SageGrove started as a personal answer to a question no other tool could solve. It became a framework. Now it helps people make decisions that actually reflect who they are.
I was at a crossroads. Not the dramatic kind that makes for a good story. The quiet kind. The kind where you wake up one morning and realize you have been making decisions for everyone else's reasons.
I picked up a values deck. I sorted the cards. I named my values. And then I sat there thinking: now what?
That is the gap. The one nobody talks about. Knowing your values and knowing how to use them are two completely different things. Every values tool I found ended at identification. None of them helped me understand how my values interact, which ones are foundational, which ones I am still growing into, or what happens when they collide.
I started noticing something. The way a Stinging Nettle protects before it nourishes. That is how Safety works. The way a Sunflower tracks light and gives more than it keeps. That is Appreciation. The way a mycorrhizal network shares resources underground, invisible but essential. That is how Trust actually functions.
Every organism in SageGrove was chosen because its biological characteristics mirror how a specific value works in real life. This is not decoration. It is a way of understanding yourself through the oldest wisdom system on earth.
I built SageGrove over years of research, clinical work, and late nights. I tested it in many communities. Every time, the same thing happens: people discover their values for the first time, or those who thought they knew discover things they were not aware of. There is room in the grove to go deep within yourself and find a path back out to who you want to be. A value they had been neglecting. A collision still reverberating. A pattern still swirling.
Petra Wilkes is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Registered Marriage and Family Therapy Intern with over a decade of experience in the mental health field. She holds three master's degrees, including an M.A. in Religion from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision at Barry University, where her research centers on how values influence decision-making.
Petra is the founder of Sage & Lore® Counseling, LLC, providing mental health support to couples and individuals in Southwest Florida. She has presented internationally as a plenary speaker, guest lecturer, and conference co-chair at Christ University in Bangalore, India, one of the country's top-ranked private universities, and has spoken at Montfort College, a pioneering institution for counselor training in India. She guest lectures at Barry University and conducts values-based workshops in Southwest Florida.
She developed SageGrove™, a nature-inspired framework for values clarification, and SageDecisions™, its complementary decision-making methodology. Tools born from her own quest for clarity when understanding her values was not enough.
A Navy veteran, former public school teacher, and foster mom, Petra's work is rooted in storytelling, the power of hope, and a fundamental belief: everyone has the potential to become the author of their own life.
SageGrove grew from two questions:
What if personal values worked like ecosystems?
Rather than linear lists, what if they were layered, interdependent, and alive?
SageGrove is a nature-inspired values clarification and decision-making framework. It maps 89 human values to specific living organisms across four ecosystem layers: Soil, Growth, Visibility, and Expression.
Each organism was chosen because its biological characteristics mirror how that value functions in real life. This creates an intuitive, memorable system that helps people see their values not as a flat list, but as a living, interconnected ecosystem.
The framework includes SageDecisions™, a complementary methodology that moves from values identification to values-based action through three phases: Tend, Balance, Decide.
SageGrove is not therapy. It is a tool born from therapy, grounded in clinical research, and designed for anyone who wants clarity, connection, and confidence in their next decision.
89 values. 10 categories. 4 ecosystem layers. Each value mapped to a living organism whose biology mirrors how that value actually works. Discover your ecosystem.
The decision-making methodology that bridges knowing and doing. Tend your values. Find your balance. Make your decision. A process you can use for any choice, any time.
SageGrove is an integrative framework drawing on complementary traditions. Its primary philosophical framework is Ecological Humanism.
People are the experts on themselves. Growth-oriented rather than pathology-focused. Every person has inherent worth and the capacity to move toward wholeness.
Holistic, interconnected systems. Dynamic equilibrium and balance as a natural state. Values do not exist in isolation. They exist in relationship.
Values as chosen behavioral directions. Committed action toward values. Psychological flexibility. Context shapes meaning.
You are the author of your own story. Re-authoring life stories. Externalizing problems from identity. You are not the problem. The story is the problem.
Workshop dates, new resources, and reflections from the grove. No spam. Just signal.