Who Am I As Place? for problem-solvers for planet & people
A guided session for problem-solvers for planet and people who sense that we need to do things differently to unfold flourishing futures for all.
It starts with you - because you are an incredible meeting place of ways of knowing, being and doing, rooted in culture, heritage, traditions, landscapes, language and languages and lived experiences across time.
When you reconnect with self-as-place - you imagine and narrate from a place of belonging, hope and agency, that creates the change that you're longing for.
About this practice
As people taking climate action, working in sustainability and sustainable development, working to end inequalities, connecting people to Nature, and passionate about a better world, many of us have sensed that things need to shift.
We're feeling the disconnect that happens when our language and thinking is mechanistic and distanced from living systems. We sense when we borrow words and concepts from regeneration without inhabiting their meaning - we hear the echo of something forgotten.
Deep down you know that the systems and structures that we’ve been using, aren’t what we need to truly bring about transformational change.
Reconnecting with Self-as-Place
As problem-solvers for planet and people where we imagine and narrate from, is where we create change from.
So if we keep speaking from the same place, we won't get out of the mess that we're in, or make change based on relationships, kinship and restoration across our communities that we're longing to make.
We need to explore who we are as imaginers and narrators of change, to reconnect with ourself-as-place to close the belonging gap between what we want to create and where we are creating from.
Who Am I As Place? Session
This guided session will help you to re‑orient where you are creating change from — especially when old habits, colleagues, controversial issues and institutional pressures keep pulling you back into ways of thinking and speaking that are well-meaning but never truly going to shift the dial.
Through the session's activities, you’ll discover your unique cultural repertoire as the source of your imagination and problem-solving creativity.
You’ll unlearn and re-orient, as you reconnect with the deeper wisdoms, relationships with landscapes, and lived experiences that continuously shape who you are.
When you do, you’ll come home to your own pluricultural identity, closing the belonging gap within yourself, so that you can imagine, narrate, and create change for flourishing futures from this place.
Mapping
In this interactive session, you’ll be guided to map your own pluricultural identity using Flourishing Futures Collective® Who Am I as Place? Canvas.
You'll experience a remembering of what has been silenced, hidden, or excluded.
You'll be guided to imagine and narrate flourishing futures, to experience the shift, and gain confidence in speaking from your self-as-place.
What this practice is (and is not)
This is not a strategy session. It’s not about making plans.
It is a practice of reconnecting with self-as-place, as the foundation from which you move forward as a changemaker, daring to do things differently.
Words are magic. When you imagine and narrate from self-as-place, you open up a multiplicity of possible futures, ready to emerge and flourish.
When this is useful
This practice is for you, if:
You sense the limits of current approaches but don’t know how to move away from these.
You’re curious about how sustainability, sustainable development and climate actions solutions could really disrupt the status quo and make an impact.
You want to explore what flourishing futures might be like so that you can start creating them today.
You’re itching to stop fitting in, and start voicing change like a rebel, so that you belong to your self, Nature and those around you.
What you will gain
You’ll leave the session:
With your own Who Am I as Place? Canvas serving you as an evolving identity map of belonging.
Knowing how to imagine and narrate from your self-as-place.
Becoming part of the Flourishing Futures Collective® community.
What you'll need
Willingness to listen.
Openness to many ways of knowing, being and doing.
Paper and something to draw with – pens, crayons, coloured pencils.
Who this is for
This practice is for anyone who is longing to find new ways of knowing, being and doing, and is working to engage communities, stakeholders, partners, or teams to enable social, economic and environmental change.
Access
This practice is offered with 3 contribution pathways:
Community - £37 – for those with limited financial capacity.
Professional - £77 – for those able to make a full contribution.
Gardener - £137 – for those able in abundance who also want to pay-it-forward by donating a Community space.
All participants take part in the same practice.
This is an honour-system. Please choose the level that feels right for you, so that meaningful work can be done by all.
About me
I’ve been working in social transformation for over 30 years, across sustainability, education, community engagement, and futures practice.
My work now focuses on helping people reconnect with self-as-place, as the starting point for imagining, narrating and creating flourishing futures, so that we move towards Indigenous wisdoms without being extractive of them.