The Cave of Us: Why Change Can Feel Like Loss
- Dr Shungu Hilda M’gadzah
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
Through the SSF Lens: Everyday News Reflections
🔍 Looking beyond headlines to understand people, systems and behaviour
This week’s headlines may have appeared very different on the surface:
Mental health strategy discussions.
Debates around race and anti-racism.
Growing tensions around workplace inclusion.
Neurodiversity and belonging.
Leadership and psychological safety.
Different headlines.
Different sectors.
Different language.
But through the Six Stages Framework lens, I found myself wondering whether many of these stories were asking a similar question:
Who gets included within “us”… and what happens when the boundaries begin to widen?
Because perhaps some of today’s social conversations are not simply about policy.
Perhaps they are also about identity.
About familiarity.
About belonging.
And about what happens when environments begin changing around us.
Through the SSF lens, responses may sit across a continuum.
🔹 Stage -2: Dismissive and Resistant"Why are we talking about this all the time?"Difference can feel like disruption.
🔹 Stage 0: Uncertain"Something feels different but I cannot quite name it."Confusion and discomfort begin appearing.
🔹 Stage +2: Awakening"Perhaps not everyone experiences these systems in the same way."Curiosity starts opening space.
🔹 Stage +5: Systems Thinker"What assumptions shape who naturally belongs?"
Because perhaps systems do not simply organise services.
They also organise belonging.
This week I found myself thinking about several caves:
🏔 Cave of Us
🏔 Cave of Comfort
🏔 Cave of Systems
🏔 Cave of Belonging
And perhaps one question sits beneath them all:
When change feels threatening — what exactly feels under threat?
Power?
Certainty?
Identity?
Familiarity?
Or the boundaries around who we unconsciously call “us”?
Perhaps widening the Cave of Us does not take something away.
Perhaps it asks us to create more space.
đź’ Reflection:
When systems change, identities shift, and new voices enter spaces:
What feels threatened—fairness, familiarity, power, certainty… or the Cave of Us?
What are you looking at- and how does it look through the SSF lens?
Stories and conversations informing this week’s reflection: The Cave of Us: Why Change Can Feel Like Loss
🧠Mental health strategy discussions exploring prevention and earlier intervention.
⚖️ Ongoing anti-racism and equity conversations shifting from statements toward systems change.
🏢 Workplace inclusion and psychological safety debates, including questions around belonging and resistance to change.
♾ Neurodiversity and belonging discussions increasingly moving from “fixing people” toward redesigning environments.
👥 Leadership conversations exploring culture, safety and who gets included within “us.”
These stories became the starting point for a broader reflection through the Six Stages Framework.
Different headlines. Different sectors. Different language.
But perhaps a shared question:
Who gets included within “us”… and what happens when the boundaries begin to widen?
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