These trainings are the space for the feelings that fall by the wayside in your everyday life — because they relate to the bigger picture, not your private circle. I call them world-feelings (Weltgefühle), because they concern social change.
If you no longer want to merely “endure” this change, but instead want to be part of it with your full, wild aliveness, you’re in the right place.
You can only go numb to all feelings at once, never to just one. If you numb yourself to your anger, you also shut off the tap for your joy, your conscious fear, and your sadness as powerful resources for your life. Numbness covers all four feelings — and leaves you “putting up with” life. But that also costs you a great deal of clarity and aliveness.
You can only go numb to all feelings at once, never to just one.
Your world-feelings and emotions are only an obstacle for as long as you try to ignore them. The moment you take radical responsibility for your feelings and emotions, they become the energy and information that move you to heal and to act.
WELTGEFÜHLE – A RESEARCH SPACE
Monthly online evening
How do you stay centered when the world is in upheaval? How do you keep your center amid sensationalism, bad news, and disinformation? That’s the research question for this space.
Somewhere between outrage and shock, between activism and powerlessness, your real, adult feelings are waiting for you. And with them, something to stand for. Something you have energy for.
The WELTGEFÜHLE research space takes place on the first Tuesday of every month. Together we explore what you’re currently feeling about political topics — and what’s in that feeling that you can use. For yourself. And for democracy.
A research space for your feelings. With people who bring similar questions.
Course details
Start date: October 6, 2026 → first Tuesday of every month (exception: November 10, 2026)
Time: 6:30–9:00 PM
Location: Zoom
Maximum participants: 20
Registration deadline: by the evening before
Price per single evening: €20–50, sliding scale
Annual subscription: €200–400
Registration
DEMOCRACY FITNESS
Democracy isn’t only what we call institutional democracy. At its core, it’s above all a human capacity. We’re not born with it — we learn it, much like walking.
You can train democracy. The ten most important “muscles” involved are called:
Opinion
The ability to form an opinion, using reason, gut feeling, and heart intelligence.
Empathy
The ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes.
Verbal Confidence
The ability to raise your own voice without shrinking yourself, verbally or through body language.
Active Listening
The ability to give someone your full attention.
Courage
The ability to do something dangerous while you feel afraid — because it matters to you.
Curiosity
The ability to open yourself to the unknown.
Disagreement
The ability to disagree with someone and to stay with that disagreement.
Compromise
The ability to find a solution that’s the best choice for everyone involved.
Activism
The ability to take action for something that matters to you.
Mobilisation
The ability to win other people over for an important cause.
All of these abilities are essential in a democracy — and they can be learned. Each muscle has a 30-minute training program that engages the body and the feelings, and shows that democracy can be fun too.
Democracy Fitness was invented in 2017 by the Danish organization *Democracy Global*. I trained there as a Democracy Fitness trainer. These trainings are simple, straightforward, and suitable for any audience — from young to old! They work with groups of any size, and they’re designed so you can physically experience all the content in a short time.
Is this exactly…
what your event, your school, your organization needs?
MORE ON DEMOCRACY FITNESS…
…on the website of the Bildungswerk Mehr Demokratie…
https://bildungswerk-mehr-demokratie.de/demokratie-fitness/
…and at Democracy Fitness Global.
https://democracyfitness.org/
TRAININGS IN FREIBURG
I occasionally offer individual evenings on navigating with feelings in Freiburg (registration by email to me). Some have a clear topical focus, some — like the Open Possibility Team — are open-topic. You can find the in-person sessions on the Possibility Collective Freiburg’s website:
