Blogs
For lasting happiness, nourish your roots
Alan has been leading groups on natural happiness and resilience for years. He writes about ‘The Story Behind Natural...
Beautiful Garden Wisdom – for all!
How many times have you sat in a garden and felt a weight lifting from your shoulders? There could be a number of...
Natural Happiness Seed 1: Nourish your roots
This is the first in a series of blogs presenting the Seven Seeds of Natural Happiness, a unique way to help people...
Natural Happiness Advocate
Role Description 1. SUMMARY Author and group leader Alan Heeks is seeking up to six people to work with him as...
Earth Visit Report from Prostetnic Vogon Jelfs
To: Controller, Zone 581, LIP Group. (Less Interesting Planets) Your Greatship, I grovel before you as I make this...
Don’t let lockdown grind you away!
Don't let covid grind you away! Staying cheerful in covid year two Despite my resilience skills, I’ve had to keep...
Covid vaccinations: a touching flavour of Dunkirk spirit
Covid vaccinations: a touching flavour of Dunkirk spirit Plus tips to avoid side effects Covid vaccinations: a...
Helping gardeners to grow their own happiness: an online adventure
There’s always a risk that life can become samey in a winter lockdown but at Natural Happiness we have some fresh...
Natural Happiness: from regenerative agriculture to regenerative humanculture – you’re invited!
How do we live with rising chaos? For over twenty years I’ve explored how people can learn from cultivated ecosystems:...
2021 and the seeds of hope
In the gardener’s year, November to January is a time for clearing and fertilising ground, and starting to plant seeds...
The Gardener’s Way: seasonal tips for January/February
This is part of a series of blogs to show what we can learn for our wellbeing and resilience from gardening priorities...
After 7 Months of Covid, What Have We Learned?
Can we trace an emerging future? Surely most of us have often been bewildered and disoriented in the past seven...
Resonate or Rescue: Choose Your Response to the Covid Crisis
I’ve had many feelings about this crisis in the past six months, but two have...
Nine positive ways to use your lockdown time
The lockdown has given most of us a gift of more time. You may need no help in filling it with worries or...
Learning to Unlearn
Yes, it's a paradox, but our ways of thinking, our habitual responses, are so deeply set that a deliberate effort of...
Deep Adaptation and climate change: An intro to the work of Jem Bendell
Back in 2018, the sense of urgency about the climate crisis rose sharply, helped by several key voices, including...
Food Security: Opportunity, Research, Action
It’s easy to feel disempowered these days, but this is an issue where we can all do something. Food security means...
Southern Morocco: a great place to learn about the roots of happiness
For many years, I’ve found that trips to so-called less developed countries give me priceless reminders of how to live...
Meaning, Purpose, Connection: what does inspiration mean to you?
I know the word spiritual is hard for some people. Replace it with inspirational if you prefer. I’m persisting with it because I believe that spiritual aspects of life and resilience will become more vital for most of us in the years ahead as turbulence grows.
The Overstory by Richard Powers
If you love trees, you’ll find this book fascinating: it’s a rich exploration of both trees and people, as individuals...
Football as a map of the inner life
Deep insights from the World Cup With all the excitement of the World Cup, it seems appropriate to use football as a...
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Amazingly, this book is an international bestseller. For me and others who have worked with UK woodlands for decades,...
The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg
Blog written by Lynn Murphy… I'm curious about habits, about what I do and why I do what I do even when I don’t want...
The Book of Joy: Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
Lasting Happiness in a Changing World This deep and delightful book, published last year, became an immediate...
World’s happiest countries
It’s not about the money! The Happy Planet Index for 2016 again puts countries in Latin America and the Asia Pacific...
Why people need Nature more than ever
Insights from the book Your Brain on Nature. My top tip for Earth Day is to read this brilliant book, and give it to...
Stress, Wellbeing, and how Natural Happiness helps
Pictured: Alan with a group at Hazel Hill Wood. Recorded levels of stress have grown a lot in recent years, and we’re...
Book Review: Active Hope by Macy and Johnstone
I have taken part in workshops led by both Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, and regard them as two of the best teachers on personal resilience in a full sense of the phrase. Working in depth with this book could be a good start to exploring super-resilience.
How can we get beyond compassion fatigue?
The UN’s hope in designating this day, on August 19, is to ask all of us to remember and support the large numbers of...
Pilgrim perspectives: Camino di San Benedetto
I vaguely imagined that a pilgrimage is walking along a dedicated route with some kind of special intent. It is that, but far more.
Low-cost health care: Zimbabwe style
The Guardian recently reported a touching story about the Friendship Bench in Zimbabwe. At a minimal cost, it has helped thousands of people suffering mental health problems.
Book Blog: In Love with George Eliot, by Kathy O’Shaughnessy
The genius novelist becomes human George Eliot has been my favourite novelist for all my adult life, but I knew...
A Buddhist View of Friendship
One of my favourite concepts in Buddhism is metta: this word is usually translated as loving-kindness, but its root meaning is the nature of a friend.
Book Blog: Your Brain on Nature by Eva Selhub and Alan Logan
This is an important and exciting book in my view, as it gives extensive research validation for the natural happiness approach, and the aims of Hazel Hill Wood as a natural learning centre.
Community with Nature: people in a field
It’s often said that the only real way to learn about community is to experience it, and this week was a good example.
Why we all need comfort zones
Do you have too much change and uncertainty in your life? It seems that most of us do, and it’s unlikely to get easier soon. Instead of hoping that the overload will go away, it’s wiser to explore how to handle it better. One good way is comfort zones…
‘A really positive uplifting weekend’
This was a wonderful weekend, combining Alan’s natural happiness model, Jane’s gifts in mindfulness and eco-psychology, and the sheer magic of this wood at bluebell time.
The Gardener’s Way: seasonal tips for November
This is the start of a series of blogs to highlight gardening priorities through the seasons of the year, and how we can learn from these for our own resilience and wellbeing. This blog covers the period from mid-October to the end of December.
Hope amid cancer and covid
GUEST BLOG This is a recent blog from a long-standing friend, Palden Jenkins – a deep thinker, old soul and...
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