Regenerative Leadership Residency in Greece

In July 2025, we gathered in Greece in collaboration with the Living Wholeness Institute for a five-day residency to explore regenerative leadership—a practice rooted not in abstract strategies, but in the living systems of the places we inhabit. From the first day of arrival and settling in, we attuned ourselves to the rhythm of the land and the sea, allowing their pace to guide us.

The concept of place-sourced potential shaped much of our learning. Together, we explored how places—like people—are alive, nested in larger systems, and dynamically interdependent. Just as a neighborhood is nested within a city, or a forest within a watershed, our initiatives are nested within communities and ecosystems. Regeneration begins with understanding these relationships and aligning our projects with the unique qualities of place.

Through collective practices, systems-mapping, and embodied exercises, we co-created a learning ecology. We experimented with frameworks like the Law of Three—balancing creative impulses with constraints and reconciling them into new insights. We moved fluidly between the personal and the communal, noticing how grief, belonging, and hope are inseparable from systemic transformation.

As one participant described: “Overwhelm can be a doorway into aliveness—when I allow myself to feel, I become more present.”

The residency revealed that regenerative leadership is less about managing complexity and more about being in relationship with it.
Instead of controlling, we practiced listening—allowing emergence, slowness, and vulnerability to guide us. We discovered how presence—like the steady olive tree—offers resilience: rooted and grounded, yet flexible enough to sway with changing winds.

Participants shared shifts that touched both the intimate and the systemic:

>>A deeper sense of belonging, not tied only to inherited roots but to spaces we cultivate together.

>>The courage to be vulnerable and to reclaim rest as part of our practice.

>>The insight that smaller, more intimate spaces often hold greater potential for transformation than scaling up.

>>The recognition that the land itself was a participant—holding us, informing us, and reminding us of continuity and resistance.

As one participant beautifully put it: “The olive trees, especially the old ones, became a symbol of hope. They endure, quietly and firmly, even as everything around them changes. They remind me that belonging is not erased, even if displaced.”

The spirit of the residency was described as “a mycelial web—quiet, connected, deep.” It was not about big outputs but about subtle shifts, new friendships, and embodied remembering. In tending to place, to each other, and to our inner landscapes, we glimpsed the essence of regenerative leadership: cultivating wholeness so that we can meet the complexity of our times with courage and care.