Join Me and Steffi Bednarek in London
Join Me and Steffi Bednarek in London
We're offering a day-long workshop to explore the professional dilemmas posed by the climate crisis.
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“How do we think our way through the difficulties we are experiencing when the way we think is part of the problem?” — Steffi Bednarek
Resonant World #113
Ever since quitting Reuters in April 2022, I’ve imagined Resonant World as a kind of pirate radio station.
It’s been my way to speak with colleagues working in multi-national companies — particularly those still stuck in Canary Wharf — about radically different topics than anything I’d have been permitted to cover while serving as a corporate journalist.
What I couldn’t predict was the unexpected connections this signal would weave, and the collaborations that would constellate.
I’m therefore delighted to be teaming up with the climate psychologist, author and international facilitator Steffi Bednarek, (who appeared on the Resonant World podcast in February), to co-host a one-day workshop in the beautiful surrounds of the The Conduit in London on Saturday, December 7. (Resonant World #65: A New Lens on the Climate Crisis).
We’ll provide a space for a small group of people from diverse career backgrounds to explore the core question so many of us are confronting: We want to be part of a meaningful response to the climate crisis and ecological collapse, but our workplace is either buried in denial, or an active part of the problem.
We don’t have any ready-made answers, and we’re not going to be guiding participants to some predetermined conclusion.
But Steffi and I have witnessed time and again how — when we create the right conditions — a form of collective intelligence starts to crackle and spark that affords each participant new perspectives, ‘aha’ moments, and ideas about what do next that we’d never have reached on our own. (Resonant World #90: What is Collective Intelligence?)
We called the workshop “Should I Stay, or Should I Go?” to reflect the dilemma I spoke about in a video of the same title in July last year: (Resonant World #35: Should I Stay, or Should I Go?).
The goal, however, is not so much to resolve that question, as to use it as a starting point to dive more deeply into what truly matters to us; how a sense of calling arises in our professional life; and what steps we might begin to take to support one another to live more in alignment with our deepest values.
Spaces like these are supremely precious — more so now than ever.
Such “islands of coherence” have transformed my own approach to life over the past few years of training in the principles of integrating individual, inter-generational and collective trauma with Thomas Hübl and team. And I’m certain that whoever joins us in December will receive a precisely-titrated dose of just the right medicine they need to move forward with greater clarity, ease and purpose.
The climate and nature crisis is going to get worse. But we have far greater capacity to bring our authentic selves to the situation before us than many of us have yet had a chance to discover. Let’s engage with our predicament, together.
The cost is £285 with lunch included. We’re offering an early bird price of £250 until November 7. Places have already started to go so please book early to avoid disappointment!
Meet Your Facilitators
Steffi Bednarek
“I work at the intersection between climate change, complexity theory, and the human psyche.
I support leaders, teams, and organizations to develop the competencies and frameworks of care needed to face complexity without collapsing into inaction, to think trans-contextually without losing focus, and to nurture sustainable development while neither denying nor amplifying the challenges ahead. I support teams to confront difficult truths with resilience, ecological awareness, and a regenerative outlook.
With 25 years of experience in systemic change, complexity thinking, and climate psychology, combined with my own experience of leading teams and consulting organizations, I address the urgent need for regenerative change in ways that go beyond the mere correction of what is visible and measurable on the surface. My work delves into the deeper conditions that hold a problem in place.
I have worked for national governments, the corporate sector, global financial institutions, the sustainability sector, The Council of Europe, and large NGOs.
My work has been featured in the Huffington Post, the BBC, and numerous international publications and podcasts. Clients include BNY Mellon, Estee Lauder Companies, the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trust and many others.
I initiated and founded national and international projects, headed up mental health services and trauma intervention centres, co-founded the journal 'Explorations into Climate Psychology' and an education project for the Ministry of Education in Luxembourg.
I am an Associate of the Climate Psychology Alliance, 'Firekeeper' at the World Ethics Forum, and Associate of the American Psychological Association’s Climate Change Community of Practitioners.”
Matthew Green
“I quit a prestigious role due to my company’s lacklustre response to the climate crisis, and know how difficult the decision can be.
After many years working as an international correspondent for the Financial Times and Reuters, including in Iraq, Afghanistan and across Africa, I was rehired as a climate correspondent by Reuters in 2019.
Despite cherishing the role, my growing disillusionment with the company’s response to the climate crisis prompted me to quit in April 2022, and take up a position as global investigations editor at the nonprofit climate news service DeSmog.
The decision wasn’t easy.
Though I’m far happier now, I’ve had to navigate the conflicting financial, psychological and career pressures associated with a move from a secure position in a global media organisation employing 2,500 journalists to a tiny nonprofit with a handful of full-time staff. I’ve attempted to distil some of what I’ve learned in my weekly newsletter Toxic Workplace Survival Guy.
In parallel, I’ve devoted much of my spare time to understanding the role of individual, collective and inter-generational trauma in driving the climate crisis — a quest I document in my newsletter Resonant World.
In December, I completed the two-year Timeless Wisdom Training in the principles of trauma healing with Thomas and team, and am now training as a collective trauma integration facilitator. I’m a co-host of the Climate Consciousness Summit 2024, which brings together luminaries from the climate and trauma world.
This summer, I launched the Resonant Man initiative with my friend Jacob Kishere to provide spaces for men to step into greater vulnerability, authenticity and connection.
I live in southwest London with my wife Genevieve, a clinical psychologist, parenting coach and creator of the Resonant Parenting Project, and our six-year-old daughter Matilda. Our idea of a good time is making our annual pilgrimage to Medicine Festival, camping at Pitchcott Farm, or visiting ROARR!, a dinosaur park in Norfolk.”
Weekly Men’s Circles Starting Next Month
Jacob Kishere and I are launching weekly men’s circles as the backbone of our Resonant Man initiative, starting on Sunday, November 10. Details here.
