A brafe new year: reflecting on our space and time together
In brafe.space, we start each of our Circle sessions with a format we call a brafe-in which provides us each an opportunity to take various perspectives on our lives reflect on those moments which have felt the most meaningful or significant to us.
So, as we begin a new year and journey around the sun, we want to take a minute to conduct an organisational brafe-in, reflecting on those moments, learnings and experiences which have felt the most important to us over the past year, and to share with you our reflections and insights. And just as we invite our community to take multiple perspectives on themselves, we will take multiple perspectives on brafe.space. Here, we will dive deeper into the following perspectives:
The Four Circles of Intimacy: an application of the 4 Quadrant model to the brafe-in practical exercise.
brafe.space as an entrepreneur, ie. an organized, independent object
brafe.space as an individual with subjective experience,
brafe.space as a subjectively experienced relational space,
and brafe.space as a system of objects and people.
We will also share some outcomes and achievements which are the result of our community having participated in a ‘no outcome’ process and approach throughout the year, highlighting and appreciating our natural capacity to connect and collaborate with one another.
2025 BRAFE-IN FOR OUR BRAFE.SPACE
BRAFE.SPACE AS AN ENTREPRENEUR
Experience: Becoming a legal charitable foundation in the end of December.
Feelings and associations: achievement, unity, strength, gratitude, trust, support and/or relief
Making meaning & Significance: So much of the development of brafe.space has been that of processes and principles designed to help us explore what is and build a relational space between us. While brafe.space has had a public presence and involved many people since its initiation, the foundation is the first real example of those processes and principles coming together into an organised structure, or tangible object, that people can interact with. While people might have interacted with the ideas and feelings of a brafe space before, we can now also look at brafe.space as something which exists beyond ourselves, as its own legal entity. What has been most meaningful is that the foundation was created together with 84 members of our space representing the multitude of perspectives and sectors of society we concern ourselves with. In this sense, while it is surely not the only manifestation of brafe.space as an object, the foundation is the most integrated and true-to-intention meta-structure we have developed to date . The process of creating the foundation proved to us not only that members of our community value and appreciate what we are creating, but that we have managed to develop a shared trust in a process, a common vision and structure which we can organize ourselves around, without defining and subscribing to a particular ideology or outcome. There is an immense gratitude and appreciation, almost a sense of wonder, when we recognize the trust people have in these processes and one another, and that they are willing to contribute their resources based on that trust.
Our appreciation is also extended to the bureaucratic offices, who supported us in stretching old-fashioned structured into an innovative vehicle which can support the business model and activities of brafe.space. Foundations are normally constructed to showcase the legacy and resources of a single individual - so on behalf of our 84 co-founders, we thank those who filed the paperwork and supported us in coordinating!
BRAFE.SPACE AS AN INDIVIDUAL WITH SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE
Experience: Our retreat with the community, board and circle hosts this past year, we see the impact and things are unfolding - shift in perspective/felt sense of the space.
Feelings and associations: lightheartedness, connection, strength, curiosity, openness
Making meaning & Significance: Next to our yearly meditation retreats, we invited our Circle hosts on a retreat, along with our Board, to explore what we called ‘Energetic Leadership’ and its applications in brafe.space. To do so, we distributed each of our principles and used a variety of meditative, somatic, and relational practices to explore and understand them beyond the conceptual. In focusing on the dynamics between the different principles and our personal journeys with them, we gained a much greater appreciation and sense of brafe.space’s complexity. We gained an empathy and respect for one another which allowed us to step back and witness one another being without judgement while having unique experiences. When we looked at our experience together and how we supported one another through it, we gained a real clarity on what dynamic, capacity-based leadership looks like in practice, and the importance of holding lighthearted attitudes towards one another and that which is exchanged between us. This lightheartedness made such a clear impact on our ability to practice positive traits and confront reality that we decided together with those groups to add lightheartedness as an official principle.
BRAFE.SPACE AS A RELATIONAL SPACE
Experience: Our brafe Camp 2024 from September.
Feelings and associations: complex, stimulating, warm, dynamic, fragile
Making meaning & Significance: Our brafe Camp is consistently one of the more special and significant moments which we share as a community each year. This year, we invited our friends from HELD to co-facilitate the program, focused on taking a new perspective on systems of oppression and how we each contribute to and experience them, within ourselves and our relationships. The exchanges which took place along the program where intense, and affirmed to many of us our growing capacity to have difficult conversations together with those who may have radically different experiences or perspectives. Perhaps most meaningful however, was the expressed desire from the group to connect and exchange with one another amongst themselves about the experiences we have been making within the space. For the first time, we noticed that there was a clear enough understanding of what brafe.space is that we might be able to make it the object of exploration itself. This is a result of the contributions of our community to the development of an increasingly rich program, as well as having a growing clarity amongst key contributors which enables knowledge and information to be shared much more efficiently than in the past. Such community development is so essential for what brafe.space aims to do, and steps like moving from a centralized to co-created facilitation, as well as centralized to decentralized cultural communication are positive signs that we are moving in the right direction.
BRAFE.SPACE AS A SYSTEM IN OUR WORLD
Experience: Attempts at a brafe Anti-Pitch
Feelings and associations: hesitation, shame, curiosity, frustration, tension, bravery
Making meaning & Significance: Where to begin? We are most likely still in a process of making meaning on this particular topic, but that does not negate the significance of that which we have experienced and learned so far. At the start of 2024, we set out to create a format or structure which would facilitate the relationships we have as funders and founders in a space where people are also asked to put their roles and transactional ideas aside. We developed the Anti-Pitch, and were almost immediately confronted with a hesitation to approaching the topic and showing up in such a diverse space to talk openly and honestly about money and our funding/fundraising needs. There was also a clear curiosity and hope towards that which might emerge. After several attempts of getting the right constellation into a room together, we were able to recognise the need for smaller discussion groups where we can each be safe enough to our own internal dynamics with money, before finding the bravery to address them together with others who might have very different experiences or viewpoints. With this, we need to balance the strategic intention of activating fundings in our space in the short-term (very action-oriented, in relationship) with the need of funders and founders to engage in a longer process of developing their relational space within their roles (very reflective, leaning individual). The process has been a reminder in empathy and again space creation, as well as a training for the organisation in slowing down to focus on the relational space, especially when approaching own our own ambitious expectations and financial pressures.
CELEBRATING OUTCOMES OF OUR NO OUTCOME PROCESS
We embrace a ‘no outcome’ attitude at brafe.space; however, this does not make us exceptional from cause and effect - there is always some outcome to our actions. No outcome as a principle refers to setting aside our individual outcomes when we meet, and rather sharing our insights and ideas from a state of mind where we are curious and open about what others might contribute, and what might emerge from our collective contributions. It is one of the most annoying and frustrating principles to put into action, as it challenges our oh-so-strong reactivity and solution-oriented minds, forcing ourselves to look at what is rather than what we would like to see.
Without having a pre-determined outcome for the last year, we can look in retrospect to see what organically emerged from our interactions and collaboration. It brings us an immense amount of gratitude to see and observe all the ways our community has contributed over the last year. As we detailed:
The Brafe Foundation: we became a legal foundation involving 84 co-founders ****in our founding and securing the starting capital.
More Circle Hosts: expanded our Circle Host Group to 17 and became even more clear the responsibility the role entails in shaping the Circles experiences as well too much support in needed for this role to succeed.
Lightheartedess joins Core Principles: On a collective exploration of the core of brafe.space’s intention and vision, we realized lightheartedness was missing. It got officially added a key quality we want to embrace in our space.
Ways of Being: enhanced our understanding of systems of oppression and liberatory ways of being, with support from our new friends at HELD
Perspectives Podcast: launched the Perspectives podcast, featuring different voices from our community reflecting on their experiences in brafe.space and how it is shaping their roles and relationships beyond our space
Increased Co-Creation: made significant moves towards a dynamic leadership model & co-creation, strategically shifting responsibilities into our community and more organized small groups
Brafe Tuesday on Tour: began sharing responsibility for our brafe Tuesday format, hosting it on our hubs in Munich and Hamburg and very soon in Cologne!
Brafe Funding: completed various funding rounds, in both the profit and non-profit sectors, as well as observing an increase ad-hoc collaboration across members of our space and their organisations
Brafe Labs: completed our first lab group exploring board meetings across various sectors and organisations represented in our space, and preparing learnings and insights for wider distribution
The Brafe Deck: our brafe card deck was developed and produced as a tool for reflection and bringing brafe explorations into our homes and organizations. The deck integrates key concepts from brafe.space with the structure of a traditional Tarot and conceptrs from integral theory.
We invite you to explore the links above to learn more about how these specific initiatives are shaping brafe.space, as well as in which ways you might be involved. With another year of no outcome ahead of us, we are curiously and openly waiting to see what will emerge from our gatherings and exchange.
brafe.space is currently an invitation only space and has closed requests for joining its 2025 cohort. If you are an entrepreneur highly motivated to participate in our space, please use the contact form to reach out and share about yourself and intentions.