Keep choosing true reality over Fakeland glitz   Is there a perspective to be found amid all this confusion? How can we best respond and use our talents when it feels like the ground keeps shifting under us? These are questions I keep pondering, and I'd like to...

Improving food security and affordable housing supply   There's a widespread view that strengthening local communities will be crucial in the years ahead, to help us all to adapt to increasing levels of disruption, including food supplies, utilities, weather...

Prompted by months of low ratings, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a radical change of routes with a new manifesto based on the organic growth principles of Alan Heeks’ book, Natural Happiness. Posing with his lectern beside a tree in St James’ Park, Starmer...

Another pioneering project in Wales   Black Mountains College (BMC) is an exciting new project, which only started teaching in 2020. Whilst a lot of educational institutions are large, formal, and focussed on content which is abstract and past-based, this one is...

It's about maintaining the lifeboat…   The state of the world is so serious that these qualities may sound irresponsible. However, people in arduous conditions have traditionally had time out, such as respite care breaks, or shore leave. Frankly, normal life these...

The physiology of joy   This excellent book is subtitled How to be strong and positive in a changing world: it's a short, practical primer on techniques to raise your personal resilience. William's books inspire me by their skill in presenting ideas which are...

Jebelli is a British neuroscientist who argues persuasively that we need a lot less hours at work, and a lot more doing little or nothing: such as walks in nature, baths and naps, and daydreaming. This is akin to giving more space and time to the imaginative right...

A different approach to future happiness One of my big life-changing experiences was co-leading a dozen retreats in the Tunisian Sahara with Bedouin guides. They had grown up as true nomads, moving around the desert with their camels and goats, but now living mostly...

An Easter retreat on Caldey Island   I marked Easter with a five-day retreat at Caldey Abbey, a Cistercian monastery on a small island off the Pembrokeshire coast. It’s hard to evoke the depth of devotional atmosphere on an island with a monastic focus for 1500...

Why it really matters now   I'm guessing that this theme will resonate with many of you as it does with me. We are having to cope with a climate that has become much more abrasive: and I'm referring not only to the weather, but to politics and plenty more. And it...

I celebrated Winter Solstice in a group of 40 people atop a 1000-foot-high hill, with 50mph gales, in a fiery sunset amid storm clouds. The scene felt symbolic of the blowing-down of familiar stability, but there was joy facing it in a community. This group celebrates...

Why deep human-nature connection is becoming urgent   I invite you to tune in for a minute to the state of the earth, waters and air we all depend on. They're getting rapidly more polluted: not only physically, but as this book argues, spiritually and...

Book blog: The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel van der Kolk Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma   Do you have a view of what trauma is, and how widespread it is? I used to think it was something awful that happened to a small minority of people...

Why we all need collective strength   You may wonder why I see community as important in the field of spiritual purpose. It’s a belief that has only emerged for me in the past few years of mounting turbulence. It’s now very hard for lone individuals to sustain...

Align your own creative power within the divine     The essence of creation spirituality is this idea: that the creation of our world was not a one-off event billions of years ago: it is a process continuing in every moment, and each of us can contribute. As...

Nourishing body and soul: Reinventing spiritual community   We live in a time of impending crisis, when I hear many people urging the need for sanctuary, hospicing, and a deeper sense of community. Implicit in such words, but rarely discussed, is the huge...

I see green prescribing as one of the more hopeful innovations by the NHS in recent years. This blog explains briefly what it is, and shows how my Natural Happiness methods can contribute to it. NHS England’s website has a whole section about green social prescribing,...

Feedback on the book, workshops and coaching   Endorsements for the book Natural Happiness is inspiring and practical. Based on decades of hands-on experience, Alan Heeks entwines gardening strategies with mindful exercises that are proven to improve your...

How to nourish yourself with Nature connection Aiding our wellbeing through Nature contact has become a truism, but as life keeps getting more uncertain and demanding, we truly need to deepen with the Earth, for both emotional and physical health. That's what this...

In the past couple of years, the world has been rocked by a series of impacts, including the acceleration of the climate crisis, Gaza-Israel, and now Donald Trump, Iran, and more to come. Most of us did not see any of this coming: a few people did, and the ones I know...

An extra-terrestrial view of our perplexities   When even slightly plausible explanations fail, it's time to try some which look highly off the wall, so give this one a test flight. It came to me in a dream while on holiday in the wilds of the Pennines. In my...

Why organic navigation is better than analytical prescription In recent years, I've spent quite a lot of my time exploring the future outlook: recently, I feel I'm getting some valuable insights, but I've also been pondering why I spend so much time on this. It feels...