Most people are trying to shape their lives amid more uncertainty than they can handle: co-creative skills make this easier. It’s about finding solutions with other people’s needs, with apparent obstacles, with uncertainty, balancing them with your own needs and hopes. This is the fourth, central principle in my Seven Seeds of Natural Happiness, and it will help you with all of them.
I moved straight from directing a large business to starting an organic farm. It was a massive shock. An organic farmer’s work is like driving a tractor without a steering wheel: he or she can’t make anything happen. It’s a continuous juggle between the realities of the weather, the soil, and what you’d like to achieve. Magdalen Farm was my biggest teacher of co-creative ways.
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A valuable co-creative skill is to find an utterly different viewpont if a situation perplexes you. Here are three to try:
Soul Resilience: see my new website for more, including online and in-person groups.
A Gathering of the Tribe: this is a new 9-minute video from Charles Eisenstein, a visionary I rate highly, on making sense of the climate crisis.
In the Stars? Don't ask me how astrology might work, but this view of the 2020s and beyond looks useful to me: by an old friend, Palden Jenkins.
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The holiday time around New Year 2022 has been a chance for some of us to reflect on the outlook for the climate crisis, and it's not a cheery prospect. I have been digging deep to find some constructive responses.
In reviewing current information, I was startled to learn that, if you adjust for the temporary economic slowdown from covid, global carbon emissions in 2021 continued to grow, and the growth rate is accelerating. This is featured in a YouTube talk by David Ramsden MBE, see talk here.
He also reports that CO2 emissions in recent years have been above the trend towards worst case scenarios (3.2o to 5.4o rise by 2100), and that the mean average of projections for 2100 has risen to 4.0o, from 3.5o in 2018.
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Events update
Soul Resilience Weekend: Feb 2022
How your core self can help you grow through storms: with Alan Heeks and Jane Sanders. This retreat is a chance to explore how the deep wisdom of your soul can help you to stay centred and positive, and clarify your purpose: why your soul has chosen to be here in a time of huge change.
Venue: Hazel Hill Wood near Salisbury.
Date: Feb 25-27, 2022.
For more details and bookings, see here.
Soul Resilience Circle
Online groups
Wed Feb 2, Wed Apr 6, 7.30-9.00pm
If you are new to exploring soul insights, or want to go further, these groups are a good opportunity. We will explore different ideas of what soul is, and ways to contact it, to find soul guidance about staying positive, connecting with joy, and finding our life purpose in these troubled times. Free of charge. Limited to 8 participants. If you would like to reserve a place, or want more details, contact Alan.
Nature Immersion for Climate Distress: Tues May 17 - Wed May 18: Hazel Hill Wood, near Salisbury
Leaders: Alan Heeks, Jane Sanders, Marcos Frangos
We can see that the climate crisis is worsening, and we need new ways to respond to rising climate distress. This experiential workshop for therapists and counsellors is a chance to explore and learn how Nature immersion can be part of your approach, both with individuals and groups, drawing on many years of this work by the facilitators and at this unique venue. This workshop is sponsored by the Climate Psychology Alliance, and priority will be given to bookings by CPA members until March 12 2022.
For more info, click here.
Workshops available for group bookings
Alan and his team have several workshops and series available for a group or organisation to book: most can be delivered online or in person.
Grow your own Happiness
Cultivate your wellbeing with gardening skills!
Click here for details.
Future Conversations
Raising group and community resilience through a series of guided conversations.
Click here for details.
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I’m writing this thinks piece in January 2022, to see what I’ve learned from two years’ work in my hometown, and to share my hopes for the year just starting. On this journey, I’ve had to dig deep in my co-creative toolkit, and add some new approaches. So here’s a co-creative take on my local climate work.
a. Wandering with intent: this is how the youngest brothers in fairy tales find their goal. In my work, it has meant trying out a wide range of contacts and initiatives, wandering through online searches, and gradually learning what worked. For an overview of our year 1 insights, see here.
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