Many of us have been socialized to deny our grief or grieve in private. In so many ways, dominant culture pushes us to “be positive.” Dominant culture doesn’t want us to know how to feel; if we did, we would not accept the level of harm and dis-ease that our culture produces. As a result of this push to be positive, we bypass what needs our attention. This is a time of great grieving and some of us are carrying personal grief that needs expression and healing in community. Our ability to grieve is a testament to our capacity both individually and as a community.
Everything Belongs is a 90-minute online session focused on collectively learning to love our grief instead of having an adversarial relationship with it. During our session, we will explore what you are currently grieving, what we are collectively grieving, and move through practices meant to support us in honoring our grief.
This session will include meditation, ritual, reflection, and small and large group community building. Please bring a journal and anything else that would help you feel supported.
Sliding Scale:
$20 Community Rate (discounted)
$30 Sustainer Rate (pays for you)
$40 Supporter Rate (supports others as well as yourself)
Zoom link will be delivered via email 24 hours prior to this session.
About Michelle C. Johnson & Tema Okun
Michelle Cassandra Johnson
Michelle C. Johnson is an author, yoga teacher, social justice activist, intuitive healer, and Dismantling Racism trainer. She approaches her life and work from a place of empowerment, embodiment, and integration. As a dismantling racism trainer, she has worked with large corporations, non-profits, and community groups, including the ACLU-WA, Duke University, Google, This American Life, Auburn Seminary, Kripalu, Mercedes, Spotify, Lululemon, and many others. Michelle published Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World in 2017; the second edition of Skill in Action, published by Shambhala Publication, comes out November 2nd, 2021. She teaches workshops in yoga studios and community spaces nationwide. Michelle’s latest book, Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief, published by Shambhala Publications came out in July 2021.
She was a Tedx speaker at Wake Forest University in 2019 and 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. Michelle created the Finding Refuge podcast in 2020, 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.
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.
Tema Okun
Tema Okun has spent over 30 years working with and for organizations, schools, and community-based institutions as a trainer, facilitator, and coach focused on issues of racial justice and equity. Dr. Okun currently co-leads the Teaching for Equity Fellows Program at Duke University, which works with faculty seeking to develop stronger skills both teaching about race and racism and across lines of race, class, and gender. She also facilitates, coaches, and consults with leaders and organizations nationwide.
Tema was a member of the Educational Leadership faculty at National Louis University in Chicago and has taught undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral level students in educational leadership and education. She is the author of the award-winning The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don’t Want to Know (2010, IAP) and the widely used article White Supremacy Culture. She publishes regularly on the pedagogy of racial and social justice.
Tema is a participant in the Living School for Action and Contemplation and a member of the Bhumisphara Sangha under the leadership of Lama Rod Owens. She is an artist, a poet, and a writer. She lives in Durham NC where she is fortunate to reside among beloved community. Her current project is deepening her ability to love her neighbor as herself. She is finding the instruction easy and the follow through challenging, given how we live in a culture that is afraid to help us do either or both.