and life-affirming culture in the social change sector rooted in generative conflict. A culture where we need not fear difference, but instead harvest the wisdom of divergent perspectives and competing needs. We envision communities and organizations with the capacity to stay in relationship through difficulty, remaining present with tension to access the collective wisdom that lives below the waterline.
LEARN THE ART OF LEWIS DEEP DEMOCRACY WITH WATERLINE
Lewis Deep Democracy (LDD) is a facilitation toolkit rooted in Jungian psychology and developed from Arnold Mindell’s Process Oriented Psychology. Created by Myrna and Greg Lewis, LDD is an internationally recognized methodology that was born in the transition from apartheid to new democracy in South Africa. LDD is based on the premise that everybody deserves to have a voice, and that engaging intentionally with tension and polarization can help us all learn and grow. The method is powerful yet easy to learn, and adaptable to a wide range of life situations.
As a worker-owned cooperative of highly experienced practitioners, all Waterline members are trained in Lewis Deep Democracy. Fully trained LDD practitioners are experts in group dynamics, depolarizing conversations, and working with highly sensitive issues. At Waterline, we also bring in a strong orientation to equity, justice, anti-oppression, psychological safety, and center the wisdom of the body through embodiment practices.
We provide both in-house and open enrollment training in Levels 1-4 of Lewis Deep Democracy, as well as advanced training for experienced practitioners. Learn more about our training path and course calendar.
HOST TRANSFORMATIVE CONVERSATIONS
Our members and associates are also available for engagements as coaches, consultants, and mediators. Our specialty is working with socially conscious organizations and individuals who are longing to bring a powerful and practical approach to organizational development and conflict transformation. You don’t have to hold conflict alone.
