How We Work

We belong to each other. The experience of belonging changes the way we show up, stimulating loyalty, compassion, and joy, and diminishing anxiety, loneliness, and fear. But belonging is not a passive state. It’s something we nurture, express, renew, savor, and pass down. So much in our culture works against us meeting our need for deep connection: to ourselves, other people, place, story, and time. The more we reclaim the power of knowing, loving, and caring for one another, the more our hearts open and our society heals.

We each carry gifts the world needs. Yet too many of us face barriers to tending our inner gifts, sharing them in community, and bountifully receiving the gifts of others.³ To design for becoming is to disrupt productivity culture. It means listening for where we are each needed, addressing what stands in the way of our shared growth, and cultivating each other’s courage to say “yes” to the soul’s call. Soul-centered design fuels collective becoming.⁴

When our soul is fed, we remember that we are bound up in something larger than ourselves. Stretching across generations, ineffable and yet as solid as the ground, this is the larger story of which we are a part. What would it take to create a rhythm of life in which we have space in our days to feel fully big and fully small? When we design for the soul, we create pathways to move closer to the beyond, to the endlessly renewable resource at the heart of all things.

How do we meet the needs of the soul and move toward flourishing? Luckily, humans have been responding to this question all over the world for thousands of years. Their wisdom is our collective inheritance. Now our work is to apply it, while honoring the origins and custodians of these traditions. We tap into ancient best practices to design for belonging, becoming, and beyond, and we work with partners to remix the wisdom of our ancestors to create soul-centered solutions.

We long for a world in which every person is cared for and free from oppression. Without love as our means, and commitment beyond our self-interest, we can’t build the resolve to dismantle systems of domination.⁷ Collective liberation is more than something we think; it’s something we do. So we commit ourselves to constant learning, reflection, action and practice. Refusing to use shame as a strategy, we invite our partners to lead with justice-seeking love, that all might flourish.

Learn more about our collective liberation commitments.

We envision a world of justice, beauty, healing, and wholeness. Though interlocking systems of oppressions impact us differently, they keep all of us from fully living in that world. To design products, programs, and experiences that meet the soul’s needs, our means must themselves be soul-centered. We center relationships even as we focus on outcomes, reject grind culture⁸, and embrace our justice commitments. We show up with joy, integrity, and care.

This work is not easy. Our culture devalues presence, patience, kindness, and care. Few opportunities exist for lament, atonement, and reconciliation, despite long histories of suffering. Deepening meaning and connection takes courage, perseverance, and trust. We accompany the leaders we work with through the inevitable challenges of soul-centered work, drawing on practices of witness and reflection to encourage and embolden them.