Reflections on Connection, Collaboration, and Finding Inspiration

Speaker 1: Welcome to Practicing Connection, a podcast exploring the personal stories and collective practices that empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world. Here to start the conversation are Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch.

Jessica Beckendorf: Welcome to our Annual Reflections episode. Each year we invite some of our podcast collaborators in the past year to share a reflection with us. One of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast is how connection and communication and collaboration with others requires knowing yourself, learning, and growing. Regular reflection practice can help with that.

Bob Bertsch: This year the Practicing Connection podcast experienced some milestones and new ways of working and collaborating. We maintained a schedule of weekly episodes with the addition of the Practicasts. We’ve grown the new Practicing Connection community on LinkedIn. With so much going on, we’ve been inspired by our collaborations with our guests, so we invited our collaborators to share their reflections on what’s been inspiring them this year. We’ll hear from a couple of our guests as they share their reflections on what’s inspiring them, and Jessica and I will share our reflections as well.

Jessica: Our first reflection is from Nicola Winkel. Nicola joined us earlier this season on an ecosystem of military family support to talk about collective impact and collaboration. Nicola is the project director at the Arizona Coalition for Military Families, a nationally recognized public-private partnership focused on building Arizona’s capacity to care for and support all service members, veterans, their families, and communities. That’s a lot.

She has worked for more than 20 years in the nonprofit community, specializing in program development and implementation, bringing a mix of planning, project management, communication, team coordination, and problem-solving skills that drive execution of complex projects and build sustainability. Nicola was awarded the Adjutant General Medal by Major General Hugo Salazar for her efforts in implementing the coalition and strengthening support for Arizona’s military veteran and family population. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Illinois and a systems thinking certificate from Cornell University.

Nicola Winkel: Hello, Practicing Connection listeners. This is Nicola Winkel, project director for the Arizona Coalition for Military Families. As we close out 2024, which I know has been a challenging year for many, I’m glad to have the opportunity to reflect on the inspiration in my life and work. For many of us, the work we do is so complex, long-term, and in many cases has an element of loss and tragedy that can be heartbreaking. Here in Arizona, our partners are working to decrease the disparity in veteran suicide. It’s a problem with no simple solutions and the need to continually find the inspiration to keep moving forward.

Earlier this year, the secretary of the VA shared what one advocate told him, that even if the numbers suck, you have to keep going. I appreciated the sentiment and the bluntness because with these complex problems, sometimes you can feel like such a small force against such a huge challenge. The biggest source of my inspiration this year has been the dedication of our team and our partners. I have seen time and time again how people coming to the table with the right attitude, skills, knowledge, and collaborative spirit can make all the difference in how we are collectively inspired to move forward. As the backbone team for our collective impact initiative in Arizona, I see our job as setting the table for the partners to come together, but the inspiration and the clarity about how to move forward comes from us working together.

Conversely, we have all seen how one or more people or organizations can make those efforts go sideways. Those situations are challenging because you can clearly see how this detracts from the work and the mission. This just inspires me to do everything I can to create the best table for us to gather around and to build the relationships needed to fulfill our common mission. I am thankful and inspired by our team and partners who bring their commitment and belief that together we can make a positive difference in the community to our collective table. That keeps me going on the challenging days. As we head into 2025, I wish you inspiration in your work and your life.

Bob: Thanks to Nicola for that great reflection. I so enjoyed talking to Nicola when we had a chance to interview her earlier this year. I’m not surprised she talked about collaboration. They really are about collaboration with the coalition. I love that she talked about that and about creating a place for people to gather and work together. Because I think that leaning on each other, that is a big part of finding the strength to keep going, especially when you’re doing the difficult work that Nicola and her colleagues are doing.

Jessica: Yes. That resonated with me as well. One of the things within her reflection is a concept that we’ve talked about before. The dedication she talked about is similar to the idea of committing to working together, even when we sometimes don’t want to be working together. We’re all humans. Those moments arise and those challenges will arise.

Bob: Jess, would you mind sharing your reflection with us?

Jessica: Absolutely. Actually, this reflection was really a tough one for me this year. I think you and I have chatted several times about how I’ve been feeling generally uninspired. That’s hard because I’m normally someone who’s– I can find inspiration in so many things. As I prepared this reflection, I realized that I just this year wasn’t in that place. I wasn’t maybe as open to the things that usually inspire me, like things I read, workshops, conferences, classes that I’m taking.

What has gotten my attention this year are the little moments. In some of our Practicast episodes, I’ve talked about things like picking rocks in my landscaping beds, playing with my dog. He’s such a joyful little guy and I just run around the house with him and chasing him, pretending to try to get the toy, unplugging even, and especially small conversations I’ve had and reconnections. This year was really a year of reconnecting with several people that I haven’t talked to in a while.

A really great example of this idea of those small moments was when I went away for a weekend visiting friends. We stayed at my friend’s parents’ house, which sounds like I’m 16. I’m pretty sure that they live in this magical land, this little plot of land that they own, is completely magical because they created the magic there. There were these gigantic mathematical shapes, huge dodecahedrons and other mathematical shapes that I don’t remember because I’m not huge into math, all over their property. Her dad built them. I just found so much joy in seeing these shapes and in talking to him about how he made them and why he made them. Turns out he was a math professor, but that’s a whole other– His story is very interesting. That’s very different.

This weekend in general though, it started with this magical place we were staying, and there are all these cool things happening at the property. Just in general, we didn’t take ourselves seriously. We took a nap in a park, which is really interesting because we went to Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin, which is in the Midwest, I think is fairly well known. It’s this gorgeous place that has tons of beautiful hiking opportunities and we all like to hike, but instead we took a nap. We didn’t hike even a little bit.

Those little moments were really important to me throughout the year. This one weekend, I think did a good job of encapsulating some of that. One of those moments of this weekend was that we silently walked a labyrinth lined with lavender. I had an opportunity to share my limited knowledge of the history of labyrinths as tools of reflection that go back more than 3000 years. I did have to look that up while we were still standing at the entrance because I couldn’t remember. I was so excited about the labyrinth and I told them like, “No, no. This is a thing. It’s a real thing you guys,” but I had to look it up.

I shared it with them. It was a really beautiful thing to just– My experience of the labyrinth was one thing, but then also seeing my two friends experience the labyrinth and take it very seriously and have them go through it was just this beautiful little moment. When I think back on this year, I am reminded of Heather Plett’s Spiral of Authenticity. We’ve had Heather Plett on this podcast before. We’ve talked about her work, but the Spiral of Authenticity starts with an inward journey, which goes through several stages from awakening to healing and opening. At the center is an open heart. Then the outward journey, from the center, out is one of emerging, connecting, and offering among other stages. Those are just a beginning, middle, and end stage of the outward journey. Heather Plett often connects the Spiral of Authenticity to a labyrinth. I feel like I’m in or near the center of the labyrinth right now, just in general, and near the center is opening, or if you’re at the center, that’s the open heart where you’re pausing for a while. I feel like I’m just there this year, right now.

Things are quiet here. It makes me a tiny bit anxious to not feel big moments of inspiration because I always feel like I can see it everywhere. That’s been really challenging this year, but I’ve accepted these little moments as my inspiration, and I’ll hang out in the middle of the labyrinth for a bit until I’m ready to emerge. I feel like I’m getting close to that, but it was really eye-opening to do this reflection and to realize this connection to the labyrinth, and that I literally walked a labyrinth this year. It was pretty cool.

Bob: That’s awesome. Beautiful, really. Thank you so much for sharing it. It’s like one of those moments for me. It all makes sense now. Earlier in the year when we were talking about the rocks and the rabbits and all the things, all the beautiful little things you were paying so much attention to. It’s like it all came together. It’s your open heart. What more open thing can you do than take a nap in a public state park? That’s a great demonstration of how open you’ve been this year. I’m glad that you’ve been able to do some sense-making around that, and it’s all come together in this beautiful moment in this Reflections episode.

Jessica: Oh, thank you so much. I don’t know if you recall how stressed I was that there were these stupid little things, and I’m not being inspired by these big aha moments from reading and intellectual things. I was really stressed about how picking rocks was and watching the rabbits in my yard. It’s funny that it was stressful. Now I don’t just see it, I feel that I am in the middle of that labyrinth right now. Thank you.

Bob: Thanks again for sharing that. Our next reflection is from Kristen Jowers. Kristen joined us earlier this year to collaborate on three episodes, where we focused on practices related to holding space, Holding Space for Difference, Holding Space for Grief, and Holding Space for New Possibilities. These episodes were such a joy to produce with Kristen, who joined the OneOp team in 2023 as a program coordinator and uses her background in psychology, child development, and marriage and family therapy to enhance her work at the University of Kentucky. Here’s Kristen’s Reflection.

Kristen Jowers: Hello, Practicing Connection listeners. I look forward to the Reflection episode of Practicing Connection every year. I’m excited to share about what’s been inspiring me. It’s been a really hard year. I feel like I’ve been saying that for a couple years, but it really has been a challenging couple of months. I appreciated being asked what’s been inspiring because then I could do some reflecting. I went to book club, and it was almost like I was primed for being inspired. I joined the book club a couple of years ago when I started working remotely.

I think I was just looking for some in-person engagement. It’s why I love conferencing so much. It’s nice to my neighbors and meet other folks who live in my community. Our book club hasn’t met for a couple of months because of the severe weather and hurricanes that have impacted our area over the past few months. I live in Valdosta, Georgia. That’s about 15 miles north of the Florida-Georgia line. It’s also where Moody Air Force Base is. Our area was impacted by several hurricanes in the past year. My book club has turned into a little bit of a hurricane support group.

When we met most recently, normally we have one book to talk about. At this most recent book club, there were a lot of books to talk about because, I guess folks have been doing a lot of reading. That’s something I didn’t expect. I thought, “Maybe we’ll go and talk and nobody will have read anything, or maybe they read a book from three months ago.” I was surprised a lot of folks were sharing that they read a lot. It’s interesting to see how people fill the space and the time when they don’t have power and school’s out, and they don’t have internet. Some folks were saying, “My kid picked up a book for the first time in a while,” or, “I read a book for fun,” or, “My spouse started reading again.”

Folks were just sharing about how they shared a book that they’ve just finished with a neighbor, or they found themselves talking more about books with people that they hadn’t talked to about reading before. Book club’s been a really safe space for me, just to practice connecting, if you will. We’re a lot of stories shared at book club that were really inspiring stories of neighbors who were helping each other clear roads and clear driveways and neighbors who did have power or the equipment to cook. We had a lot of folks breaking bread together that maybe otherwise wouldn’t have, a lot of outreach and organizations that have come from outside of our area into the area to provide resources and support.

It’s just been really inspiring for hearing how folks that had so many impacts from trees being down, having religious organization from Alabama shows up and just completely cleans up their yard for them. There’s just been a lot of stories of glimmers or sparkly moments during this really, really difficult season. I found myself just appreciating having people who get it. We talked about normal and what even is normal anymore. I think during COVID there was conversation around getting back to normal. Then now we’re redefining a new normal as a community post-COVID, post-Hurricane Idalia, post-Hurricane Debbiy, post-Hurricane Helene, and Milton. It’s been an interesting time schools have been closed.

School counselor who shared that on their first day back to school after more than three and a half weeks of school being closed, on their first day back they asked if any students would be interested in a hurricane support group. It’s a really small school, but more than 100 students actually signed up and said that they would be interested. I think that this shows that these type of events impact us all and in different ways. One of the poignant conversations that stuck with me, folks talking about resilience and strength.

I know that this was the conversation on a previous episode, a conversation surrounding what it means to be resilient right now as a community, as a school. It’s just always important to remember that a lot of folks are grieving right now and processing, and that it’s going to take time. I so appreciate the opportunity to reflect about what’s been inspiring me, what’s been motivating and impacting, not just my work life and professional life, but also personally. Thank you for holding space for me today.

Jessica: Thanks so much to Kristen for her reflection. I can’t imagine going through one hurricane, and that area has experienced several in this year alone. One of the things that really resonated with me and Kristen’s reflection is that you have a constant zooming in and zooming out. You’ve got this huge thing, these hurricanes that are happening, and yet you’re zooming into reading for pleasure when the power is out. You’re zooming out to the bigger impacts of sharing about books that people have read and the stories they’re sharing of kids picking up books for the first time in a while. Then you’re zooming into a person’s home being affected by a fallen tree. You’re zooming out to people coming together to help and to 100 students signing up for some support. I thought it was just really beautiful. I really, really appreciate Kristen sharing her experience of that. Bob, would you share your reflection with us?

Bob: Yes, I’d be happy to. Thanks for the invitation, Jess. In October of this year, 190 wildfires swept through Northwestern North Dakota. Sorry to be on the natural disaster thing again after we heard Kristen’s reflection.

Jessica: Sorry, Bob. This is your reflection. I didn’t even hear about that, probably because there was so much attention about the hurricanes. Anyway, I’m sorry. Please go on.

Bob: The number and range of the fires were definitely unusual for us. They were fueled by dry conditions, high winds, and grasses that had actually grown really long and thick during a rainy early summer. It was those conditions all coming together. The impacts of the fires were really devastating. More than 125,000 acres were burned. Homes, outbuildings, entire farm businesses were destroyed. Hundreds of head of livestock were killed, and many of those herds are still suffering health issues related to the fire, and livestock deaths are still happening as a consequence of the fires.

While these fires were still burning, I joined a Zoom call and listened to some of our NDSU Extension agents and specialists here at North Dakota State University, talk about how they were helping people document their losses, treat injured animals, and probably most importantly, deal with the trauma they had experienced. As I was listening, as we heard in Kristen’s reflection, similar situations at that very time were playing out in North Carolina and Florida and other states in the Southeast as Extension professionals and other service providers helped people impacted by Hurricane Helene. Then later after this Zoom call, the other hurricanes that came up through the early fall there.

I often think about the wider reaching work aimed at preventing disasters or mitigating the impact of disasters when they happen, or supporting people, families, and communities to become more resilient, that zoomed out work. Jess, we were talking about zooming out and zooming in. That’s really important work, but it’s so much different than standing in front of someone who has lost so much and trying to help them answer the question, what’s next? The service providers who stand with those families in the face of such profound loss are my inspiration this year.

Just the other day, a colleague talked to me about how difficult it was to see the impact the wildfires had on people. Honestly, my colleague is still feeling that. I could see it in her face and hear it in her voice. It’s inspiring to know our Extension professionals and our military family service providers are willing to stand with families experiencing tragedy, even though they know how secondary trauma can affect them as the professional provider. It makes me grateful for doing the work that I get to do, work that supports those that support families in need. It motivates and inspires me to keep going and doing that work.

Jessica: Wow. I should not have interrupted you earlier to say that I haven’t heard about this happening, but thank you so much for sharing that. That is really inspiring. The service providers that are in the middle of it, in the thick of it, and some of them may also be affected, or they may have family members who are affected, and that they can continue on and help others continue on is amazing. It is inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Bob: We’d love to hear what’s inspiring you. Please share what’s inspiring you by clicking the Send Us a Text Message link at the top of the description of this episode. When you click that link, your text messaging app will open and you’ll see a seven digit number and the words, Do Not Remove. Type your message after that and click send. Don’t remove that number or we won’t receive your message. To protect your privacy, we won’t see your phone number and we can’t text you back, but we’d be happy to share your feedback on a future episode. If you’re listening on a computer, you can email us what’s inspiring you at [email protected]. Let us know what’s inspiring you right now.

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Jessica: That’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, click the Share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend. Thanks again to our collaborators on this episode, Kristen Jowers and Nicola Winkel. Finally, thanks to our incredible team, co-producer Cora Owen, announcer Kaelin Goebel, Joyce Fallon and Maggie Lucas from OneOp’s marketing team, and Nathan Grimm who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast. The season is not over yet. We have a special episode coming your way next week. We hope you’ll join us then. In the meantime, keep practicing.

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Kalin Goble: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp, and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense, under award numbers 2019-48770-30366 and 2023-48770-41333.

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