BRIDGET MULLINS she/they

For over 13 years, I have been guiding individuals and collectives through transformative change. As a seasoned facilitator, experience designer, certified coach and artist, I have worked in 11 countries and across various sectors, with clients ranging from large governmental agencies to rural farmers, from people experiencing incarceration to C-suite executives.

My graduate studies and professional training include conflict transformation, emergent facilitation, complexity science, conscious leadership, Integral Coaching, Liberating Structures, Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry, Designing Difficult Conversations, Circle Processes, Theater for Community Conflict and Dialogue, Theory U and the Art of Hosting.

My innovative approach also integrates arts-based methods, drawing particularly on my significant experience as a playback theater artist. In life and work, I am forever evolving my skills and awareness by being embedded in global communities of practice, including DSIL Global and Enspiral.

But of course, there is a longer story …

Drawn to the stranger path

I have felt at home on stranger paths since childhood.

Born and raised in a small Midwestern town, I was surrounded by the conventionalities of white modernity, and yet deeper possibilities for life always called to me. I remember being captivated by the stories of mystics and saints—they were passionate, intense, and weird, and I loved that. I kept that weirdish flame alive by losing myself in imaginative play, growing up in the arts, and making room for my empathetic soul to care about a bigger world than was presented to me. For my undergraduate degree, I chose peace studies and classical music. It was a strange choice. The fields could not have felt more disconnected. But as has been the case so often in my life, I found that holding polarities and disparate interests revealed surprising connections.

At the intersection of art, facilitation and transformation

During my undergrad, I began to explore the intersection of arts and societal transformation, drawn to the work of thinkers like Paulo Freire, Augusto Boal, and bell hooks.

I also broke free from the Midwest and spent a lot of time in Central and South America. I loved their rich histories of activism and their community-based methods for changing oppressive systems and fostering liberation. As I began to see art as a tool rather than my identity, I stepped off the path to an MFA and onto a plane to work in Santiago, Chile. There I fell in love with the art of facilitation and discovered my knack for leading the creative dínamicas that my Chilean colleagues used to enliven participation.

Deepening practices and cracking open possibilities

In time, I returned to United States to complete a master’s in conflict transformation.

I also worked intensively in playback theater, discovering the transformative potential of storytelling to bridge divides, cultivate empathy, and spark meaningful dialogue in the most diverse settings. Next, I dove into the facilitation sandbox of working for Amizade, a non-profit focused on fair-trade learning. Each year, I ran upwards of 10 immersive programs with young people from all over the world. Simultaneously, I was reshaping my personal world in profound ways, shedding childhood rules of identity and individualism for lessons of authenticity and collectivism learned through my work, art and communities.

Committing to our collective way forward

In 2020, I began working for myself and stepped into a life that had been calling me—one that was more collective, queer, and in-practice toward inventing new ways of working and living together.

In doing this, I began to find individuals, communities, and organizations all over the world who were on a similar journey. In 2021, I took DSIL Global’s Regenerative Leadership course and found my family of dreamers and doers. This cascaded into my involvement in Better Work Together and joining Enspiral, a collective of individuals that operates on the principles of radical transparency, self-management, and decentralized decision-making, united by a shared commitment to social change.

The lessons so far

To choose a stranger path we have to allow things to die.

So many times, I have felt upturned and laid bare. But every difficult moment has opened up a path back to myself. What gets me up each day is the opportunity to connect with brave, brilliant, and passionate people who are willing to take risks to shape a more generative future. I believe that these are times to experiment and create. To be brave and gentle. To exit the cocoon and face the world as it is, together. Now, more than ever, each of us is called to choose a new way forward, grounded in greater care for ourselves, the fellow beings with whom we share community, and the planet on which we live.