How Nature Shapes How I Think and Act
by Johanna Buss
Reflections after a week in nature by an organisational developer
Some time ago I wrote a short LinkedIn post about my week in Devon with Change in Nature: lit fires, no phones, vegetarian meals cooked with love, a small community finding its rhythm together. I promised to share more. Here's my attempt.
I’m still unpacking what that week actually gave me. Right now it seems the experience constantly shapes how I think and act in many small and big ways. And today, I find myself sitting with questions that I believe worth sharing.
Bringing nature into work
The most pressing one: does bringing nature into my work as an organisational developer always have to be big or feel difficult to organize? Like a full-day programme for a team event structured around some of the tools I learned on the training like the 8 shields (which I love to design by the way)?
Or is it sometimes enough, maybe even more honest, to suggest a walk-and-talk instead of pair exchange in a meeting room? To bring a small plant into a coaching tandem and invite two people to tend something together (worked magically!)? To pause at the beginning of a workshop and simply acknowledge the land we're standing on, its history, what was here before us (common practice in Australia. honoring its indigenous community)?
I think I already know the answer. And it quietly changes how I show up, how I design experiences, how I can acknowledge that some things don’t have to have a name and feel difficult to be equally impactful. As long as I stay true to what feels alive in me.
The other thing I keep returning to is harder to translate into a method or a tool. There was something about being genuinely cared for, physically and mentally, in a community of people who had also chosen to slow down. I felt it in my body. And I wonder: how much of what we call "burnout" or "disconnection" at work is caused by the absence of that? Being well held. Being seen. Not having to function.
Wholeness and Depth
Which brings me to the next question that I have been exploring for a while now: how do we create spaces where people can show up whole – even in a work context? How can we shed this common feeling that somethimes the situation demands that we push through, even though pushing through is exactly the wrong thing? How can I contribute to an environment where it's okay to be a little sad, a little lost, a little unfinished?
I’ve been trying not to brush over “unwanted“ emotions in personal contexts by simply listening, not remarking and asking genuinely “what do you need now?“. But I don't yet know how to recreate the same depths in work related settings.
One thing I DO know is: the week with Change in Nature in Devon gave me, among many other perspectives, a new kind of permission: to keep asking, and to trust that the asking itself is part of the work.
You can connect with Johanna on LinkedIn and via iniciato. Johanna attended Change in Nature’s Nature Facilitation Training.
