Choose Your (Re)Adventure: A Guide for Reconnection, Release, Renewal, & Resourcing

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Originally created by CompassPoint's Culture & Community team for staff, this activity and reflection guide has been adapted for our community at large as an invitation and offering for you to center your humanity and wholeness while navigating this period of deep change and transition.

Some Context

As has been reflected and reported on by many stakeholders in our movement ecosystem, 2025 hasn’t been an easy year for the nonprofit sector (of course, the years preceding this one haven't exactly been smooth rides, either). CompassPoint certainly isn’t exempt from experiencing the pain points of this period of turmoil and churn. While this particular moment in history may feel unprecedented, an important resource for our organization in challenging times has always been the ways in which we center our humanity and our relationships with one another.

This past May, our Culture & Community team (at the time comprised of Simone Thelemaque, Jessy Zapanta, Jas Hall, and spring opara) collaborated to provide offerings to our staff that would support us with moving through the complexity of feelings and contradictions of experience we individually and collectively were navigating during a heightened point of our organization’s change and transition period. One such offering, conceived by Simone with contributions from the rest of the C&C team, provided a beautiful, expansive, and adaptive framework for wrestling with—and making peace with—the things outside of our control. Because it was such an impactful tool for us as we processed the rapid shifts in our conditions, we have now adapted it for our community as a gift and a resource for anyone who may also need it in this tumultuous time.

From the Creator of the Guide

In a world that’s always shifting, it can feel nearly impossible to pin down one feeling or one truth about how we’re doing. Still, we often default to binary answers, happy or sad, okay or not okay. But what if I’m both? And confused, and hopeful, and tired, and inspired?

What do we do with that?

Introducing…CompassPoint’s “Choose Your Own Adventure” guide designed with “feeling a type of way” as the norm!

This guide is full of big Air Sign Libra Fairy energy and true to form, it honors the beauty of complexity and change. There’s no need to land anywhere specific. You don’t have to decide or define. You can just be, and find what you need when you need it. It’s an adventure into your heart and there’s no wrong turn.

Speaking of choosing your own adventure…

CompassPoint is offering capacity building and consulting support and would be honored to partner with you.

The heartbreak, tension, and harm that many of us are facing in the world around us? It’s infiltrating our organizations too.

We can support you in building the internal strength and relational resilience needed to navigate these challenges, so your team is as prepared and grounded as possible for what lies ahead, within the sphere of your control. Shoot us a message if you want to learn more and explore possibilities with us.

Until then, I’m sending you so much love and care, because you deserve it.

— Simone, CP Project Director

Introduction to the Guide

Think of this guide as your companion who walks you through this journey of change and transition. This can be your trail guide or your ritual facilitator, helping you make meaning of where you are and where you’re going. Or, consider this toolkit a box of alchemy supplies or a healing cabinet: open it up and choose what’s right for the moment. It will offer resources that you can pick up and use, when and how you need them.

We hope that these offerings:

• Encourage connections with your co-workers, staff, organizational partners, fellow network members and program alum for truth-telling, peer learning, and all kinds of resourcing.
• Normalize rest and play as essential responses to change and uncertainty.
• Spark healing and reflection through creative, embodied, and liberatory practices.

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Let’s Begin!!

(Re)Adventures Activity Guide, organized based on How You May Be Feeling

Please use the list below as inspiration for what kinds of things to do. We have organized the activities based on ways you may be feeling in the midst of great change and transition. You don't have to stick to one journey—if you find yourself at times feeling foggy and other times feeling hopeful, feel free to jump to different activities across the four "tracks" provided! Linear progression is not required here. :) We suggest taking a few moments to ground yourself, quiet your thoughts, and find the parts of yourself that need to be seen. At that point, choose your adventure(s)!

• I am feeling disoriented or foggy. I am craving wonder, warmth, or simplicity. I want to remember who I am beneath the professional polish.
• I am grieving and letting go. I am open to being surprised by joy, or to the vulnerability of being seen and acknowledged without needing to be “okay.” I want to feel grounded in something steady and familiar. I crave connection, even in silence or big emotions.
• I am curious and/or hopeful. I am beginning to reach towards what’s next. I feel a quiet sense of aliveness stirring, and I want to nurture that flicker, without forcing clarity too soon.
• I want connection. I would love to be seen, be heard, learn together, or just be in good company.

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Disoriented or Foggy

You are feeling adrift. Maybe a little tired, unsure. The future feels foggy.

(Re)Adventures for you:

• Mindful nature walk. Walk slowly in a nearby park, or green space. Let yourself be guided by what catches your eye, perhaps the light through trees, the textures, the colors, etc. If you bring your phone, please limit screen time while walking, and release yourself of a pace goal.
• Solo bench sit, or picnic blanket sit. Just sit somewhere quietly for 20-30 minutes. Do nothing! Limit screen time. Let the world unfold around you.
• Weighted blanket or wrap meditation. Let your body feel held. Then journal, where do I feel pressure or release right now?
• Body Scan with Voice Memo: Record a short voice note talking yourself through a body scan. Then listen back and note what surprised you!
• Create a “what I do know” list. Big or small, what are you sure of? Even if it’s just “I like gluten-free waffles” or “My kid is performing at the talent show this week,” this activity can reorient the nervous system.
• Draw your fog. No skill needed! Just put your foggy feelings on paper. What colors, shapes, edges manifest? What’s hiding in it? You can also do this activity and create a 3D project using supplies that are accessible to you.
• Make a “Pocket of Steadiness” box. Add objects, notes, textures or scents that calm and remind you of who you are. Use it when you’re spinning out.
• Watch a movie that reflects change. Our recommendations: My Octopus Teacher, Moana, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Perfect Days

(Source: Darius Krause via Pexels)

Grieving and Letting Go.

You need tenderness, spaces to honor what you are releasing, and invitations to moments of quiet holding, rather than rushing to “move on.”

(Re)Adventures for you:

• Write a letter you don’t have to send. To a person, place, program, role, or version of yourself. Let yourself be honest. You can keep it, burn it, bury it, or release it into water.
• Grief altar or remembrance shelf. Create a small space to hold symbols of what you’re letting go of. Light a candle, place photos, quotes, or objects that represent that experience. Sit with it for a moment (or two) each day.
• Rock-holding ritual. Hold a heavy stone (or anything heavy, like a weight). Think about what you’re carrying. Then set it down. Let your body feel the release.
• Grounding! Lie on the earth. If you can, let your feet be bare and touch the earth. Let your body be supported. Speak your grief into the ground, let it hold what you can’t.
• Give yourself space to cry if that’s what your body needs. If this is difficult, find an activity that will invite tears. Remember that tears release pain and strong emotions, and tears are part of what makes us human.
• Create a “Things I Am Letting Go Of” list. Name them, be sure to include things that may feel big, small, quiet, overdue. Fold them up. Burn or bury when you’re ready.
• Make a grief playlist. Invitation to include songs that let you feel, instead of distract. Music helps metabolize what words can’t.
• Journal using one of the following prompts.
  • Write in the voice of what you’re letting go of. Let the job, dream, version of you, speak. What do they want to say?
  • What part of you is asking to be held gently right now and why?
  • What strength can you find in your grief? Or, how does your grief strengthen you?

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Curious or Hopeful.

You are curious to know what might be waiting just beyond the unknown.

 (Re)Adventures for you:

• Visit a botanical garden, greenhouse, or nursery. Let your body be surrounded by beauty and growth.
• Try a new trail or path you’ve never walked before. Let it reflect your internal shift.
• Connect with a peer whom you admire or respect. This can be a co-worker, comrade, a fellow alum of a past CompassPoint program, or someone from a partner organization. Ask them, what are they dreaming about? Let the conversation and connection open your own possibilities.
• Try something playful and new. This can be solo, or with a group. Go to an improv class, dance class, a board game night, etc. Let curiosity lead.
• Make a “possibility altar.” Collect small items, images, or words that reflect what you’re dreaming into being, even if it’s still fuzzy.
• Make a vision or mood board. No need to explain it! Just collect textures, colors, photos, and phrases that reflect the feeling of what’s ahead.
• Write a letter from your future self. Let them tell you what they are proud of. What’s unfolded? What did they learn by trusting the unknown?
• Build your own playlist of songs about your strength or resiliency.

(Source: Da vid via Pexels)

Wanting Connection.

You want our most instinctual and vulnerable form of medicine, connection. You’ve been feeling isolated and out of the loop, or you might be craving a spark of warmth to remember that you are still part of something.

(Re)Adventures for you:

• Reach out to someone you miss and say, “Want to catch up for 30 mins?” Keep it low stakes. It could be virtual, walking while on the phone, or real life! You can say something like, “I’ve been thinking of you lately, are you available to catch up, no agenda lol?”
• Co-journal or co-reflect with someone. You each pick a prompt, write for 10 - 20 minutes and then come back and share what came up.
• Start a “connection circle” where you invite 2-3 people you’d like to reconnect with. Gather for a “what’s on your heart” session. You could use prompts, do a show-and-tell, or just flow.
• Have a co-resting space. Rest in community; add music, affirmations, or silence.
• Create a LOVE NOTE or appreciation card for someone in your organization. Doesn’t have to be deep, it could be something like, “This moment with you stuck with me” or “I appreciate how you…”
• Make a collaborative playlist with someone. Curate songs around a theme.
• Draw, collage, or photograph a moment that made you feel connected. Then, share it with a few words: “This reminded me how I’m not alone.”
• Go to a museum, cultural space, or outdoor space with others. You can incorporate other feelings/prompts into this activity based on what you need.

This concludes our guide, but not the journey…

Everything changes, but what remains constant is our need to be human: to be messy, say it ugly, to rest, to play, to mourn, to imagine, to be vulnerable and authentic, to relate and to belong. We hope this offering serves as an invitation to step into your full humanity. And if you took up this invitation and it resonated, we invite you to pass this gift on to others.