Offering #1: Regenerating Life from the Inside Out
Regeneration only becomes real when it is a lived, embodied experience. I discovered that before I can effectively regenerate places from the Outside In, I must first learn to regenerate myself from the Inside Out. Join 9-weeks of Shared Practice to build real capacity by examining your own life.
In order to regenerate life, I have discovered I cannot simply spend my time thinking or talking about regeneration like I know what it means, like I am an expert. Regeneration only becomes real when it is a lived, embodied experience. When I understand it from the Outside In and the Inside Out.
The Outside In
Since 2016, when I did the inaugural TRP (The Regenerative Practitioner programme) in Aotearoa New Zealand, I approached this work from the 'outside in.' I learned to image living systems and design projects that would 'regenerate' life out there. But I consistently hit a wall of not being very effective and getting quite stressed about it. Something was missing in my practice.
From 2019, I began engaging in a different crucible, joining intensive, multi-year cohorts focused on professional development (CAD) and regenerating business (TRBDC) personally hosted by Carol Sanford. It was really hard work, but I started to notice an evolution in my capability to think. Others noticed it too.
The missing piece was a focus on evolving my consciousness. I set this down as an aim for one whole year 'to evolve my consciousness,' and it slowly lit up everything for me. I started to become more effective in how I was working. I became less reactive in teams, able to use frameworks to think things through with others, and started initiating my own projects like the Deep Pacific Regenerative Dialogues. But I still felt like a beginner, and the truth was I was only just beginning.
The Inside Out
Since Carol's passing at the end of 2024, when she laid down the challenge of not continuing anything she had created—which meant no more CAD or TRBDC, even if capably led by her lineage members—I have been wondering what to offer. The only criteria was that it had to be an expression of my essence; otherwise, it was unlikely to regenerate the work of this school.
Unfortunately, it took getting very sick with diabetic burnout for me to truly see what it means to embody regenerative work. My healing journey involved stewarding my own living system back to health using an integrated approach, informed by living systems thinking and the latest in human physiological and psychological research.
What I discovered was surprising, and the results I could only express as being miraculous: I started to regenerate in body and mind. This led me to deeply understand the importance of the first line of work—learning to regenerate oneself—before trying to do the third line work of regenerating place.
From this experience, I have concluded both the Outside In and Inside Out approaches are needed for my practice to be effective. It is not one or the other. And in realising this, I think I now better understand what it means to be part of a Fourth Way school, but I am still learning.
The Offering
It is in the spirit of the ongoing, raw journey of evolving consciousness that I am hosting a 9-week Practice Intensive around an online campfire focused entirely on regenerating yourself and building real capacity from the dirty mess of your own life. We will utilise Carol Sanford's Regenerative Life framework as a navigational compass for exploring this terrain. There is no syllabus here, only shared practice.
The cost of entry is your commitment to shared practice over 9 weeks.
Register your interest here for the next Campfire.
See some of you there,
Ākāśadāka
