You don't have to burn yourself out to save the world. There's another way.
Thrive By Design is a six-week immersive journey using the Ache to Action Methodology to help you listen to what your ache is calling you toward, reconnect with what makes you come alive, and take powerful action toward the life and world you want to help create.
Thriving IS activism. Living LIT UP is medicine for a world on fire.
Thrive By Design is a six-week immersive journey using the Ache to Action Methodology to help you listen to what your ache is calling you toward, reconnect with what makes you come alive, and take powerful action toward the life and world you want to help create.
Thriving IS activism. Living LIT UP is medicine for a world on fire.
Our World Doesn't Need More Burned-Out People Who Are Trying to Save it.
... It needs more people who are fully alive, resourced, and FUELED to take Action.
You sense that something is wrong—in your life, in your work, or in the world.
You feel the ache of these times.
You care deeply about the planet. You want to do more. You feel called to contribute.
But instead of clarity, you feel overwhelmed, restless, anxious, frustrated, or unsure of what to do next.
You see it every day on your social media.
Another news story, a post, or an update on the worsening climate crisis and it washes over you in a wave of dread.
Another fire. Another flood. Another species lost. Another heartbreaking headline.
You feel it in your body—the heaviness, the anger, the grief, the urgency.
You want to do something. You feel even the need to do something.
But where do you even begin?
There are a thousand ways you could respond, a million things that need changing, and only so much time, energy, money and capacity to give.
So you scroll past the next headline.
You turn it off.
You tell yourself you'll figure it out later. Or that someone else will figure it out.
But underneath the overwhelm is the nagging feeling that you aren't doing enough.
You care deeply. You want to make a difference.
You may even wonder:
Where do I even begin?
How do I make a meaningful difference when there are so many problems to solve?
How do I take action without adding one more thing to an already full life?
How do I stay engaged without burning myself out?
What is actually mine to do?
You may even feel tempted to succumb to apathy as a coping strategy.
To numb.
To distract.
To turn away.
And maybe there's another ache underneath it all...
A quieter one.
The feeling that something in your own life isn't quite right.
Maybe you're successful on paper, but something feels missing.
Maybe the work that once energized you now leaves you depleted.
Maybe you've been moving through the motions—meeting obligations, taking care of everyone else, checking the boxes—while quietly wondering...
Is this really how I'm meant to be spending my life?
You may feel restless. Drained. Disconnected. Purposeless.
You know you want your life to mean something.
You want to feel alive in your work, your relationships, your body, your creativity, your contribution.
But you don't know what needs to change—or how to change it without blowing up the life you've already built.
And then the climate crisis enters the picture.
The world is hurting.
And some part of you is hurting too.
What if these aches are not separate?
What if the very things that feel uncomfortable, inconvenient, or impossible to ignore are carrying information about what you deeply care about?
What if your ache isn't asking you to do more?
What if it's asking you to listen?
What if the ache you're carrying isn't evidence that something is wrong with you?
What if it is a signal?
What if your ache is pointing you toward what you care most deeply about, and what your most purposeful work is?
You sense that something is wrong—in your life, in your work, or in the world.
You feel the ache of these times.
You care deeply about the planet. You want to do more. You feel called to contribute.
But instead of clarity, you feel overwhelmed, restless, anxious, frustrated, or unsure of what to do next.
You see it every day on your social media.
Another news story, a post, or an update on the worsening climate crisis and it washes over you in a wave of dread.
Another fire. Another flood. Another species lost. Another heartbreaking headline.
You feel it in your body—the heaviness, the anger, the grief, the urgency.
You want to do something. You feel even the need to do something.
But where do you even begin?
There are a thousand ways you could respond, a million things that need changing, and only so much time, energy, money and capacity to give.
So you scroll past the next headline.
You turn it off.
You tell yourself you'll figure it out later. Or that someone else will figure it out.
But underneath the overwhelm is the nagging feeling that you aren't doing enough.
You care deeply. You want to make a difference.
You may even wonder:
Where do I even begin?
How do I make a meaningful difference when there are so many problems to solve?
How do I take action without adding one more thing to an already full life?
How do I stay engaged without burning myself out?
What is actually mine to do?
You may even feel tempted to succumb to apathy as a coping strategy.
To numb.
To distract.
To turn away.
And maybe there's another ache underneath it all...
A quieter one.
The feeling that something in your own life isn't quite right.
Maybe you're successful on paper, but something feels missing.
Maybe the work that once energized you now leaves you depleted.
Maybe you've been moving through the motions—meeting obligations, taking care of everyone else, checking the boxes—while quietly wondering...
Is this really how I'm meant to be spending my life?
You may feel restless. Drained. Disconnected. Purposeless.
You know you want your life to mean something.
You want to feel alive in your work, your relationships, your body, your creativity, your contribution.
But you don't know what needs to change—or how to change it without blowing up the life you've already built.
And then the climate crisis enters the picture.
The world is hurting.
And some part of you is hurting too.
What if these aches are not separate?
What if the very things that feel uncomfortable, inconvenient, or impossible to ignore are carrying information about what you deeply care about?
What if your ache isn't asking you to do more?
What if it's asking you to listen?
What if the ache you're carrying isn't evidence that something is wrong with you?
What if it is a signal?
What if your ache is pointing you toward what you care most deeply about, and what your most purposeful work is?
What if Your Ache is Not the Problem?
In fact, what if it may be the very thing that knows what matters most?
Most of us have been conditioned to think of difficult emotions as something to fix, get over, manage, or move past.
We tend to numb. We consume. We distract. We ignore.
But the ache doesn't simply disappear when we turn away from it.
Unacknowledged ache captures energy.
The Ache contracts. It pulls vital energy toward itself. It begs for acknowledgment and witnessing because it has valuable information to impart.
Ache is where deep care and wisdom live.
But when the ache is honored, something changes.
Grief can become fuel.
Anger can become clarity.
Helplessness can become action.
And the energy that was once consumed by avoiding the ache becomes available for creativity, courage, connection, purpose, and contribution.
Unmet ache doesn't simply create suffering—it captures the very life energy needed to respond to what the ache is asking of us.
Your ache is sacred.
Let's turn it into something powerful, together.
We tend to numb. We consume. We distract. We ignore.
But the ache doesn't simply disappear when we turn away from it.
Unacknowledged ache captures energy.
The Ache contracts. It pulls vital energy toward itself. It begs for acknowledgment and witnessing because it has valuable information to impart.
Ache is where deep care and wisdom live.
But when the ache is honored, something changes.
Grief can become fuel.
Anger can become clarity.
Helplessness can become action.
And the energy that was once consumed by avoiding the ache becomes available for creativity, courage, connection, purpose, and contribution.
Unmet ache doesn't simply create suffering—it captures the very life energy needed to respond to what the ache is asking of us.
Your ache is sacred.
Let's turn it into something powerful, together.
From Ache to Action
A different way of responding to a world that needs you.
You don't have to do everything.
You don't have to become an activist in someone else's image.
You don't have to add another impossible list of responsibilities to your life.
And you don't have to choose between your own thriving and the thriving of the planet.
What if they were actually connected?
Thrive by Design is a six-week immersive journey designed to help you:
- Name and honor the ache you carry
- Clarify what matters most to you
- Reclaim your spark for life
- Discover the calling within your ache
- Align your lifestyle, purpose, passion, and values
- Leverage the roles, relationships, communities, networks, and resources already present in your life
- Identify what is uniquely yours to do
- Take meaningful action without abandoning yourself
- Build sustainable rhythms for ongoing contribution
- Become an agent of change who can return to your own inner wisdom again and again
We start with holding space for your ache.
We end with you being in action aligned with your purpose and passion.
What We Will Be Doing Together
Our sessions together will include mindfulness and somatic practices, deep creative personal work, and powerful questioning and space holding for you to do the inner work necessary to discover who your natural inner activist is and how they most wish to express.
Through this discovery you will shift out of anxiety and overwhelm about our planetary crisis and into action with an ability to experience yourself as an agent of change. You will have your own personal Eco Action Plan in hand to focus your next steps that is aligned with who you are, what you value, and how you enjoy spending your time the most.
Through this discovery you will shift out of anxiety and overwhelm about our planetary crisis and into action with an ability to experience yourself as an agent of change. You will have your own personal Eco Action Plan in hand to focus your next steps that is aligned with who you are, what you value, and how you enjoy spending your time the most.
The THRIVE BY DESIGN Transformation
From contracted to connected.
From overwhelmed to empowered.
From Ache to moving in Agency.
After fully participating in the Thrive by Design 6-Week Journey, you will experience a radical shift from anxious and overwhelm, to feeling empowered, aligned and an agent for change.
You'll sleep better knowing that you are doing all you can to ensure a viable planet for our children's future.
You'll experience greater vitality and a renewed capacity to notice and appreciate the good that is already right in front of you—as you take meaningful steps to address the concerns that have been draining your energy.
This isn't a traditional goal-setting program.
It's not about finding the perfect five-step plan.
It's not about becoming more productive.
And it's not about learning to care less.
It is about learning to relate differently to what you care about, and how to take action from a fully resourced place within yourself.
Our journey moves through six stages using my Ache to Action Methodology (aka " The 6 A's": ACHE, AWARE, AWAKENING, ALIVE, ALIGNED ACTION, AGENCY).
What You'll Be Doing in the THRIVE BY DESIGN Course
WEEK 1: Listening to the Ache – Honoring What Hurts
Theme: The Ache is an Invitation
- Lesson 1.1: Planetary Grief as Sacred Invitation
Name and honor the ache you carry for the world—grief as a signpost that your heart is still working. - Lesson 1.2: The Ache in the Body, the Ache in the Soul
Using OT wisdom and spiritual reflection, explore where the ache lives in your body and what it might be asking of you. - Breakout Session: Embodied Grief & Sacred Witnessing
Guided practice to share and metabolize grief through somatic release, ritual, and community support.
WEEK 2: Rooting into Resilience – Gathering Strength for the Journey
Theme: Inner Grounding for Outer Impact
- Lesson 2.1: Your Nervous System as a Compass
Learn to regulate and resource yourself through body-based practices for clarity, calm, and sustainable action. - Lesson 2.2: Spiritual Practices that Hold You
Integrate sacred practices (prayer, silence, blessing, mindful walking) that anchor your energy in turbulent times. - Breakout Session: Create Your Inner Resilience Toolkit
Build your own suite of inner supports to stay centered, resourced, and rooted in love.
WEEK 3: The Fire Within – Reclaiming Calling & Purpose
Theme: You Were Never Meant to Save the World Alone
- Lesson 3.1: Calling as Conversation
Reframe “calling” not as pressure to do more, but as an invitation to live more aligned with who you already are. - Lesson 3.2: Where Your Ache Meets Your Joy
Discover the intersection of your heartbreak, your gifts, and your deep gladness through sacred inquiry and creative process. - Breakout Session: Eco-System Mapping
A guided process to identify which parts of your life are thriving and what has become toxic. You will look for the thread of calling in your life and how it might want to be expressed now.
WEEK 4: Embodied Action – Aligning Life with What Matters Most
Theme: Sustainable Rhythms, Sacred Resistance
- Lesson 4.1: Thriving as a Form of Resistance
What if joy and thriving were not distractions, but sacred strategies for transformation? - Lesson 4.2: Redesigning Your Life to Reflect Your Love
Use regenerative tools to examine and realign your daily rhythms, roles, and rituals to support the work you’re called to do. - Breakout Session: Rhythms of Resilience
Design a weekly rhythm that weaves your purpose, rest, work, and joy into a pattern you can actually live.
WEEK 5: Sacred Action – Showing Up as Who You Truly Are
Theme: Action that Feeds the Soul and the Soil
- Lesson 5.1: What Sacred Action Looks Like for You
Explore diverse expressions of action—creative, relational, ecological, community-rooted—and discern what is yours to do. - Lesson 5.2: From Calling to Contribution
Use systems thinking and spiritual discernment to locate your impact in the larger ecosystem of change. - Breakout Session: Ritual of Commitment & Creative Expression
Design a personal or collective ritual that embodies your commitment and communicates your calling.
WEEK 6: Becoming the Blessing – Living the Integration
Theme: A Life Aligned with Earth and Spirit
- Lesson 6.1: The Path is Made by Walking
Reflection, storytelling, and soul-weaving to harvest what has emerged and clarify next steps. - Lesson 6.2: You Are the Blessing the World Needs
A collective ceremony of commissioning—marking the sacred threshold between insight and action, ache and offering. - Breakout Session: Celebration & Witnessing
A closing circle of joy, affirmation, and shared vision. Participants name their next right action and are witnessed in community.
Meet Your Guide
Hi, I'm Kelly Isabelle DeMarco.
I'm a Resilience Coach, Occupational Therapist, and Regenerative Practitioner with an extensive background in mindfulness training and mysticism. I help people transform their ache, reclaim their spark, and chart a path to living lit up in a world on fire.
I created Thrive by Design with Climate in Mind because I believe that doing the work to live lit up is potent medicine for our planet.
I don't just teach this work from theory alone. I have lived it.
Eco-anxiety took root in me in 1991 when I first learned of the looming crisis. Since then, I have aligned my own lifestyle, purpose, and passion with environmental action from cycling in the Andes to raise awareness about trash, to homesteading with my family, to serving as a grassroots green team leader and climate and health activist alongside my job as a clinical manager.
Navigating chronic pain, cancer, and end of life with my spouse was one of my greatest teachers in this work.
I understand busy and competing priorities.
I understand that for our activism to remain sustainable, it needs to align with our personal obligations, professional expertise, and passionate areas of interest that we have already spent a lifetime cultivating.
I'm not here to give you my own template, I am here to help you discover your own.
Through powerful questioning, mindfulness, somatic practices, creative inquiry, systems thinking, coaching and deep space holding, I help people move beyond the limitations they've settled into and reconnect with their own potential.
I won't give you the answers.
I will give you a mirror, the safe space and the patience needed for your own breakthrough to occur. Because the power isn't in being told what to do. The power is in discovering for yourself what is yours to do.
Thriving IS activism.
Living LIT UP is medicine for a world on fire.
What You Will Get in the THRIVE BY DESIGN Course
- 6 weekly 1.5-hour group sessions - A spacious, facilitated experience blending mindfulness, somatic practices, reflection, creative inquiry, powerful questioning, and community witnessing.
- 2 private coaching sessions with Kelly - One during Week 1 and one during Week 6 to deepen the work and support your individual transformation.
- Weekly Messaging Access & Community - Direct support and connection with Kelly and a community of other climate-concerned humans who are eager to become catalysts for change throughout the duration of the program for ongoing connection, witness, reflection, and support.
- Pre-Course Reflection Guide - Journal prompts and grounding tools to help you begin arriving for the work.
- Weekly reflection & meditation practices - Regenerative practices to accompany the week's work and help integrate insights into everyday life.
- Personal Action Plan - A co-created clear, personalized path for taking meaningful action aligned with your values, gifts, life, and deepest care.
- Post-Course Integration Map - Tools and prompts to help you continue the work beyond the six weeks.
The Investment
Join me and other climate-conscious activists for six weeks of immersive transformation in
Thrive by Design: From Ache to Action, Transform Your Ache for the Earth into Passion-Aligned Action!
Your investment includes the full six-week group experience, private coaching, weekly support, community connection, reflection and meditation practices, and your personal action and integration tools.
What People are Saying About Kelly's Work:
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Kelly has a deep understanding of the issues facing the Earth community today, and a passion for awakening others to the urgent need for positive change. She breaks down the huge problem of climate change into actionable components that anyone, no matter their background or location, can begin to integrate into their life.
Jennifer Browdy, PhD
Professor of Comparative Literature & Environmental Humanities / Founder of Writing to Help Right the World & Greenfire Press
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I had the unique privilege of working with Kelly during a difficult transition in my life. Kelly's coaching gave me the confidence to step outside of my comfort zone to take some bold steps towards a positive change. Her support, encouragement, advice, and wisdom - along with a gentle nudge to do big things and trust myself - was crucial in making a big decision to take steps forward and pursue other opportunities. Kelly's care & kindness during our coaching conversations was vital in helping me feel comfortable. Trusting her and this process ultimately led me on a brand new path towards happiness and success. Kelly's coaching and positive reinforcement made all the difference. I am so glad I trusted her in this process.
Martin
Marketing Director / Public Service Sector, SE Wisconsin
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Upon meeting Kelly at a climate rally in our conservative county park, I felt her urgency and passion to change the climate trajectory. Later we met up to try to impact local issues related to climate and the environment. It was then that I joined a global organization called the Climate Reality Project and became a trained Climate Reality Leadership Corps member along with 10,000 other virtual trainees in 2020. I am grateful that our paths crossed. Kelly is inspiring, ready to lead, creative and thoughtful. Kelly was one of my catalysts to get involved. She has natural skills with youth as well as adults. I am confident Kelly will make a difference in strategizing and calling to action those ready to move toward solutions to this great global threat.
Judy Stellmacher, RN
Pediatric Public Health Nurse / Climate Reality Leader
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Gathering of like minded people, coming together with unique perspective and experience, is what I appreciated most from Kelly's event. When you take the opportunity to witness someone express their passion, it leaves its mark through knowledge and shared experience. It also energetically grows stronger. Kelly's message about transforming the ache into purpose-aligned action resonates deeply and grows stronger in me as I express it with my own unique twist.
Lisa Bartell
Land Steward, Cascade, WI / Podcaster - Riding Sidesaddle
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A Question for You...
Your ache is already asking something of you.
The question isn't whether you care enough.
You do.
The question is:
What will you do with the energy your care contains?
When your time is up, will you look back on your life confident that you did what you came here to do?
Did you align with Life and give the world the best version of you possible - and have a blast doing it?!
Did you tackle the big questions and dive deep for the answers?
Did you roll up your sleeves and give yourself fully to the most vital work of our time?
Did you go all in on creating conditions that support thriving for all species?
All of the other stuff of life is important but nothing is more vital than the viability of planet earth.
For our children to thrive our planet must thrive too!
You don't have to do everything.
But Life is calling you to do what is uniquely yours to do. Responding to that call isn't effort - it's alignment!
You can keep pushing the ache away.
You can numb.
You can distract.
You can wait until you have more time and feel it dragging you backward as you strive to move forward.
Or, you can begin to listen to the call that will lead you to your most meaningful, joy-filled work.
Because your ache is sacred.
Your care matters.
Your life matters.
And the world needs what only you can bring.
The question isn't whether you care enough.
You do.
The question is:
What will you do with the energy your care contains?
When your time is up, will you look back on your life confident that you did what you came here to do?
Did you align with Life and give the world the best version of you possible - and have a blast doing it?!
Did you tackle the big questions and dive deep for the answers?
Did you roll up your sleeves and give yourself fully to the most vital work of our time?
Did you go all in on creating conditions that support thriving for all species?
All of the other stuff of life is important but nothing is more vital than the viability of planet earth.
For our children to thrive our planet must thrive too!
You don't have to do everything.
But Life is calling you to do what is uniquely yours to do. Responding to that call isn't effort - it's alignment!
You can keep pushing the ache away.
You can numb.
You can distract.
You can wait until you have more time and feel it dragging you backward as you strive to move forward.
Or, you can begin to listen to the call that will lead you to your most meaningful, joy-filled work.
Because your ache is sacred.
Your care matters.
Your life matters.
And the world needs what only you can bring.
For Environmental Organizations, Earth Stewards & Innovative Businesses
WHAT IF YOUR ORGANIZATION COULD THRIVE WHILE HELPING THE PLANET THRIVE?
For organizations, teams, and communities committed to a livable future. Thrive by Design can be offered to individuals, small groups, teams, or in a retreat format.
It is designed for people who:
- Care deeply about the environment and climate crisis
- Already feel called to be change-makers
- Want to contribute more meaningfully without burning out
- Feel overwhelmed by the growing number of ways they could take action
- Want to align their lifestyle, purpose, passion, and professional expertise with meaningful action
- Want to leverage the roles and spheres of influence they already inhabit
- Understand that thriving people and a thriving planet go hand in hand
- Recognize that real planetary change starts at home and within
- Want support with the inner work of activism so they can re-engage in outer work feeling replenished and rejuvenated
- Are willing to create the time and space necessary for meaningful transformation
This is for people who don't need another thing to “do.”
It's for people ready to discover what is truly theirs to do.
Invest in the people carrying the work.
The people who care most can also be the people carrying the most ache.
Climate grief.
Environmental loss.
Political frustration.
The pressure to do more.
The weight of knowing how much is at stake.
And underneath it all:
A profound desire to make a difference.
Thrive by Design offers a different approach to resilience.
Rather than asking people to disconnect from what hurts, we help them develop the capacity to stay present with it, listen for the wisdom within it, and transform that energy into aligned contribution.
Because: Thriving IS activism.
When people are more resourced, connected, purposeful, and alive, they have more capacity to bring their creativity, expertise, relationships, and leadership to the work that matters.
A thriving workforce can contribute to a thriving planet.
Want to learn how Thrive by Design can be tailored for your team?
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"Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us."
- Robin Wall Kimmerer
