The Regeneration Handbook: Reflection and Activity Guide

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Collaborative Leadership

Regenerative Practices

Social Change

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This Reflection and Activity Guide from The Regeneration Handbook will spark new insights, help you gain clarity about next steps, and strengthen your motivation to act on behalf of all life. Anyone can go through this guide on their own by simply journaling on the reflection prompts for each chapter and adapting the instructions for each experiential activity as best you can. And, it’s generally a lot more interesting, fun, and rewarding to go through it as a group.

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THE REGENERATION HANDBOOK REFLECTION & ACTIVITY GUIDE How to Use this Guide While some books are only meant to be…

How to Use this Guide

While some books are only meant to be read through once, The Regeneration Handbook was intentionally written to be studied, refected on, discussed, and experimented with. Its many insights, frameworks, stories, tools, practices, and resources need to be contemplated and put into action to be of any real use to the reader. Whether you’re new to regenerative activism or have been walking this path for decades, working with this Refection & Activity Guide will spark new insights, help you gain clarity about next steps, and strengthen your motivation to act on behalf of all life.

As an Individual: Anyone can go through this guide on their own by simply journaling on the refection prompts for each chapter and adapting the instructions for each experiential activity as best you can. However, it’s generally a lot more interesting, fun, and rewarding to go through it as a group.

As a Group: Although a minimum of seven people is required to do all the activities as they’re written, and I’d recommend a maximum of 14 members before splitting of into more than one group, you are of course welcome to organize yourselves any way you want to.

You’re welcome to follow the Sample Session Agenda and Six-Session Plan for Groups on the following page, or create your own design. You may want to schedule sessions once a week, every two weeks, or once a month. You might host each session at a diferent participant’s home and hold a local-food potluck beforehand. You can decide to rotate facilitators or have the same person facilitate every session.

If you’d like to organize a group but don’t have one already, you could simply reach out to friends, family, like-minded acquaintances, neighbors, and/or co-workers and ask who might be interested. You could also contact your local Transition Initiative, permaculture guild, climate justice organization, or church “green team” and request that they partner with you.

For groups in the US and Canada, New Society Publishers ofers a 40% discount on 5–24 books and a 50% discount on 25 or more, which you can claim by emailing . If you’re in the UK, you can order from Waterstones or Bookshop.org. If you’re elsewhere in the world, I’d suggest ordering an e-book, but if you want a physical copy, your best option is (unfortunately) probably Amazon.

If you need support or have questions about any of this, please feel free to email me at . Wishing you all the best!

In Community,

Sample Session Agenda

Time	Activity
0:00–0:10	Arrival and Introductions/Check Ins
0:10–0:25	Refection Prompt 1
0:25–0:40	Refection Prompt 2
0:40–0:55	Refection Prompt 3
0:55–1:25	Experiential Activity
1:25–1:30	Check Outs/Closing Ceremony and Announcements

Six-Session Plan for Groups

Session	Chapters	Pages	Refection Prompts	Experiential Activity
1. Introduction	1, 2, 3	45	Chapter 1, Prompt 1 Chapter 2, Prompt 2 Chapter 3, Prompt 3	Chapter 1: Mapping the Group
2. The Transition Movement	4, 5	30	Chapter 4, Prompt 1 Chapter 4, Prompt 3 Chapter 5, Prompt 1	Chapter 5: Five Stages, Seven Ingredients
3. Context and Vision	6, 7	31	Chapter 6, Prompt 1 Chapter 6, Prompt 2 Chapter 7, Prompt 2	Chapter 7: Visioning a Post Transition World
4. Inner and Group	8, 9	37	Chapter 8, Prompt 2 Chapter 8, Prompt 3 Chapter 9, Prompt 1	Chapter 8: The Mandala of Life
5. Engagement and Projects	10, 11	39	Chapter 10, Prompt 2 Chapter 11, Prompt 1 Chapter 11, Prompt 2	Chapter 10: Integral Activism
6. The Big Picture	12, 13	35	Chapter 12, Prompt 2 Chapter 13, Prompt 2 Chapter 13, Prompt 3	Chapter 13: Going Forth

1: Introduction

Event	Years Ago	Percentage of Cosmic Time
Birth of the Universe	13.8 billion	100%
Formation of Earth	4.5 billion	33%
Emergence of Life	3.5 billion	25%
Emergence of Homo Sapiens	300,000	0.002%
Agricultural Revolution	10,000	0.00007%
Industrial Revolution	260	0.000002%

This frst chapter makes the case that we live in times of Great Transition, that radical change is urgently needed to secure a just and sustainable future, and that evolutionary leadership is one of the most powerful leverage points we have.

Refection Prompts
1. Why did you choose to read this book? What do you hope to get out of it?
2. What do you think nature has to teach us about how profound, holistic, and lasting change actually occurs?
3. How would you describe the kind of leadership that you believe is needed most in our world today?

Experiential Activity: Mapping the Group
1. Find a space that’s comfortable and has plenty of room for everyone to move around without obstructions.
2. Determine which direction is North and how large a geographical area this space needs
to represent for it to include everyone in your group. Depending on how far apart group members live from each other, it might represent a single block, a neighborhood or town, or a whole country.
3. Ask group members to stand approximately where they live on this map, then invite them to say where they are and one thing they love about their place. 4. Next, encourage everyone to rearrange themselves into a human timeline, with those who have been involved in regeneration the longest on one end and those who are completely new to it on the other.
5. Ask each member to say how long they’ve been involved and what they’ve done (if anything) during that time.

2: Patterns of Evolution

This chapter introduces four “meta-patterns” of evolutionary change and describes how each is part of a single dynamic process that pervades our universe, fractally, at all levels.

Refection Prompts
1. What do you think is the practical value of learning about these meta-patterns?
2. Select one of the four meta-patterns and describe your personal relationship to it.
3. What’s one belief you have about evolutionary change that wasn’t mentioned in this chapter? Can it be categorized as a pattern of Transformation, Expansion, Wholeness, and/or Balance? Does it represent a diferent meta-pattern entirely?

Experiential Activity: Zen and the Art of Pattern Recognition
1. Participants are invited to bring to this session any art supplies or musical instruments they’d like to use.
2. Everyone has 15 minutes on their own to create a song, poem, picture, sculpture, or dance that embodies one or more of the four meta-patterns described in this chapter. 3. The frst volunteer presents their creation without commentary of any kind. 4. Other group members are then invited to ofer a friendly critique, telling the artist what they see in it.
5. When no more interpretations remain, the artist explains what they were trying to convey.
6. Repeat as many times as time allows.

3: My Evolutionary Journey

In this chapter, the author’s personal story is mapped according to the seven stages of Theory U as just one example of how evolutionary change can unfold over the course of a lifetime.

Refection Prompts
1. Who’s one person you know (or know of) that has lived their life as an evolutionary journey? Is there anything about them you seek to emulate?
2. What have been some pivotal moments in your own journey so far and how have they changed you?
3. Where would you say you’re currently at in terms of the seven stages of Theory U? Why
do you think that and what does that say about what you might need to do now to move forward?

Experiential Activity: Your Evolutionary Journey
1. Everyone needs a pen and a piece of paper for this exercise.
2. Participants write the titles of the seven stages of Theory U, evenly spaced, down the left side of their page.
3. Everyone then has 15 minutes on their own to jot down notes about their evolutionary journey up to this point and speculate about its future unfolding.
4. Participants pair up with someone they don’t know well yet and spend fve minutes each summarizing their stories.
5. Pairs take a fnal fve minutes to refect on how this exercise felt and discuss similarities and diferences between their stories.

4: The Transition Story

This chapter introduces the international Transition Towns Movement as a case study and model for evolutionary change in society, describing how it spread from its humble beginnings to more than 1,000 communities in over 50 countries worldwide.

Refection Prompts
1. Why is regenerative activism needed? Why might individual behavior-change and political protest not be enough to bring about a Great Transition by themselves?
2. What’s one reason you think the Transition approach caught on so quickly and spread to so many places around the world?
3. In terms of Joanna Macy’s Three Types of Action, do you personally fnd yourself drawn more towards a “paradigm shift,” “holding actions,” or “building alternative structures”?

Experiential Activity: Transition Principles Skits	Experiential Activity: Transition Principles Skits
1. Divide into random groups of 3–5 participants by counting of.	1. Divide into random groups of 3–5 participants by counting of.
2. Each group takes 15 minutes to develop a 2–3 minute skit that demonstrates one or more of the Transition Principles without mentioning which principle(s) they picked.	2. Each group takes 15 minutes to develop a 2–3 minute skit that demonstrates one or more of the Transition Principles without mentioning which principle(s) they picked.
3. Groups tak	e turns performing their skit for everyone else.
4. After each skit, everyone else is invited to guess which principle(s) it is meant to embody and why. 5. Once everyone has had a chance to guess, the performers reveal what they intended.	4. After each skit, everyone else is invited to guess which principle(s) it is meant to embody and why. 5. Once everyone has had a chance to guess, the performers reveal what they intended.

5: The Five Stages of Transition

This chapter expands on a forgotten theory of change from Transition Movement founder Rob Hopkins showing how local eforts can be scaled up and networked together to bring about a tipping point for global regeneration.

Refection Prompts
1. Do you believe the Five Stages of Transition can serve as a reliable map for deepening, broadening, and scaling up changemaking eforts of all kinds? Why or why not?
2. Have you ever been part of a group that was stuck in the Starting Out or Deepening stages? If so, why do you think that was and what might you have needed to do to move forward? 3. Are you currently or have you ever been part of a group that’s made it to the Connecting or Building stages? If so, what do you attribute its success to?

Experiential Activity: Five Stages, Seven Ingredients
1. Decide whether you’ll use a whiteboard, fipchart paper, or something else for this exercise and prepare accordingly.
2. Next, draw a large grid with the Five Stages of Transition on one axis and the Seven Essential Ingredients of Transition on the other.
3. Discuss the ingredients one by one and fll in as many boxes as you can with what you think that ingredient might look like at each stage of the Transition process.
4. If you get stuck on any box, simply move onto the next and return to it at the end to fnd out if anyone has thought of something that could ft there.

6: Our Global Context

This chapter chronicles how humanity’s relentless pursuit of infnite exponential growth has created an environmental, economic, and social polycrisis that currently threatens the survival of modern civilization and all life on Earth.

Refection Prompts
1. If you were writing this chapter, how would you tell the overarching story of our global context?
2. What do you believe are some of the most important issues you’re facing locally?
3. How many years do you think humanity has on its current trajectory before we experience global systems collapse? Why do you think that and what might it look like?

Experiential Activity: Polycrisis Presentations
1. In advance of this session, each participant chooses an environmental, economic, or social issue they’re especially interested in, spends at least 30 minutes researching it, and prepares a 2–3 minute presentation on the subject.
2. During the session, participants are invited to deliver their presentations to the group.
3. Depending on how many people want to present and how much time you’ve allotted for this exercise, other group members may ask questions following each presentation.

7: The Power of Vision

This chapter explores a wide range of potential future scenarios and provides tools for developing your own holistic, realistic, and inspiring vision.

Refection Prompts
1. Describe a vision of the future that inspires you. What do you like about it? 2. Which of David Holmgren’s Future Scenarios do you believe is likely to become the most widespread during your lifetime and why? Where might the other three scenarios continue to exist in this world?
3. Do you think you’d enjoy living in an Energy Descent future? Why or why not?

Experiential Activity: Visioning a Post-Transition World
1. Remember the most important thing for this exercise is to try not to control your experience. Simply observe whatever happens to come to mind without judgment.
2. Have a volunteer read the indented text on pages 100–102 to everyone else. It should be read slowly, in a meditative voice, allowing participants at least a few seconds to refect on each question in turn.
3. Afterwards, everyone takes 10 minutes to journal about their visions. 4.Finally, participants are invited to share with the group anything from their visions they found particularly interesting, surprising, or important.

8: Inner Transition

Surveying the inner dimension of evolutionary change, this chapter features sections on shifting paradigms, cultivating resilience, discovering purpose, and avoiding burnout.

Refection Prompts
1. What’s one belief about yourself or the world that’s changed over the course of your life? Why and how did it change? How has it changed you?
2. What Inner Transition practices do you currently do and how do they beneft you? 3. What makes you “come alive” the most, and how might these passions be channeled in service of regeneration?

Experiential Activity: The Mandala of Life
1. Each participant draws the fve circles of the Mandala of Life on a blank piece of paper.
2. Then, everyone takes 10 minutes to note down in the appropriate circles what they’ve been doing recently to nurture themselves in each of these fve areas.
3. For the next 15 minutes, participants break into pairs to refect together on how well their mandalas are currently balanced, where they might need to cut back, and where they might need to pay more attention. Each is welcome to ofer advice to the other. 4. For the last fve minutes, participants work individually to add and remove actions from their mandala as needed to balance the whole.

Using the Stages of Group Development as an overarching framework, this chapter identifes core practices for getting new groups of on the right foot, transforming confict into understanding, working efectively with money and power, and unleashing the collective genius.

9: Refection Prompts

1. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve experienced working in groups? If implemented, would the practices in this chapter help to address them? Why or why not? 2. Describe one group practice you’ve found to be valuable that isn’t mentioned in this chapter.
3. Have you ever been part of a group that’s reached the Performing stage? If so, what was that like? If not, why do you think that is?

Experiential Activity: The Power Sheet
1. Divide into groups of 3–5 participants and stand in a circle facing each other in silence.
2. Place in the center of each group a sheet of paper with the word “Power” written on it without any decoration.
3. Each group then has 10 minutes to interact with the paper any way they want without speaking.
4. Once these 10 minutes are up, participants are invited to sit down together and discuss
how they interpreted this exercise, what happened from their perspectives, and what
lessons might be drawn from it about what power is and how it can be held in groups.

10: Community Engagement

This chapter shows how changemaking groups can rally more and more people and partners to their cause over time, eventually reaching beyond the choir and achieving critical mass.

Refection Prompts
1. Think about a group, project, or movement you chose to join in the past. What motivated you to get involved?
2. Who do you see as some of the Innovators or Early Adopters of regenerative strategies in your local community?
3. What principles have you personally found helpful for connecting and communicating across diferences?

Experiential Activity: Integral Activism
1. Everyone selects a group, project, or movement they’ve been involved in or know about that they believe is highly integral.
2. Then, participants write a 30-second elevator pitch they think will convince others to get involved.
3. Volunteers present their pitches to a council representing each of the six frst-tier worldviews of Spiral Dynamics described on pages 161–164.
4. After each pitch is presented, council members provide feedback, then vote thumbs-up or down.

11: Practical Projects

This chapter ofers principles for designing successful regenerative projects, strategies for scaling them up, and examples of both early-stage and more advanced initiatives.

Refection Prompts
1. What are you doing in your personal life to embody the change you want to see in the world? What’s one more thing you’d like to do, but haven’t yet? What’s holding you back?
2. In your local community, what practical projects do you think are currently making the greatest positive diference? Why?
3. What’s one practical project that doesn’t yet exist in your community that you’d like to see replicated locally?

Experiential Activity: Project Design Charette
1. Divide into two groups. Each group selects one early-stage regenerative project to focus on.
2. Then, the groups refect on that project in relation to the eight principles for designing a great frst project outlined on pages 172–175 and discuss how each of these principles could be incorporated into the project in some way.
3. Each group fnally presents its project design to the other and receives feedback from them.

12: Part of a Movement

This chapter details the benefts of being part of a movement, analyzes the state of the Transition Movement, and surveys the wider “movement of movements” for regenerative communities.

Refection Prompts
1. What are some inspiring movements you’re aware of that aren’t mentioned in this chapter, but should have been?
2. What other themes do you see emerging in the world of activism and how might they shape regenerative eforts?
3. Why do you think that, despite the best eforts of so many around the world, it seems like we’re still so far from manifesting a truly just and sustainable society?

Experiential Activity: The Movement of Movements
1. Draw a large tree with roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves on a whiteboard or piece of fipchart paper.
2. Participants are then invited to call out natural principles and processes underpinning
the regenerative communities movement while a volunteer writes them down among the roots.
3. Next, the group identifes the many indigenous wisdom traditions that represent the trunk of this mighty tree.
4. Finally, participants categorize the various branches or clusters of movements and label
the leaves with the names of regenerative groups and organizations.

13: Conclusion

This chapter ofers some closing thoughts about why our world is worth saving and how the forces of regeneration might actually win out in the long run.

Refection Prompts
1. Deep down, do you believe our world is worth giving your all to try to save? Why or why not?
2. What gives you the most genuine hope for the future?
3. Who are you choosing to be in this time of Great Transition?

Experiential Activity: Going Forth
1. Participants pair up with somebody they haven’t paired up with yet and sit together facing each other.
2. One person asks the six questions on pages 215–216 and writes down answers while their partner takes 1–2 minutes to respond to each question. Then, they switch.
3. Once everyone has fnished, the whole group gathers in a circle and participants are invited to share their intentions for going forth, as well as any ofers or requests for support they might have.
4. After returning home, everyone is encouraged to post their personal action plans in a place where they’ll see them and refect on them often.

License: CC-BY

Written by Don Hall (2024)