Creative Liberation For BIPOC Communities

*This workshop is being offered in-person & online via Zoom.

Only 10 in-person spaces available.

Authentic self-expression offers healing to ourselves, our communities and the world.

This workshop will provide psychoeducation, community discussion & somatic (mind-body)writing techniques to explore factors that impede self-expression among BIPOC communities and pathways towards creative liberation in any sphere of life.

Somatic Writing: Guided visualization, breathwork, gentle movement will be used to support creative writing for envisioning what liberated self-expression looks like for you.

✨ What you can expect:

Psychoeducation: Psychoeducation will provide insights from the field of neuropsychology into how trauma impacts the brain & body, and thoughts and beliefs in ways that affect creative self-expression. Mind-body-spirit resources will be explored for supporting our nervous system capacity for confident self-expression.

Ancestral Patterns & Social-Systemic Factors: Through gentle creative writing prompts, we will explore how ancestral patterns & social-systemic factors (i.e capitalism) impacts creative self-expression.

Community discussion and sharing: Guided community discussion will support participants with sharing ideas and empowering each other's expression.

Somatic writing techniques: Somatic writing is a trauma-informed method that integrates the mind and body for accessing inner-wisdom.

Guided visualization, breathwork, music & gentle movement will be used to support creative writing for envisioning what liberated self-expression looks like for you.

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Signs that psychological & social-systemic factors may be impacting your self-expression, and this workshop may benefit you if:

• Self-Censorship: Feeling the need to suppress or modify your thoughts, ideas, or emotions due to fear of judgment, rejection, or criticism.

• Perfectionism: Constantly striving for unattainable standards, leading to fear of failure and reluctance to share your creative or personal work.

• Low Self-Worth: Doubting your abilities or feeling unworthy of expressing yourself, which may stem from past trauma, societal messages, or internalized discrimination.

• Fear of Vulnerability

• Cultural and Gender Expectations: Feeling restricted by societal roles, norms, or stereotypes that dictate how you should behave, express emotion, or create.

• Shame or Guilt: Feeling ashamed or guilty for expressing yourself in ways that conflict with societal, cultural, or familial values.

• Internalized Oppression: Believing and reinforcing harmful stereotypes or biases about your own identity or abilities, which can limit creative and personal expression.

• Trauma Responses: Experiencing shame, anxiety, dissociation, or avoidance when trying to express yourself due to past experiences of trauma or abuse.

These are some factors that will be gently explored during this workshop, along with strategies for experiencing greater self-confidence with creative expression that can be applied to any area of life.

About the Facilitator

Shalyn Isaacs has been facilitating mental health and trauma education workshops every year for academic, corporate and non-profit organizations since 2016. She holds a Masters of Education in Counselling Psychology from the University of Toronto and held a private practice specializing in working with survivors of racial and gender-based violence. She founded a grassroots organization called Womens Mental Health Talks at York University in 2016 that provided bi-weekly mental health peer support groups for women facing experiences of discrimination and trauma by offering them community connection and mind-body resources. In 2020 she founded the Embodied Liberation program that welcomed a small cohort of racialized women to learn together and from each other about trauma, healing, and somatics (mind-body-spirit connection) from a decolonizing framework.

She believes mental health education and creative writing are powerful tools for supporting individual and collective healing and social-political change.

Her work involves bringing communities together to learn, share, and support each other towards personal growth and generational healing.

Host or Publisher Shalyn Isaacs