In an age when connection is more critical than ever, we’re often in forms of connection that are surface level; scrolling, liking, watching. We often fall short of fulfilling our deeply human need to be known, understood, and feel empowered in our lives. As we seek to mobilise towards a better world, we need ways of being with each other that make a deeper connection possible. Stuck in patterns of unsustainability, our communities, movements, and grassroots solutions don’t have the space to grow and thrive. In the context of ongoing trauma and upheaval, how do we support connection, survival & embrace the medicine within us?
What It Takes To Heal is an exploratory conversation with the incredible Prentis Hemphill, Marai Larasi & Farzana Khan to reconnect us to the power of embodiment for collective transformation. We’re excited to be in dialogue with Prentis, whose work (including their latest book which this event takes its name from) asks us “What would it do to movements, to our society and culture, to have the principles of healing at the very centre? And what does it do to have healing at the centre of every structure and everything we create?” They remind us how crucial it is to stay present, open, and connected to both each other and our visions for a new world.
Prentis Hemphill is the bestselling author of What It Takes to Heal, a groundbreaking exploration of healing, justice, and transformation. A therapist, somatics teacher, facilitator, political organizer, and writer, Prentis is also the founder of The Embodiment Institute and a leading voice in embodied leadership and collective healing.
Marai Larasi (she/her/dem) is a Black Feminist TroubleMaker & “Time-Traveller”. She is a Black, African-Caribbean-British feminist advocate, community organiser and consultant who has worked in social justice for over thirty years. Much of her work has focussed on ending violence against Black / Global Majority women and girls.
Farzana Khan (she/they) is a social sculptor and writer. Her practice works on building community health, repair and self-transformation rooted in disability justice, survivor work and trauma-informed practice working with communities of colour and other marginalised and underrepresented groups.
Our Breath Circle for Collective Capacity is a gathering space for grounding. We hold this regular space for light stretching, breathing and meditative practice.
A space for racialised/global majority people to explore connections with rage through embodied practice.
Movement medicine practitioner-in-training dr dima mekdad explores how somatic practice illuminated and complicated her embodied experience navigating the liberation of Syria.
Exploring the internal and external work. We offer this space for all of us – organisers, liberation workers, community leaders, healers, and abolitionists – to learn about the embodied competencies we need to cultivate in order to build and tolerate power, and reckon with what it costs us when, instead, we default to shame or making ourselves smaller.
Tools to regulate and resource us before, during and after protest.
A discussion about the need and potential of somatics in our social justice movements.
Developing a cohort of somatic practitioners embedded in social movements to support personal and structural transformation.
A workshop sharing frameworks and practices to reduce stress, address trauma and build embodied resilience.