Be Held

You're organizing, resisting, caring for your people, and holding the weight of a world in crisis. Who's holding you?

Be Held is a group for community organizers, care workers, mutual aid coordinators, artists in resistance, and everyday people showing up for collective liberation. Join us for this 1.5 hour in person, outdoor group where we will engage in mindfulness, somatic exploration, journaling, and mutual connection.

Together we'll explore:

• What shows up somatically when we pause to check in with with our nervous systems
• Reconnection with and recentering around the values we hold most sacred
• Reflecting on the wisdom we've picked up along our journeys with movement work, and exchanging our wisdom with each other
• Reconnection with rest-a break amidst the urgency of resistance
• Tools and knowledge to take with you to access when you need after our gathering

This group is for you if:

• You're doing political work (organizing, mutual aid, care work, tenant organizing, grassroots activism)
• You're feeling the weight of showing up in crisis after crisis
• You want space to process with others who understand
• You're seeking sustainable ways to stay in the work

This group may not be for you if:

• You're looking for clinical psychotherapy or treatment
• You're not or haven’t recently been actively engaged in work toward collective liberation
• If you’re not sure if this group is for you, email [email protected] with any questions!

This is an anti-oppressive space centering PGM (BIPOC), LGBTQ2S+ experiences, anti-racist and anti-Zionist frameworks, and disability justice.

When: Individual groups on Mon Fri 7/31 and Mon 8/31, 6-7:30pm

Location: In person, outdoors-location will be shared upon registration. Accessible by public transit. We will have some blankets and potentially benches to sit on, but please feel free to bring your own blanket, camp chair or whatever you need to be comfortable in a park setting during the summer. Please bring your own water, snacks, and materials for journaling.

Cost: Sliding Scale $10-30 for each group

Your facilitators:

Mai Nguyen (they/them) is a queer Vietnamese-American therapist who understands how systems of oppression impact our nervous systems and capacity to show up for “the work”. Mai practices politicized healing through trauma-informed modalities like DBT, parts work, and sensorimotor psychotherapy by creating space where your activism, identities, and need for rest are all honored.

Lindsay Anne Craven (she/they) is a mixed Indigenous politicized therapist working at the intersection of Historical and Complex trauma. They often work with people involved in liberation work, from Seattle to the West Bank. Understanding that systems and the over-culture are a big part of how our minds, bodies and spirits are doing is central to how she approaches mental health support. She offers a blend of talk therapy and mindfulness as well as practicing Politicized Generative Somatics, supporting folks in understanding lived experience on the level of the tissues so they can feel into their inherent dignity and accessing greater openness, presence, connection and choice. Lindsay owns Bitterroot Healing Therapy Services, where the majority of her clients are queer and People of the Global Majority, with a special emphasis on Indigenous identity, mixed race identity, and cultural disconnection.

Questions: Contact [email protected]