Blog

Most people are trying to shape their lives amid more uncertainty than they can handle: co-creative skills make this easier. It's about finding solutions with other people's needs, with apparent obstacles, with uncertainty, balancing them with your own needs and...

Teach your children well What do younger generations need to learn? Do you ever wonder how we can help to prepare young people for the future they face, and whether what they learn at school really helps this? These questions become more acute as the climate crisis...

Nurture and adapt: Natural Happiness for stormy times This blog is part of my quest for positive approaches to the turbulent future I foresee for all of us. As you'll see, I explore several role models, people already living with high uncertainty and low control. Farm...

Digging into Regenerative Agriculture A model of de-intensification for humans too! Ever since I co-founded an organic farm in 1990, I've tried to stay aware of trends in sustainable farming. The latest is regenerative agriculture: there's a lot of hype and froth...

If you hope to thrive and grow through your life, not just cope and survive, how will you do this in the stormier times we can see ahead of us? It needs a quantum step up in resilience, and that’s what Soul Resilience could offer you. Exploring the soul’s journey is...

The IPCC report this week on the climate crisis has left me alarmed and unsettled, maybe you too. I’m writing this blog for myself as much as anyone, as part of my long-running search for ways to live with this. There are plenty of good processes out there, and many...

How do we find the spiritual roots of resilience? There’s so much talk about resilience these days, but little of it explores spiritual sources. My focus is resilience in everyday life: how we can stay steady, and grow through daily stress and bigger crises. There’s...

Here’s a provocative thought: in a natural system, there is no waste. Anything which seems useless or decayed can be repurposed, and one of the main processes for this is composting. Animal and plant waste may look and smell unpleasant, but it’s full of energy and...

I regard Deep Adaptation as one of the most important approaches to the climate crisis, and this new book will give you a thorough grounding in what DA is, and isn’t, and in the various ways it might evolve over the next few years. It’s not easy to define what Deep...

Deep insights from the Euros   With all the excitement of the Euros, it seems appropriate to use football as a guide or metaphor for the inner life, or as one book title puts it, the game of life and how to play it.The image of a football club or of a country’s team...

As we regain our freedom to travel and to meet people, it’s exciting but also nervy. We’re all out of practice, and now we have to keep assessing whether our own covid policies (on masks, distancing and so on) match the people around us. This blog explores how...

Alan has been leading groups on natural happiness and resilience for years. He writes about ‘The Story Behind Natural Happiness’… For several years the focus of my learning and teaching was resilience.  I believe it’s a crucial skill set for all of us in these...

A unique chance to join our team   Role Description 1. SUMMARY Author and group leader Alan Heeks is seeking up to six people to work with him as Advocates, sharing the Natural Happiness approach by selling and running workshops, online and in person. 2....

Naomi Klein’s book, No is not enough: defeating the new shock politics, is the most lucid, convincing, and alarming account I’ve seen yet of what Donald Trump and other magical-thinking political leaders are really about. She’s clearly right that these leaders excel...

Your Greatship, I grovel before you as I make this report. This is the scheduled 50-year update on my visit to Earth in 1972. Your Greatship will recall that in 1972, the outlook here was promising. Many people were thinking about quality of life, there were global...

Don't let covid grind you away! Staying cheerful in covid year two Despite my resilience skills, I’ve had to keep digging deep to sustain my mood, especially in these recent winter months. Whilst there’s hope for easing restrictions soon, lockdown has a cumulative...

Covid vaccinations: a touching flavour of Dunkirk spirit Plus tips to avoid side effects Covid vaccinations: a touching flavour of Dunkirk spirit Plus tips to avoid side effects Having my first covid vaccination was a moving experience, which I hadn’t expected. I’m so...

There’s always a risk that life can become samey in a winter lockdown but at Natural Happiness we have some fresh approaches which can brighten life up: this is a story of an online workshop that lifted everyone’s spirits and we thank the Horticultural Society in Lyme...

Yes, it's a paradox, but our ways of thinking, our habitual responses, are so deeply set that a deliberate effort of unlearning is needed if we want to see things as they are, and be able to find a fresh response. I've been exploring Sufi teachings for over thirty...

If you love trees, you’ll find this book fascinating: it’s a rich exploration of both trees and people, as individuals and groups, and how closely these two species affect each other. The Overstory follows the stories of a variety of humans – the common thread is that...