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. Read more

The Diamond Process offers a route map for the co-creative approach, and a framework for using both sides of the brain. I developed this process as a way of teaching managers how to handle high levels of change and uncertainty. It is relevant for issues of many kinds, including practical, big- picture, or emotional. It can be applied quickly or in depth.

     The shape of the diamond symbolises the shape of most change processes. There is a starting point: an intention, a question, a partial understanding of the situation. From this point, the picture widens into growing uncertainty, confusion, and contradiction. A successful change process then finds new insight that gives clarity and focus, bringing the process to a finishing point, which in turn will typically be the start of another diamond. Read more

Alan writes: I feel very blessed to have initiated some pioneering, land-based projects, including Hazel Hill Wood and Bridport Cohousing. I'm now in a different phase of life, semi-retired, and pondering what I can do as an elder and enabler who still has some remaining energy and capital to put into one more project.

     Having moved to Wales ten months ago, the potential for positive change and new initiatives feels greater here. The issue which inspires me most is to help the many people who are searching for a higher meaning and purpose in these crisis times, to guide them in both self-care and practical action. It's an ambitious vision, which will need a lot of co-creativity. See more in this link, and if you're interested, please contact me.

Here are links to Alan's two most recent interviews. To see info and links to all podcasts, click here.

Guided Walk facilitated by Sarah Price around Talgarth, Brecon with special guest author Alan Heeks who will show how to deepen our connections with Nature, so we can strengthen our roots and grow our wellbeing. Book here

Finding the Sufi twist

These days, what seems to be reality in the human world of social media, fake news and actual crises, is mostly depressing and disempowering. However! For centuries, the Sufis have helped us to see life differently: to twist perception so that we perceive the divine link and the cosmic joke.

     This evening we will draw on Sufi poets like Rumi and Shabistari, and dance towards beauty, joy and playfulness. Contact Alan to book a place: [email protected].

How can we find our steady centre in these uncertain times? Where do we place our faith and our hope? This day of exploration and support will include times of prayer, meditation and sharing, with periods outside for walking contemplation as a micro pilgrimage, and for communing with Nature as a micro vision quest: recognising the power of space and silence. More details.

This weekend offers a shared space to explore as a peer group how we harvest the fruits and adjust to the losses of getting older: a chance to look afresh at our past and present, and consider the future we’d like to help create. How can we serve as elders in these troubled times, and be good ancestors to those who come after us? What’s the balance, in later life, between inner contemplation and outer action? This retreat is intended as a supportive circle for men who would like to explore these and other questions. More details.