The Vitality Triangle
Navigating just transitions, moment by moment
How can we navigate complex power dynamics in our every-day interactions, while sourcing our collective powers for just transitions to futures where we all get to be alive, well, and free? How can we disrupt the politics of trauma and cultivate a politics of flourishing? In my experience, the “Vitality Triangle,” can help us meet these challenges, by living our questions while embodying, embedding, and emplacing three principles of regenerative vitality in living systems: liberty, reciprocity, and integrity.
I first introduced the The Vitality Triangle as a navigation tool in 2021, just before I set off on the Colorado Trail. I described it as the heart of the True Colors Compass of Collective Powers, I explained its different components and functions. Yet, abstract descriptions and explanations rarely bring ideas to life or inspire new ways of of being, acting, and interacting.
Over the past three years, the Vitality Triangle has become part of my daily life. The purpose of this offering is to share some of the practical ways I’ve used the Vitality Triangle to help me navigate uncertain times, in case they may be useful to you and others.
Embodying Principles of Regenerative Vitality
While the three principles of the Vitality Triangle — integrity, reciprocity, and liberty — may sound abstract, for me they occur as natural laws shaping my experience of life, operating much like gravity. They help me find my center and access a profound experience of vitality when I reflect on them and embody them.
In 2021, inspired by somatic centering practices shared by Staci Haines and Prentiss Hemphill, I developed a regenerative somatic centering practice to further support me in embodying these principles and experiencing vitality in multiple dimensions. I’ve found the more I practice it in my daily life, the more I get to experience being alive, well, and free, moment to moment. Would you like to experiment with this practice too? I’m happy to share a written meditation that integrates reflections on gravity, integrity, reciprocity and liberty while inviting a full-bodied somatic experience of vitality in multiple dimensions. The exploration is designed to help us center in our bodies, inhabit them fully, and tune into our own True North. You can check out this written meditation here!
Living the Questions
As an inner-compass, the Vitality Triangle reminds us that powerful questions are often a better navigation guide than cardinal directions. Even so, the invitation to “live the questions” (as Rilke and others encourage us to do) may be so abstract as to be intimidating.
For me, the Vitality Triangle helps connect me to powerful questions that I often return to when I’m stuck. In February 2022, I assembed a series of these question together with my dear friend, Jodi Lane, weaving them into a guided contemplative exercise. If you find yourself in a situation that feels “stuck” or otherwise lacking in vitality, I invite you to give this exercise a try and see if it makes a difference for you, as it has for me.
