This workshop introduces participants to practices for the classroom based on trauma-in­formed pedagogies, the neuroscience of mental health, and pedagogies of social justice and diver­sity. The workshop will support faculty to create connection and embodied presence in the online and in-person classroom at a moment when higher education is called upon to face profound social problems that cannot be walled off from our classes and that produce anxiety, stress, and burnout among students, staff, and faculty. The workshop will address trauma and overwhelm within the specific context of the pandemic and the movements for racial justice, with practices that you can begin to use in your classroom and in your life immediately. The workshop is created and facilitated by Anita Chari (Associate Prof. of Political Science, University of Oregon) and Angelica Singh (M.A., BCST, Founder of The Embodiment Process™), co-founders of Embodying Your Curric­ulum, an online program designed to resource professors, students, and administrators with trau­ma-informed tools.

You will learn:

• Receive an in-depth exploration of the paradigm of trauma informed pedagogy.
• Understand why we need it now in our classrooms to support both students and professors.
• Receive simple and effective tools for beginning to incorporate this paradigm into your curricu­lum. You will receive some of the practices before the workshop so you can use them immediately for relieving your overwhelm and for creating a resilient classroom space online.
• Receive recorded practices and worksheets that will allow you to continue deepening into the work after the workshop.

What participants can expect:

• This is an experiential workshop: our learning together is more about getting a felt-sense expe­rience of the concepts and practices of trauma-informed pedagogy than it is about learning con­cepts in an analytical way. Prepare to slow down your nervous system and learn how to work with your nervous system practically. Note that many academics find the process of slowing down and grounding to be challenging. This is to be expected: give yourself the space to be in beginner’s mind and to try something new. Know that resistance is part of the process and should be ac­knowledged and included.
• You’ll learn how the highly intellectual and cognitive frameworks and tools that academics use in the classroom and in our research can make creating safety and resiliency in our collective spaces challenging. You’ll learn how to integrate a more embodied, trauma-informed paradigm into your existing practices.
• You’ll learn about the relationship between trauma-informed practices and creating spaces that value diversity, equity and inclusion in a deeply embodied way. Prepare to delve into your own his­tory and think about the relationship between your personal history and collective issues of inter­sectional oppression.

How can you stay centered and present as you lead, especially in times of adversity?

In this workshop, you’ll engage with the fundamentals of embodied leadership to support you in a time of overwhelm and re-connect you to your sense of purpose as a leader in academic or professional spaces. As you confront institutional challenges, social upheaval, and limited resources in this time of the pandemic, you’ll learn trauma-informed tools to help regulate your nervous system, hold appropriate boundaries, and expand your window of tolerance for deep conversation, including tools for working with intersectional oppression. In this powerful process, you’ll explore how your personal history impacts your leadership and how the integration of your core values is the foundation for embodied leadership. The tools offered here can be implemented in your work immediately, but they’ll also sustain you in a more holistic process embodying your leadership.

• Receive and practice tools for regulating your nervous system during a time of overwhelm and social and political upheaval to promote collaborative and relational work environments.
• Work with diversity, equity and inclusion issues using trauma-informed tools.
• Practice skills for holding healthy boundaries along with learning new ways of listening and engaging in conversations about race and intersectional oppression during a time of crisis.
• Learn how to perceive your own and others’ window of tolerance for learning and group discussion.

Trauma-informed Equity and Inclusion Work for Institutional Transformation

This series of trainings (or we also offer a shorter 3-hour Embodying Racial Justice Introduction workshop) will support attendees to participate in equity and inclusion work based on trauma-informed pedagogies, embodied nervous system practices, and paradigms of embodied social justice. Racism and colonization are not limited to individual attitudes, biases and prejudices. They are structurally anchored in the forms of denial, disembodiment, and historical erasure that permeate most of our institutions–educational, socio-political, and economic. Our bodies are a crucial site for working with this disease of forgetting that we see in our society, because the body is where we hold racialized trauma, both individually and collectively. Embodied practices are key to cultivating anti-racist and anti-oppressive environments and will support participants to work with dynamics of historical and contemporary intersectional oppression at a personal and professional level. This training empowers participants with a trauma-informed approach to equity and inclusion as it applies to decolonizing the classroom space in your work as educators and scholars, as well as in the realm of embodied leadership within institutions.

You’ll learn:

• What is a double bind and what does it have to do with working with intersectional oppression.
• How to perceive in your body when you’re navigating a double bind in a professional situation.
• How to create spaces of accountability for racial injustice within your classroom or department so that BIPOC (whether that includes yourself, colleagues, or your students) are not left having to hold for the fallout of deconstructing racial privilege.
• Practice skills for holding healthy boundaries along with learning new ways of listening and engaging in conversations about race and intersectional oppression.
• Learn how to perceive your own and others’ window of tolerance for learning and group discussion in the midst of power dynamics.

What participants can expect:

• This is an experiential workshop: our learning together is more about getting a felt-sense experience of the concepts and practices than it is about learning concepts in an analytical way. Prepare to slow down your nervous system and learn how to work with your nervous system practically. Note that many academics find the process of slowing down and grounding to be challenging. This is to be expected: give yourself the space to be in beginner’s mind and to try something new. Know that resistance is part of the process and should be acknowledged and included.
• You’ll learn how the highly intellectual and cognitive frameworks and tools that academics use in the classroom and in our research can create roadblocks to enacting equity and inclusion in our collective spaces. You’ll learn how to integrate a more embodied, trauma-informed paradigm into your existing practices.
• You’ll learn about the relationship between trauma-informed practices and creating spaces that value diversity, equity and inclusion in a deeply embodied way. Prepare to delve into your own history and think about the relationship between your personal history and collective issues of intersectional oppression.