2SLGBTQ+ Well-being Group

In this group, we will slowly find our way back into our bodies by connecting with our felt sense – what we notice inside of us when we pay attention to our inner experience. A felt sense can be a sensation like pain, tension or ease, an image or memory, a sound or movement, an urge to do something, feelings and/or words/meaning-making.

We will learn about settling and grounding our bodies and how to accompany our felt sense with curiosity and compassion. This will be through experiential exercises with a sprinkling of neurobiology (information about our brains and nervous systems) to support your learning.

Our well-being is also about our longings and dreams for belonging, safety and dignity for all people, land and life. We will listen for our embodied knowing about ways to move towards more justice and liberation for ourselves and collectively. Relational tools for a greater sense of safety and self-worth inside and outside our group will also be offered.

You will be invited to (re)connect with your own cultural knowing and practices for: accompanying and expressing feelings (including through songs, poems, stories, crafts, and food), embodiment and resourcing your brain, body and nervous system.

About me: I am a white, queer settler with Scottish, Irish and British ancestry. Here are the learnings and resources I will be drawing on (in addition to the cultural knowing of the group):

• embodiment and experiential practices from Focusing-oriented therapy, inner parts work and interpersonal neurobiology from white-settler therapists: Leslie Ellis, Derek Scott, Terri Delaney, Jules Taylor Shore and Bonnie Badenoch.
• much appreciated and invaluable learnings from Resmaa Menakem’s book, “My Grandmother’s Hands”, Camille Sapara Barton’s “Tending Grief” and Akilah Riley Richardson about embodied white supremacy/oppression, systemic trauma, and somatic practices.
• Jude Lally, Scottish cultural activist (Ancestral mothers of Scotland and Gather the Keeners)