Deep Worldview Literacy for a World in Crisis
A GEDS Advanced Worldview Offering — developed by Worldview Journeys
What Is the Weaving Resilience Course About?
"The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it."
~ David Suzuki
What Is the Weaving Resilience Course About?
Why Energy Systems Matter for Sustainable and Regenerative Development
Worldviews as deep leverage points for systemic change
Humanity faces an unprecedented poly-crisis - a convergence of ecological breakdown, democratic decay, intense polarization, and a pervasive crisis of meaning, amongst others. Voices across diverse fields argue that addressing these interlocking challenges requires nothing less than a shift in the worldviews, mindsets, and paradigms from which our current systems arise. As Donella Meadows argued, this is our deepest leverage point for systemic change.
Yet, as she also noted, the deeper the leverage point, the harder to engage it and the more resistance it tends to create. On top of that, we now live in a worldview-plural world. Every day, we encounter people who make sense of reality in radically different ways. They operate from other worldviews, departing from different assumptions about what is true, what matters, and what needs to change.
Why Energy Systems Matter for Sustainable and Regenerative Development
Photo: NextGENNA
In a world where the old stories no longer hold and new ones have not yet emerged, our late postmodern society is also characterized by a pervasive sense of moral and existential disorientation, sometimes referred to as the ‘meaning crisis’. This crisis arguably underlies the resurgence of traditionalism and populism, while also pointing to a palpable need for deeper sense-making.
All of this underscores the need for genuine engagement with our worldviews. Yet most of us have never been supported to develop the capacities for this: the ability to see our own worldview, to constructively engage with perspectives different from our own, to expand our views and embrace a more planetary perspective, and to bring alignment between what we believe and how we live.
This program sets out to do precisely that, developing 'deep worldview literacy'. We do this through a combination of powerful knowledge, personal reflection, experiential activities, and deep dialogues. The program reaches into the personal domain, inviting us to explore, exchange, expand, and express our own worldviews — as we believe we cannot ask others to change while leaving ourselves unchanged. In this vision, the inner work of deep worldview literacy is itself a form of changemaking; one that starts from the inside out.
Why Energy Systems Matter for Sustainable and Regenerative Development
About the program
The Worldview Journey is a research-based, transformative learning program developed by Worldview Journeys in collaboration with Utrecht University. It is grounded in a validated seven-step learning cycle, informed by transformative learning theory, and has been tested with thousands of participants across diverse contexts — from higher education to open online programs.
Unlike programs that focus on delivering new ideas or knowledge, the Worldview Journey works at a deeper level, creating the conditions under which participants can examine their own meaning-making, engage genuinely across difference, broaden their worldviews, and live in greater alignment with their values.
It combines what most programs offer separately: potent conceptual knowledge (a worldview lens that makes the world newly legible), experiential learning (a worldview test, a worldview interview, guided nature walk, peer coaching), introspective practices (journaling, reflection), and meaningful human encounters through deep dialogue.
Central to the program is Worldview Journeys' signature Stream of Consciousness (SoC) dialogue method - a structured practice that gradually moves pairs into deeper layers of sharing and listening, reliably producing connection, insight, and genuine perspective shifts, while building a sense of community and shared learning.
As one participant put it: "What I enjoyed most, and what surprised me, was how strong the impact of a few well-chosen methods can be. Deep learning does not require 'more input,' but better conditions: time, structure, safety, presence, and a format that takes inner processes seriously."
Course Details
Course format:
Online with live sessions, experiential practices, and learning materials. About 2 hours prep time for each of the four Journeys.
Price:
Choose based on what's available to you: £300, £350 or £400.
Limited number of partial scholarship available, apply here by November 30th, 2026
Duration:
10 live sessions over 3 months
Workload:
Approximately 2-3 hours per week
Schedule:
Dec 8: Introduction to the program
Dec 15: EXPLORE your Worldview
Jan 5: Integration session
Jan 12: EXCHANGE your Worldview
Jan 19: Integration session
Feb 2: EXPAND your Worldview
Feb 9: integration session
Feb 23: EXPRESS your Worldview
March 2: integration session
March 9: Completion of the program
Live Sessions
Tuesdays, 19:00–21:00 CET
Is this course for You?
The Worldview Journey is for anyone who wants to develop the capacities to navigate difference, complexity, and collective challenge more skillfully - and who senses that this requires not just new information, but also inner exploration and change. The program is particularly suited to:
Sustainability and regeneration practitioners who work across cultural, ideological, or disciplinary divides and want to be able to engage with and mobilize diverse worldview-audiences.
Educators, facilitators, and community leaders who want to support genuine dialogue and perspective-taking in their work, rather than surface-level exchange.
Changemakers and activists who recognize that the inner and outer dimensions of transformation are inseparable — and that we’re the vessels for the change we’re inviting others into.
Anyone feeling overwhelmed, disheartened, or disoriented by the state of the world, or just curious about their own worldview and the big life questions, while looking for a grounded way to engage.
No prior knowledge of worldview theory is required. This course is self-contained and open to all.
What You May Gain
A worldview lens — a new way of seeing that makes many things newly legible: why people disagree the way they do, how worldviews clash in our political and cultural debates, how human behaviors are shaped by unconscious assumptions. Once you have this lens, you can't unsee it.
Awareness of your own worldview — the capacity to see your own worldview as a worldview: not reality itself, but a particular way of organizing it, informed by your personal biography, and ever-changing and open to inquiry. This is a metacognitive shift that changes how you move through the world.
A dialogue practice — as you become experienced with the SoC dialogue practice, you start to relate to conversations differently, building important skills like deep listening and perspective-taking. At the same time, it also offers you a practical, simple, research-based method you can use in your own contexts.
A genuine learning stance toward difference — instead of going into defensive mode when encountering perspectives that challenge yours, you develop the capacity to stay open, curious, and grounded. You rewire your mind to use what seemed threatening as fuel for learning and growth.
A sense of expanded perspective and interconnection — a sense of reconnecting with nature, a deeper understanding of your place in the larger whole, and the clarity and purpose that can come from seeing your worldview within a larger evolutionary context.
Greater alignment between your values and your actions — insight into the hidden commitments that keep you from living in accordance with what you know to be true and important — and practical tools for closing that gap.
"I have become calmer. This calm does not come from indifference, but from an expanded view: when I recognize that people organize the world through different meaning systems, much becomes more understandable — tensions, misunderstandings, and conflicts included."
Journey Outline
The program consists of four learning journeys, each guiding participants through a distinct inner shift. Together they form a developmental sequence: each shift builds on the previous one.
Journey 1
Explore Your Worldview: Gain perspective on your perspective
From unconscious to reflexive
For most of us, our worldview is like water to fish — so omnipresent and fundamental to our experience that it becomes invisible. We don't see our worldview; we see with it. It shapes what appears real, what seems valuable, what feels possible — without our noticing. This first journey is about gaining perspective on your perspective, while also recognizing the larger landscape of worldviews present in contemporary society.
Through the worldview test (a research-based tool), short video lectures, guided reflection, and several deep dialogues exploring your own worldview, you begin to recognize the lens you look through — and to see how it shapes what you notice, what you're open to, and what you dismiss. This is the foundational shift: from being embedded in your worldview to being able to look at it.
"As the weeks went by the different worldviews became more concrete and tangible for me. I started 'seeing' them in action around me and in myself."
“The fundamental shift that the program repeatedly helped to initiate: from ‘seeing with a worldview unconsciously’ to ‘seeing with a worldview reflectively.”
For most of us, our worldview is like water to fish — so omnipresent and fundamental to our experience that it becomes invisible. We don't see our worldview; we see with it. It shapes what appears real, what seems valuable, what feels possible — without our noticing. This first journey is about gaining perspective on your perspective, while also recognizing the larger landscape of worldviews present in contemporary society.
Through the worldview test (a research-based tool), short video lectures, guided reflection, and several deep dialogues exploring your own worldview, you begin to recognize the lens you look through — and to see how it shapes what you notice, what you're open to, and what you dismiss. This is the foundational shift: from being embedded in your worldview to being able to look at it.
"As the weeks went by the different worldviews became more concrete and tangible for me. I started 'seeing' them in action around me and in myself."
“The fundamental shift that the program repeatedly helped to initiate: from ‘seeing with a worldview unconsciously’ to ‘seeing with a worldview reflectively.”
For most of us, our worldview is like water to fish — so omnipresent and fundamental to our experience that it becomes invisible. We don't see our worldview; we see with it. It shapes what appears real, what seems valuable, what feels possible — without our noticing. This first journey is about gaining perspective on your perspective, while also recognizing the larger landscape of worldviews present in contemporary society.
Through the worldview test (a research-based tool), short video lectures, guided reflection, and several deep dialogues exploring your own worldview, you begin to recognize the lens you look through — and to see how it shapes what you notice, what you're open to, and what you dismiss. This is the foundational shift: from being embedded in your worldview to being able to look at it.
"As the weeks went by the different worldviews became more concrete and tangible for me. I started 'seeing' them in action around me and in myself."
“The fundamental shift that the program repeatedly helped to initiate: from ‘seeing with a worldview unconsciously’ to ‘seeing with a worldview reflectively.”
Journey 2
Exchange Your Worldview: Learn to learn from other perspectives
From threat response to learning stance
When our worldview is challenged, our nervous system tends to register it as a threat — triggering protective responses like prejudice, dismissiveness, or withdrawal. We see this pattern clearly in public discourse and the pervasive polarization that characterizes contemporary societies.
This journey explores what it takes to cultivate a learning stance in the face of such worldview conflict. Through understanding the mechanisms of worldview-protection, learning about how we can strengthen our growth mindset, and a worldview interview with someone with a different worldview, you develop the capacity to engage across difference with curiosity rather than self-protection.
"I noticed a shift in myself. I feel increasingly able to listen without immediately wanting to react, and when I speak, to speak without expecting confirmation or approval."
“Two insights were especially impactful in understanding what gets in the way of healthy worldview exchange. The first was the concept of identity threat — how our nervous systems go into alarm when our worldview feels challenged. Learning how this threat response can be met through both a growth mindset and nervous system regulation was highly valuable for me as a facilitator and leader.”
When our worldview is challenged, our nervous system tends to register it as a threat — triggering protective responses like prejudice, dismissiveness, or withdrawal. We see this pattern clearly in public discourse and the pervasive polarization that characterizes contemporary societies.
This journey explores what it takes to cultivate a learning stance in the face of such worldview conflict. Through understanding the mechanisms of worldview-protection, learning about how we can strengthen our growth mindset, and a worldview interview with someone with a different worldview, you develop the capacity to engage across difference with curiosity rather than self-protection.
"I noticed a shift in myself. I feel increasingly able to listen without immediately wanting to react, and when I speak, to speak without expecting confirmation or approval."
“Two insights were especially impactful in understanding what gets in the way of healthy worldview exchange. The first was the concept of identity threat — how our nervous systems go into alarm when our worldview feels challenged. Learning how this threat response can be met through both a growth mindset and nervous system regulation was highly valuable for me as a facilitator and leader.”
When our worldview is challenged, our nervous system tends to register it as a threat — triggering protective responses like prejudice, dismissiveness, or withdrawal. We see this pattern clearly in public discourse and the pervasive polarization that characterizes contemporary societies.
This journey explores what it takes to cultivate a learning stance in the face of such worldview conflict. Through understanding the mechanisms of worldview-protection, learning about how we can strengthen our growth mindset, and a worldview interview with someone with a different worldview, you develop the capacity to engage across difference with curiosity rather than self-protection.
"I noticed a shift in myself. I feel increasingly able to listen without immediately wanting to react, and when I speak, to speak without expecting confirmation or approval."
“Two insights were especially impactful in understanding what gets in the way of healthy worldview exchange. The first was the concept of identity threat — how our nervous systems go into alarm when our worldview feels challenged. Learning how this threat response can be met through both a growth mindset and nervous system regulation was highly valuable for me as a facilitator and leader.”
Journey 3
Expand Your Worldview: Cultivate a planetary perspective
From separation to interconnection
This journey takes participants outside — literally. A guided nature walk invites deep reflection on how different worldviews understand nature and shape our responses to ecological and planetary challenges, while also inviting you to explore your own relationship with the natural world.
The walk also invites participants to see themselves within a larger story: not as separate individuals acting upon nature, but as creative participants in a vast, ongoing evolutionary process. This isn't about rejecting modernity, but about understanding why the modern separation from nature was developmentally necessary — and recognizing we're now called to integrate what was separated.
"Insight in the different worldviews and how these evolved over time gives me so much peace and understanding when looking at the world nowadays."
“I discovered that I would like to invest more into my connection with nature. I love nature and nature cares for me but I have been neglecting direct contact with nature.”
This journey takes participants outside — literally. A guided nature walk invites deep reflection on how different worldviews understand nature and shape our responses to ecological and planetary challenges, while also inviting you to explore your own relationship with the natural world.
The walk also invites participants to see themselves within a larger story: not as separate individuals acting upon nature, but as creative participants in a vast, ongoing evolutionary process. This isn't about rejecting modernity, but about understanding why the modern separation from nature was developmentally necessary — and recognizing we're now called to integrate what was separated.
"Insight in the different worldviews and how these evolved over time gives me so much peace and understanding when looking at the world nowadays."
“I discovered that I would like to invest more into my connection with nature. I love nature and nature cares for me but I have been neglecting direct contact with nature.”
This journey takes participants outside — literally. A guided nature walk invites deep reflection on how different worldviews understand nature and shape our responses to ecological and planetary challenges, while also inviting you to explore your own relationship with the natural world.
The walk also invites participants to see themselves within a larger story: not as separate individuals acting upon nature, but as creative participants in a vast, ongoing evolutionary process. This isn't about rejecting modernity, but about understanding why the modern separation from nature was developmentally necessary — and recognizing we're now called to integrate what was separated.
"Insight in the different worldviews and how these evolved over time gives me so much peace and understanding when looking at the world nowadays."
“I discovered that I would like to invest more into my connection with nature. I love nature and nature cares for me but I have been neglecting direct contact with nature.”
Journey 4
Express Your Worldview: Cultural Software
From values-action gap to aligned living
Different worldviews operate from radically different ideas about who we are as human beings. Reflecting on these diverse ‘anthropologies’, we investigate what they mean for our accounts of both behavior and change. We also make this personal, by exploring what psychologists call "immunity to change" — the deep beliefs and hidden commitments that operate beneath conscious awareness, trying to protect us yet often keeping us from living our values.
The final journey brings these deep dynamics to light. Through a peer coaching session, participants examine the unconscious patterns that keep them from living in alignment with what they know to be true and important — and develop concrete insight into how to close that gap.
“I really enjoyed the worldview interview and the coaching; the real human-to-human communication and learning together. It was really exciting and life-changing.”
“Inner development is … about mindshifts that are not only understood but also lived — that sink into the body, into the nervous system, into how we react under pressure. Only then do they become sustainable.”
Different worldviews operate from radically different ideas about who we are as human beings. Reflecting on these diverse ‘anthropologies’, we investigate what they mean for our accounts of both behavior and change. We also make this personal, by exploring what psychologists call "immunity to change" — the deep beliefs and hidden commitments that operate beneath conscious awareness, trying to protect us yet often keeping us from living our values.
The final journey brings these deep dynamics to light. Through a peer coaching session, participants examine the unconscious patterns that keep them from living in alignment with what they know to be true and important — and develop concrete insight into how to close that gap.
“I really enjoyed the worldview interview and the coaching; the real human-to-human communication and learning together. It was really exciting and life-changing.”
“Inner development is … about mindshifts that are not only understood but also lived — that sink into the body, into the nervous system, into how we react under pressure. Only then do they become sustainable.”
Different worldviews operate from radically different ideas about who we are as human beings. Reflecting on these diverse ‘anthropologies’, we investigate what they mean for our accounts of both behavior and change. We also make this personal, by exploring what psychologists call "immunity to change" — the deep beliefs and hidden commitments that operate beneath conscious awareness, trying to protect us yet often keeping us from living our values.
The final journey brings these deep dynamics to light. Through a peer coaching session, participants examine the unconscious patterns that keep them from living in alignment with what they know to be true and important — and develop concrete insight into how to close that gap.
“I really enjoyed the worldview interview and the coaching; the real human-to-human communication and learning together. It was really exciting and life-changing.”
“Inner development is … about mindshifts that are not only understood but also lived — that sink into the body, into the nervous system, into how we react under pressure. Only then do they become sustainable.”
What Makes This Program Distinctive?
A worldview lens that changes how you see. The program doesn't just teach skills — it offers a powerful analytical framework for understanding human difference, polarization, and collective challenge. Participants often describe seeing the world newly once they have this lens.
Research-based and rigorously designed. Developed through educational design research with Utrecht University, structured around a validated transformative learning cycle, and informed by worldview-research, developmental psychology, and sustainability science, amongst others. This is not a collection of inspiring ideas, but a carefully engineered learning experience.
The combination that actually changes people. As any good educator knows, knowledge alone doesn't change us. What changes us is the right combination: knowledge + experience + reflection + dialogue. The Worldview Journey is designed around exactly this integration — bringing together conceptual input, experiential practices, introspective exercises, and deep dialogue in a sequence that allows real transformation to occur.
Deep dialogue at the core. The program's signature Stream of Consciousness dialogue method creates something rare: genuine human encounter. Not debate, not polite exchange, but humanizing conversations that reliably produce trust, insight, and perspective shifts across difference.
Designed to transform, not to instruct. The program does not tell participants what to think, but creates conditions under which people are supported to think deeper together — cultivating worldview literacy through reflection, dialogue, and experience. The aim is not a change of worldview, but a change in how people relate to their worldview.
Change within to support change without. This program is grounded in the idea that we cannot ask others to change while leaving ourselves unchanged. Having gone through our own transformation empowers us as change-makers. Exemplifying a willingness to grow and adapt makes us more effective in supporting and inviting societal transformation in the world around us.
About the Facilitators
The GEDS Full Course is guided by dedicated professionals with real-world experience across all dimensions of sustainability.
Meet some of our facilitators:
Annick de Witt
Director of Worldview Journeys Foundation and the creator of the Worldview Journey program. She is affiliated with Utrecht University as researcher, educator, facilitator, and initiator of the Generative Dialogue Lab at campus. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals from Futures to Ecological Economics, and she collaborated with Utrecht University and CHARM-EU (European University) to develop and test the Worldview Journey program across diverse educational contexts. Her work draws on two decades of research into worldviews, cultural change, and sustainability, and is grounded in both rigorous scholarship and genuine passion for the inner development that makes outer transformation possible. These days she particularly enjoys designing and facilitating dialogues that shift perspectives, open new possibilities, and start to create a different culture.
Learn more about Worldview Journeys and the research behind this program at worldviewjourneys.com
Dave Pendle
Brings over two decades of experience facilitating and leading learning services for youth and young adults in the UK, including specialized mentoring, coaching, and training. He holds a Master's in Leadership and Adult Learning, and for the past decade has designed regenerative learning experiences, online and offline, dedicated to equipping people to become conscientious agents of transformation.
Rebecca Bouhuijs
Eco-mindfulness trainer, psychosocial counsellor, and facilitator exploring inner awareness, our relationship with the living world, and societal transformation. Drawing on eco-mindfulness and relational practices, she invites people to notice the worldviews and assumptions that shape how they see themselves, others, and the living world — creating space for stories of reconnection to emerge.
Course facilitator
The GEDS Full Course is guided by dedicated professionals with real-world experience across all dimensions of sustainability.
Meet some of our facilitators:
Ad Vlems
Ad Vlems is a pioneering figure in the ecovillage world, having founded Boekel Ecovillage, an inspiring example of sustainable living. He has transformed his life to focus on sustainable living with a positive impact and inspiring others.
A documentary about Boekel Ecovillage, made by the European Commission, has been broadcasted in 155 countries worldwide on television. Ad has participated in Project Resilience, on which the Weaving Resilience course is based.
He is also part of the Keystone Community project which applies one of the tools that you will learn to use in this course, the Resilient Tracker. More than 15 Dutch communities are involved with it.
What Participants Say
In General
It has been really wonderful to connect with this amazing group of people.”
I found it enlightening, it helped me see a greater depth of thinking related to discussing, considering and engaging worldviews.”
It helped me expand my empathy for others and meeting them where THEY are at rather than expecting them to meet me where I am at.”
It was powerful. I felt expanded, connected and more open to others, enriched — with greater hope, and possible practical applications for my area of interest."
About the prep work in between sessions
I enjoyed watching the videos. I found the content engaging and well organized. The journaling allowed for reflection and helped to reinforce the concepts.”
I always looked forward to starting to watch the video's, and reflect on the materials. … The Nature Walk is really nice - something I do regularly - but this one is deeper, invites great reflection. Loved the duo-coaching too, had wonderful insights and my partner also had useful insights.”
The work in between kept me connected to the sessions and provided a basis for some understanding that the dialogues could enrich.”
Have questions? We’ve got answers.
No previous experience is required. All you need is a passion for community building and collaboration.
The course is designed to fit busy schedules with around 10 hours per week of flexible study. Though highly encouraged, Live Sessions are not mandatory and are recorded to be watched later.
Yes! The course provides hands-on tools you can apply immediately in your community.
An energy systems course explores how energy flows through living, social, and economic systems, and how these flows shape resilience, equity, and long-term sustainability.
No. This course is accessible and experiential, combining systems science with practical tools and real-world applications.
Entirely online with live sessions, group discussions, and self-paced assignments. You’ll have access to experienced facilitators, a supportive learning community, and rich resource materials.
Yes. The course is designed for people working in community development, sustainability, education, social innovation, and regenerative design.
Participants have life-long access to the course material. Though the course has a defined length, participants can go back to the material any time after the course completion.
Have questions? We’ve got answers.
An energy systems course explores how energy flows through living, social, and economic systems, and how these flows shape resilience, equity, and long-term sustainability.
No. This course is accessible and experiential, combining systems science with practical tools and real-world applications.
Entirely online with live sessions, group discussions, and self-paced assignments. You’ll have access to experienced facilitators, a supportive learning community, and rich resource materials.
Yes. The course is designed for people working in community development, sustainability, education, social innovation, and regenerative design.
Participants have life-long access to the course material. Though the course has a defined length, participants can go back to the material any time after the course completion.
An energy systems course explores how energy flows through living, social, and economic systems, and how these flows shape resilience, equity, and long-term sustainability.
No. This course is accessible and experiential, combining systems science with practical tools and real-world applications.
Entirely online with live sessions, group discussions, and self-paced assignments. You’ll have access to experienced facilitators, a supportive learning community, and rich resource materials.
Yes. The course is designed for people working in community development, sustainability, education, social innovation, and regenerative design.
Participants have life-long access to the course material. Though the course has a defined length, participants can go back to the material any time after the course completion.
An energy systems course explores how energy flows through living, social, and economic systems, and how these flows shape resilience, equity, and long-term sustainability.
No. This course is accessible and experiential, combining systems science with practical tools and real-world applications.
Entirely online with live sessions, group discussions, and self-paced assignments. You’ll have access to experienced facilitators, a supportive learning community, and rich resource materials.
Yes. The course is designed for people working in community development, sustainability, education, social innovation, and regenerative design.
Participants have life-long access to the course material. Though the course has a defined length, participants can go back to the material any time after the course completion.
Join us!
The Worldview Journey is a program developed by Worldview Journeys and offered in partnership with Gaia Education.
Speak with us on WhatsApp!