RESILIENT FUTURES : HOW EXPLORING THE UPSIDES AND DOWNSIDES IN THE YEARS AHEAD CAN HELP US TO RAISE OUR RESILIENCE AND THRIVE
Many people find the pressures of daily life and work so intense that the outlook for the years ahead feels too much to consider. If you compare the challenges and uncertainty of today with five or ten years ago, surely it has increased, and will rise further? The aim of Alan’s Seeding our Future project is to help people, neighbourhoods and essential public services to recognise the gifts and problems of the next 10-20 years, and to learn to raise their resilience to continue thriving.
We are currently setting up several pilot projects to explore a range of resilience skills and processes, aiming to share these more widely after the pilot phase. For full information on the project see www.futurescanning.org.
Flourishing through change: Alan Heeks comments “I define resilience as the skills to bounce back, learn and grow through challenges so that we stay happy most of the time, and don’t just cope or survive. As daily life and work, plus the world in general, get more complex, crazy and uncertain, I see resilience as crucial to wellbeing.
Resilience has been a big focus of my work since 2012, and this has led me to be increasingly curious and concerned about the future outlook. It seems that most of us can only just cope with the present, and don’t want to contemplate what further challenges and upsides could be ahead of us. The climate crisis is just one of the major challenges where we need great courage and creativity to respond well. I’ve initiated the Seeding our Future project to explore the new or deeper skills we will need in the next 10-20 years to stay happy amid the changes ahead.
WANT TO KNOW MORE? See the project website
The project was initiated by Alan Heeks in 2017, building on his earlier research on resilience, and his work with Wisdom Tree. The project is operating in partnership with the Schumacher Institute, and is exploring collaboration with a number of other organisations. New approaches are very welcome.
Exploring Super Resilience
Alan describes how we all need resilience and learning from nature can help us.
Creative Ageing Blogs
Enjoying your elderhood
The term elder is used with various meanings: I’m using it to invite you to connect with the mature wisdom in yourself, and in our ancestors. Traditional tribal cultures, such as the Native Americans, Celts, and Bedouin, had great wisdom, including the role of the...
read more
Not Fade Away Staying happy when you’re over 64! By Alan Heeks
THE BABY BOOMER GUIDE TO CREATIVE AGEING The late sixties and beyond are a landmark: a good time to choose what you want from the years ahead, and take stock of the story so far. This short, practical book offers you valuable guidance, new skills, and resources to...
read more
Even the old are prejudiced about ageing!
Most of us have prejudices, and most of us have them around old age, whatever age we are! It’s been shocking for me, as an expert on creative ageing, to admit this is true of me.
read moreNatural Happiness Blogs
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 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...
read moreHow much could you discover in a Wiltshire wood in February?
The Hazel Hill Wood Volunteer Building week February 17th-23rd 2020 Are you seeking fresh inspiration, practical knowhow, interesting contacts or just some fun? You can find all these and more at Hazel Hill, a magical 70 acre woodland retreat center and educational...
read more
The Odyssey: a guide to mens’ long voyage to find themselves
I’ve been pondering mens’ life journeys for many years: not just my own, but other men I’ve witnessed in mens’ gatherings and ongoing groups. Re-reading Homer’s Odyssey, I realise how brilliantly relevant it is to all this. Words like archetypal and heroic get...
read moreResilent Futures Blogs
Finding the Gifts in Bewilderment
I invite you to imagine that the bewildering, alarming events of recent weeks, especially coronavirus, have positive aspects which we need to discern: why not try? Like me, you may have attempted to make sense of all this by rational means, and failed. The gifts...
read moreDeep Adaptation and climate change: An intro into the work of Jem Bendell
Since late summer 2018, several authoritative voices have been telling us that the outlook on climate change is a lot worse than most published forecasts suggest, and that we urgently need to understand the implications. The most useful of these voices in my view is...
read moreBook Blog: The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken
This is how business can be the driver of positive climate change In my frequent episodes of anxiety about climate change, this is a favourite book I turn to for encouragement. Amazingly, it was published in 1993 even then, the climate crisis and the pivotal...
read moreGet In Touch
Buy the new book
