Holding Space: Recentering Humanity and Values Within Our Practices

“The most radical project we could ever engage in during our lives is the project of embodiment. This is the most radical act because there is no liberation without the union of body and mind.” Lama Rod Owens, Love and Rage

With the upcoming elections and the increasing division both nationally and globally, many of us are sitting with a plethora of complex emotions and feelings. We might be grappling with who we want to be at this moment and how we show up for ourselves and our communities. While there is uncertainty about the future, it is imperative that we remember that transformative change requires fortitude that spans beyond administrations and begins when we look inward. It’s pivotal that as a community we take the time to lean into our care practices so that we can approach the work ahead with clarity, intentionality, and purpose.

SoCal Grantmakers invites you to join us for a collective pause to recenter our bodies, hearts, and minds. Guided by our facilitator, Isazela Amanzi of Transgressive Medicine, participants will learn a few introductory embodied practices that will allow us to access our bodily wisdom to cultivate deeper experiences of resilience, grounding, and connection. While in the presence of community, we’ll explore breathing techniques and movement exercises that can support participants in identifying potential areas of tension or discomfort while also increasing openness and awareness. This session is beginner friendly. We hope that you will join us as we hold space together.

Target Audience

This program is open to members of Catalyst, Northern California Grantmakers, and Southern California Grantmakers.

Speakers

Isazela Amanzi, Director, Transgressive Medicine

Isazela “Zel” Amanzi (They/He), M.S.Ed, CYT is a Blacqueer, neuroqueer & agender transbeing. As Director of Transgressive Medicine, he works as a sacred energy educator and counter-colonial facilitator, speaker, and writer. He is both formally and community trained in social justice education, child development, western Reiki, and tantric yoga; he centers their practices and teachings on disability justice, neurodiversity affirmation, ancestral connection, energetic & somatic inquiry, personal transformation & counter-colonial community-building at the margins. Zel is also a poet, a gardener, and an analog enthusiast. They are a co-founder of Trans Futures Collective and a meditation and sound practitioner with Cuties LA. You can join their public classes, or hire him for private sessions and consulting. @transgressivemedicine

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