Contemplative practices, such as yoga, mindfulness, self-study, and journaling, are designed for us to engage in over time, again and again. Creating conditions for justice is ongoing work, and our contemplative practices can equip us to continue showing up again and again to create a truly liberatory world. The Skill in Action workshop will explain and explore the intersection of the two: contemplative practice and social justice. This workshop will deepen our awareness of self, others, the causes and nature of suffering, and develop and hone skills to create conditions for justice and liberation.

This Skill in Action workshop is for yoga teachers and practitioners, spiritual practitioners, activists, and organizers. It is for people who want to be in community with others working to create a just world. During the workshop, we will explore how patterns of privilege, oppression, and imbalances of power become internalized and embodied, how systems of oppression build grief in the individual and collective bodies, how dominant culture conditions and shapes our thought patterns, behaviors, and actions, how to engage spiritual and contemplative practices as skills to build social change, and how to move into collective action.

Michelle will share lessons from the 2nd edition of Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World about the tenants of Skill in Action, being with the questions that emerge as we create social change, how to calm the nervous system during unsettling times, and how to find refuge in the teachings from the Bhagavad Gita. The workshop will include both asana and meditation practices as well as practice with new skills! It will also include journaling, self-reflection, small and large group discussions, and more!

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: 

Michelle is the founder of Skill in Action; she is a social justice warrior, author, dismantling racism trainer, empath, yoga teacher and practitioner, and an intuitive healer. With over 20 years of experience leading dismantling racism work and working with clients as a licensed clinical social worker, Michelle has a deep understanding of how trauma impacts the mind, body, spirit, and heart. Her awareness of the world through her own experience as a Black woman allows her to know, first-hand, how privilege and power operate.

Michelle holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary and a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She has worked in several non-profits and served as an elected official and on many non-profit boards of directors. Michelle has led Dismantling Racism Trainings with large corporations, small non-profits, and community groups, including the ACLU-WA, Duke University, Google, This American Life, The Center for Equity and Inclusion, Eno River Unitarian Universalist Church, Lululemon, and many others. She published Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World in 2017, and her new book Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief was released in July 2021. Michelle teaches workshops in yoga studios and community spaces nationwide and is on the faculty of Off the Mat, Into the World. She was a Tedx speaker at Wake Forest University in 2019, and she has been interviewed on several podcasts in which she explores the premise and foundation of Skill in Action, along with creating ritual in justice spaces, our divine connection with nature and Spirit, and how we as a culture can heal. Recently, she created her own podcast, Finding Refuge, which explores collective grief and liberation and serves as a reminder about all the ways we can find refuge during unsettling and uncertain times and of the resilience and joy that comes from allowing ourselves to find refuge.

Michelle leads courageously from the heart with compassion and a commitment to address the heartbreak dominant culture causes for many because of the harm it creates. She inspires change that allows people to stand in their humanity and wholeness in a world that fragments most of us. Whether in an anti-oppression training, yoga space, individual or group intuitive healing session, the heart, healing and wholeness are at the center of how Michelle approaches all of her work in the world. There are a myriad of ways to work with Michelle, and she hopes to support you on your healing journey and path towards wholeness in whatever capacity allows you to live your fullest life. 

SCHEDULE
Friday 2/18: 6-8pm

Saturday: 10am-12pm and 2-4pm

INVESTMENT:

Community Rate (discounted): $125

Sustainer Rate (pays for you): $150

Supporter Rate (support others as well as your self) $175

This virtual workshop qualifies for 14 Yoga Alliance CE hours.