Carol Sanford's Seven Fundamentals of Regeneration 1) Whole Systems Working from the perspective of understanding a whole, rather than parts. For example: working with a whole child, a whole family, a whole community or a whole ecosystem; rather than segmenting it into parts and pieces. 2) Potential Working from the development of the potential of a specific real individual or system, rather than working from ideals and problems. Ideals mean that you have a template and you layer it on top of everything. It tends to objectify it and says you ought to be like this, rather than looking at potential which is where something really comes to life. One of the ways you'll know if you're working with a template of ideals is you probably have to certify something or be certified or you have standards you have to meet to be a member. So what you want to be doing is working from potential which is working from principles as we are here, or aims. 3) System Reciprocity Considering systems reciprocity, rather than transactional exchange. In order for something to be vital, viable and evolving and have the capacity to do that, it needs to be seen as a part of something that the whole is moving at the same time. We tend to fall into our world thinking about the exchanges we make and we become extractive because we are looking for quid pro pro. 4) Essence Working from the essence, the singularity or the individuated-ness of a living entity. What you see there is something that is never seen anywhere else. Doing the opposite means we categorize it into 1 of 4 types, 1 of 7 types or 1 of 9 types. The minute we do that, we are no longer connected with the essence and the individuated-ness of a living entity and we've made it into a commodity; which can be found among a large number of similar things. 5) Nestedness Working and understanding living systems as nested inside one another. A living system is a place, person or some other dimension. Humans, for example, are nested inside of families, and inside of communities, and then inside of an eco-system. In order to understand that, it helps us get over our flatland view of where everything is separate and we have to bring ourselves back to that we all exist in what permaculture might call a guild. 6) Nodal Interventions We all intervene and we all have roles to play, but the important thing we do is we learn to intervene nodally. Nodally is contrasted to a shotgun effect that many sustainability programs have or many other programs that are not even about doing good. Where you get long lists and you work on trying to make sure you cover all the bases. Nodally, on the other hand, looks at where the high potential intersections run together, it's an acupuncture idea. For example, you want to understand a child, and you would say the most nodal place to be intervening with a child is where enthusiasm and passion intersect with their interests and it's something they seem to be drawn to. If you wanted to teach them something, starting there might be an example of a node. 7) Building Capacity More related to people, although it does fan out to all living systems. It means working on the development of human beings, animals or living systems; rather than manipulation. What that means is we're actually working on building capacity of human beings rather than trying to maneuver them into how we want them to behave from the outside based on incentives. Such as with rewards, recognition or just anything that would seem to force them into the path that we want to go. A developmental way of working helps people become self-directed, self-determining and even greater tomorrow than they are today.