Engaging with Decolonization Through Somatics

This workshop is being hosted live online only and will not be recorded to maintain the privacy of all attendees. Instructions on how to join will be emailed to registrants shortly before the workshop start date.  
 
If you need to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@ciis.edu at least one week prior to the workshop start date. For more information, explore our Frequently Asked Questions.    
 
To decolonize means different things to different people, and the complex process of decolonizing—attempting to separate out colonial processes and build new ones—is an extensive project that takes mind, body, and spirit to achieve. What happens to the body within this project? 
 
Through somatic exploration—any practice that uses the mind-body connection to help survey the internal self and listen to signals the body sends about areas of pain, discomfort, or imbalance—we can engage more fully with the above question and the complex work of decolonizing ourselves. We can also more fully explore embodied questions—what cultural/experiential perspectives have informed my concept of embodiment?  
 
Join sacred scholar and activist Amber McZeal for a workshop that explores the decolonial arc of our collective healing—tending to the human family by locating our bodies within this project of racialization. Participants are guided through unpackaging how attitudes about bodies informed by colonial values shaped and continues to influence our social imaginary: the set of beliefs, values, and institutions that constitute notions of social wholeness.
 
Throughout this workshop participants learn the skills to detect patterns of coloniality that impact health and well-being. They work to integrate an understanding of race as a political and social activity into healing modalities and hold a baseline for holistic healing that recognizes racism, racialization, gendered oppression and other colonial markers as a cultural trauma.  
 
Participants explore this work through engaging an in-depth dialogue, Soul Scribing (an embodied journal practice), cultivating a critical consciousness, and sharing in embodied practices such as guided imagery and meditation. Deep-listening and somatic sharing in breakout group sessions are also key to this workshop. 

 
Amber McZeal is a writer, vocalist, sacred scholar, and activist who utilizes sound therapy and guided somatic imagery to engage the knowledge of the body within an interactive and liberatory arts practice. Amber weaves together somatic practice with social justice and spirituality. Her approach centers imagination as foundational to movements to end oppression and create more humane social relationships. Amber holds an MA degree in somatic depth psychology and is currently a doctoral candidate at Pacifica Graduate Institute.  

CIIS students, staff, and faculty receive discounts on all events. CIIS Public Programs Members receive a 20% discount on all events. Contact us for more information at publicprograms@ciis.edu.