A small-group pilot
Steady Ground
How do we keep caring without being consumed by it?
A small pilot group for staying present, connected, and engaged
in a changing world.
Caring in a burning world
Caring about the environment can get increasingly overwhelming.
We go on with ordinary life — raising children, working, showing up for the people we love, making dinner, planning ahead — while also knowing that profound changes are underway around us.
There's urgency to do more. Grief for what's being lost. Anger at how slowly things change. Fear about what's coming. Guilt when we rest or let ourselves enjoy something. Exhaustion from trying to stay engaged.
Sometimes we get overwhelmed.
Sometimes we shut down.
Sometimes we keep pushing long after our bodies are asking us to stop.
And sometimes we just don't know what to do with everything we know and feel.
This group begins there.
What if the goal isn't to care less?
What if we can become more able to carry what we care about?
This pilot explores how we can increase our capacity to stay present with difficult realities without being consumed by them.
Not by convincing ourselves that everything will be fine.
Not by disconnecting from what is happening.
And not by adding another demand to the list of things we're supposed to be doing.
Instead, we'll practice noticing what happens inside us when things become overwhelming, and experiment with practical ways to regain steadiness, connection, and choice.
What we'll explore together
This will be an experiential group rather than a lecture series or environmental discussion forum. We'll work with questions such as:
- How do I recognize when urgency has tipped into overwhelm?
- What happens in me when I encounter frightening information?
- How do I stay with grief or anger without either suppressing it or being taken over by it?
- How can I recover when I feel exhausted, helpless, numb, or shut down?
- Can I experience pleasure, beauty, rest, and connection without feeling that I've stopped caring?
- How do we stay connected to people when we respond differently to the same crisis?
- How do we relate with those whose views we find challenging — without closing our hearts or abandoning our values?
- What is it — in our cultures, our systems, and in each of us — that allows humanity to keep looking away from the threats we face?
- How do we prevent burnout and reignite our passion for steady action that makes a real difference in the world?
- And how might the way we meet the crisis internally affect the way we respond to it externally?
This work is relational at its core. The somatic exploration we do together creates a shared coherence in the group: we get to know one another, and over our weeks together we establish a safe container in which charged topics and intense emotions can surface and be digested — rather than carried alone.
Sessions will combine conversation, short teaching, guided exercises, reflection, and opportunities to practice with other participants. No previous experience with meditation, body-based practices, or similar work is necessary.
Who is this for?
This pilot is for people who care deeply about climate change, biodiversity loss, ecological harm, or the future of the living world — and are curious about how to carry that awareness in a more sustainable way.
You might be an activist or organizer working on climate, conservation, land or water protection, pollution, or another environmental front. You might work in sustainability, journalism, science, education, policy, or environmental advocacy. Or you might simply be someone who has come to understand the magnitude of what is happening and finds that knowledge increasingly difficult to hold.
You do not need to identify as an activist.
You do not need to know anything about the approaches we'll be using.
You only need curiosity about what it means to stay present and engaged without losing yourself in the process.
Help shape the first group
This first group is a pilot. Rather than arriving with a fixed curriculum, we want to bring together a small group, test the practices and structure, listen carefully to participants' experiences, and learn what is most useful.
Participants will therefore be both recipients and collaborators: your experience and feedback will help shape what this work becomes.
Current plan
- Small cohort of approximately 8–12 people
- Four live online sessions over eight weeks
- Approximately 90 minutes per session
- Experiential and relational rather than lecture-based
- Final schedule and format will be determined as the cohort forms
Pilot contribution
We want the pilot to be financially accessible. We are exploring a contribution-based model, with a suggested pilot contribution of approximately $25, and no one excluded solely for lack of funds.
Submitting the interest form does not commit you to participating or paying.
Working with more than our thoughts
When something feels threatening or overwhelming, we don't respond only with our thoughts. We may notice our chest tightening. Our breathing changing. Our muscles bracing. A rush of energy to do something immediately. An impulse to argue, escape, scroll endlessly, work harder, or stop feeling altogether.
These responses are human. And we can learn to notice them.
The practices in this group help us become more aware of these responses as they're happening, and experiment with simple ways of returning to greater steadiness and choice. Over time, that can give us more room between what happens and how we respond.
The purpose isn't to become calm about something that deserves our concern. It's to become more capable of staying present to it.
Facilitated by Dasha Gaian
Dasha Gaian is a coach and facilitator whose work focuses on what helps people remain present, connected, and capable of responding when circumstances are complex, emotionally charged, or overwhelming.
Her approach draws on extensive training in body-based and trauma-informed approaches, mindfulness, relational practice, and work with individual and collective trauma.
She is particularly interested in what becomes possible when we learn to meet difficult realities with greater awareness, connection, and choice.
Interest form
Interested in being part of the pilot?
We're currently gathering the first small group. Leave your information below and we'll send you details as the dates, structure, and cohort take shape.
This is an expression of interest, not a commitment to participate.