Updates
A chronological view of all updates and changes to tender.garden.
September 1, 2025
4 updates
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy describes the effect that a prediction or expectation can cause a person to adjust their behavior, which then leads to the prediction to become reality. - Pygmalion Effect and Golem Effect
Book: Emergent Strategy
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown explores change and organizing with principles inspired by nature and science fiction, especially the writings of Octavia Butler. Learn more about the concept here: Emergent Strategy. "Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass, building authentic relationships, listening with all the senses of the body and the mind." "Emergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for." "There are a million paths into the future, and many of them can be transformative for the whole." adrienne maree brown provides the following principles: - Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.) - Change is constant. (Be like water.) - There is always enough time for the right work. - There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.
Emergent Strategy
Emergent strategy is a way of approaching change that draws from nature’s patterns—focusing on adaptability, interconnection, and small actions that ripple into larger transformations. We discovered the term in adrienne maree brown's book Emergent Strategy. "Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass, building authentic relationships, listening with all the senses of the body and the mind." – adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy "Emergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for." – adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy adrienne maree brown provides the following principles: - Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.) - Change is constant. (Be like water.) - There is always enough time for the right work.
Dealing with Jealousy
Here are a few coping strategies I observed when dealing with my own jealousy. There is no „one best way“, which strategy I’m using depends on a lot of circumstances and how much willpower I have in that moment to push through the discomfort. When I’m not in a good state and there are topics that easily trigger me, it is tempting to ignore things, letting your partner know you don’t want to hear about certain topics. While this can be a valid strategy, for me personally, this hasn’t led to more secure relationships in the past because it discourages vulnerability and transparency.
August 28, 2025
3 updates
Deep Listening
Deep Listening is an exercise for sharing and listening with presence and compassion. - Sit in front of each other in a comfortable position. - Set a timer (e.g. for 5 minutes). - Depending on the setting, a prompt can be used to make the sharing a bit easier. For example: How are you arriving today? - One person shares whatever comes to their mind until the time ends. Silence is appreciated. The other person practices deep listening and is encouraged not to say anything during that time. - After the timer goes off, switch roles. It's interesting how it often goes deeper after short moments of silence. The length and the setting of the exercise allows us to practice sitting with the often perceived discomfort of silence and see what's bubbling up without being interrupted. This effect is similar to stream of consciousness writing.
Ritual Design
- Opening the container - Transitions between elements - Closing the container Ideas: - Light a candle - Bow - Start with three deep breaths or a meditation - Find a way to relax and warm up, e.g. through movement, laughing together - Set an intention for the session. Potential visualization prompt: "How do I want to leave this session today?" Take into account the current emotional depth, don't jump too much. On which emotional level are we right now?
Presence
Being in the now. Not moving between past and future times in our head, but being 100% present in the current moment. - Meditation - Creative expression, e.g. drawing - Movement, e.g. dancing - Cutting off outside noise, e.g. through Low Dopamine Mornings - Deep Listening <Image src="/img/presence-depth.jpg" width="1280" height="956"
August 21, 2025
9 updates
Community
How can we make sure that living in community doesn't just stay a romanticized dream or a generic term? How do we want to live together in the future? What are the steps we can take to get there? We believe that community needs a strong foundation of †rust that can only be built over time and through conflict resolution. When talking about community and group dynamics, we sometimes forget that a group consists of many individual connections. Both individual connections as well as the group as a whole need to be nurtured.
Organizing
Building collective power and community care structures.
Article: Hanna Williams on Cancel Culture and Conflict
On her newsletter and in an Instagram video, Hanna Williams shares thoughts on cancel culture and the importance of learning to sit with the discomfort of conflict resolution. Hanna shares how conflict resolution skills are essential for building community: "I see so many people claiming they want to be in community, that they want to feel connected to their network of friends and peers, but who consistently demonstrate that they lack the one skill truly needed to make a community strong: conflict." "Conflict skills geared toward finding resolution, returning to connection, and creating stronger relationships where everyone’s unique perspective is honored and considered." Doing conflict well requires being present with the discomfort of hearing different perspectives: "It brings up a lot of intense feelings. In fact, one of the essential qualities needed to do conflict well is a tolerance for discomfort—a tolerance for high sensation—because it just comes with the territory." "Even in the best relationships, it brings up big emotions and requires a deep capacity to set our shit aside and hear people out. To get out of our own heads and into the hearts of others." She mentions how the intra-movement cancel culture seen in many leftist spaces can be a way to avoid doing the work of learning to do conflict: "And my take is that this obsession with saying and doing the perfect thing—the thing that has infiltrated the political left—is actually a form of conflict avoidance." "So many people on the left approach difficult conversations with one goal: to convert the other person."
Article Series: Because We Need Each Other
"Because We Need Each Other: Conversations on Cancel Culture" is an article series by Erika Sasson, Celia Kutz, Kazu Haga, and Shilpa Jain that was published on The Forge and Convergence. You can access the full series here. Find the article here "This first article shares our origin story. We were all part of a gathering called “Because We Need Each Other,” in which 25 people from across the US came together to grapple with the impacts of a punitive pattern in social change/movement left spaces." The authors share the motivation for the gathering and the importance of improving the ways we collaborate in movement spaces. "Given the profound political moment we are in—with the unraveling of many democratic rights and freedoms—it feels more important than ever to strengthen the ways in which we come together on the left" "Our capacity to mobilize is strengthened by our ability to work through disagreement and come back from conflict." They also share important insights from the gathering: "The key takeaway from our gathering—beyond any discrete action steps—was the power of airing our questions in a trusted environment." "Because we need each other, we understand that we also need worldviews that reflect and commit to wholesome, spiritual practices in our movement spaces. We came together to remember, in the important words of one of our beloved Indigenous elders, that we are all cousins. And that we want to continue treating each other as relatives in our work and communities as we go forward in these times."
Othering
Othering means focusing on our differences instead of what connects us. Instead of seeing the whole of humanity as an organism with the potential to collaborate with each other, it draws artificial lines between us and them. - Any type of discrimination - A focus on the nuclear family instead of the greater collective and community - Love stories based on "us against the rest of the world" - Finding a common enemy to bring together a group of people
Transmutation
Transmutation describes the process of transforming how we feel by letting our emotions flow.
Arrival Fallacy
The "Arrival Fallacy" describes the human tendency to believe that we will be happy once we reach a certain goal in the future. Usually, the (conscious or unconscious) thought process goes like this: - "When I finally own a house, I will..." - "When I live in a loving community, I will..." - "When I have enough impact as an activist, I will..." People tend to overestimate the positive effects of reaching goals and underestimate other factors on their happiness and mental health. This is also known as impact bias. Reaching a goal that has been seen as a long awaited final destination can even lead to a sense of emptiness once the initial joy has passed. To overcome this, the previous goal is often replaced with a new one. This can result in a cycle of chasing goal after goal, without questioning what would be needed for fulfillment in the present moment.
Talking About Dreams
It’s summer 2020, Pia and I are meeting for the second time. We’re sitting on a wall in the park. She tells me that a lot is going on for her, that she feels overwhelmed but at the same time deeply inspired. That for the first time it feels like she has a real vision of the future: living together with her closest people in one house and sharing life as a community. This vision partly came from watching a series called Tales of the City, which shows queer people of different ages living together as a community on a larger property. And something clicked inside me. After burnout and the end of a long relationship in 2019, I was floating a bit. I felt like I had fallen behind on the traditional path of life, that I had to start again from scratch and walk the classic nuclear-family road: relationship–moving in together–children–house. Even though I had often felt lonely in my “previous life,” it still seemed like the only imaginable way forward. Pia’s ideas about the future inspired me and continue to shape my everyday life and philosophy to this day. That’s how powerful inspiration can be. <Image src="/img/2024-04-11-imagination.jpg" width="1280" height="1036" size="large"
Arriving Within Myself
Last week, I wrote about anxiety and how I sometimes find it difficult to write authentically without worrying about what others might think. This is a theme that accompanies me in many areas of life. In relationships, as a host, in public, professionally, creatively... I often constantly monitor how people are doing and what impact my behavior (or lack thereof) might have on them. Over the past two years, I've been exploring the topic of people pleasing and will write more about it in the future. In short: It's hard for me to bear when people around me are not doing well, and I quickly slip into the mode of wanting to manage their emotions to then feel better myself. This is often accompanied by assumptions that I've done something wrong and must fix it immediately to make things right again. This leads me to overextend myself without being asked, which eventually results in escalation when I don't feel supported to the same extent (also without being asked). A downward spiral. To counteract this, I've tried to find ways to arrive back at myself. To move out of other people's heads and back into my own mind and body. Not monitoring others, but discovering what I actually feel, what moves me, and what I need. For a long time, I saw being alone as something negative, something involuntary. Only in recent years have I realized how incredibly helpful it is for me simply to be with myself, away from external influences. In Die Freiheit allein zu sein (German book, The freedom to be alone), Sarah Diehl describes the difference between loneliness and solitude. That solitude can help us experience the world and ourselves as authentically as possible. I highly recommend this book. “Solitude is not (just) the absence of someone or something else, but the presence of my undisturbed perception.” – Sarah Diehl Through solitude, sometimes things that I have unconsciously carried with me for a long time can sort themselves out. Like a ball of yarn with knots that need time and quiet to untangle.
August 20, 2025
4 updates
Trust
A culture of building and deepening trust is a culture where repair is taken seriously. "If you trust the people, they become trustworthy." – adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy "Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass–build the resilience by building the relationships." – adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy
Attention
External attention (like feeling desired, admired...) can lead to spiritual ego. It's important to not confuse this type of attention with connection. "What you pay attention to grows." – adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy "The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers." – ThĂch Nhất Hạnh - Gratitude Journaling - Awe Walk
Book: Connect
"Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends & Colleagues" is a book by Carole Robin and David Bradford based on a Stanford MBA course that the authors teach. Carole and David provide actionable advice and stories about exceptional relationships, which they describe as: "you feel seen, known, and appreciated for who you really are, not an edited version of yourself" "think of exceptional relationships as living, breathing organisms that are always changing, always in need of tending, and always always capable of taking your breath away" "When your interactions with another person are at their most authentic, there is a paradigm shift." - "You can be more fully yourself, and so can the other person" - "Both of you are willing to be vulnerable" - "You trust that self-disclosures will not be used against you" - "You can be honest with each other" - "You deal with conflict productively"
Book: Emergent Strategy
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown explores change and organizing with principles inspired by nature and science fiction, especially the writings of Octavia Butler. Learn more about the concept here: Emergent Strategy. "Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass, building authentic relationships, listening with all the senses of the body and the mind." "Emergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for." "There are a million paths into the future, and many of them can be transformative for the whole." adrienne maree brown provides the following principles: - Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.) - Change is constant. (Be like water.) - There is always enough time for the right work. - There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.