Your facilitators
Mirjam and Anais are Mindful Self-Compassion teachers and have lived and worked extensively around the world. We care for intimate, joyful, compassionate relationships with life. Feeling all that is, makes us experience aliveness and beauty, and catalyzes the motivation and energy required to care actively and courageously in the world.
Our intention is - together with you - to support the deepening of awareness of the preciousness of yourself and of life. We are inspired by the richness of multicultural teachings coming from the wider world and people as part of it. We all start close in, within ourselves, and extend to all that is beyond, as all is intraconnected.
Both of us share the notion of "Ubuntu", which translates into "I am because we/you are". In the Bantu language a person is a person through others.
Since our paths have crossed in the domain of Inner Development Goals as well, we have co-created the “IDG Empathy and Compassion Hub” in early 2023, now named "IDG Global Empathy and Compassion Network". We contributed as facilitators at the 2023 IDG Summit in Stockholm and have supported the 2024 Summit as volunteers.
We combine our strengths and passions to serve others and the world, inspired by these words of Thich Nhat Hanh: "Peace in oneself, peace in the world".
Anais y Mirjam “are supported by the MVI Team with a special contribution of Sylwia O".
We will be delighted to meet you!
Teacher
Mirjam Luthe supports individuals, groups, teams and projects with awareness- and compassion-based interventions to reconnect with self, others, encompassing the natural world that we are part of. MA European Studies, BA Development Cooperation and NGO management (Spain). Certified Teacher in MBSR, MSC, Hatha Yoga, “Awake in the Wild” Nature Meditation and "Mindfulness-Based Sustainable Transformation - Inner Green Deal Journey". Intervention trainer for dyadic meditation at Social Neuroscience Lab Max Planck Society, at Monviso Institute, ETH Zurich CAS "Resilient Systems" and UC Irvine.
Trained in various other inter-personal mindfulness formats like council, Bohm dialog, and Time to Think to create safe spaces for equity and diversity.
+15 years of consultancy work in international development cooperation in capacity building and evaluation, working and living on many continents. Since 2008, integrating those life-changing experiences into teaching mindfulness and compassion as socially engaged practices in a trauma-sensitive way to re-connect and inspire a mindset of openness for change. Co-facilitating various EcoDharma initiatives. Co-created the Global IDG Empathy & Compassion Network in 2022; engaged in the "Inner Development Goal" circles (IDG) and the Deep Transformation Network. Co-coordinating the European Grateful Living network since 2012 (Dankbar leben), founded by Br. David Steindl-Rast). Contributing to ETH Zurich's program "Regenerative Systems" and the Living Systems Lab "Monviso Institute". Teaching MBIs at the UC Irvine Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute. Coordinated the areas of teacher relations and inter-national engagement at the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion (California) during seven years. Mirjam speaks German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and basic Portuguese. A lover of being in the outdoors, hiking long distance, creating arts, practising shakuhachi and handpan and exploring life.
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Teacher
Anaïs Sägesser
Dr. Anaïs Sägesser is a process steward at the World Ethic Forum and a lecturer and researcher in Societal Transformation and Transformative Leadership at the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH). Trained in management studies, and a scholar of African, religious and environmental studies, with a strong grounding in embodied and contemplative practices, Anaïs works at the intersections of socio-ecological transformation. She designs and facilitates (transformative) learning spaces that integrate inner development, systems thinking and more-than-human perspectives.
She is involved in weaving together academic work, civic initiatives and experimental
learning formats, driving transdisciplinary projects and communities of practice which
integrate the more-than-human. Her teaching and facilitation emphasize participatory methods, dialogic processes and cultivating spaces of shared inquiry, unlearning and co-creation, with attention to power, inclusion and epistemic diversity.
With many years of experience in consulting and program design as well as research
and further education, she has cofounded scaling4good and STRIDE – unSchool
and collaborated with many initiatives and networks exploring systemic innovation
and socio-ecological futures. She has been engaging with social practice change,
critical ecofeminist thought, relational ontologies and experimental governance,
contributing to discourses and practices that seek to align institutional structures with
planetary boundaries and eco-social justice.
Fluent in German and English, proficient in French and Italian and experienced in
intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration, she brings a reflective, relational and practice-oriented approach to her work.
She feels most at home outdoors and is drawn to practices and communities that nurture presence, creativity, and long-term commitment to socio-ecological transformation.
Teacher
Sylwia Orczykowska
Sylwia Orczykowska is a Systemic Transformation Designer and Transformative Art Curator working at the intersection of communication, design, art, science, and embodied movement, with a focus on Deep Ecology and relational dynamics. Engaged in social transformation, she invites reflection on human beliefs and habits, holding spaces that nurture post-anthropocentric thinking, interspecies care, and life-centric cultural development.
With a versatile professional background and strong creative skill set, she is actively involved in Systemic Design Labs at ETH Zurich and the partnering living systems lab, MonViso Institute. As the founder of Art Now, she draws on diverse verbal and non-verbal languages to explore how artistic expression can bridge science, tacit knowledge, embodied perception, lived experience, and other-than-human perspectives.
Designing and curating diverse performance and workshop formats, she positions her practice toward raising environmental awareness, expanding boundaries, and igniting human action. Drawing on analogies from the natural sciences - particularly quantum physics - she develops “Quantum Metaphoric Design” as a lens for engaging human behavioural transformation. Her ongoing “Web of Life” practice weaves other-than-human perspectives into cultural narratives, inspiring creative engagement with plants, animals, and the invisible systems that sustain life. Through the “Nudging Senses” labs, she works with participatory, art-infused culinary experiences as multisensory media for embodying regenerative processes beyond spoken language.
She dedicated many years to her passion for dance, practicing modern jazz and Broadway jazz across European dance studios. A turning point came with the discovery and intensive practice of contact improvisation. Recognizing the driving life force within, not only outside the body, continues to shape her work toward individual and societal transformation.
Links:
Personal website: www.sylwiaorczykowska.ch
Art Now: www.artnow.global
Systemic Design Labs, ETH Zurich: https://systemicdesignlabs.ethz.ch/
MonViso Institute: https://monviso-institute.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylwiaorczykowska/
Instagram personal: https://www.instagram.com/sylwiaorczykowska.ch
Instagram Art Now: https://www.instagram.com/artnowglobal/
