Public Classes & Events
Offered Through Embody Equity:
Follow Embody Equity on Humanitix to keep up to date with new events as soon as they’re published. Or check out my Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook for more resources.
Mediation &
Communication:
“Civil dialogue is claiming and caring for my identity, needs & beliefs while not degrading yours.” — Brené Brown
Not afraid to say “Ouch!” — How to contest the status quo by calling in, out, on or off
Is fear of retribution hijacking your office, committee or family gathering?
Workshop can be configured for adults, young people or multi-age communities.
When someone says or does something harmful, what can we do? Individually? As a community? The polarization and power dynamics of our times can make it seem as though our only choices are holding our tongues or screaming into the void. But staying silent only adds to our distress and isolation, while public confrontation provokes denial, derision and defense. We can't live our lives under the radar, nor can we sustain ourselves on outrage in the long term.
We desperately need techniques to productively engage people across our disagreements.
In this workshop, based on the Calling In movement championed by Loretta Ross, you’ll learn and practice a strategic framework for speaking your truth, including:
Tailoring your message for perfect, partial or problematic allies
Listening between the lines to focus on the underlying issues
Deciding strategically when to Call In, Out, On or just Call it Off.
Maintaining healthy boundaries to protect your own emotional wellbeing
Build & Lead your Internal Call-in Culture
How can we build a system so we don’t hit an impasse again?
This workshop can be configured as one, 4-hour or two, 2-hour sessions, customized for Education, Nonprofit or Commercial clients
We find ourselves in a time of social frictions running hot and getting hotter. On top of generational differences in concepts of identity and the ever-changing language used to discuss it, people are increasingly distrustful across political lines. All this can turn the workplace climate from one of camaraderie and collaboration to one of strained silence and fear of public callouts. Leaders worry that attention to all of this is eating into the work day; employees are frustrated that no one seems to understand how to manage this sort of conflict.
What’s an organization to do? The way to get ahead of callout culture is by building a culture of calling in. Drawing upon the Calling In work of Loretta Ross and others, this course centers on identifying shared language, values, and guidelines, then building upon them to create a transparent system of mutual respect and accountability. Participants learn and practice models of listening and dialogue that allow learning, empathy, accountability, clear boundaries, and co-creation of positive next steps.
Fog on the Lens of Dominant Culture Series:
“My job is to put a little fog on the lens so that you can see it’s there.” — Bushra Aziz, filmmaker & Teaching Artist
stepping into a new paradigm of Leadership & Expertise
Available in person or online
Can be configured for White affinity or mixed groups
*Prerequisite: Either Letting go of Urgency and Individualism in Leadership OR Unlearning Individual Competitiveness and Action Bias in Leadership
*This intermediate workshop can be combined into a longer offering with either prerequisite offering.
"We have experienced what it's like to release any assumption that one person has all the skills needed to lead and support the work." — adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
“Leadership is not a role or a set of traits, but a zone of inter-relational process: Step in; Step out.” — Nora Bateson, Leadership Within the Paradox of Agency
Let's face it: Unlike flocks of geese that famously trade the lead position, our society has normalized Hierarchy. The new paradigm of leadership described above is a radical departure from what we've grown up with. Rankings of our status by title, education, age, gender, race, ability and many other social constructions are so common that we hardly think to question them. At the root of all of this is the ranking of our heads/minds/thoughts over our bodies/feelings/intuitions.
This intermediate workshop guides participants to integrate thoughts, feelings, and intuitions in order to dismantle the transactional roles of leadership. We will investigate body practices that encourage collaborative action, yet don’t get mired in endless process. Join us as we learn to recognize the right thing to do in the moment, as well as how to support each other as we step into and out of leadership.
Letting Go Of Urgency & Individualism In Leadership
Available in person or online;
Can be configured for White affinity or mixed groups.
Have you ever thought to yourself, “Sure, I want to collaborate, but by the time I figure out how to delegate all of this I could get the whole thing done myself!” Our common norms around time and individualism combine to push us out of group work and into our siloes - even when we mean to be inclusive. This deprives our projects of the benefits of multiple perspectives, snubs our colleagues from collaborative cultures, and can leave us exhausted from trying to do it all ourselves.
“To become American and to be American is to be individual.” — Marc Anthony Neal, Professor, Duke University
This introductory workshop looks at the cultural norms that keep us siloed, as well as alternate norms common in other cultures and ways to embody them. Join us as we expand our understandings of time and relationship, and come away with increased stamina for holding complex truths, tools to move us out of our analysis paralysis, and a keener sense of which cultural trait is most beneficial to enact in the moment.
“We’re trained from a very early age not just to be independent, but to be better.” — Michele Gelfand, Professor, Stanford University
“I find that White groups tend to use action as a bandaid to avoid sitting with the pain of what has happened.” – Jim Bear Jacobs, Co-Director for Racial Justice, MN Council of Churches
Unlearning Individual Competitiveness & Action Bias In Leadership
Available in person or online
Can be configured for White affinity or mixed groups
We’ve all felt them: the urge to DO something about a situation and the need not to share our methods - from family recipes to successful work strategies. These come from dominant cultural norms that operate on a subconscious level. In leadership positions, there’s also external pressure to act fast and be the best. Yet, neither of these ways of being helps us build a new, inclusive culture. Beyond learning the skills of collaboration and reflection, we must unlearn what holds us back.
In this introductory workshop, we will move our head-learning about collaboration and time for pause into embodied learning so that we can operationalize the things we’ve intellectualized. Join us to expand cultural understandings, and come away with increased stamina for holding difficult emotions, tools to move out of stuckness, and a keener sense of which cultural trait is most beneficial to enact in the moment.
Children & Human Difference:
“If we give all children dignity and richness, everything changes on the administrative and political level.” - L. Malaguzzi
What should I do when my child notices Differences out loud?
This parent & staff workshop is customizable for Preschool through Elementary environments.
Often kids bring up race, disability or other differences at the most awkward times, asking loud questions about physical features in a public space. As an adult, it’s hard to know how to respond. Our own parents may have acted dismissive or embarrassed when we asked that kind of question, giving us the message that race was NOT ok to talk about. But we can do better.
This community workshop designed to help you be intentional about the messages you pass on to your kids. Learn how to answer questions in a way that celebrates human differences and keeps an avenue open to the child’s natural curiosity.
Documentation Lab: Looking at Student Work
90-120 minute format can be configured online or in-person.
Appropriate for teachers and caregivers of any age of students.
How do conversations about human differences really happen in early childhood classrooms?
How can the environment, the teacher, & the group of children extend each others' thinking?
Join us for a collaborative conversation where we’ll look at the traces of student work: photos, recordings, snippets of conversations, etc., then share our impressions & questions, and talk about next steps.
The Doc Lab is a great way to build a community of equitable practice, and for individual educators to feel seen, supported and even prompted to explore new avenues in their work.
Embodied Facilitation Training
Listening to Body Cues as a Facilitator
Access your body wisdom to get grounded & move forward
Photo credit: Wildpixel
“The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener.” –Bill O’Brien
"Social Field awareness is the only paddle or rudder available to the small boat of our current situation as it moves out into the unknown.” — Arawana Hayashi
"The body is where we fear, hope, and react; where we constrict and release; and where we reflexively fight, flee or freeze.” — Resmaa Menakem
The beauty of the Sacred Ground film-based curriculum is that anybody can fit in. The personal storytelling approach provides multiple onramps that suit people from a wide variety of racial and cultural groups and lived experiences.
Yet this breadth of participants can present a volatile mix. How can you help everyone in your Sacred Ground Dialogue Circle feel seen and supported? What can you do if things get tense or emotional? Or what if you find yourself getting emotionally tripped up by an unexpected comment? In this session we’ll learn simple embodied facilitation techniques to help you tune in to your own sensations, as well as to nonverbal cues of participants. We’ll also practice descriptive responses to statements and body language that help the speaker feel seen and often open up deeper understandings of their own insights.
Embodied Healing & Wholeness:
Embodied Healing & Wholeness
Two hour workshop can be in-person or via Zoom.
“. . . We’re all embodied in one way, shape, or another. But the question is, are we embodying liberation? Are we embodying our wholeness? Are we embodying our healing?” — Thérèse Cator, EmbodiedBlackGirl.com
Spontaneity, humor & lightness in community are part of our human birthright, and they are essential to our liberation. No matter our ancestry, we’ve been exposed to the division and isolation that are the primary tools of colonization. We’ve been taught to idealize independence and individualism, and overlook interdependence and wholeness - starting at the level of our own body and mind. This can make liberation and healing seem like DIY “fixer-upper” projects that we’re responsible for, leading to a culture of burnout and sniping in White antiracist communities.
"The last place the colonizer leaves is your mind.” — Hari Kondabolu
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Join us as we cultivate these qualities of interdependent wholeness. Using simple, gentle movement practices we will quiet our busy, bossy minds to better integrate the quiet voice of our embodied wisdom. We’ll then extend our awareness from our personal bodies to the group "social body," as a step toward reconnecting in true community.