Sophy Banks reflects on 10 years at the heart of Transition.
By rob hopkins 16th December 2015
Today Sophy Banks, the founder of the ‘Inner Transition’ aspect of what we do, moves on from Transition Network to pastures new, a moment we felt needed marking. So I cycled up the not inconsiderable hill to Sophy’s house, and over a cup of tea we talked about Inner Transition, the legacy she feels she is leaving behind, why she decided it was time to step out, and what her wishes for the Transition movement would be.
You can either read the transcript below or download/listen to the podcast.
The first thing I wanted to ask you, for people who are coming to this afresh, is what is Inner Transition?
It took us years of asking that question in Totnes to get an answer that actually stayed in our memories! And actually there’s many different ways of defining it. Sometimes I talk about it as the inner dimension of this community process of change, what happens on the inside as we change our view of the future, we radically alter the direction we’re heading in as a civilisation. What enables us to engage with the need for that, what supports us to take good steps together, and what happens to us when we go through that journey of trying to create a different future for ourselves and our children?
Sometimes I talk about it as the space we make for reflection, for self awareness, both as individuals in a movement that can often take us towards burnout and exhaustion; but also for groups, how do we make that space for reflection and consciously create a culture that is vibrant, sustaining and inclusive and effective.
Sometimes I talk about it as the space we make for reflection, for self awareness, both as individuals in a movement that can often take us towards burnout and exhaustion; but also for groups, how do we make that space for reflection and consciously create a culture that is vibrant, sustaining and inclusive and effective.
Sometimes I talk about it as the meeting point between the many, many movements of inner work, personal growth, spiritual practice, group understanding, peacemaking, nature connection. There’s this huge territory of inner work that’s very active in our time, which is another kind of movement for change.
All of those movements for positive healing and growth meet this community scale process of positive creation of the future. So there’s lots of different ways of talking about it. The tagline we had in the Heart and Soul group in Totnes that stayed for quite a while was “spiritual, psychological and consciousness aspects of Transition.” And there’s more definitions on YouTube!
Naomi Klein said that thing a while ago when she said that one of the things she liked about Transition was that “if you’re going to collapse peoples’ world views, you have to stick around to pick up the pieces”. She was recognising the radical nature of that. What, from your having been involved in other world-changing movements and political movements in the past, what’s radical in Transition, do you think? What did it do that simply wasn’t there before?
We have this tendency to look at the world through a particular lens. I think there are different ways of knowing truth. Some people tend to know truth through what we can measure physically and they tend to look at the whole world through the material lens. Other people think that the deepest truth we can find is known through consciousness and our inner world. People who see the world through those different lenses tend to polarise and tend not to be able to speak to each other, because they don’t have a meeting point.
That meeting point of inner change and outer change is the thing that gives Inner Transition its potency and its energy. It’s both very challenging because you’re bridging two worlds and two world views, but also, like in permaculture, that place of edge where systems meet is very fertile and has a tremendous possibility.
There have been plenty of other movements that have worked on that edge. Engaged Buddhism, Quakerism, spiritual movements that have had a very strong service in the world. Also things like the eco village movement that start with a practical building but they have to work on their group dynamics because they live together. So there’s lots of places where that edge is being looked on. But it’s not always present in movements for social and environmental change, or political movements.
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey through this? How would you tell the story of your coming into Transition and what happened after that?
I moved out ofLondonand the world-changing political movement I was involved in before was my football team! As I was getting too old to play football I was looking around for what to do next and working as a therapist. I was very interested in ways of looking at systems, including as a therapist, systemic therapy and constellations work, rather than individual.
So I was really excited when I had been living in Devon for about a year to meet the eco-psychology group down here, to meet Hilary Prentice and went to the first film showing of ‘The Power of Community’. Hilary was actually the one who called together the first Heart and Soul gathering and I was one of the people she invited. So that was my way into Transition. It’s interesting that that group was starting to form before you had the word ‘transition’. As you were planning the launch, we met in the June, July, and Transition Town Totnes launched in the September. So that was my first part, holding the Inner.
With that question, how is it impacting us individually, so the personal inner transition, how is it in our groups: Hilary and I were both in the Core Group for a long time, bringing Inner insights and good group process and reflection into that as Transition Town Totnes. And also, how do we engage the community in the conversation around Inner, showing films, having public talks and so on.
So that was my first way in, and then Naresh and I had come together and started our relationship. He was really interested, as Transition took off in that first year, in creating a workshop to train other people or share what we’d learnt in Totnes. I think that we were a very alchemical mix, me and Naresh. We have very different strengths, and the 2-day training that we made was very powerful.
We thought we’d be running a few every year and as soon as we started doing it, it was wanted in Bristol and London and Totnes, Scotland and Wales, in Italy. People around the world – people were asking us to go to Chile right in the early days. It all went incredibly fast. We made the training, we trained trainers in a ridiculously short time. We had no idea how to do that. We did our world tour, we were rock stars for a little while, taking the training round the world and training trainers!
That took over our lives for the next two or three years, and then I came back to focus within Transition Network, having stepped away from Transition Town Totnes; came back to focus on Inner, holding Inner co-ordination for Transition Network. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been like a mother in Transition Network, that I’ve been holding something about the wellbeing of the whole family, as it were.
There have been times when I’ve pushed the organisation into looking at something – I feel like I really pushed us into the restructure that happened three or four years ago. Paying attention to what’s needed. It’s quite an invisible role and it’s quite difficult to see the work it takes as it’s not about doing a lot of stuff but it’s about an awareness and paying attention and bringing something at the right moment, or the moment when you think it’s needed.
I feel like I’ve been on a long inquiry to formulate Inner Transition, to support other people who really see the need for that piece. To connect people that are working on it. I created a two day workshop to develop my own understandings and to share those. I’ve been holding international Inner Transition conversations, connecting people who can feel very isolated, holding that piece in their national Hubs or Initiatives. And always sitting with the question “why is there so much resistance to the Inner?” Why are there so many groups that are so focused on the doing and they can totally see what needs to be done, and it’s so hard to see the need or to feel skilled to work on the relationships and how to get the group to work all together, and how to be sustainable as a group or as an individual.
I feel like those are the two things that I’ve really put time and energy into. I can see in the training that we created, part of my mission was to make that training have a very strong Inner component, so relating how we do community engagement to a psychological model around change, that people have the depth to understand how to get the things that they do to work. I guess that’s been my passion, to bring that sense of – if we don’t understand how human beings work, how can we design human systems, how can we do that?
What do you feel is the legacy of what you’ve left? What do you feel is the legacy you’ve created in Transition?
The main thing is feeling like you couldn’t dislodge Inner Transition from the Transition movement now. For quite a long time it felt like if I’d left and there’d be no-one replacing me when there was no paid role, that the waters might have closed over that and it would have disappeared from sight. I feel it’s really embedded.
I’m always really heartened when I go to meetings and it’s interesting how many of the hubsters have come through the training and often they’ve done Train the Trainers with me and Naresh, and how good they are at holding balance. For lots of those people, actually they’re much better at it than I am, the natural weaving of inner and outer. So that’s been my main mission, and part of the reason that I feel I can leave is because I feel like that’s been accomplished.
There are lots of other pieces about how Transition Network has developed. Our practice about Being Meetings and our own internal balance as an organisation. I’ve had a lot to do with shaping it – not only me – but I’ve contributed to that, and I still think the training exists as a really interesting and powerful co-creation. I’ve put a lot of my creativity into that and the mix of structures and the balance of things that take people deep and give space to feelings as well as embodied things, and really using our minds to understand.
I love the weave that we made in that two-day. Those of us who have been in it since the beginning, at the centre, our gifts and our strengths are woven through the movement in some way. That’s part of what it is to be one of those people shaping at the beginning.
It’s been almost ten years that you’ve given some or all of your time to this Transition thing. I wonder if there are any particular highlights that stand out for you, either small things or big things, what are the things that stand out for you as highlights?
There’s hundreds. It’s been an incredible journey. I remember the feeling really early on of cycling back across the hills from a Core Group meeting in Totnes and just feeling like “I couldn’t even have imagined this”. I couldn’t have imagined to have this position of holding an inner focus for a community scale movement wanting to change the way the world is, and feeling incredible excitement and privilege of being in that place with the space to give my time to it.
There’s so many moments of holding groups, especially doing Joanna Macy exercises that we did in every Launch training. I remember the milling that we did where we invite people to stand in pairs and see the ancestors of the person opposite them and how moving that was for people, just to think about the past and what struggles people have been through for that person to be in the room. There have been lots and lots of moments of that, that have been incredible touching and beautiful, seeing people open to that.
The whole feeling of Transition Network and its journey and some of the processes we’ve done as an organisation. Especially for me those ones when we’re feeling really stretched and things feel challenging in some way, and there’s a way that we can reach out to each other or reconnect with our sense of shared purpose that brings us back to what really nourishes us at our core.
I think the conferences, where we have such energy in the gathering, and just such extraordinary people come. That’s just been a flavour all the way through, to work with the people who come to Transition is a joy and an honour and a privilege, and I’ve been hosted by so many people in so many countries with such generosity. Whether I’m in their homes, looking at the way that they’re shaping their lives, holding them in groups, the deep meetings that happen on those trainings and workshops. I think that’s really the main highlight, that honour and privilege of meeting beautiful people in this space.
Why do you feel this is the right time to go? Many people will have worked around and alongside you all this time and might be wondering why is it this particular moment in time that you’ve decided to step out and what are your plans for the future? I’m sure everybody wishes you heartfelt best wishes for wherever you go from here. I just wonder if you might like to share why you’re going and what you might do next?
There’s lots of layers to that question. The simple answer is it just feels right. I think there’s a part of the answer – I’m not quite sure if I’m a founder but I know a lot of people see me as a founder because I’ve been around such a long time. There comes a point as founders where we’ve really given all we can and that sense that all we have to offer and our gifts are really woven into the movement. Sometimes I think it’s possible to stay too long, and then most of what you’re bringing is your shadow. Actually, your constrictions and your limits also limit the movement.
I do really feel like what I’ve got to give has been taken. It’s been received and actually it’s time for me to go. It feels good for me. I’m tired and I need space. I’m longing for a life that feels spacious and where the things that are possible for me to do aren’t so seductive because they’re so amazing, that I can’t resist saying yes to them and the only way to do that is not to be in Transition, because the opportunities are so amazing!
I really need a period of time where I’m still, and have time just to be with space. I’m really excited about the possibility of someone new coming into my job, that’s going to bring new energies and things that I don’t have, new strengths. And I think that will really serve Transition work, Inner Transition and the Transition movement primarily to move on in a way that I can’t imagine, and that’s beyond me. I feel that I’ve learnt a lot about founders and when’s the time to go. You and I have talked about it over the years, I think we’ve really paid attention to that in Transition Town Totnes, how we all stepped back. I feel clear for myself that in this role it’s time for me to step back.
So all of those things. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I have a thousand ideas and a thousand possibilities and the thing that I really know is that I need down time and that’s what I’m longing for. I’ll still be doing some bits of work but I’ll have a lot more spaciousness in my life, and I think I need quite a good period of that. I think I want dreaming time that’s a digestion of this whole huge journey and dreaming what the next thing is and to give myself time to do that.
We’ve talked about the huge amount that you’ve given to Transition over this time, and helped develop in Transition. What has Transition given to you? What gifts do you feel you take away from your involvement with this?
People find it really hard to believe that when we did the launch of the Heart and Soul group on 17th of October or whenever it was in 2006, as Transition Town Totnes was just in its first period of exploding onto the scene of Totnes, I was too shy to stand up and say anything at that meeting! Hilary had to do all the talking and Naresh helped us out a bit. The only bit that I had the confidence to do was to stand up and write things on the flip chart.
I was just starting to work as a workshop facilitator doing constellation workshops when I came into Transition. I was pretty confident as a therapist and I’d done lots of teaching and training, but not in this area at all. So after that whole journey I feel really comfortable now facilitating conferences of hundreds of people and I really enjoy it. That’s been a huge journey for me in how to facilitate groups, how to facilitate conferences, how to be in group process and trust in a lot of the instincts I developed as a therapist, to see what’s needed and what’s happening as an intervention to put things right. I feel like I’ve really honed that as part of my time in Transition.
I remember someone reflecting when we got back from our world tour, when you travel and you work with people and hold people in those groups, you get bigger. There’s some sense in which you expand as a person because you’ve had that experience. Especially of holding people at depth. I feel much bigger. I feel really like a grown up now and much more confident in my ability to speak, to know what I’m saying, to say it with confidence, to hold space.
I think there’s been an incredible gift of Transition that again comes back to this thing about the people. I’ve always believed that in essence, people are good and we want to do good in the world. It’s easy to live in our culture and to have a doubt. We see so much negativity presented to us about what humans do, and I feel like Transition has just absolutely affirmed that core belief in what a human being is and the longing that people have to give themselves to things that matter to them and that they deeply love and care about. It reassures me that our political system and all the distortions of power that are going on in our world, that they’re the aberration, that we’re the normality of how human beings naturally live when we’re supported to do that. What a gift, what an incredible privilege it is to have that.
If you had three wishes for the Transition Movement, what would they be? If you could wave your Inner Transition magic wand?
The first thing that I would wish would be for an end to burnout and that the magic would do it overnight. But I would also wish, and it’s wonderful that Transition Network’s going to be really focusing on burnout as a theme (during January and February), that groups take it seriously and even how could Transition be the thing where nobody burns out, what would that be like? What would we have to change in order to do that? That would be my first wish. That that was all in place.
I think the second wish is something about wishing for other people a part of what I’ve had. I feel that I and also Naresh and a few others of us, but I think especially the two of us because we offered the training and we travelled a lot, we saw Transition birthing as a movement in so many different countries and cultures, and I meet so many people that are very immersed in their local project.
It’s part of the magic of the conferences and the Hubs meeting, that suddenly you find yourself in a room with people from 25 countries, and it’s happening there as well. Even though each project may just be a small light burning in a community, the fact that there are so many of these small lights is a magic, isn’t it? I would wish for people to know about all those other lights like I do. We talked about it in the Hubs meeting, how could we have more international exchanges of people staying with each other, or peer to peer support or contact, because it’s precious but also incredibly sustaining in the lonely moments to be part of this huge web. So that would be my wish number two.
And I think my wish number three would be something about the purpose of Inner. This is going to be a harder one to articulate, but for me part of what all of those many beautiful practices and movements of inner work support is this sense of what a complete human being is. That we’re not just what we do. That we’re also the depth of our love for our children and each other and the people that are vulnerable. We are the vision that we can imagine and the beauty that we both bring and want to see in the world. We are the intensity of our grief when things are lost and go wrong and the enormity of our courage to stand in the face of things that are terrifying and say we’re still going to act.
So I feel that sense of expansion that Inner Transition brings and my longing would be that that would be there and would be easy for people to step into in their Transition groups and projects, this sense of the size that we are as human beings and that we don’t narrow ourselves down with a limited view.
And on behalf of everybody listening to this, thank you.