Themes:

• Our nervous systems are experiencing a lot in this time of collective crisis.

• Our bodies are wise and good - and without the capacity to tend to them, we will struggle to move with resilience and integrity.

• We need deeper roots - practices and relationships to ground us for the long-haul of justice work.

Practice One: Rooting in Relationship

Themes:

• Trauma, or experiences that overwhelm our capacity, powerfully shape our nervous systems.

• While these protective patterns are wise and protective, they can be exploited by systems of supremacy and leave us acting out of alignment with our values.

• Somatic practices for supporting our bodies’ sense of connection and relative safety during and after charged moments can help us move towards choice and presence.

Practice Two: Connecting With The Web of Life

Themes:

• Trauma, or experiences that overwhelm our capacity, powerfully shape our nervous systems.

• While these protective patterns are wise and protective, they can be exploited by systems of supremacy and leave us acting out of alignment with our values.

• Somatic practices for supporting our bodies’ sense of connection and relative safety during and after charged moments can help us move towards choice and presence.

Practice Three: Mash-up of Somatic Practices for The Day-to-day

Themes:

• Each person’s identities and relationship to power structures, shapes their embodied patterns as well, and the ways they are likely experiencing this chapter in our country’s history. These patterned responses also interact with the patterned responses of others.

• Self-stewardship, the capacity and commitment to tending to our own body and spirit, can support all of us in being in cultivating right relationship, without demanding care-taking from others or over-extending to reflexively soothe others’ discomfort ourselves.

Practice Four: Compassion/Boundary Pracitce

Themes:

• The feeling of powerlessness, a sense that we cannot control the conditions of our world, is a painful and inherent part of life as humans.

• Many of us grew up with a control-based, power-over understanding of power. Indigenous wisdom offers a much more nuanced picture. And power, as in the ability to shape our world through our collective action, is something we can build in service of our values.

• We can all deepen our own embodied sense of our power, and use our power within our own unique lanes and spheres of influence to contribute to liberation.

Practice Five: Feeling Our Power

Themes:

• Joy is often framed as frivolous or trite in justice movements, but it can play a necessary and even strategic role in sustaining our work towards a more liberated world.

• Joy can be cultivated in countless ways: through gratitude practices, music, art, rest, community etc.

• When stress and trauma numbs or closes us to joy, leaning intentionally into connection with people, nature and spirit can reopen our capacity for joy and sustain our values-rooted action.

Practice Six: Two Joy Practices!