#LCAW2026 Between Endings and Beginnings: Honoring Our Pain for the World through the Truth Mandala
As we work towards local and global climate action, many of us carry grief, anger, fear and uncertainty about what is being lost through extractive models of growth and development. This includes degraded ecosystems, biodiversity loss, fractured communities and fragile futures. These emotions are natural responses to loving our world, yet they are rarely held collectively within our movements and work.
Drawing on Joanna Macy's Work That Reconnects, this facilitated spiral session offers a space to honour our emotional response to the social and ecological challenges of our time. Through the Truth Mandala, participants are invited to express what they carry and to discover the connection, resilience and courage that can emerge when our emotions are witnessed rather than suppressed.
Moving together through the spiral of Gratitude, Honouring Our Pain for the World, Seeing with New Eyes and Going Forth, participants will reconnect with the deeper sources of meaning, motivation and hope that sustain long-term climate action. This is a space between what is ending and what is yet to begin, where supporters, practitioners and advocates of climate action are invited to pause, reflect and return with renewed clarity, connection and courage.
Facilitated by Denise Pang and Samantha Gibbins from the Work that Reconnects.
Samantha is a freelance facilitator, coach and shapeshifter; a word she uses to describe both herself and the people she works with: those bridging different worlds, navigating transitions, and trying to respond to a changing landscape on their own terms. Trained as a chemist and later as an embodied systems coach, she works at the intersection of inner development and collective action, bringing playful, nature-based and somatic approaches to her practice. She has facilitated Work That Reconnects spaces since 2023 through Learning to Reconnect, and has supported climate action initiatives at both local and national level. Currently based in the U.K., Samantha is a keen wild swimmer, obsessed with wolves, and rarely found far from a muddy riverbank.
Denise is a regenerative coach, facilitator and learning designer with over 15 years of experience in leadership and organisational development across higher education, the public sector and multinational organisations. She is the founder of Flo-Global and co-founder of the Academy for Mastery. Prior to this, her corporate career spans 15 years in global technology companies, responsible for business development and strategic alliances across Asia Pacific. Born in Singapore with Dutch, Indonesian and Chinese roots, she is currently based in Oslo, Norway with her family.