At Regenerative Changemaking, we draw from professional expertise, lived experience, and a firm belief in the power of regeneration for a better future. We believe that you can’t have just one of these elements to help others make lasting changes, you need all three.
Founders’ Story
Meet Marion Brastel
During and after my BA in International Relations from the Australian National University and an MA in Gender and Peacebuilding from the University for Peace, I spent over a decade working in nonprofits and humanitarian organizations on violence prevention, rehabilitation, and civilian protection in conflict zones across Central America, Africa, and the Middle East.
Despite being a Reiki practitioner and having lots of self-awareness and self-care tools, it got too much. After a mission in South Sudan on the frontlines of the civil war, in 2014, I crashed. Hard.
During my forced time off, I gathered many tools and I learned about the neuroscience behind burnout and trauma through Somatic Experiencing™ – it was a game changer! I regained control of my body and my life, slowly but steadily.
It took me one year and a half to go back to work. Work that I loved but knew I had to do differently. Everything we teach, I have tested on myself, in and out of the field training my teams in many contexts. On top of being an experienced group facilitator, I completed my training in 2019 as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner with Somatic Experiencing Spain and I am now assisting new students in their training.
I love holding space for people’s transformation and witnessing the incredible growth that happens when creating the safe and acting conditions for change.
Meet Erinn Woodside
Before I made a regenerative paradigm shift, I repeated cycles of overwork for 15 years. I graduated from the US Air Force Academy and commissioned into the US Air Force where overworking was not only rewarded, but expected. At first, it was manageable. I worked really hard for a few months or years at a time, and then inevitably I would get sick and need time off.
I took a lot of pride in being able to work long hours and go months without a break. My overwork was also consistently rewarded! I received medals and accolades, completed two masters degrees, promoted ahead of peers, and even helped lead a successful early-stage tech startup. My sense of self-worth was completely wrapped up in doing well and succeeding.
However, after 10 years of chronic overwork, I started to feel cracks in my workaholic shell. I started having dark, intrusive thoughts about my self-worth and personal values. In that time, I sustained a combat-related brain injury and developed a chronic pain condition. I finally hit rock bottom with depression and felt utterly worthless.
After much resistance, I started therapy and went on a personal journey to reorient my way of living and working. I resigned my commission, joined the humanitarian sector, and became a psychotherapist. Now I focus on the impacts of chronic and traumatic stress at the physical, interpersonal, and systemic levels.
I am passionate about reorienting our ways of living and working in the world. Today, I am (slowly!) working on a doctorate with a research focus on climate change, burnout, and personal power. Having intimate experiences with colonial/imperialism, ecological devastation, and systemic violence, I firmly believe we need to foster leadership, regeneration, and a deep love for ourselves and the world.
The Origins of Regenerative Changemaking
2017
We met in Iraq working for an International Nongovernmental Organization and we bonded straight away around our views of staff welfare, duty of care, the pervasive burnout culture in the humanitarian sector and how to manage stress in highly volatile environments.
2020
As the global pandemic raged and burnout became a more pervasive problem, we got serious about making our dreams a reality.
2021
Regenerative Changemaking and our signature coaching program, The True Changemaker were born. Since then, we have expanded our offerings to include workshops, organizational mentoring, executive support, and community engagement. We are passionate about supporting changemakers from around the world!
We really believe that transforming our working lives leads to more individual, communal, and planetary vitality.
Qualifications
More about our team.
Marion Brastel
EDUCATION
MA in Gender and Peacebuilding
University for Peace – Costa Rica
BA in International Relations
Australian National University – Australia
CERTIFICATIONS
Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner
Regenerative Leadership Journey 2023
Regenerators Academy, Laura Storm
HATCH methodology certification
Mockingbird Education
Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict
Certification
Fletcher Institute
Senju Kannon™ Reiki Master Teacher
Intuitive Practitioner
TFR
LANGUAGES
French, English, Spanish
Erinn Woodside
EDUCATION
DPsych in Counseling and Psychotherapy
(current)
United Kingdom
MSc in Psychology of Mental Health
Edinburgh University – United Kingdom
MA in Liberal Arts
St. John’s College – Maryland, US
BS in Social Science
United States Air Force Academy – Colorado, US
CERTIFICATIONS
COSCA Accredited PgDip in Counseling & Psychotherapy
Edinburgh University
Wild Therapy Practitioner
Member of British Association of Counseling and Psychotherapy
What people say about us
Sarah
“I will like take this with me forever. And it's just going to keep evolving and changing and adapting and reconfiguring. If the objective is that people come out of this with a new understanding and a new way of relating with themselves and the world around them that they can take with them for life, then yeah: achieved!”
Jeanne’s
“As someone working in the environmental space, I strongly believe we need all the support we can get! I think especially because we are in the environmental space there may in fact less recognition for supporting mental wellbeing and preventing burn-out than perhaps there is in other 'changemaking' fields.
Brie
Doing the Tuesday sessions with you guys just really made me realize this [therapy] needs to be a staple in my life.