Empowering Stories

embodied facilitation

Welcome to facilitating the Art of relating to the Whole

Life unfolds
according to
the stories we tell ourselves
about the creative power we wield
about the magic we wage
about the extractive destruction
we perpetrate and endure
about the oppressions
that shape us
about the liberations
that enable us
about the deep knowing
that bonds us
about the interbeing
that creates us

Why embodied facilitation?

Collective intelligence is a natural phenomenon. Social conditioning, implicit hierarchies and societal structures of oppression block it all too often. Through a decolonial ecofeminist lens, it becomes evident that these forces act first and foremost on the body.

The physical experience of being in a space, team or project varies according to personal and ancestral histories. Embodied facilitation takes this reality seriously. It starts from the lived reality in the bodies who are present and enables commitment, co-creation and action from there.

From me to you

I bring to light the diversity of voices existing in each gathering, team and individual. All voices bear an important contribution to the Whole. My contribution is to design the space to hold this plurality.

Together we explore how diverse needs, reactions and creativities can unite behind a common vision. I am dedicated to enabling the wisdom of all bodies to engage in the continuous process of co-creating the transformation, that we so dearly need in these times.

My Services

team and organisational development

I know the situation in teams, when everyone just tries to cooperate without expressing grievances until it’s too late; when much has accumulated that all well-intended attempts at updating the work process, the decision-making structures and management goals are in vain. But I have also experienced teams stepping out of the vicious cycle and enter the flow spiral together to make incredible things happen, with few resources, little time and the simple will of the inspired and connected. And we can support each other in practicing and uplifting ourselves. We can co-regulate each other out of situations of distress. We can develop habits and structures together based on our common choice of which kind of atmosphere we want to live and work in. We can get it – that moment when tension rises and threatens to take over and instead we can choose to go another way and uplift ourselves together out of adversity into complicity and active hope.

embodied design for large-scale gatherings

I have been in far too many large-scale gatherings where the huge potential was palpable – in the chosen angles to crucial questions, in the expertise in the room, in the diversity and commitment of those present – and the actual effect remained negligible, both on those present as well as on those to whom the developed results were addressed. But I have also had the honour of participating in, designing and facilitating large-scale gatherings in which everyone present and beyond (future generations, other-than human beings) were active and present with their voices, their experiences, their embodied intelligence and their commitment to action. These are gatherings where everyone has an impact on each other, so that the effect is exponential in the small-scale behavioural changes as well as in large-scale choices in organisations and policy-making. I advise you in the design of your large-scale gatherings to have a real effect for everybody present. And I implement this design, train your facilitators with you and co-facilitate with you, as needed.

facilitation training and mentoring

I train facilitators in innovative, embodied approaches since 2016 in Belgium and Germany. Facilitation is a skill that serves teams and (event) organizations on all levels, so that reliable in-house capacity for facilitation and an understanding for group dynamics can't be underestimated. I offer accompaniment for facilitators to learn new methodologies, develop their skills and I also mentor them in the process of embodying effective and inspiring facilitation. Training and mentoring is offered according to your specific conditions and needs.

deep ecology facilitation

Today more than ever we need to reconnect to a sense of ourselves as more-than-human. I root my orientation in life and my facilitation in the insights and practices of the *Work that Reconnects* initiated by the groundbreaking and earthhealing Joanna Macy. Since 2011, I dedicate myself to enabling humans to reconnect to themselves, each other and their more-than-human nature through this approach. I offer this work in any kind of context, because the resurgence of life-energy and joy that we can experience through these processes is crucial anywhere and for active hope.

How I work

In order to design meaningful processes, centering the purpose is key. You may have a specific objective in mind or envision a vague result, in any case the purpose is the compass. When I design a process with you, we will always start at clarifying the purpose and at any stage of the process it will it be our measuring rod for making right choices. Co-creation is at the heart of how I work. Depending on the kind of process we are designing – organisational development, team building, event design, stakeholder activation or else – I work with a small group representing the key voices for this specific process.
Facilitation and process design need strong values and attention to key principles: I work from a trauma-informed lens and employ my expertise on nervous-system states as essential orientation. Decolonial efforts and ecofeminist practices are equally core to my ability to design and hold spaces that actually allow everybody to participate fully. The processes I design foster resilience and nourish wellbeing as well as a sense of community, as necessary conditions for fulfilling the purpose and achieving intended results.
My preferred methods include:
• the council way
• participative visualisation and arts-based creativity methods
• presencing theatre (a.k.a. project constellation work)
• active hope rituals and eco-self practices
• visioning journeys and deep time work
• dynamic facilitation and art of hosting
• open space technology and collective imaginative reflection
• dragon dreaming structures for activation
• mindfulness practices and ceremony
• collective intelligence methods for large-scale facilitation
How a method is employed is always more decisive than the method itself. I make sure to center embodiment, by using movement and somatic integration as key elements. Providing for the conditions for neuroplasticity, so that participants are changed by the experience, enables transformation to happen on micro- and macroscales.