This brings back memories 😍. In 2018 I took part in a 10-day accelerated UNLEASH Innovation Lab in Singapore, where 1,000 young people from over 100 countries worked on SDG solutions. I was in the SDG6 track. The process was intense and pretty sleepless — problem framing, ideation, prototyping, testing, implementation… and honestly, most of us spent most of the time just trying to truly understand and frame the problem 🤦‍♀️ Back then, fresh out of my PhD, I was so focused on things being “technical and solvable” that the mindfulness elements our facilitators brought in felt unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and (I’ll admit 🙈) like they were “wasting time” I thought should go to solutions. Looking back now, especially after the last couple of years of diving deeply into inner development, I can really see how essential that was — and how much of an opportunity I missed back then. The way you’re integrating inner development and SDGs feels so powerful and so needed. If I’d had mentors like the two of you back then, I might have started that journey much earlier ❤️💪 Wishing you and the students a meaningful and inspiring experience!

@Sarah Santacroce @Paolo Nicora Hi guys, it was just shared on the GPN meeting right now by @Marie Hernandez , I think this one works: https://innerdevelopmentgoals-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/WWi-vqVDQgqCKcE0vKc3Kg

@Sarah Santacroce yesss, the dancing was 🙌❤️... I depleted my whole energy buffer storage after the summit (not just the summit, but many events afterwards) that my body decided to take over to stop me 😅. So, I am now embracing the winter season as much as I can, trying to heal, reintegrate and recalibrate. Sorry for missing so much of the meetings...I will be back ("in terminator voice" 😂)

I am so sorry, but that time is in the middle of the my lectures, so I can not be online, but will attribute where I can in written form. For instance there was a very touching performance on the pre-summit mingle by Kim Gajraj who sings about climate and collective grief, was very open about her own struggles and she talked about them on stage. She had solo performances and with the Singing Sisterhood and ended with song on hope, children and future also sharing her pregnancy at the moment 🥰. At the Lake Emerge, on Friday evening, besides some quick IDG summit-related sharing exercises in pairs and house tours, to me the performance of Teater X where they enacted the stories from the audience, and with mostly funny spins, was great experience.

Like @Nadene Canning and @Sarah Santacroce , I was also in Track 3, and would just add a few reflections to their insights: Definitely Wakanyi, with her everlasting “we are one” and “I am because you are”, reminded us of our deep connection to the Whole. It really brought home that resilience is relational — there’s no such thing as resilience in isolation. It almost felt like that moment from The Matrix — “there is no spoon” — only here it was “there is no individual.” The story about MobileSchool was also deeply touching. The way Arnoud Raskin reframed street kids — from being seen as “problems” to recognizing their huge potential for adaptability, survival, and people skills — was inspiring. I also liked his point about "designing for the context instead of complaining about the context". I absolutely loved the creative play with paper led by William Yip, and the singing exercises with Asher Blank. I’m really not a singer, but with the whole atrium joining in — no structure, just voices — I let go, and by the end, I was actually enjoying it 🙌 And of course, the time spent later with @Nadene Canning and @Sarah Santacroce , and all the dancing, was the perfect ending to Day 2 😎🤩

I’m still trying to digest everything from Day 1 here in Stockholm — it felt like a journey through discomfort and belonging, from the courage of Kirsten Dunlop and Christiana Figueres to lead in uncertainty, to Kasper Reimer’s call that “action shapes values.” Kasper’s words about how “we keep producing until we break down — or break the planet” struck me hard. They reflected our collective conditioning so clearly — and how urgently that paradigm needs to shift. Then Ali Mahlodji brought a different kind of clarity — the reminder "to work for something rather than against something". His warmth, humor, and openness made that truth land deeply: creation carries far more energy than resistance or destruction. Katie Hodgetts reframed resilience with “it’s not a marathon or a sprint, but a relay race.” That image stayed with me: how we need community, how it’s okay to pass the torch for a while, because not everything has to be carried alone. Later in the day, Imam Ashafa and Rev. James Wuye offered a smaller forgiveness session, and about twenty-ish of us joined them. The atmosphere was both raw and light — they moved with ease between their dark history and shared humor, teasing each other and acknowledging how they still argue from time to time. It was a living example of reconciliation — truth held together with laughter. After we collectively “burned the bonfire” of our pains written on small pieces of paper, Wakanyi led us into a chant, repeating “Tū rí amwe, tū rí amwe…” — in Kikuyu, and then “We are one…” in English, all while standing in a circle and holding hands with closed eyes. In that rhythm, something softened. It wasn’t a concept anymore; it was a collective feeling of release — an embodied reminder that forgiveness begins within, long before it becomes action. And yes, I cried way too much 😅

@Nadene Canning Thank you Nadene, and yes, I imagine it would be kind ritual. I do wonder, though, how we might translate the felt sense of it into an online setting — that physical circle, the chant, the collective exhale. We may try however, and see how it goes :)