The Great Work – Seeding Our Future

Dreams against Despair: Thomas Berry and the power of myth

Dreams, in the sense of inspiring visions, and myths, in the sense of powerful beliefs, have a huge influence on our world. Think of Mandela and Gandhi: two lone figures whose dreams overturned a myth which upheld a powerful Establishment. Deep down, I feel a lot of pain and despair for the state of our … Read more

Grow your own Happiness

60-90-minute online workshop Cultivate your wellbeing with gardening skills! Available for group bookingsWith Alan Heeks In these stormy times, we need new skills to stay happy. A cultivated ecosystem, like a garden, is a role model for human nature: this workshop shows how gardening methods can help you grow your own happiness and deepen the roots of your resilience. For example: Mulching and pruning to nourish your rootsComposting stress as a source of energyUse gardening skills like observation and creativityFind new ways to adapt to the climate crisisDraw inspiration from Nature to guide you in uncertainty Alan Heeks has over 25 years of experience exploring Natural Happiness with groups. It grows from creating a 130-acre organic farm and education centre at Magdalen Farm in West Dorset, and from gardening with his wife at home. In this online workshop, Alan will describe the Seven Seeds of Natural Happiness, and participants will have a chance to try some of them out. Alan is happy to take bookings for this event from environmental, community and other groups, at a time of their choosing for a moderate fee by negotiation. CONTACT LINK
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NATURAL HAPPINESS: cultivate your resilience with the Gardener’s Way

July 9-11 2021: at Hazel Hill Wood, near Salisbury With Alan Heeks, Jane Sanders and Marcos Frangos How can you stay happy when there’s too much change and uncertainty? This workshop shows you how: to cultivate yourself like a garden, and grow your own wellbeing by learning from natural ecosystems, using Alan’s unique Natural Happiness model. In this workshop we’ll explore these questions, with the natural ecosystem of this magical wood as our guide. Our methods will include: nourishing our roots; composting problems; using co-creative skills to work with nature; growing inspiration; and ecosystem insights about community. Along with workshop sessions, there will be solo times in the wood, plus good food, campfires and songs to nourish us. This will be a residential group at Hazel Hill Wood: if Covid restrictions prevent this, it will be run with a series of online sessions with personal time in between. We will explore how to grow resilience for individuals and communities, especially in response to the climate crisis and the related pandemic. If you are interested in using this model in your professional work with individuals or groups, Alan will be happy to offer you advice and support: the content of this workshop relates to his fourth book, which is planned for publication in late 2021. Alan Heeks has been exploring resilience with people and nature for many years, and has led many groups on this theme, drawing on experience of resilient natural systems from creating an organic farm and setting up Hazel Hill. Jane Sanders has over 25 years’ experience in working with a mindfulness based approach to wellbeing with groups and individuals, and has also incorporated deep ecology, ecopsychology and the wisdom of natural systems into her work in many different settings, including numerous groups at Hazel Hill Wood. Marcos Frangos is widely experienced in group facilitation, coaching, counselling and constellations work. He was General Manager of Hazel Hill Wood for 5 years, and has co- led many groups there with Jane and Alan. Cost including food and accommodation: £220, concessions £180. We will share cooking and other community tasks. To secure a place, we will need a deposit of £40, £30 for concessions: if, nearer the time we have to run this as an event online event, your deposit will cover the cost of this, or you can receive a full refund. Hazel Hill is a magical 70-acre conservation woodland and retreat centre, 7 miles from Salisbury. It has simple, yet beautifully crafted off-grid wooden buildings with lovely indoor and outdoor group spaces, basic accommodation in bedrooms and sleeping lofts (or camping), good hot showers and compost loos. See more at www.hazelhill.org.uk For bookings and enquiries: Please contact Carol Nourse via email on: naturalhappinesscontact@gmail.com
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Resource Toolkit: Creative Conflict Resolution

Many challenges involve conflict. This process is one I’ve used often myself, and have taught in training groups. You can use the gist in minor conflict, and the full process in major ones. Here we move on to human skills which can help you to compost difficult situations. We often regard conflicts as bad, or wrong: actually they’re a normal part of life in the human and natural worlds. Many people find conflicts alarming, and react in fight or flight mode: attacking, or trying to withdraw. While the process below may look quite formal, that’s appropriate for major disputes of many kinds, and you can use the gist of it informally too. I’ve found it helpful in conflicts with neighbours, in community groups, friendships, and at work. Conflicts are hot situations and like most hot things, they need careful handling to avoid someone being hurt. This three-stage process is drawn from experts in conflict management, such as Edward de Bono. Conflict quickly brings up strong emotions, and deep concerns such as respect and safety. People can move quickly from the facts of the present situation into a habit or pattern. For some people, this can mean getting angry and aggressive, for some it means walking away and cutting off, for others it can mean going very quiet and not expressing their views. Clearly, some conflicts are more big and complex than others. Sometimes you can use these three stages very quickly and simply. In more serious situations, it helps to have more time, and some independent support. STAGE 1: COOLING Many conflicts heat up, escalate, and get out of hand very quickly. The basic aim of the cooling stage is to prevent this. There are three main steps to cooling; Hear the other parties’ feelings: in a conflict, people typically will get more hot, angry and loud as long as they feel that the other party has not heard them. Hearing someone is not the same as agreeing with them! Saying something like, “I can hear that you are very upset about this”, usually helps: you may need to say it several times before the other party can hear you! Slow the process down: because conflict is uncomfortable for most people, there is a desire to end it quickly. However, this often means that one party imposes power on the other, and there is no real understanding or resolution between the parties. Suggesting that both parties take ‘time out’ for a few minutes, a few hours or even a few days, depending on the scale of the situation, can help to cool the process. Restore respect: in the early heat of a conflict, people may make angry or insulting comments, which leave the other person feeling disrespected. Try to make good any damage caused by this. For example, you might invite the other person to apologise or at least correct their statements by saying, “when you called me a stupid idiot just a few minutes ago, I felt very upset by that.” An independent person can help a lot at this stage. STAGE 2: CLARIFYING This stage begins when both parties’ emotional heat has reduced to a level where they can talk about how to proceed from here, and about the issues and needs they have. The clarifying stage has four aims: – To deal with any power and safety issues that could prevent true negotiation – To form an initial agreement on a process to resolve the conflict – To get all the needs and issues out on the table and understood by both parties – To develop an atmosphere of trust, safety and collaboration as a basis for the third stage. Power and Safety Issues: it is common for one party to feel less powerful in a conflict. If so, probably they will feel less safe, less able to negotiate freely. It is up to the party with more power to take the initiative to create a sense of safety. Agree a process: discussing with each other how to resolve the conflict is hopefully a move from a focus on emotions, to problem-solving together. It may help to agree guidelines on how to keep the emotional heat down for the rest of the process, for example: – We agree that we will only discuss this face-to-face, we will not ‘negotiate’ by making remarks to other people, or trying to catch the other party informally in other settings. – We agree to keep all of our discussions totally confidential throughout the process. – If either party feels emotionally threatened, they can call time out, and suspend the discussions for up to 48 hours. – We agree that neither party will take any action which might damage the future relationship. At this stage, seek a provisional agreement on the process for resolving the conflict. For example, an overall time period, when to meet, who should be involved, whether to use a mediator, and so on. Needs and issues: this should be given plenty of time. The primary aim is to know and understand all the needs and issues of both parties, not to resolve them. It is best to get everything ‘on the table’, including emotional needs/issues. It can be helpful to talk about how the conflict arose, and why it became so emotionally heated. This enables each party to accept that they played a part in bringing the conflict about, and gets away from the idea that one party is guilty and ‘started it’, and the other is an innocent victim. The term issues is used here simply to mean any points of conflict between the parties. Here is one way in which the issues can be sorted into categories. 1. Factual issues: Many conflicts arise because there is a misunderstanding or partial knowledge of the facts.2. Interest issues: The benefits or outcomes which each party wants from the negotiation.3. Power issues: This includes a sense of power imbalance between the parties, a sense that one has […]
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