Hidden Gems: Meet Miriam Jones

Today we’d like to introduce you to Miriam Jones.

Hi Miriam, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
“There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. From “The Way It Is” by William Stafford.

My career has been pretty consistently one of breaking new ground, following an idea that won’t leave my heart and beckons me to fulfill its purpose. I enter curious and determined.

Along the way, I have learned the nuances of what it is to take a creative stance in my life – for us to create new ideas, projects, and organizations from a spark that lived in us and then spread to others. I have had the joy of walking beside organizations and individuals as they imagine and step into their lives through hard transitions and through exciting dreams.

About twelve years ago I came to LA from Australia. It was for me an investigation into a major transition I felt in the world and a call to learn and understand how we could collectively move through this transition and access greater wisdom and creativity in problems that seemed far more complex than any one individual. community or country to solve.

This led me into a deeply experiential journey of ecology and a shift in my life towards understanding human systems as ecological systems and a way of knowing not born primarily in the rational mind but in a knowing that comes from a felt sense of movement.

This dramatically changed the way I approached my life and my work. It also fundamentally challenged what I have learned about how organizations were structured and run. With Adam Rumack we formed We are Open Circle to continue to explore and share this approach.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
For me, challenges and obstacles are also the points of transitions and learning.

Our premise is that the resources and creative capacity are available to those addressing local and global needs and crises we are facing. The blockages to this are outdated modes of how we are working together to achieve our common missions and aims.

We assist people and organizations and community networks in transforming their approach to treating human systems as ecological systems. This is a paradigm shift and has far-reaching effects on how we are doing what we are doing.

In our experience, it takes time and guidance for a group to move through this and remain whole. This is diametrically against the quick-fix, fast-moving, bullet point of our predominant culture.

It is also not what an organization or person necessarily wants to hear when they feel the changes and are scared.

They want answers and to fix it.

We guide and empower groups of people through this so they can adapt and work with our changing world and learn together to access and effectively use the resources around them.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The purpose of We are Open Circle is to address the root cause of inequity, imbalance, and misalignment of actions and values in workplaces and community networks.

We are known for leading organizations and leaders through transitions that elevate the spirit and mission of that person and organization in how they work together alongside what they’re achieving.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Over COVID we delivered hundreds of events and programs online.

What people who have worked with us may not realize is the way transformational work is accelerated when taking it out of the office into a wild or semi-wild setting.

It gives people a felt sense of the balance, movement, and magic of being part of an ecological system. These lessons breathe life into the way we approach the work we are doing in the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.weareopencircle.com
• Instagram: @weareopencircle
• Facebook: We are Open Circle
• Youtube: We are Open Circle
• Other: https://weareopencircle.com/blpodcastblog