Curiosity is the answer. No matter the question.
One planet, many cultures: Reflections from Lebanon, India, New Zealand — touring with Trauma‑Informed Facilitation
By Pernille Plantener
Over the past months, my work has carried me across three continents and several cultures—five courses, seven host families, and countless conversations that reminded me, again and again, why I do this work.
From the delicious mezze (appetizers) in the Lebanese mountains to the hot kitchen of Chennai, from the soft hills of Aotearoa (New Zealand) to the dining tables where people talked about efforts to get along, one thread kept showing up for me, the visitor:
In a diverse world, humble curiosity is the only reasonable approach.
How could I, a white woman from a peaceful region, teach anything to people who live with the aftermath of civil war, armed aggression, colonization, and European superiority?
The truth is, I can’t teach. But I can do something else: I can stay, listen, be with, and offer my presence.
Collective trauma – war, famine, enslavement, theft of land, culture, and language, poverty, and natural disasters - ripples as individual trauma. The resentful father. The depressed mother. Parents love their children despite what they have gone through, but traumatic events leave them with less bandwidth, hyper vigilant, hopeless, or dissociated.
These children grow up with less trust that they can be safe. We meet them in our individual coaching practice, and the facilitators meet them in groups of youth, women, refugees, survivors of abuse, and other groups, to collectively address their challenges.
How Trauma-Informed Facilitation can be a remedy
Each course brought its own texture:
In Lebanon, where the Israeli military -mostly unreported by Western media - attacks from the south on an everyday basis, the participating facilitators operate in the eye of the storm. People get displaced. They lose relatives. They still have children to feed and elderly people to care for. The country is flooded with Syrian refugees. The facilitators cannot change the conditions; they can offer their presence and acknowledge the enormity of impact while remaining grounded in themselves. My job was to keep coming back to caring curiosity: What do you need to unload yourself of, in order to do this work?
If you’ve been to India, you know the intensity of colours, noise, religious symbols, cows, dogs, and people. The traditional Indian culture is transitioning into a modern economy, and especially the younger generation of women feel squeezed between their traditional role as caretakers and their career ambitions, alongside the necessity to contribute to the family economy. This squeeze is cultural even though, for every young woman, it feels very personal and often comes with shame.
Our Indian facilitators bring their spirituality, their Nonviolent Communication skills, and their knowledge of how mind and body interconnect. I admire their thoughtfulness and experience and continue to learn from them while offering my support.
In New Zealand, conversations often turned toward belonging—to land, to community, to personal identity. Trauma-informed practice here meant honoring cultural difference while also acknowledging what is not visible: the wounds of colonization, migration, and silence. Today, this little country with a population of just over 5 million people, representing over 100 different ethnicities predominantly of European descent, is at the forefront of making amends to the Māori, the first nation people. It happens not just through excusing and paying compensation for having stolen their land and cheating them into an unfair treaty with the British, but through honoring their culture. Today, all children learn the Māori language in school, and I witnessed how their culture weaved into the gatherings I was part of. A culture infused with nature spirituality, where everything is seen as alive and thus sacred. I took a word with me: mahu. It is the combination of work and contribution to life. My mahu. What I offer the world.
In each place, I arrived as a guest. In each place, I needed to question my assumptions, listen more than speak, and allow myself to be changed by the encounter.
This, to me, is trauma-informed practice.
What Humble Curiosity Looks Like in Practice
Over dinner tables, in seminar rooms, walking through unfamiliar neighborhoods, I kept returning to these simple commitments:
“I don’t know—tell me what this means for you.”
“What matters most in this moment?”
“How can I walk alongside you without imposing?”
“What do you need to feel choiceful and safe with me?”
Humble curiosity is not passive.
It is an active stance of being teachable - even when I am the one teaching.
It is the foundation of facilitation, coaching, and leadership.
And it is the heart of Needs-Based Coaching.
Why I’m Sharing This Now
As I return home and integrate what I’ve learned, I feel a renewed clarity:
Our world doesn’t need more experts.
It needs people who can meet complexity with presence, compassion, and grounded curiosity.
That’s what Needs-Based Coaching aims to cultivate.
If these reflections resonate with you—if you, too, long to facilitate or coach in a way that is culturally aware, body-based, and, as its foundation, respects human diversity—then I warmly invite you to join our upcoming informational meeting.
Info Meeting: Needs-Based Coaching
=> Tuesday, the 25th February
=> 19:00-20:00 CET (find your timing here)
=> Including a demo coaching session. Could it be you receiving it?
=> Sign up here to get the attendance link
Come meet us, ask questions, and get a sense of whether this approach aligns with your path.
PS. The extra early bird discount expires on the 22nd March. We will inform about scholarship options, as we want these skills to be available to people from areas of the world where Western pricing is unavailable.
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Thank you to every person and every family in Lebanon, India, and New Zealand who welcomed me with such openness.
Thank you to the participants who trusted me with their stories.
And thank you—dear reader—for walking this journey toward more humane ways of supporting each other.
With humility and curiosity,
Pernille