Beliefs, Understanding, and Commitments related to Resilience, Trauma, and Liberation

I believe:

Everyone deserves safety and belonging.

No one can promise trauma-free space.

Sometimes change feels like danger even when it is not.

Learning to differentiate when we are and are not safe is critical to working toward liberation.

Resilience:

  • Healing and building resilience happen in relationship.

  • Safety and belonging allows our nervous system to regulate and optimizes our mental, emotional, and physical functions.

  • Tools to create safety and belonging include:

    • Empowerment and choice (consent);

    • Identity-based awareness including cultural humility and responsiveness (sometimes called cultural competence);

    • Generosity and grace when people make mistakes or think they did something wrong;

    • Setting limits/boundaries if someone hurts others repeatedly without responding to feedback;

    • Encouraging questions so that people are not left out during conversations – particularly if terminology, acronyms, or concepts aren’t known to them; 

    • Welcoming and encouraging feedback in multiple forms; and

    • Making spaces and opportunities accessible to as many people as possible.

  • Co-regulation such as singing or dancing together.

  • Eating together.

  • Being with animals.

  • Being in nature.

  • Meeting as many accessibility needs as possible.

  • Transparent facilitation.

  • Discharge is an important part of moving out of a trauma response. Discharge can look like: walking, running, dancing, shouting, shaking, singing, sighing, shaking, humming and more.

  • By striving for safety and belonging, we are:

  1. Less likely to create new traumas; 

  2. Supportive of people’s need to discharge and re-regulate if they are experiencing an old or new trauma; and

  3. Supportive of people to learn, heal, and take action toward a more liberated world.

Trauma:

  • Is a physiological response.

  • Is an adaptation for survival that is sometimes maladaptive.

  • Originates from various experiences.

  • Can happen from a singular origin; over time from living in ongoing, chronic oppressive systems and/or stressful situations; or repeated small incidents that compound.

  • Can happen to bystanders, recipients, and perpetrators of harm or violence.

  • Impacts most if not all people to some degree at some time.

  • Recognizing signs of trauma is important.

    • Fight, flight, fawn, freeze

  • Helping people learn what triggers a trauma response can help them stay more regulated and resilient in our work toward liberation (and in general).

Additional related core beliefs:

  • Showing vulnerability is a form of strength;

  • Empathy and humanization can change the world; and

  • What we practice creates patterns, patterns become culture. We are always practicing something. We can consciously choose to practice differently to change our culture.

Commitments:

In my work as a facilitator, I am committed to making space for trauma when it surfaces, avoiding new traumatic experiences, and supporting people to build resilience. I do not offer what some people refer to as a “safe space.” People often use this term to mean a space in which they are comfortable. In my work of challenging systems of social hierarchy that we have all internalized, discomfort is necessary.  However, it is critical to this work that we avoid moving from discomfort to shame. I practice empathy and will always support and encourage people to be brave and take risks – even and especially when it feels scary. I cannot guarantee comfort, but I do commit to addressing and supporting discomfort when it comes up. 

In order to move toward liberation, it is important for us to practice tracking our internal bodily experiences and note when discomfort creeps in. When we start to feel uncomfortable, our nervous system can move into a threat response which inhibits our ability to engage in the matter at hand. We can go into paralyzing shame. With increased ability to track bodily sensation, we can sometimes avoid a maladaptive threat response. We can remind ourselves that we are safe, ground ourselves, and stay present to the learning without shame. I facilitate a short introduction and practice of this in every workshop and meeting I facilitate.

Some credits:

I am greatly influenced by the works of adrienne maree brown, Sonya Renee Taylor, Prentiss Hemphill, Sarah Faith Gottesdiener, and Starhawk. My political education and praxis comes largely from the Catalyst Collective’s Anne Braden Training, the programs of Comrades Education, Think Again’s Cross Class Dialogue Circle, and The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Additionally I am grateful to the following practitioners for my own resilience practices: Amanda Franz, Nuria Latifa Bowart, Dr Ivy Leibman, Dr Lisa Cepeda, Jean Guenther, and Carolyn Lewis, among many more.

These Beliefs, Understanding, and Commitments related to Resilience, Trauma, and Liberation were developed in the course “Growing Resilience: Being Trauma Informed” at The Everything Space in Montpelier, Vermont.