What We Do

MBEI offers a distinctive blend of several integral dimensions of self-growth and development which are key ingredients of resilience and flourishing.

We hope people who attend our programs leave well equipped with the skills of well-being as well as an expanded self-awareness, enhanced social connectivity, and greater resilience and compassion.

We believe the first step to a better world is to help people thrive personally, so they can harness their inherent capacity for growth to contribute meaningfully to their communities and a flourishing world.

Our Foundations

Our work is grounded in the following traditions, research, and practices.

Indigenous Wisdom, Kinship, and Ecological Interdependence

Our work is informed by Indigenous and kincentric perspectives that understand well-being as relational: emerging through our relationships with one another, our communities, the more-than-human world, and the living Earth.

Key influences include Yuria Celidwen, Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Wisdom for Collective Well-Being; her conversations and essays on Indigenous Wisdom and Why We Need Indigenous Wisdom; Gregory Cajete, Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence; and Yuria Celidwen and Dacher Keltner, Kin Relationality and Ecological Belonging: A Cultural Psychology of Indigenous Transcendence, Frontiers in Psychology 14 (2023).

We also draw from Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants and The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World; Patty Krawec, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future; Daniel Wildcat, On Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth and Red Alert!: Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge; and Anita L. Sanchez, The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times.

Related perspectives include Dekila Chungyalpa, Mother Wisdom: Learning to Embody Interdependence; Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner, Climate Crisis as Relational Crisis: Centering Indigenous Feminist Conceptions of Responsibility in Environmental Discourse, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 10.1/2 (2024); and Justine Afra Huxley and Anna Kovasna, Cocreating with a Living Intelligent Earth: Pathways towards Kincentric Leadership.

These perspectives invite us to move beyond an exclusively individual understanding of flourishing toward an understanding of ourselves as participants in living networks of reciprocity, responsibility, and belonging.

Inner Transformation and Systems Change

A growing body of research suggests that sustainability and systems transformation involve not only external structures, technologies, and policies, but also inner dimensions of change—including awareness, values, worldviews, emotions, identities, relationships, and ways of attending to the world.

Our work draws on Jamie Bristow, Rosie Bell, Christine Wamsler, Tomas Björkman, Phoebe Tickell, Julia Kim, and Otto Scharmer, The System Within: Addressing the Inner Dimensions of Sustainability and Systems Change (The Club of Rome, 2024), Earth4All Deep-Dive Paper 17; C. Wamsler, J. Bristow, K. Cooper, G. Steidle, S. Taggart, L. Sovold, J. Bockler, T.H. Oliver, and T. Legrand, Theoretical Foundations Report: Research in Evidence for the Potential of Consciousness Approaches and Practices to Unlock Sustainability and Systems Transformation, prepared for the UNDP Conscious Food Systems Alliance.

See also J. Bristow, R. Bell, and C. Wamsler, Reconnection: Meeting the Climate Crisis Inside Out (The Mindfulness Initiative, 2022); C. Woiwode et al., Inner Transformation to Sustainability as a Deep Leverage Point: Fostering New Avenues for Change through Dialogue and Reflection, Sustainability Science 16 (2021): 841–858; and C. Wamsler and J. Bristow, “At the Intersection of Mind and Climate Change: Integrating Inner Dimensions of Climate Change into Policymaking and Practice,” Climatic Change 173 (2022).

Foundational resources include Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008), edited by Diana Wright, and Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System (Sustainability Institute, 1999).

Theory U and Awareness-Based Systems Change

Our approach is also informed by Theory U, developed by Otto Scharmer and colleagues at the Presencing Institute.

Theory U offers an awareness-based approach to leadership and systems transformation that connects inner development with collective action. It invites individuals and groups to deepen how they attend, listen, sense, and respond to complex situations—moving beyond habitual patterns and toward emerging possibilities.

Central to this approach is the practice of presencing: bringing deeper awareness to the inner place from which we perceive and act while sensing into what a situation may be calling for. Theory U connects observation and deep listening with reflection, experimentation, collaborative learning, and systems change.

Foundational resources include C. Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaeufer, Presencing: 7 Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2025); C. Otto Scharmer, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges (2nd ed., Berrett-Koehler, 2016); C. Otto Scharmer, The Essentials of Theory U: Core Principles and Applications (Berrett-Koehler, 2018); and C. Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer, Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies (Berrett-Koehler, 2013).

Life-Centered Design

We are influenced by design approaches that help people imagine and create lives, communities, organizations, and systems centered on well-being, meaning, relationship, and the flourishing of the living world.

These include the Stanford Life Design Lab, Life-Centered Design School, and Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life (Knopf, 2016).

Ecology and Interbeing

Our approach is shaped by contemplative traditions that emphasize interdependence, ecological awareness, compassion, insight, non-separation, and engaged action.

Important influences include Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, and David Loy, Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis (Wisdom Publications, 2019).

Christine Wamsler’s recent research further explores these connections. In The Seeds We Sow: From Polycrisis and -Isms to Interbeing and Societal Transformation (Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change 6.1, 2026: 92–140), Wamsler examines interbeing, resilience, agency, and societal transformation through a mixed-methods study of participants in the Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet online course.

Nature-Based Mindfulness and Eco-Wellness

A growing body of research explores what happens when contemplative practices are situated in relationship with the natural world. This work suggests important connections among mindfulness, self-regulation, nature connectedness, well-being, and pro-environmental attitudes and behavior.

Relevant research includes D. Djernis et al., A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Nature-Based Mindfulness: Effects of Moving Mindfulness Training into an Outdoor Natural Setting, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16.17 (2019); and D. Djernis et al., Nature-Based Mindfulness: A Qualitative Study of the Experience of Support for Self-Regulation, Healthcare 11.6 (2023).

Bruce Barrett et al. further explore these intersections in Mindful Eco-Wellness: Steps Toward Personal and Planetary Health, Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health 13 (2024): 1–13. See also the Center for Healthy Minds overview.

And see the wonderful work of Paul Condon, Nurturing a Relational Mindset, and Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life (Penguin Press, 2023), alongside research and practices that explore ecological belonging, interdependence, and experiences of connection with something larger than ourselves

Climate Resilience

MBEI draws from a growing body of research examining climate anxiety, ecological distress, mental health, resilience, agency, and the psychological dimensions of the climate crisis.

Key collaborators and influences include Jyoti Mishra at UC San Diego, Elissa Epel at UC San Francisco, and Philippe Goldin at UC Davis, who also steward the University of California Eco Resilience Initiative, as well as the Neuro Climate Working Group.

See also Coryna Ogunseitan et al., Effects of a Novel Psychosocial Climate Resilience Course on Climate Distress, Self-Efficacy, and Mental Health in Young Adults, Sustainability 17.7 (2025); Jyoti Mishra, H. Han, and V. Ramanathan, A Mental Health Focus to Amplify Climate Resilience Actions, npj Climate Action 4 (2025): 55; Jyoti Mishra, Mindfulness and the Climate Crisis, Mind & Life Institute Insights (2023); Rashid and Tayyab, Why Teacher Resilience Matters Now More Than Ever, Psychology Today (June 14, 2025); and Silveira et al., Chronic Mental Health Sequelae of Climate Change Extremes: A Case Study of the Deadliest Californian Wildfire, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18.4 (2021): 1487.

C. Hickman et al., “Climate Anxiety in Children and Young People and Their Beliefs About Governmental Responses to Climate Change: A Global Survey,” Lancet Planetary Health 5.12 (2021): 865–873; R. Goodman et al., “Trends in Anxiety Among Adults in the United States, 2008–2018: Rapid Increases Among Young Adults,” Journal of Psychiatric Research 130 (2020): 441–446.

The Science of Well-Being

Our work is informed by research suggesting that dimensions of well-being—including awareness, connection, insight, compassion, and resilience—can be cultivated through intentional practice.

Key collaborators and influence Richard J. Davidson and colleagues at the Center for Healthy Minds.

Richard J. Davidson’s Well-being Is a Skill: Through Cultivating Healthy Habits of Mind, We Can Nurture Key Pillars of Well-being (Mind & Life Institute, 2022) informs our understanding of well-being as a capacity that can be intentionally developed.

Related research includes T.R.A. Kral et al., “Healthy Minds Index: A Brief Measure of the Core Dimensions of Well-being,” PLoS ONE 19.5 (2024).

We are also informed by work on emotion and embodied experience, including Christy Wilson-Mendenhall’s work on Emotions in the World with the Mind & Life Institute.

Collective Responsibility and the Activism of Belonging

Ecological crises have varying dimensions of impact and do not affect all communities equally, and questions of sustainability are inseparable from questions of care for all, each and every.

Our work is informed by Robert D. Bullard’s foundational scholarship on environmental justice, including Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality; Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright, The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How the Government Response to Disaster Endangers African American Communities; and Julian Agyeman, Robert D. Bullard, and Bob Evans, eds., Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World.

We are also deeply informed by Rhonda V. Magee, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (TarcherPerigee, 2019). Magee brings contemplative practice into direct conversation with the dimension of race, exploring how mindfulness can help us recognize conditioning and bias, remain present with difficult experiences, strengthen resilience, and deepen our capacity for connection and transformative action.

We also draw inspiration from B. Hestir and M. Dennis, “Flourishing as Practice and an Activism of Belonging,” forthcoming in S. Gadkar-Wilcox and K. C. Taylor, eds., Women and Representation in Buddhist Asia: Innovative Pedagogies, Alternative Narratives, and Reimagined Philosophies (forthcoming).

Trauma-Sensitive Practice

Our work is trauma-sensitive and recognizes that contemplative, somatic, and ecological practices must be offered with attention to safety, agency, choice, nervous-system regulation, cultural context, and individual experience.

Relevant resources include Rochelle Calvert, Healing with Nature: Mindfulness and Somatic Practices to Heal from Trauma; David Treleaven, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing (W. W. Norton, 2018); and Jyoti Mishra, Mindfulness and the Climate Crisis (Mind & Life Institute Insights, 2023).

The Work That Reconnects and Active Hope

Our work draws from the Work That Reconnects, a body of theory and practice developed by Joanna Macy and colleagues to help people encounter ecological and social crises without turning away from grief, fear, or uncertainty.

Its practices support movement from gratitude, through honoring pain for the world, toward expanded perspectives and meaningful participation.

Foundational resources include Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown, Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects (New Society Publishers, 2014); Chris Johnstone and Joanna Macy, Active Hope; and Aravinda Ananda, Molly Young Brown, and Kurt A. Kuhwald, Coming Together in the Great Turning.

Embodiment, Movement, and Somatic Practice

Our work recognizes that transformation is not solely cognitive. Awareness, emotion, connection, and meaning are also experienced through the body.

Embodied and movement-based influences include Gabrielle Roth’s Sweat Your Prayers: Movement as Spiritual Practice and Maps to Ecstasy: Teachings of an Urban Shaman, along with contemplative and somatic practices that cultivate awareness through movement, sensation, rhythm, and embodied presence.

More-Than-Human Ethics and Planetary Well-Being

Our work also draws from emerging scholarship that expands ethical consideration beyond human communities and explores the interconnected well-being of people, other animals, ecosystems, and planetary systems.

Jeff Sebo’s Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes (Oxford University Press, 2022) examines how human well-being is entangled with the treatment and flourishing of nonhuman animals, and how these relationships intersect with global challenges including climate change and public health.

This work contributes to a broader understanding of ecological responsibility in which human flourishing is situated within, rather than apart from, the wider community of life.