About Us
We are a practice made up of deep thinkers, psychotherapists, creatives, and facilitators.
We are meeting of minds and souls with a shared dream for a more beautiful world.
“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.”
Gregory Bateson
Our Story
Turning Ground is a response to the call of our times. In our age of uncertainty, we are a social-enterprise offering pathways toward healing and transformation.
Through restoring our ways of relating & deepening our participation in life, Turning Ground exists to create foundations for hope and possibility to emerge. Creating both the foundations of systems of well-being, as well as the scaffold to support the generativity that emerges from place.
We exist at the intersection of well-being, culture, and systems innovation. We see our current personal and collective challenges as complex, nested, and interrelated: change is political, systemic, ecological, social, cultural, perceptual, and imaginal.
We find ourselves in a moment where nested and entangled crises cascade in complex ways. How do we cope with these disorienting times, leaving us feeling isolated and lost? Without the relational capacities and nuanced imaginations required to meet these challenges, as individuals, as communities, and as a society, how might we respond adequately?
Beyond siloed attempts and fragmented solutions, we believe that movements toward harmony are found in our relationships. The relationships within ourselves, between each other, and throughout the living world. We believe that relationships are what truly matter. Through regenerative and creative modes of being-together, we envision that human and planetary flourishing may be possible in the face of crisis.
Our Theory of Change
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Because individual suffering results in an incapacity to respond to personal and collective circumstances.
We believe that by helping fellow human beings find greater capacity and courage in dark times, we can explore more regenerative ways of being-in-the-world together.
So, we create the conditions for safety, hope, and change for the individual to find agency and courage to be in a new way.
That leads to greater resourcefulness and courage in the lives of individuals.
And results in people having a greater capacity to be engaged citizens responding to the needs of our world. -
Because our current culture does not offer transformational pathways that initiate us into deeply meaningful relationship with the world.
We believe that without educational experiences that include our whole selves and the connections between us, we are becoming lost and displaced.
So we create deeply intentional journeys, where together, we build our capacities towards flourishing and transformation.
That leads to resilient networks of individuals, equipped with the tools for being, belonging and becoming.
And results in movements towards cultural renewal, stewarded and guided by skilled leaders of integrity, sensitivity, and courage. -
Because we live in a hyper-connected-yet-deeply-fragmented world, where true belonging is scarce, and isolation is abundant.
We believe we can find our way back together again. Allowing each of us to feel valued, supported, and resourced - even in our difference and uniqueness.
So we create room for sharing in the intricacies of our humanhood, dialoguing with difference, learning practices and resources for navigating our lives wisely and meaningfully. Room for resonance, depth, and growth.
That leads to the emergence of a rich community, where:
We can deepen connection to our Being;
We can feel true Belonging;
We can be supported in Becoming our best, most courageous selves.
And results in a restoration of our agency, so that we may act as empowered and resilient beings. So we can be the people that our families, our friends, and our Earth truly needs.
Our People
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Al is an integrative psychotherapist, group facilitator, leadership trainer, community builder, writer, and storyteller; guided by his ongoing quest to restore a life-affirming culture.
Combining his education in Social Entrepreneurship, Mindfulness-Based Leadership, Integral Facilitation, The Way of Council, Human-Centred Design, Regenerative Practice, and most recently, Integrative Psychotherapy, he seeks to create spaces for individuals and groups to find resilience and agency amidst complexity.
He was listed in the Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 in Australia twice in a row and has since become a trusted guide to a number of for-purpose teams and leaders. In 2022, he was also awarded the National Award for Clinical and Academic Excellence for Integrative Psychotherapy at IKON Institute.
As a queer man, Al’s love for integrating the diverse and transgressive is alive in all he touches. Whether he’s guiding through words or the spaces between them, Al’s deep appreciation for both ancient and emergent ways of knowing shines through in all his ways.
You can connect further with Al at www.aljeffery.com.
Al Jeffery
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Kyle is an integrative psychotherapist, facilitator, writer, and a humble student to the mysteries of life.
His work as an integrative psychotherapist is fuelled by a deep connection to the possibility of each individual to engage meaningful and lasting change in their lifetime. His approach to this work is one which holds the unique and rich history of each client with reverence and respect, whilst collaboratively envisioning new horizons of possibility.
His work at Cornerstone draws on this passion, bridging the space between hopeful and meaningful change for the individual to include and entail change for the wider whole. Kyle aims to create spaces, within and without, whereby both individuals and groups can find themselves anew, and reconnect to a sense of being at-home-in-the-world.
Kyle Miller
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Sally is an integrative psychotherapist, a facilitator, an artist and writer, and a deeply passionate student of life.
As an integrative psychotherapist, Sally is sensitised to the complexity and vastness of what it means to be human, and strives to create the conditions for individuals to contact deeper self-awareness, compassion, and ultimately, to inhabit the fullness of their unique being in the world.
With an embodied, relational and trauma-informed approach, Sally’s practice draws from a range of theories and passions including attachment theory, developmental psychology, somatic psychotherapy, philosophy, systems thinking, eastern spirituality and the creative arts.
Trusting that each mind contains the seeds of possibility for healing and transformation, Sally seeks to support individuals and communities to find deeper meaning, fulfilment and connection to life.
Sally Gottlieb
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Vadim is an educational designer, a group facilitator, an artist, and a meditator.
With a mind that tends constantly towards the deeper questions in life, Vadim has traversed an educational background in Physics, Systems Thinking, Regenerative Design, as well as spiritual training in the Bön and Vipassana lineages.Vadim is continually striving to integrate our inner and outer worlds, reweaving what often gets lost in the cracks; a sense of meaning, wisdom, connection, and belonging in our lives.
Vadim Ragozin
Our Guiding Principles
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Integrity calls us forth. It entails a recognition of our individual and collective responsibility to turn towards where we are most needed, and be shaped in the process of leaning into life.
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Complexity humbles us. It reveals the interdependence between all life. It asks us to remain open to diverse perspectives, to adapt in changing circumstances, and to live in the questions.
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Imagination crafts our world. The horizons of our imagination carve the foundations for what we deem as possible. We believe that in order to bring about meaningful change for future generations, we need to widen our perception of what is and what could be.
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Compassion makes us human. To be pulled forth towards the suffering of our world and each other, to have our hearts broken open, and to know that this pain is ours to hold together.
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Hope is a guiding light. Hope is our responsibility towards life. It is a courageous choice in spite of the uncertainty and challenges we face.
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Home is in our body. To be whole and to live wisely, we must listen to the intelligence of our intuitions, our sensations, and our emotions. We cannot create a beautiful world if our bodies do not belong to it.
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Play brightens the world. Reinhabiting our capacity for joy, humour, and lightness - even in the face of our challenges - can be a doorway into aliveness. Sometimes we don’t have to take ourselves so seriously…
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Life is sacred. We listen deeply to the wordless and invisible, the hidden wholeness which weaves us together.