The Coaching & Nature project was born with the intention of offering a collective experience with a high transformative content. Thanks to the use of Coaching and Mindfulnss techniques and tahnks to concrete, simple and replicable tools, participants are guided through an exploratory path that helps them to find full harmony with the natural elements and to get in touch with their deep self, discovering all the creative energy deriving from total connection with Nature.
The Coaching & Nature Project begins to take shape in 2019, from the idea of the Professional Coach Margherita Colantuono, with the aim of accompanying groups of people to reflect on the role of humankind towards nature and teaching concrete action techniques that allow to embrace a lifestyle based on respect and empathic connection with nature and that helps to rediscover all the generative energy deriving from being in total union with nature.
The project was carried out in several stages (both on site and online), starting from bringing together, thanks to an online communication campaign, groups of people from different parts of Italy (and not only) first with a practical on site experience on the beach and in the pine forest of Castellaneta Marina, near the city of Taranto, and then, with an online experience carried out in January 2022.
The path, which benefits from practical techniques inspired to Coaching and Minadfulness, counts on the sharing of collective reflections, on listening and contact experiences as well as on exercises of identification with nature with a high experiential and transformative content.
In this way the participants have been able to concretely appreciate the aesthetic beauty of nature, to understand the vital value that it plays in all aspects of our lives and to live a collective experience that allowed them to discover the deep energy deriving from living in total respect and connection with nature.
At the end of the on site experience, each of the participants was given some seeds of trees (pine, peach, orange, mandarin, palm, etc.) to be planted.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context
The key objectives of the project in terms of sustainability were the following:
1) To sensitize people to respect and safeguard nature (do not disperse waste, recycle, collect waste abandoned in the environment, respect ecosystems and their vocation)
2) To invite people to take an active part in the process of re-connection with nature through exercises of practical approach to nature through the use of the 5 + 1 senses (Gardening, Forest Bathing, experiential baths, hugging trees, palpating the ground, etc.)
3) To invite participants to put into practice concrete actions aimed at encouraging the preservation of biodiversity: planting a tree.
4) Use the word of mouth to communicate the concepts and techniques learned to other people (friends, relatives, children).
The proposed objectives are not measurable but the fact of having provided the participants with a seed to be planted represents an incentive to action, an important input both from a practical and symbolic point of view because the donated seed was attributed a "psychomagical value" through which each participant felt as part of a "revolutionary and powerful process" capable of changing the world and the life of the entire planet.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context
From an aesthetic point of view, the objectives of the project have had the aim to transfer the concept that the beauty of nature must be safeguarded, protected, encouraged through concrete actions that help ourselves to bring out the best version of ourselves. Because we are nature. And we did it starting from places of undoubted aesthetic value.
The experience gained has proven to have great value in terms of quality, originality and style, confirmed by the positive feedback received from the participants.
All participants were enthusiastic about living an immersive experience in nature (both in the on site and online versions) and found the Coaching methods and techniques used to be unprecedented. This helped to make the experience engaging, stimulating and regenerating both from a physical and emotional point of view (mind-body approach).
For example, during the on site experience on the beach, we did contact exercises with the various elements of nature (sand, air, water, sounds) and the training ended with an experiential bath in the sea at sunset, a sort of "ritual"of reunion" with the water Element.
While, in the online version of the project, we worked a lot on imagination, guiding the participants to imagine themselves in nature and to feel and recognize all the emotions generated from the imaginary experience.
The exercises of reunion and identification with the Elements of nature, in addition to a pedagogical effect, also had a playful effect, helping to create a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere among the participants.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context
In terms of inclusion, the project aimed to bring together as many people as possible to convey a clear message: we are nature and in order to reconnect with ourselves we must first of all rediscover the union with nature.
Moreover, since the project has seen the participation of many people, it is easy to imagine how every exercise, every sharing, has been a moment of collective growth and co-creation of ideas, proposals, reflections and experiences with a high emotional impact.
Also from this point of view, the project achieved excellent results both during the on site events and during the online event.
Both modes were open to all; the places of on site meetings were accessible to everyone, and the contents were also suitable for everyone. In addition, all the experiences were carried out free of charge, ensuring full accessibility, including affordability, to anyone interested in participating in the project.
In addition, the nature of the project, based on practical exercises and sharing, allowed full interaction among the participants and constructive exchange, helping to co-generate ideas and virtuous processes that contributed to the success of the project.
Please highlight how this approach can be exemplary
The three dimensions of sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion have been combined thanks to the design of events that take into account all these aspects at the same time.
For example, the fact of having chosen locations of great naturalistic value in the on site version (the city of Castellaneta Marina, where the two on site experiences were carried out, is part of a Protected Natural Area) gives the project undoubted environmental and aesthetic value.
The fact of having combined the Coaching and Mindfulness techniques made the project original and innovative. The gratuitousness of the event and the type of exercises proposed made it inclusive.
The last event held online was held on January 15, 2022, in a very recent period. The results obtained are very comforting because the feedback from the participants has been very positive, the word of mouth has been effective so that I was asked to write a book to be published to disseminate the ideas of the project and the messages at a wider level.
This is a proof that the idea of reconnecting people with nature is a theme that interests many people and that must be treated in a broader and more global way.
Furthermore, at the local level, thanks to the will expressed by the people (old and new partecipants), we are organizing new educational and experiential meetings in nature to be organized during the Spring/Summer 2022.. This is a very positive sign that must be listened to and supported. And I'm doing so.
Please also explain the benefits that derived from their involvement.
Citizens from all over Italy have been involved through the creation of various communication campaigns carried out both in the local press, Social Network and online newspapers (eg Viviweb and ViviCastellaneta) and through campaigns on the pages of Social Networks (Facebook) and the advertising of the event on online groups in the sector (eg Master Coach Italia – Coaching School). These were the main Media I used to make people aware of the project and to invite them to participate.
But, the involvement of people refers not only to their participation in the events as users but also as co-creators of a collective "psychomagical process" that saw them as direct protagonists with Nature through practical exercises and group reflections. The involvement of citizens generates a "boomerang effect" that amplifies the transmission of messages and aims and increases their worldwide resonance and the word of mouth.
With reference to the main objectives of the UNs Agenda 2030, my project addressed the following global challenges:
1) Encourage environmental sustainability
2) Spread a culture in favor of the environment
3) Promoting action against climate change
4) Protecting the seas and the terrestrial ecosystem
5) Promoting inclusive societies for sustainable development
6) Strengthening the culture of sustainability
and it made these global challenges reachable to a local level by providing the participants the following local solutions and suggestions:
1) Adopting a sustainable lifestyle (do not disperse waste, to recycle, to collect waste abandoned in the environment, to respect ecosystems and their natural vocation)
2) Inviting people to take active part in the process of re-connection with nature through training activities and exercises of practical approach to nature through the use of the senses (Gardening, Forest Bathing, experiential baths, hugging trees, palpating the ground with their hands and feet, etc.)
3) Inviting the participants to put into practice concrete actions aimed at encouraging the preservation of biodiversity: planting trees (I distributed them some seeds - see attached images)
4) Spreading the word of mounth in order to communicate the concepts and techniques learned to other people (friends, relatives, children, communities, stakeholders, customers - as, among the participants, there were also some Coaches).
The project is innovative for the ways in which the issue of sustainability has been addressed and also for the innovative techniques and the interdisciplinary approach that have been adopted.
In the implementation of the project, innovative disciplines such as Coaching and Mindfulness were used to encourage participants to promote the process of empathic learning and global understanding of the Nature, recalling new and original practical exercises entirely designed by the Coach Margherita Colantuono. In addition, the call to action of planting a tree as a psychomagical act by providing the seeds to the participants (during the on site event) is also original.
Please provide clear documentation, communication of methodology and principles in this context.
Transferring the knowledge of the projects to other interested parties or contexts would expand the audience and the possibility of transmitting the messages and objectives of the project from a national context (as it currently appears) to a potentially global context.
This would imply the creation of a real "virtuous movement" based on education for sustainability and based on good practices that are concretely applicable and replicable by anyone in daily life.
This implies the possibility of generating a real cultural change, from a consumerist approach to a naturalistic approach, in which we can consider nature as central part of our lives and of the entire ecosystem, passing from an EGO-centered vision of the world to an ECO-centered vision in which we can overcome global environmental challenges.
How? By changing our perspective in favor of nature. Through the daily action of each of us focused on a more eco-sustainable life starting from the little everyday things (we all are drops of the same ocean), through the spread of an ecosystemic and naturalistic culture that gives importance to the protection of the sea and of soil, no longer understood as a sources of exploitation but as elements of life and regeneration and as Masters for our lives.
The idea of my project is to create a national and global movement in favor of the environment, to be realized both by continuing to organize free online and on site transformational and training experiences, and through the creation of videos and a manual that make the approach universally applicable.
My project is to be understood as a spin-off of a global program. Since the project is very recent, there is still no official supporting documentation, other than the feedback, images, articles and posters of the past events that can be found online. But in the coming months will be drawn up a document which describes techniques, methods and the objectives that the project intends to pursue in the long term.
@MargheritaColantuono, 2022
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