Emerging Transformational Themes

Embodied Permaculture Project

We’re 10 months into the Alef Trust funded Embodied Permaculture Project, working with twenty changemakers from the UK and Europe to support their inner flourishing in support of the outer work they bring to the world.

Through a potent combination of group and 1-1 coaching plus individual practice, we’re facilitating a process of grounding, attunement, opening and integration within the community that is an inspiration and an honour to participate in.

It’s a deep dive into embodiment practice, emotional process work, connective and relational practice, attunement to inner knowing and intuitive guidance and learning to act from a deep sense of grounded presence.

The world of regenerative and restorative change-making is prone to burning out, falling out and dropping out. Our project seeks to ask the question: what happens to permaculture work and permaculture practitioner when approached from the felt experience of being nature working rather than “working with nature”? When the separation between self and other, self and world begins to soften into an experience of embedded connection and flow?

Clear themes are beginning to emerge from this community of practice: more grounded nervous system regulation, a sense of fully inhabiting the body, more inner confidence and trust, greater capacity to hold space for others and mediate conflict, a shift towards inner rather than outer knowing, less judgement of self and other and more ease flowing with life instead of a sense of fighting against it.

We’ll be sharing this journey theme by theme in the participant’s own words over subsequent weeks. It’s clear though that the project is making a positive impact in their lives and their work and that it has beneficial implications for the wider world of changemakers.

Here’s one participant’s reflections on the transformation that is unfolding:

“I turned from being busy, irritable and feeling scattered, into a calm "just being", feeling grounded, feeling connected to others and my surroundings, in the now. From my head into my entire body. From focused on "to do" to opened up to the world (and still effective). In the process I also got to know myself better, I notice more patterns in my behaviour, family patterns and cultural patterns.

My shift to "being" means that I am more open and available for others. I now have patience, I listen better and with more than just an ear-brain combination; I feel the situation better. I can also trust my inner wisdom when I tune in to it, and words come when I need them.”