upalong - wayfinding and intentional gathering
FUTUREWISE
Nature-Based Retreats for Leaders and Transformational Team Days
Slow down. Reconnect. Lead with purpose.
Our programs are designed to align with both the Inner Development Goals (IDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), preparing your team to navigate today’s challenges and drive
meaningful change for tomorrow.
True leadership starts within.
​In a world that races faster every day, leaders are asked to adapt endlessly, to hold steady in storms, to carry more than one soul can carry.
What’s often missing? Time and space to slow down, reflect, recalibrate from the deep wisdom of our voice within when we can hear it again in the grace of stillness and silence. These are the capacities we are being asked to grow, the inner skills that are truly needed by the times we are living in.
The invitation is not to push harder — but to pause. To root down. To listen for the deeper current moving through us.
FUTUREWISE is a gathering place in nature, where teams and leaders step out of the noise and into the forest. Here, strategy loosens its grip, and another kind of knowing arrives — born of silence, presence, and the wider web of life. From this place, clarity returns. Connection deepens. Change becomes not a burden, but a homecoming.
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We work at the intersection of leadership, transformation, and personal development. Rooted in the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), we combine nature-inspired work, systemic approaches, and change expertise to support deep, lasting growth in the right direction, which may look very different from the old paradigm growth mindset that still echoes through many office buildings and institutioanl halls. If this feels like a wide and broadening exhale, then you are in the right place.
Here we also weave in the inner compass tools of Martha Beck, the liberating questions of Byron Katie’s The Work, Theory U by Otto Scharmer, trauma-informed leadership by Thomas Hübl, and nature-rooted wisdom inspired by John P. Milton. Together, they open a path for leaders and teams to step out of exhaustion and into alignment — not by forcing outcomes, but by remembering what it feels like to lead from presence.
This is not about doing more.
It is about discovering the river already moving through us —
and learning to lead from its flow.
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​What we offer
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Retreats for leaders and teams
A gentle pause to breathe, to rest the nervous system, and to remember what matters. Guided by practices of presencing, deep listening, and trauma-informed leadership, these retreats invite not performance but presence — so leaders and teams can meet themselves and each other anew.
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Nature-based team days & cultural tending
Time in the forest, by the fire, or beneath open skies becomes the ground for real dialogue. Through communication practices, systemic sensing, and the art of listening deeply, we rebuild trust, soften defenses, and cultivate cultures where people feel safe enough to show up fully.
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Vision & purpose retreats for transitions
When the way ahead is uncertain, we gather to sit with story, silence, and emergence. Using tools like Theory U, Byron Katie’s The Work, Martha Beck’s Wild Compass, and thought-work practices, we help teams root into meaning, release what no longer serves, and let the next chapter unfold with clarity and care.
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Holding space through change​
Change brings endings and beginnings, weariness and renewal. We hold this liminal space with a blend of nature-based wisdom (inspired by John P. Milton), compass tools, and trauma-aware facilitation. Here, resilience is nourished, alignment restored, and what is emerging invited with steadiness and grace.
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​Why it works:
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Nature doesn’t just slow us down — it restores our clarity and belonging to something larger than ourselves. From that place, leadership is no longer about control, but about listening and responding.
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Time in nature strips away what is false. Around the fire, through silence, through dialogue, practices like The Work of Byron Katie, Wild Compass tools, and systemic sensing help us release limiting beliefs and open to new possibilities.
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Change is not just a concept to manage. With trauma-informed leadership practices and wisdom streams inspired by John P. Milton, transformation is anchored in the body, witnessed in community, and felt in the nervous system. From there, it ripples outward into how we lead, relate, and create together.
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Blending methods like Theory U, deep listening, presencing, and belief-work grounds the experience in practical transformation towards the co-creation and ways of being and doing our planet needs.
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The Inner Development Goals (IDGs) offer more than a framework — they call us to grow the soil of presence, resilience, and compassion. ​Combined with practices like Theory U, presencing, and deep listening, they become living pathways into a regenerative future.
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FUTUREWISE is for organizations and teams that see leadership as more than performance. It’s for those who want to lead with awareness, courage, and purpose – and shape the future from the inside out.
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Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web,
we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.
CHIEF SEATTLE, 1855
Because you were born to lead true change. And it is time to join the transformation.
(Co:)Sensing the Thread of Life
There is a thread inside a cave
that whispers from the future,
distant but insistent,
asking to be our guide.
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Against it, all our smart and meticulous plans
look pale and small,
mere scaffolding around
a deeper unfolding.
It has been there since the beginning,
woven into the silence of the forest,
the rhythm of the tides,
the stillness that waits
beneath our rushing.
Through all our endless striving
It keeps whispering
Never tiring,
always stirring,
Speaking through our deepest longings
Inviting us into the stillness that is eternal
but access only when we surrender
to the weight of the past
and the uncertainty of the unknown.
It is in that stillness
that we find ourselves again
And with it, that thread that is guiding us forward --
not in the fast track going nowhere
but on the path that is our truest purpose.
The path Mother Earth has been walking for millennia,
the sacred path Nature has been trying to signal us
for decades of symptoms we call "disasters and polycrises”
the path of truth and sacred knowing our ancestors knew
and sensitive spirits feel in their bones
The path and truth many tribes knew before us
until white man came to “educate” them
There is a sacred awakening
Underneath the earth quakes
As she aches
And opens into cracks
The ancient thread we all sense reappears
Opens
not to swallow us
Not to hide
But to guide us
Back into our wild and sweet remembering,
the path we were meant to take all along,
the warm earth beneath our feet some of us call destiny.
belonging.
Home.
