Think like a Tree shares natural principles, patterns and tools that are nature’s secrets to your happiness, health, wellbeing, success and living a good life.
Let nature (with a little help from us) transform your life and your world.
Hover over each box to find out more.
Learn to embrace complexity without becoming stressed.
We did not evolve to live in the modern industrial, consumer world so it’s not surprising we get stressed. Step away from the systems that are preventing you from thriving.
Develop the true self-belief that your actions can made a difference
Learn to not be affected by people who want to keep you in boxes – nature doesn’t judge.
Cast off the fear of trying new things. Learn to truly thrive even when life has given you a bumpy ride.
Leave behind the fear for the world and the feelings of paralysis of not knowing how or what to change.
You can only truly understand nature's wisdom when you can see yourself as part of the living world.
The Western industrial mindset sees humans as superior – are you ready to leave that behind and make the shift into belonging and connection?
Are you open to discovering the joy, calm and abundance for body and mind that nature-connection brings?
Nature has been offering a model of success for hundreds of millions of years – we guide you to discover the natural principles that all living beings share.
These are the secrets to success for growth, health, wellbeing, resilience, connection, relationships, purpose, success, belonging and creating a positive future.
Are you open to being an apprentice of natural systems? Embedding nature’s wisdom into your own life and the world around you?
A change in mindset is a huge first step but you’re not there yet – keep going…
Discover how to take action to make the transformation that you want to see. We know that can be scary, so we offer natural principles, a design cycle, tools and support to help you to make those all-important changes and embed them in your life.
Are you ready to take action and make a difference?
And of course once you’ve learned the skills, they are yours to use again and again – forever, for free!
Limited time 20% discount. Was £35 now £28 until 30 June 2023
The Course:
You are looking for:
You:
£120* – £150
The programme:
You are looking for:
You:
*additional low income places are available on most courses
£180* – £240
The programme:
You are looking for:
You:
*additional low income places are available on most courses
£3500
The programme:
You are looking for:
You:
A self-study online course leading you through the key natural principles.
Learn at your own pace.
Each module contains:
A video explaining where we see the natural principle in nature and what you can learn for your own life.
An exercise, activity or quiz to complete.
An online community of fellow participants to connect with, and share learning. The course is hosted in partnership with Permaculture Learn and Connect, giving you the benefits of a learning community.
All for just £35
Design your life with nature as your guide
3 formats to choose from:
– Online (zoom) over 6 weeks (2.5 hour sessions plus self-study);
– In-person (beautiful woodland locations) over 6 weeks (2.5 hour sessions plus self-study)
– 3 day intensive programme (beautiful woodland locations)
We associate woodlands, forests and other natural ecosystems with resilience, longevity and harmony, but often struggle to experience these in our own lives.
By exploring principles derived from nature, this programme will guide you step-by-step through a design cycle that can be used for a wide range of personal circumstances – relationships, health, wellbeing, leisure and work.
In each session we will work, step by step through a twelve stage design cycle, so that your design builds up in manageable chunks. We explore 1 – 3 phases of the design cycle each week.
You may want to make a significant change, some small improvements, or just want to be more content or effective in your everyday life. Whatever your circumstances this course has something to offer.
The course has been designed to be appropriate for absolutely everyone’s circumstances and stage of life – whether you are starting out on life’s journey, switching direction, dealing with a challenge, or planning your future.
Come prepared to think, being open to seeing yourself and the natural world in a different light, and to challenge existing beliefs…
The programme comprises fifteen hours of group sessions plus activities to do at home.
During the programme you will build up a design that is personal to you. All course materials are provided and you will go away with a toolkit of tools and principles that can be used again and again.
You should aim to commit an additional 8 to 12 hours at home, but that is up to you – but I can guarantee that once you start thinking, you won’t want to stop.
In-person courses take place in a range of different locations, but all situated within or near woodlands.
Each session we spend some time outdoors to ensure that you are able to gain the maximum advantage from learning from the woodlands themselves. We will experience nature and the weather in all its diversity. Often our learning from the bad weather in our lives is more useful than the experiences of sunny days. So please come prepared with appropriate footwear and clothing.
For online courses we encourage you to spend as much time as you can outdoors between sessions.
Be prepared to think differently about yourself and the natural world, be challenged in your existing beliefs, and be open to learn from others. Our most productive space is often just outside our comfort zone, but the environment is a supportive one. Practical exercises bring the principles to life, and laughter helps the learning too…
At the end of each session there will be personal exercises and fun tasks to undertake at home. This will support you to complete a design that is personal to you – either by the end of the course, or afterwards, depending on the pace you choose.
Outdoor time
We have a break during each online session where we invite you to head outdoors and complete a short activity. Many of the home study activities involve connecting with nature outdoors too.
The course uses a wide variety of methods including discussion, group work, observation, visioning, and individual study, all designed to accelerate learning. These ensure that everyone each of us, with our own unique learning styles, are supported. Everyone will have valuable skills, learning and experience to bring to the group and by working together we can explore the issues in theory and practice.
As a group we share our knowledge with each other and have fun too.
The course is applicable to a wide range of personal circumstances that
participants may have concerns about sharing in a group setting. We therefore ensure the following:
– That no-one will be required to share beyond what feels comfortable
– That confidentiality is agreed amongst all participants
– That personal designs can be worked on at home
– That we have fun and laugh a lot!
During and following the course, additional support is available if you feel you would like it. The cost is £125 for a one hour session or £400 for a block of four. Sessions are available in person or via Zoom. This is totally optional as we aim to give you all the tools you need during the course.
The Think like a Tree programme was established in 2017 and participants have used it to design a new way of living and thriving with a wide range of circumstances. Here are just a few. The focus of designs have included: designing a new wellbeing business; overcoming hoarding; supporting a teenager with mental ill-health; boosting confidence; overcoming bullying; finding a new direction; living with a chronic illness; planning for retirement; having an eco-friendly family life; improving work-life balance; supporting a child with autism; overcoming anxiety; improving a relationship with a partner; planning a new life after divorce; being a more effective campaigner. Everyone is unique so every design is unique!
Check out some of the tesimonials below.
If you’ve ever had a garden, you’ll know that it can be tricky to get the balance right. We’ve all done it – you head to the garden centre, buy a plant, pop it in and then see how it goes. You’ve not considered the soil conditions (who bothers to read the labels?) or the existing plants, or the overall colour scheme. So at worst your expensive new plant flops and dies, and at best your garden lacks the wow factor of the gardens you see at Chelsea Flower Show (or even the garden of your neighbour who took that garden design course). And worst of all you beat yourself up for wasting the money, letting the plant die and still not having the garden you wanted.
That’s how most people approach their lives too. You decide you want to make a change so you try something new, like a new routine, diet or exercise regime, but because you haven’t looked at yourself as a whole system (within bigger systems), then ad hoc changes don’t endure, and you end up in a cycle of self-blame without long-lasting benefits. You also feel pulled in the wrong direction by systems that you are told are supposed to make life easier but somehow make yours more complicated and anxiety-provoking. Even thinking about making the big changes, such as change of career, promotion or establishing a new business can be paralysing because of the lessons learned from your previous so-called ‘failures’.
For your garden problems you can make a call to a garden designer (better still a permaculture designer). They’ve been trained to look at the big picture such as the soil and weather conditions, and they ask you the crucial questions like ‘what functions do you want your garden to serve?’. Do you want it for beauty, an outdoor dining space, growing food or family space? Only when they’ve surveyed the site; researched the conditions; looked at what resources you have available and found out what your vision is, will they put pen to paper and start making suggestions. You, and they, avoid costly mistakes and together you design a beautiful garden, which your neighbour is immediately jealous of.
It’s very similar for the Think like a Tree 1 to 1 programme. We work step by step through a twelve-phase design cycle, which is inspired by natural systems, supporting you to design your life in a holistic way. We look at the big picture first (like your core values, what’s important to you) then help you fill in all the glorious details. So when you wake up in the morning, you’ll love what you see, what you do, and most importantly who you are.
You’ll be happy with the roses in your life, and better equipped to accept the thorns too.
The programme is packed with tools for you to use again and again and you will build up a design during the programme that will be yours to refer to (and add to) over time.
The foundations of the course are the Natural Principles – nature’s secrets to success, and these are yours to keep in the form of the book Think like a Tree: the natural principles guide to life by Sarah Spencer, as well as the many tools and resources we use throughout the course.
You can complete the programme in-person (see venue options below) or via Zoom (or hybrid). When in-person we’ll meet in beautiful natural surroundings. Even when you choose the Zoom option, you’ll be encouraged into nature to learn directly, benefitting your health, mental health and accelerating your transformation.
We always start with Observation. You’ll look in-depth at your current conditions (health, wellbeing, relationships, energy, time, work, leisure etc) looking for patterns and signs.
Only then do we move on to your Vision. You can design any aspect of your life, but in our experience the 1 to 1 programme is particularly useful for clients who are:
You might be someone who simply prefers working 1 to 1 with a coach to bring any type of vision into reality. This might include if you are living with chronic illness and want to design a roadmap back to health, or have a health or emotional wellbeing issue that means that you would prefer 1 to 1 support.
Phase 3 is Helps – we examine the resources you have (of all types, not just money) and learn to look at ‘wealth’ in a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity. We explore the wide range of talents you have, many of which perhaps you have never showcased to the world.
Then we look at Limits – this has two elements. Firstly, we look at how you might be getting in your own way – the mindset blocks. We also explore practical issues, such as limits in time, money, resources etc, and how to overcome them. Secondly, we look at which limits you have to learn to accept, such as long-term health issues. Once we accept such major issues and stop fighting them, then life becomes a lot easier (and of course we explore how to tell the difference between the two types of limits).
Ideas and inspiration – we take a leaf out of nature’s book and adopt a highly creative approach – there are initially no limits to our ideas and we explore problems and issues from multiple perspectives. These might be ideas for a new direction, your business, your personal wellbeing – we take a holistic approach.
Only then do we examine Choices and Decisions, with a variety of decision-making tools to allow you to make the best choices for you and your circumstances. Narrowing down, as well as exploring nature-inspired ideas such as poly-incomes and valuing diversity.
Design and Plan is down to the nitty gritty – now that you’ve made the decisions, how are you going to bring them into the world? We explore different techniques that are right for you and your particular planning style. We look at how nature approaches efficiency and designs for resilience.
Action is the phase where we explore how you are going to get going – examining issues such as procrastination. Energy and time management are big issues here – nature has so many lessons for us, one of which is ‘manage your energy not your time’.
Momentum and Tweaking – we help you ensure that your actions will endure with techniques for keeping going and action learning. We will explore resilience and how you can become more able to thrive with change, challenges and setbacks. You’ll be encouraged to ‘Use your Edge’ (edges are nature’s most creative spaces), getting out of your comfort zone and creatively responding to change.
Because nature is always growing, learning and adapting the next phase is Evaluation and Reflection. Learning from the way nature uses feedback you’ll learn how to evaluate your progress and how to give, seek and accept feedback in ways that avoid anxiety. We’ll also share tools such as compassionate communication to help ensure your needs are met, whilst maximising the change of the needs of others being met too.
Celebration and Appreciation comes next. You’ll learn self-care and self-compassion tools. We’ll throw a failure party together! ‘Failures’ show that we are getting out there and we have to reward ourselves for showing up.
Finally, it’s Pause. We’ll explore what nature can teach you about the benefits of pausing and examine your barriers to pausing, such as labelling, ‘busyness’, stress, anxiety, perfectionism etc. Nature shows us that Pause is productive, and we humans need it too.
Throughout the 1:1 programme there will be exercises, tasks and home study.
You’ll build up your design and write it up in the way that’s right for you. This can be the form of: words, spreadsheet, art, design – you choose!
As you can see, we will look at you and the focus of your design in a whole-systems way, exploring the practical and personal, internal and external. This way you are certain to design to succeed.
Sarah Spencer and JK McCreight
Both Sarah and JK have extensive experience facilitating people (individuals and groups) through change.
Sub-specialisms:
My notable personal designs:
Read Sarah’s bio here
Sub specialisms:
Notable personal designs:
Read JK’s bio here
Your investment for the 1:1 programme is £3500 payable in installments.
If you would like to discuss the Think like a Tree 1 to 1 programme, please book your free 30 minute discovery call.
(We are sorry we cannot offer a free discovery call for the Think like a Tree group programme. This allows us to keep prices low. But if you would like to book a paid coaching session with Sarah or JK to discuss your potential group programme design then please get in touch. The cost is £125 for one hour). Or ping us an email and we’ll happily respond for free.
We will be:
Your INTERPRETERs – translating the complexities of the living world into seeds that you can grow along the way
Your SHERPAs – relieving you of the excess baggage that is holding you back
Your CARTOGRAPHERs – helping you to a map your ideal destination and offering simple guides so you get there in easy-to-manage stages
Your COMPANIONs – every every tree is unique and every journey is unique, , but everyone who is on a nature-inspired journey can support each other, recognising that we are all connected.
Your CHAMPIONs – offering encouragement and celebrating your successes and failures.
Taking a nature-inspired approach involved taking a leap of faith, embracing the change and complexity that life offers.
“A set of natural principles as a manual for the modern world” – John Everitt, Chief Executive, The National Forest Company
Inspired by Trees offers accessible, fun and thought-provoking ways to learn from the wisdom of trees so you can transform the way you think about yourself and the world.
"They that will enjoy the brightness of the sunshine must quit the coolness of the shade"
