Economics of Happiness Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage Background

This pilgrimage will advocate and support the teachings of the EOH conference and also the global organiser of the event, Local Futures, the methodology of Gross National Happiness and Theory U.

Participants will experience a deep connection to self, others and nature experiencing local community, enterprise, economy, ecology and environment. In addition to the conference, trek and local experiences, the pilgrimage will be underpinned by a daily facilitated connection, mindfulness and wellbeing program.

Your Facilitators

We’re excited to announce our facilitators, Matty Lawrence and Ash Buchanan who will lead the experience and programs.

Matty Lawrence 

Matty is the founder of Happy Spaces and the Economics of Happiness pilgrimage.

He was born in Kalgoorlie, WA and grew up in great local communities all around Australia experiencing a variety of cultures, environments and landscapes, finally settling in Melbourne and more recently the Surf Coast of Victoria.

After a fifteen year career in corporate brand, marketing and partnerships for large local and global trademarks, he founded Happy Spaces and Happy Brands; both dedicated to thriving culture and wellbeing within businesses and communities. The inspiration behind Happy Spaces was a combination of his passion for thriving local communities and offering people wellbeing in their working environment in their local areas and has extended to a passion for creating holistic wellbeing in community.

In the last few years, Matty has had the opportunity to learn and experience the values and methodologies of Gross National Happiness, a holistic wellbeing model and measurement system dedicated to achieving happiness in communities traveling to Bhutan and the United Kingdom to become a globally accredited practitioner at the internationally renowned Schumacher College.

It was at Schumacher College, that Matty met Helena Norberg Hodge, author, filmmaker and pioneer of the local economy movement. Helena is the founder of Economics of Happiness and Local Futures. Helena and Matty connected at Schumacher College over a shared passion for creating thriving local communities and the resulting wellbeing this vision creates. The Economics of Happiness Pilgrimage was born from this meeting.

As the lead facilitator of the pilgrimage, Matty’s role will be to create the space and condition to go on your journey of connection to self, others and nature using his own stories and experience, training and tools.

Ash Buchanan 

Ash is a collaborator whose passions span the areas of wellbeing, leadership and regeneration. His work is informed by a love for the natural world, and for bringing people and place closer together. He is a joint program facilitator for the Economics of Happiness pilgrimage.

Born and bred in Melbourne, Ash is an avid adventurer, spending a few months every year in the great outdoors, hiking, camping and playing in the wilderness. Initially, the motivation for his trips was purely personal. Overtime, however, Ash began to see nature as a mentor, perhaps even as the ultimate teacher, and wondered about what wisdom the natural world had to share about creating communities of happiness and wellbeing.

Today, Ash draws on this time tested wisdom to inform his wellbeing practice. He is the founder of Cohere, a wellbeing design consultancy. He also leads the development of Benefit Mindset, an initiative used by schools and organisations around the world to create results that serve the wellbeing of all.

As the wellbeing facilitator of the pilgrimage, Ash will draw on practices such as ‘Theory U’ to take participants on a journey from “ego-system awareness” to “eco-system awareness.” This will include a range of presencing activities specially attuned to the spectacular natural settings we will be journeying through.