“Jan Jacob and Dees, would you like to come to Kazakhstan next year for a program?” Gulnara asked us after the 6-day “Movements of Transformation” seminar in Groningen.
“YES!” my body already responds with a big smile and a dancing heart, even before the words follow.
Kazakhstan, and everything that will happen there, has lived within me ever since that moment – last year, in 2023 – without yet knowing any details about when, what, or how exactly.
Now, a year later, when we are actually in Kazakhstan in October, I ask Gulnara where the impulse came from to invite us. “In the gaze, in the intense eye contact you and I had,” she says.
I know exactly what she means and feel it again. It was a moment I will never forget. A very intense and prolonged gaze between two women, with so much exchange, beyond differences, beyond borders, crossing generations. That’s how it felt. It’s almost impossible to express in words.
In the lead-up to the seminar, as Gulnara calls it, we were in frequent contact. She had a clear goal, and it was felt in everything: to ignite systemic awareness among leaders and business owners. She ultimately gathered a group of 180 participants from various countries.
It was deeply moving to stand on the first day, with our hands-free microphones on, looking out into 180 pairs of eyes. Seeing and being seen. Asking yourself: what can and will emerge here in the coming days? What potential will flow?
What we can see are 180 people, plus Gulnara’s team. What we cannot see are all the invisible systems, patterns, and dynamics that come with the participants. If I connect with them and try to imagine them, we’d need a massive Kazakh steppe just to bring a tiny part of it into view.
We create the setting, the holding space, the membrane through openness and honesty. And through the question we keep asking ourselves: What do we want to be?
We are not trainers, as many people more or less expect, because that “jacket” has become too tight. It’s not that it’s too small; it just doesn’t fit anymore. We don’t really want to wear a jacket at all 🙂 Maybe we’re a bit rebellious in that. And with a little playful look, I ask who else feels rebellious. Not many hands, but plenty of meaningful glances.
We meet people human to human, heart to heart. People with many different views, and we are filled with curiosity. I want to be an enabler, a spark for change. In that, I give myself, with vulnerability as well.
Three days later, at the end of the program, we stand holding large bouquets of flowers for a group photo. A group forms around us, asking us to write something for them – in a book or on a slip of paper. Many women come to me. I take time for each person, really looking at them, into their eyes, and then something flows onto the paper. As if by itself. And apparently always right. The miracle of eye contact. Eyecontact in a language I call “meaningful silence.”
The following two days, before I fly back to Amsterdam, I need to process everything. The enormous richness of the past days with the participants, the buildup of the program, the real connections. The immense, unbelievably vast plains, filled with so much space, the mountain ranges, the canyons, and a horseback ride by a mountain lake all make me feel small, help me process, and fill me with deep gratitude. Kazakhstan is forever in my heart.
~ Dees