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This profile has not been updated since Jan 21, 2020.
You are here: Home / Users / Natalie Zend

Natalie ZendZENDialogue

Photo of Natalie Zend

Principal of ZENDialogue (www.zendialogue.ca), I have been an international trainer and facilitator since 2007, building on 10 prior years as a program and policy analyst in international development and children's rights. I offer WTR workshops in the Toronto area and elsewhere. I also facilitate the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium.

In 2012 I co-founded Unify Toronto (www.unifytoronto.ca), which aims to accelerate the co-creation of a just, sustainable, thriving Toronto and world by bringing together Toronto change-makers. In 2018, with my support, Unify Toronto seeded a new initiative, Drawdown Toronto (www.drawdowntoronto.ca), a community based organization dedicated to using the Project Drawdown framework and approach (www.drawdown.org) to support climate action.

Why I am called to facilitate the Work

There's a new Creation story being written by us--not the story of how we got here, but the story of how we are becoming mothers and fathers to a new type of human. My passion is to write that story--by being fully alive, and by holding space and offering processes for others to open to life as it wants to carry itself forward through us.

How I see the Work serving the Great Turning

The Work reconnects us with our fullest selves--body, heart, mind, spirit--and with the larger social body and the larger body of Earth. From that reconnected place we restore access to the feedback loops that support us to thrive--as individuals, as a species, as manifestations of life. In the Work, we turn toward our most difficult emotions--grief, fear, anger, confusion, even numbness itself. We tell the truth about our inner responses to the state of the world. In so doing, we become grounded in Earth's wisdom and guided toward the life-sustaining society that wants to emerge.

Audiences I work with

Changemakers, ecovillage members, general public

Background & Training

Background & training in the Work That Reconnects

  • Intensive in the Work that Reconnects (2016, 11 days)
    Location: Guelph, Canada
    Facilitated by: Joanna Macy
    I served on Joanna's team and facilitated daily small group sessions.
  • Intensive in the Work that Reconnects (2011, 11 days)
    Location: Guelph, Canada
    Facilitated by: Joanna Macy
    I served on Joanna's production team.
  • Intensive in the Work that Reconnects (2008, 11 days)
    Location: Land of the Medicine Buddha, CA
    Facilitated by: Joanna Macy
  • WTR workshop within a week-long conference on Creative Responses to Peak Oil and Climate Change (2008, 2 days)
    Location: Findhorn, Scotland
    Facilitated by: Joanna Macy
  • WTR Facilitator Retreat (2010, 7 days)
    Location: Danville, CA
    Facilitated by: Joanna Macy

Other relevant training

  • Inner Transition (2012, 2 days)
    Location: Guelph
    Facilitated by: Sophy Banks, Sally Ludwig
  • Art of Mentoring (2016, 6 days)
    Location: Ontario
    Facilitated by: P.I.N.E. Project
  • Awakening the Dreamer Facilitator Training (2010, 2 days)
    Location: Toronto
    Facilitated by: Pachamama Alliance
  • Deep Democracy: The Micro-Skills of Leadership--Collaboration and Facilitating Collective Change (2012, 12 days)
    Location: Toronto
    Facilitated by: Julie Diamond, Process Work Institute
  • u.Lab (2016, 7 days)
    Location: MOOC
    Facilitated by: Otto Scharmer

Other relevant skills & experiences

- Fluent in English, French and Spanish
- Enjoy improvisational and mindful movement practices including 5Rhythms, ecstatic dance, contact improvisation, Authentic Movement, continuum, yoga
- Enjoy vocal improvisation, sound healing, community singing and have some song-leading experience
- Practice and share Dr. Larry Nusbaum MD's Inner Guidance process--tools for accessing inner guidance for healing, making decisions and navigating life.
- Experience with mindfulness and meditation practices (primarily in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn, but also in a wide variety of other traditions)
- Experience with co-facilitating and participating in circle ceremonies based in or inspired by indigenous traditions
- Leadership training in NonViolent Communication
- 20+ years of experience working in international development (primarily on children's rights, human rights-based approaches and gender equality)

Experience facilitating WTR events & workshops

Work That Reconnects workshops I have facilitated

  • The Work that Reconnects: How to Face the Mess We're in Without Going Crazy (2013, 2 days)
    Location: London, Ontario, Canada
    Facilitated by: Lorenna Bousquet-Kacera
  • Unify Toronto Dialogues (2013, 0)
    Location: Toronto
    Facilitated by: Peter Jones
  • How to face the global mess we're in and co-create a new story for humanity (2014, 0)
    Location: Toronto
  • Emotional Intelligence for Challenging Times (2011, 1 days)
    Location: Guelph
    Facilitated by: Sally Ludwig
  • Active Hope - How to face the nuclear and climate mess we're in without going crazy (2013, 0)
    Location: Toronto

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User Info

WTR Facilitator since 2008
Languages served: English, French, Spanish
Location: ZENDialogue, Toronto, Ontario M6H 2S2, Canada
Age: 50
Contact info
  • Contact website: zendialogue.ca

The Work That Reconnects Network is a fiscally sponsored project of Inquiring Systems Inc., a tax-exempt 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation. EIN 94-2524840. All donations are tax-deductible.

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