REIMAGINING HEALING: What would a healed ecosystem look like, sound like, feel like?
WHAT OUR SYSTEMS ARE ENTRENCHED IN
In the field of child development, the work on ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) conducted by Dr. Vincent Felitti from Kaiser Permanente and Dr. Robert Anda from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the 1990s investigated the connection between negative childhood experiences and adult health outcomes. The ACE study provided compelling evidence of the profound link between childhood trauma and negative health and social outcomes in adulthood, like heart disease, cancer, and alcoholism.
The "Pair of ACEs" work initiated by Dr. Wendy Ellis of The George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, expanded the concept to highlight the link between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Adverse Community Environments (ACEs).
A few years ago, I started articulating these adverse experiences into a systemic framework. I created a visual framework mapping the layers of adversity that shape our lives, one that captures the Adverse Climate Experiences and the Atrocious Cultural and Historical Experiences.
Leaves and branches of childhood and adult adversity, like abuse, neglect, or grief.
Roots of community adversity, like poverty, violence, and systemic discrimination.
Soil of atrocious cultural and historical trauma, such as colonization, slavery, and genocide.
And above it all, the storm of climate adversity, with disasters, displacement, and environmental injustice.
This framework helped me see how deeply interconnected our wounds are. The ecosystem that promotes trauma is complex. The various conditions of adverse childhood experiences, adverse community experiences, atrocious cultural and historical experiences as well as adverse climate experiences, all play significant parts in ongoing big T and small t traumatic experiences. But over time, another question emerged: What would it look like to map not just harm, but healing?
WHAT WE CAN REIMAGINE
I was recently inspired by John Kania's recent piece on "How Systems Transform". In it he wrote Belief #2: A healed system is a transformed system".
I cannot emphasize enough the relevance of this statement.
For the past 11 years since my first breast cancer diagnosis, I have been immersing myself in this space of healing from the inside-out. This has brought me to learning about Post-traumatic growth from Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun.
In a previous post “Dulcius Ex Asperis” (Sweeter After Difficulties), I wrote about Post-traumatic growth and how it captures the positive psychological change that is experienced as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances.
“…experience of individuals whose development, at least in some areas has surpassed what was present before the struggle with crises occurred. The individual has not only survived, but has experienced changes that are viewed as important, and that go beyond the status quo” (Tedeschi and Calhoun, 2004).
Engaging in this work led me to the amazing work of Shawn Ginwright in Healing-centered engagement. I first encountered his article on The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement and then enrolled in his Healing-Centered Engagement Practitioner course. I was at that time supporting organisations and providing trainings around “trauma-informed practices”. Dr. Ginwright’s work along with his book “The Four Pivots” inspired me to go beyond traumas.
It was then that I got introduced to Dr. Angel Acosta on Healing-centered education and business. I also got trained as HOPE - Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences facilitator from the groundbreaking work of Robert Sege on positive experiences.
Recently, I have been learning from Collective Change Lab through the works of John Kania, Laura Calderon de la Barca Louise Marra and Lian Zeitz, MDiv on Healing-centered systems change.
All these years of learning, practicing, and drawing inspiration from the field, especially from the works of Virginia Satir, has helped me to articulate the need for healing-centered practices that can bring about healing-centered ecosystems.
The work on adverse systems experiences (childhood, community, climate, culture and historical contexts) sat with me for years before I am able to articulate how healing in these dimensions can look, feel, and sound like. Now I felt compelled to put all the years of learning, practice, and embodying into words.
Here is my first pass on what healing-centered ecosystems would be when infused with HOPE through relationships, engagement, environment, and emotional growth, rooted in care, connection, community, and contribution, and grounded in decolonisation, cultural continuity, cross-generational healing, and collective liberation while immersed in regenerative practices, justice &protection, resilience and adaptation, abundance and kinship within our climate experiences.
POSITIVE CLIMATE EXPERIENCES:
Regenerative practices that are healing what has been harmed, restoring ecosystems, and practicing stewardship that replenishes the earth for future generations.
Justice & Protection ensures fairness and safety by shielding communities—especially the most vulnerable—from environmental harm through equitable policies and practices.
Resilience & Adaptation invites us to live with change together, creating community-led strategies that strengthen our collective capacity to meet climate challenges.
Abundance affirms that green spaces, clean air, and nourishing water are universal rights, ensuring that nature’s gifts are accessible to all.
Kinship reweaves our relationality beyond humans, honoring animals, plants, waters, and mountains as kin and engaging with them in reverence and reciprocity.
POSITIVE CHILDHOOD AND ADULT EXPERIENCES (HOPE Pillars: Relationships, Environment, Engagement, Emotional Growth)
Relationships:
Nurturing, safe, and consistent relationships with caregivers, peers, mentors, and colleagues
Interdependence, mutual support, and belonging in families, schools, and workplaces where each person’s uniqueness is celebrated
Honouring and deepening cross-generational care and guidance (elders supporting youth, youth honoring elders)
Healthy boundaries and respect for autonomy
Environment:
Homes, classrooms, communities, and workplaces free from violence & harm
Access to nourishing food, nature, and spaces that foster creativity and rest
Inclusive design in physical and digital environments that honor neurodiverse needs
Access to inclusive education and meaningful work
Access to interwoven and multidisciplinary services and agencies
Engagement:
Opportunities to follow curiosities, contribute to meaningful passions, projects, play, learning, and work
Participation in decision-making processes that affect one’s life
Rituals of recognition for growth, transitions, and contributions
Strong participation in community services, traditional practices, collective action, and cultural norms and values
Emotional Growth:
Space for play, joy, imagination, and curiosity
Guidance in navigating emotions with compassion and resilience
Affirmed identity, cultural pride, and safe expression of one’s truth
Deep emotional attunement and co-regulation
Recognising cognitive, character, and cultural strengths
POSITIVE COMMUNITY EXPERIENCES (rooted in care, connection, contribution, and community)
Care
Mutual support, compassion, trauma responsive, and healing-centered practices
Shared responsibility for care and well-being
Affordable, safe housing and nourishing environments
Safety from violence and protection from harm
Connection
Strong social fabric rooted in kapwa (shared humanity), trust, and
cultural traditions
Intergenerational solidarity and wisdom-sharing
Collective spaces for storytelling, dreaming, and cultural continuity
Accessible networks of reciprocity and belonging
Contribution
Spaces that honor and invite everyone’s gifts and capacities
Abundant opportunities for education, meaningful work, and livelihood
Social capital and resources that enable participation and innovation
Recognition and celebration of each person’s unique role
Community
Collective problem-solving and co-creation of opportunities
Infrastructure that fosters collaboration rather than competition
Policies and systems designed with many voices at the table
Community-led initiatives that address shared challenges equitably
Rooting communities in equity and justice as guiding tenets
POSITIVE CULTURAL & HISTORICAL EXPERIENCES (soil)
Decolonization
Truth-telling and acknowledgment of historical harms
Collective repair, restitution, and reparations
Dismantling extractive, oppressive, and inequitable systems
Redistribution of power, land, and resources
Policies and practices that dismantle supremacy and uplift relationality
Cross-Generational Healing
Trauma is not carried forward but witnessed, named, and released
Resilience, dignity, and wisdom are intentionally transmitted across generations
Practices of grief tending, ritual, and intergenerational circles restore balance
Young people inherit not just survival, but a legacy of thriving
Collective Liberation
Systems and structures built on justice, equity, and reciprocity
Communities enriched by shared resources, not competition or extraction
Global solidarity that honors diversity and interconnectedness
A future where all communities flourish, held by mutual accountability
Cultural Continuity
Restoration and revitalization of languages, rituals, and spiritual lifeways
Transmission of ancestral wisdom, intergenerational storytelling, and practices
Honoring kinship with land, waters, and more-than-human beings
Celebrations of cultural strengths as living knowledge systems
Renewal of traditions in ways that adapt and thrive across generations
What Healing Looks, Feels, and Sounds Like
It looks like intergenerational circles where stories are told, languages once silenced are spoken freely, and rituals return as part of daily life. Schools and workplaces feel like sanctuaries, where every person’s dignity is honored.
It feels like safety in our bodies, spaciousness in our days, and belonging in our communities. It feels like knowing we don’t carry our burdens alone and that care, security, belonging, and justice are woven into the fabric of our relationships.
It sounds like laughter spilling from shared meals, music and songs that carry ancestral memory, and the hum of collective action for justice and regeneration.
This is not utopia. It is a lived possibility when healing-centered practices infuse our systems. When our environment is flourishing, and HOPE through relationships, engagement, environment, and emotional growth takes root through care, connection, contribution, and community. A future where our soil is nourished by decolonization, cultural continuity, cross-generational healing, and collective liberation.
PAGMUMUNI-MUNI (Deep reflection): Building the Muscle of Imagination
Healing-centered ecosystems don’t emerge overnight. They are cultivated, like gardens, through intentional practice. Each of us can nurture this by asking:
Where in my life or community do I already see glimpses of a healed ecosystem?
What traditions, relationships, or practices can I strengthen to expand these glimpses?
How might my daily choices especially on how I relate, work, rest, and resist, become acts of healing?
The invitation is to build our collective “muscle of imagination.” To not only name what harms us, but to dream and rehearse what healed states could look like.
In Filipino, the word kapwa means “shared self.” It reminds us that healing is never solitary; it is always relational. When one of us heals, the web strengthens. When communities heal, ecosystems regenerate.
Resmaa Menakem in his book “My Grandmother’s Hands wrote:
“Trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family looks like family traits. Trauma decontextualized in people looks like culture.”
and I would say
“ Healing integrated in a person looks like personality. Healing integrated in family looks like family traits. Healing integrated in people looks like culture. “
A healed ecosystem is not a fantasy. It is already alive in the spaces where people practice care, connection, community, and contribution. Our task is to notice it, nurture it, and expand it, together.
An Invitation to Leaders and Organizations
Healing is not an accident. It is cultivated. It is practiced. It is designed into the ways we relate, the policies we uphold, and the cultures we nurture.
This is my invitation to leaders, teams, and organizations ready to reimagine what is possible. Let us work together to weave healing-centered practices into the heart of your systems—so that care, connection, contribution, and community are not afterthoughts, but the very soil from which resilience, innovation, engagement, and belonging grow.
What I Offer
To bring healing-centered ecosystems to life, I partner with leaders and organizations through:
Visioning & Imagination – Guiding teams to reimagine their workplaces as healed ecosystems, asking: what would it look like, feel like, sound like?
Training & Capacity Building – Sharing frameworks like HOPE and healing-centered engagement, and offering practical tools to integrate care, connection, and contribution, and community weaving into leadership.
Culture Shaping – Embedding healing into organizational practices and policies so that belonging, justice, and regeneration become part of everyday life.
Facilitation – Holding spaces for transformation through retreats, events, and mediation, where healing and connection can take root in community.
Leadership Co-attunement – Supporting leaders in their own inner healing and growth, so they can lead with empathy, groundedness, and resilience
Ready to begin this work together? Let’s co-create the conditions for healing-centered ecosystems in your organization.