Vibrant Systems is built on the principle that we each have the capacity to shape the future of our lives and our communities. Over the past two and a half years, it’s become clear that we lose this capacity if we neglect the inner work that allows us to be honest about the loops we are in and what we allow ourselves to actually desire. Joseff McKenneth Goodwin’s work lives in this space of personal honesty, transparency, and vulnerability. In this month’s article, Joseff and I explored how the work of personal integrity feeds into community-building that is both sustainable, honest, and future-focused. 

Like many creatives in the realm of life-coaching and wellness, Joseff entered his work through a gauntlet of personal growth. Reckoning with his own relational loops and patterns offered the chance to explore different ways of moving forward. As a multi-hyphenate musician, author, and coach, Joseff has created an ecosystem of work that people can explore to illuminate the stories that might be holding them to outdated patterns. 

While I’ve followed his work for much longer, I had the pleasure of first collaborating with Joseff in an editorial role for his novel, The Tree of Life. I was very pleased when he agreed to join me in a discussion about how our individual loops can feed into authentic community-building, or reify the collective patterns keeping us stuck.

The “Loops” That Keep Us Stuck | Joseff McKenneth Goodwin Explains

As individuals, we live in systems. These systems feed us certain narratives, and each comes with its own set of rules and boundaries we are taught not to cross. By creating zones that are “off-limits”, many of us are discouraged from exploring beyond the stories or reading between the lines. 

This effectively keeps us within the systems we are born into–the religion, the community, or the political perspective–without allowing us to venture beyond what is both known and agreed upon. 

But the narratives of the system are not all there is. 

Joseff specializes not only in exploring what’s beyond the comfort zone, but also how you can sit in the discomfort of nuance and grief. 

“Because there are so many different ‘truths’, the only real, ultimate truth–from my vantage point–is you.” Joseff grinned, “Your existence. You exist, and that’s truth. That is the ultimate truth. Everything else, every belief, every attachment, every definition is relative to your experience.”

As someone whose career began in small towns and rural settings, relative truth has been a part of my lived reality for over a decade. I cannot deny the socioeconomic realities of rural Canadians any more than I can deny the importance of social justice or climate adaptation movements. Yet navigating these truths that are inherently intertwined is its own landmine.

The difficulty lies in the fact that many of us are not prepared to face the relativity of our own truths. Many people I have encountered, both in person and online, are resistant to seeing where the limits of their understanding end. In a world that is pulled more deeply into divisive stories and systems, venturing into the unknown grey areas isn’t just uncertain–it’s a threat. If we are dysregulated or living from our survival mind, pointing out that a truth is relative to a larger reality can feel like having that truth–or even that identity–attacked. 

Which points us back to a truth that feels a little less relative, and a little more like the underpinning to our work forward. 

The work that allows us to meet one another in our relative truths, to navigate the nuance, and to get honest about the grief of our reality starts in every single one of us. We also cannot pull people into that work if they themselves are unwilling to take the first step. 

Disrupting Loops With An Honest Perspective

So what do these first steps actually look like for someone who specializes in this kind of work?

In most cases, the first step is a level of honesty. What are the patterns we are stuck in? Then, perhaps most importantly, how are we actually playing a role in how those patterns replay in our minds and in our lives?

If we zoom out and let ourselves be transparent about our choices, are we making decisions that have us following the same pattern again and again?

But admitting to ourselves the role we play in repeating these patterns may be overwhelming.

This is where the nervous system regulation and grounding come in. 

Living from our survival mind, as Joseff names it, keeps us primed to respond to threats. From this space, we unconsciously choose what is familiar, even if that familiarity isn’t what we want. Beginning to take personal responsibility for our choices within those loops is unfamiliar and even paralyzing at times. 

Breathing exercises, somatic work, and understanding our cognitive distortions all lay the groundwork for being able to see these looping choices through a clear lens. 

Once we have built an internal capacity for safety, we can begin to take the steps to change how we respond to the pattern from a place of emotional empowerment.

“What I’m saying here,” Joseff shared, “Is exactly the steps I’ve taken to get me to a point where I could see things as they are and not how I wanted them to be or how I think they should be.”

Words and definitions are another way we tend to obfuscate our realities or distort the world around us. In Joseff’s work, using words with intentionality and clarity is a shift that underpins much of his process. When we talk about what we want to see, are we actually speaking in a way that elevates the joy or ease that we want to feel? Are we slipping into disempowering language, even if we are meaning something that lifts us? Are we letting ourselves be honest about how what we say is actually making us feel, or are we letting the words themselves distort the world around us?

Similarly, how comfortable are we talking about what’s wrong or painful, compared to how easily we talk about what empowers us?

Joseff’s work calls each of us into a level of personal responsibility and transparency that sheds the societal expectations of what is “good” or “bad” and instead lets us become sovereign in our experience. This sovereignty may push us to recognize the limits of our situations or the patterns we can no longer justify, placing us at a sort of “ledge”.  

When we reach the ledge and let ourselves actually peer into the crevice below, are we going to trust ourselves enough to jump even if we aren’t sure what we are jumping into?

“Most people don’t want to be honest about being, one, at the ledge, but then honest about ‘Okay, do I want to fly? Do I want to do more than just fall over onto another ledge?”  Joseff reflected, honouring the complexity of the personal growth journey, “And that’s a choice, and most people, out of fear, won’t make another choice.”

What Kind Of Hope Are We Building On?

This work doesn’t stop with one pattern. It doesn’t stop with one new choice. It is ongoing. Building our internal capacity for honesty, transparency, and vulnerability is lifelong work. Even if we choose to exit the limitations of one narrative, we may easily find ourselves pulled into another.

There will always be new loops and thought patterns available to keep us static.

So how can we tell if we are being pulled into a new loop? 

A concept that Joseff introduced me to was the difference between aspirational hope and informational hope. Whereas informational hope might include the actual concrete steps we need to take to exit a situation, organize for change in our communities, or drive personal transformation, aspirational hope includes more stories. 

“If it’s aspirational hope, you are selling an idea… You’re feeding that emotion of hope and joy, and you’re feeding a story, and you create an image in your head. You get drawn into that aspiration, but then that aspiration is just bait, because what are you doing to ground yourself in the right now moment? Are you interrogating the things that make you happy and satisfied? Are you meeting that imagery with that emotion? Or is there still desperation and fear and anxiety still attached?” – Joseff McKenneth Goodwin

As nice as aspirational hope sounds (“manifest it”, “you just have to believe in yourself”, “it’s in God’s hands”), it moves our focus away from how we take responsibility for our honest, emotional experience. In many online community spaces, aspirational hope is the model being sold, while the material conditions of the consumers are not actually challenged. People will pay for a feeling because the feeling allows them to keep masking the loop they are stuck in. 

When talking about the kinds of communities we often see online, Joseff said, “[Some spiritualist coaches are] selling an aspirational hope or a journey to you. They’re selling a ‘rags to riches’ journey, and they’re pulling you into ‘community’. And the community is very valid, but it goes against the nature of what a community is meant to be… When you are using pyramid schemes to build your community, what you end up with is a community full of co-dependent, opportunistic people who are living in a fantasy. What people under this umbrella are doing is selling aspirational hope.”

As someone who flirts with spiritualist online communities myself, his words rang true and are a reminder to us all that personal responsibility does not stop with being honest about our own patterns. We also have to be honest about the stories we are allowing others to feed us. 

That’s Fine, But What About The “Real” World?

But let’s make no mistake, aspirational hope is prominent offline as well. 

In fact, it is a product of systems that are happy to keep people passive. Yes, we have the capacity to change the world, whether that’s our lives or our broader community or even beyond that. But that process of change is uncomfortable at best, and terrifying at worst. Aspirational hope, rather than helping people access the awareness and capacity to make those changes, simply soothes the grief they feel when reality doesn’t match their desires. When we are numbed to our desires, we are more likely to stay compliant with the systems we are living in. 

Informational hope offers a way to hold the grief, dysregulation, and discomfort. It is a lens that holds the reality we live in and the desires for what we wish we had. From this place of honesty, we can take real responsibility for how we navigate our choices. 

Joseff offers real pathways towards informational hope in his ecosystem of work, meeting people in the narratives they are most familiar with.

Informational hope also mirrors how embodied, people-first change management walks with communities through the uncertainties of change. Vibrant Systems does not offer platitudes to keep people content with disproportionate realities. Rather, we open doorways to collective regulation and visioning so we can create strategic plans that are honest about what our communities really want to see and achieve. With that clarity, we can be transparent and vulnerable about what those first steps actually look like in practice for your community–not for someone else.

Despite our shared hope that more people start this work both individually and collectively, Joseff returns to a grounded place. “This kind of community doesn’t have a look yet,” he reminded me, “It has a feeling.” While more and more of us are beginning to deconstruct our personal stories and patterns, bringing this into community spaces takes time. 

As Toni Morrison says, “If there’s a book you want to read that hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

Where Is Your Starting Place?

When I asked Joseff what final nugget he would like to leave my readers with, he paused before breaking into a smile, “Be kind to your survival mind.”

Kindness, he explained, helps disrupt the fear response. It offers a softer way of meeting the fear and urgency we have been programmed into. From this softening, we can enter into greater honesty with ourselves.

After all, honesty is where our work begins, whether we are looking inwards or seeking to build community with others.

If you are looking for more clarity as to where you can begin your work, Joseff offers a free, explorative quiz. By answering five questions, you will be guided towards the stories, music, and resources that are best suited to where you are starting your journey. I would highly recommend exploring his resource ecosystem right here, because we all have a role to play in unlearning the loops that keep us stuck.