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In the meantime, please watch this short video to find out how you can get more out of your Summit experience.
Limited Time 50% Discount
Participation in the Summit is FREE—with each day’s videos available for 48 hours.
If you want to own ALL the events, talks, teachings and BONUSES, so you can watch or listen anytime, at home or on-the-go…
Choose the Collective Trauma Healing Upgrade Package...
Now available at a special pre-event price
of just $197!
Get LIFETIME ACCESS to 60+ Expert Talks and Panel Recordings now!
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Collective Trauma Healing Upgrade Package
Here’s everything you’ll receive for only $197
(a savings of $200 off the regular price)…
A $1,395 value!
Here’s EVERYTHING that’s included:
- 60+ Downloadable Expert Speaker Talks and Panel Recordings
from the 2023 Collective Trauma Summit. Watch or listen at home or on-the-go on your mobile device—over 50 hours of inspiring conversations. [$600 Value] - Full Audio MP3s and PDF Transcripts of every video recording, so you can listen, take notes or read-along whenever its convenient for you. [$200 Value]
- Your own unique private login that gives you lifetime access to all your content from your computer or mobile device 24/7/365.
Plus, receive these exclusive Summit Bonuses...
- BONUS #1: Over 20 Special SPEAKER GIFTS on how you can work with collective trauma, prepared by world-renowned experts and thought leaders. [$300 Value]
- BONUS #2: Understanding Collective Trauma Course with Thomas Hübl with 6 video teachings on theories and emerging research in the field of collective trauma healing—including practices for self-regulation, relational presence (as a core resource), and a journey in levels of collective presencing. [$195 Value]
- BONUS #3: Meditation Collection to Regulate the Nervous System, Metabolize Stress, and Reduce Overwhelm a set of 3 guided meditations from Thomas, perfect for practicing spaciousness, restoring a sense of safety, and reinforcing stress resilience in our chronically hectic lives. [$100 Value]
- BONUS #4: Landmark Chapters and Essential Reading from Thomas Hübl including Chapter 1 of Healing Collective Trauma and a special excerpt on Global Social Witnessing from the new book, Attuned
Unlock Your Savings Now Before the Price Increases
Want more flexibility?
Our 100% Unconditional Guarantee
We believe that collective trauma healing is an important movement in the world and that the over 50 hours of online Summit recordings and bonuses will be such a valuable learning resource, we’re offering an unconditional 21-day guarantee so you can purchase the upgrade kit at completely no risk. If for any reason you decide it is not for you, send us an email and we will refund you no questions asked.
Scholarships
We understand that financial and economic circumstances vary widely within our global community. To ensure the Collective Trauma Healing Upgrade Package is made available to as many people as possible, we are offering a limited number of partial scholarships for those with financial need who are deeply committed to personal and collective healing.
If you are interested in being considered for a scholarship, please click here to apply.
PURCHASE THE COLLECTIVE TRAUMA HEALING UPGRADE PACKAGE TO GET:
LIFETIME Access to 60+ Speaker Talks with over 50 Hours of Powerful Insights & Practices Plus Special Events and Panels
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Dr. Gabor Maté
Dr. Gabor Maté, a retired physician, is an internationally published author of five books translated in over 35 languages, including the award-winning bestseller, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction and his latest international best seller, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture. He is a recipient of his country’s highest civilian honor, the Order of Canada, for his ground-breaking work on the links between trauma, addiction, and social issues. A film based on his work, The Wisdom of Trauma, has been viewed by over 10 million people internationally and has been translated into 20 languages.
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adrienne maree brown
Emergent Strategist, Pleasure Activist, Visionary Fiction Author, Podcaster, Facilitator and Mediator
Emergent Strategy
Read Bioadrienne maree brown
adrienne maree brown grows healing ideas in public. Through her writing, which includes short and long-form fiction, nonfiction, spells, tarot decks, and poetry; her music, which includes songwriting, singing, and an upcoming immersive musical ritual; and her podcasts, including How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables, and The Emergent Strategy Podcast, adrienne has nurtured emergent strategy, pleasure activism, radical imagination, and transformative justice as ideas, frameworks, networks, and practices for transformation.
Her work is informed by 25 years of social and environmental justice facilitation primarily supporting Black liberation, her path of teaching somatics, her love of Octavia E Butler and visionary fiction, and her work as a doula.
She is the author/editor of several published texts including Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017), Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019), Grievers (2021,) and Maroons (2023) the first two novellas of her speculative fiction trilogy.
After a multinational childhood, adrienne lived in New York, Oakland, and Detroit before landing in her current home of Durham, NC.
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Alok Vaid-Menon
ALOK (they/them) is an internationally acclaimed author, poet, comedian, and public speaker. As a mixed-media artist, their work explores themes of trauma, belonging, and the human condition. They are the author of Femme in Public (2017,) Beyond the Gender Binary (2020,) and Your Wound/My Garden (2021,) and the creator of #DeGenderFashion: an initiative to degender fashion and beauty industries. In recognition of their work, they have been honored as the inaugural LGBTQ Scholar in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and awarded a GLAAD Media Award and Stonewall Foundation Visionary Award.
Over the past decade, they have toured in more than 40 countries, most recently selling out their runs at the Soho Theatre in London, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Kennedy Performing Arts Center. Their show has been described as “Provocative and powerful,” “A potent combination of comedy and poetry,” and “A Jaw-dropping celestial event.” On screen, they will make their feature film debut in Absolute Dominion opposite Patton Oswalt and next can be seen in Emmie Lichtenberg’s film Complicated Order opposite Midori Francis. On television, they have appeared on Hulu’s Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne, ABC’s PRIDE: To Be Seen – A Soul of A Nation, Netflix’s Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness, and The Trans List.
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Alanis Morissette
Wholeness Advocate, Thought Leader, and Grammy Award-Winning Singer-Songwriter
Journey of Empowerment
Read BioAlanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette is one of the most influential singer-songwriter-musicians/artists in contemporary music. Her deeply expressive music and performances have earned vast critical praise, 14 Canadian Juno Awards, 7 Grammy® Awards (with an additional 14 nominations), two Golden Globe nominations, a BRIT Award and sales of over 75 million albums worldwide. Her debut album JAGGED LITTLE PILL, was followed by nine more eclectic and critically acclaimed albums, all of which continue to influence and inspire fans and fellow artists alike. Alanis has acted on the big and small screens both comedically and dramatically with roles in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Dogma,” among many others. She is currently starring in Fox’s sitcom, “The Great North”.
Alanis’ influence can be felt not only in music as she is also a dedicated supporter and student of spiritual, psychological, and physical wholeness which includes addiction and trauma recovery, female empowerment, and the advancement of a more “whole” approach to children’s education. In 2016, she launched “Conversation with Alanis Morissette,” a podcast that features conversations with a variety of revered authors, doctors, educators, and therapists, covering a wide range of psychosocial topics extending from spirituality to developmentalism to art.
Facilitating her message through performances, writing, interviews, teachings and public speaking, Alanis has shared the stage with some of today’s great thinkers and change agents. She has contributed her writing to a variety of forums, including a weekly column in The Guardian, Time Magazine, and The New York Times.
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Chelsea Handler
Comedian, Television Host, Six-Time NYT Best-Selling Author and Advocate
Growing Through Trauma
Read BioChelsea Handler
Chelsea Handler is a comedian, television host, six-time New York Times best-selling author and advocate whose humor and candor have established her as one of the most celebrated voices in entertainment and pop culture. After a strong seven-year run as the host of E!’s top-rated Chelsea Lately, a tenure in which she was the only female late-night talk show host on-air, she launched her documentary series Chelsea Does followed by her talk show Chelsea on Netflix in 2016. She has penned six best-selling books, five of which have reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list, including 2019’s Life Will Be the Death of Me. In 2021, she launched her iHeart Radio advice podcast, Dear Chelsea, and embarked on the Vaccinated and Horny Tour, bringing her sensational stand-up set to over 90 cities with 115 shows across North America, winning “The Comedy Act of 2021” at the People’s Choice Awards. Following the success of her 2020 HBO Max comedy special Evolution, which earned Chelsea a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album, Handler most recently made her return to Netflix with her critically acclaimed comedy special Revolution. Handler is currently on her 2023 stand-up tour, Little Big Bitch.
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Michael B. Beckwith
Founder and CEO, Agape International Spiritual Center, Author of Life Visioning
Take Back Your Mind
Read BioMichael B. Beckwith
Michael Bernard Beckwith is the founder and CEO of the Agape International Spiritual Center. Based in Los Angeles, California, Agape is a trans-denominational, multicultural community of tens of thousands of local, national, and international members and live streamers. Highly regarded for his teachings on the science of inner transformation, Dr. Beckwith embraces a practical approach to spirituality that acknowledges the accelerated pace of our contemporary times. His unique transmission of spiritual practices including meditation, affirmative prayer, and life visioning enable the practitioner to take the experience of inner peace coupled with awakened awareness into the activities of everyday life.
Beckwith has appeared on The Ellen Show, Super Soul Sunday, The Oprah Show, Larry King Live, Dr. Oz, Tavis Smiley, and in his own PBS Special, The Answer Is You. He is an inaugural member of SuperSoul 100. Michael has been the recipient of numerous humanitarian awards. His new podcast, Take Back Your Mind, is available wherever you get your podcasts.
Every Sunday tens of thousands join Michael for Sunday services online at Agapelive.com and Facebook Live.
Learn more about Michael here, and learn more about Agape here.
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Eileen Fisher
Eileen is the Founder of EILEEN FISHER, Inc, the design company known for making simple, timeless clothes. She ventured into clothing design in 1984 with an original concept—a system of shapes that work together to help women get dressed easily—that still defines her line today.
A sustainability pioneer, Eileen created the company’s first Social Consciousness role more than 25 years ago. The company’s commitment to creating a regenerative manufacturing model is part of her vision for a future without waste. In 2022, Eileen announced that she would step down as CEO but remain at EILEEN FISHER, Inc. to focus on the clothes.
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Ayọ Tometi
Human Rights Leader, Co-Founder, #BlackLivesMatter, and Founder, Diaspora Rising
Collective Healing Through Activism
Read BioAyọ Tometi
Ayọ (fka Opal) Tometi is one of the most influential human rights leaders of the century according to TIME magazine. As one of the three women co-founders of the Black Lives Matter digital platform and chapter-based network, her name is etched in history. Hailed as a feminist freedom fighter, Ayọ is respected for her track record of uniting communities, and for her thought leadership on race, immigration, and gender. In 2019 she completed nearly a decade of service as the Executive Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), the first immigrant rights organization for people of African descent in the United States.
Ayọ is a trusted advisor and serves on the board of Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity and the International Living Futures Institute. She has graced the cover of magazines because of her achievements and received numerous recognitions including an honorary PhD, being named Most Influential Women of the Century by USA Today, TIME Magazine, and Most Influential People by Forbes, Marie Claire, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan magazines. Ayọ was also honored by the City University of New York (CUNY) with a scholarship in her name to support immigrant students pursuing law degrees. In 2019 she also received the Coretta Scott King Center Award and Douglass 200 Award and is currently featured in a video installation at the Smithsonian’s National Museum for African History and Culture for her contributions to thought leadership for the betterment of the diaspora.
As the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Ayọ has set her movement sights on an even bigger struggle: uplifting Black lives worldwide. In 2020 she founded Diaspora Rising, a new media and advocacy hub dedicated to strengthening the bonds amongst members of the global Black family. Additionally, she’s focused on other social enterprises. With nearly two decades as a human rights champion, she still feels her work has only just begun.
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Sarah Edmondson
Sarah Edmondson is a Canadian actress and voice-over artist who has starred in multiple TV series and more than a dozen films. Her whistleblower story following her departure from personal and professional development company NXIVM is told in her memoir, Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life, the CBC podcast “Uncover: Escaping NXIVM,” and critically acclaimed HBO documentary series on NXIVM, The Vow.
Co-hosted by her husband and fellow NXIVM whistleblower Anthony “Nippy” Ames, her podcast, “A Little Bit Culty,” explores the fads, beliefs, and trends that blur the line between devotion and dysfunction to help people understand, heal from, and avoid abusive situations. Besides her work as an actor and podcaster, Sarah attends conferences and events as a speaker, host, and cult-recovery advocate.
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Peter A. Levine, PhD
Founder, Ergos Institute of Somatic Education and Somatic Experiencing International
Healing Through Connection
Read BioPeter A Levine, PhD
Peter A Levine, Ph.D., is the developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma. He holds doctorates in both Biophysics and Psychology. He is the Founder and President of the Ergos Institute for Somatic Education and the Founder and Advisor for Somatic Experiencing International. Dr. Levine is the author of several best-selling books on trauma, including Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma (published in over 29 languages). He has received Lifetime Achievement awards from Psychotherapy Networker and from the US Association for Body-Oriented Psychotherapy. He continues to teach trauma healing workshops internationally.
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Dr. Joy A. DeGruy
Educator, Best-Selling Author, and Activist for Humanity
How Are the Children?
Read BioDr. Joy A. DeGruy
Dr. Joy Angela DeGruy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication, a Master’s degree in Social Work (MSW), a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Social Work Research. Dr. DeGruy is a nationally and internationally renowned researcher and educator. For over two decades, she served as an Assistant Professor at Portland State University’s School of Social Work and now serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Joy DeGruy Publications Inc.
Dr. DeGruy’s research focuses on the intersection of racism, trauma, violence, and American chattel slavery. She has over thirty years of practical experience as a professional in the field of social work. She conducts workshops and trainings in the areas of Intergenerational/Historical trauma, mental health, social justice, improvement strategies, and evidence-based model development.
Dr. DeGruy has published numerous refereed journal articles and authored her seminal book entitled Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury & Healing. She has developed the “African American Male Adolescent Respect Scale” an assessment instrument designed to broaden our understanding of the challenges facing these youth in an effort to prevent their representation in the criminal justice system.
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Richard C. Schwartz, PhD
Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, is the creator of Internal Family Systems, a highly effective,
evidence-based therapeutic model that de-pathologizes the multi-part personality. His IFS
Institute offers training for professionals and the general public. He is currently on the faculty of
Harvard Medical School and has published five books, including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma
and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Dick lives with his wife
Jeanne near Chicago, close to his three daughters and his growing number of grandchildren.
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Danielle LaPorte
Creator of the Heart Centered Leadership Program and Membership and Author of How To Be Loving
Courage, Compassion, and Karma
Read BioDanielle LaPorte
Danielle LaPorte is a member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, a group who, in Oprah Winfrey’s words, “is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.”
She is the former director of a future studies think tank in Washington, DC, where she managed a team creating global scenarios. She now speaks about the intelligence of the heart.
Her most recent book, How To Be Loving…when your heart is breaking open and the world is waking up, is also an Audiobook + ebook, with a companion deck and journal. Danielle is also the author of The Fire Starter Sessions, The Desire Map, White Hot Truth, and the producer of dozens of meditation kits and online programs for spiritual support.
Danielle is the creator of the Heart-Centered Membership and the Heart-Centered Leadership Program with 400+ leaders in 30 countries hosting conversation circles, retreats, and workshops in all kinds of communities and businesses. Her podcast, With Love, Danielle, often ranks in iTunes’ top 10 for wellness. Most of her offerings—from the Heart-Centered Membership to her online classes—are on a pay-what-you-choose basis. Named one of the Top 100 Websites for Women by Forbes, millions of people a month visit DanielleLaPorte.com. Marianne Williamson refers to Danielle “as a bright light.” V (formerly known as Eve Ensler) calls her “a force field of energy, wonder, humour, and love.”
Her charities of choice are Ally Global Foundation, helping survivors of human trafficking to rebuild their lives, Trees Sisters’ reforestation projects, and VDay, a movement to end violence against women and girls.
She lives in Vancouver, BC. You can find her on most places on social media @daniellelaporte.
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Ed Yong
Ed Yong is a British-American science journalist. He reports for The Atlantic and is based in Oakland, California.
For his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ed won the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism and numerous other prestigious awards. He was also a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award in public service.
He is the author of two New York Times bestsellers—An Immense World, about the extraordinary sensory worlds of other animals; and I Contain Multitudes, about the amazing partnerships between animals and microbes. An Immense World won the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and was listed as one of the top books of the year by the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, Barack Obama, and more than 30 other lists.
Prior to joining the Atlantic, Ed’s writing was also featured in National Geographic, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and many other publications. His TED talk on mind-controlling parasites has been watched by over 1.9 million people.
Ed cares deeply about accurate, nuanced, and empathetic reporting, clear and vivid storytelling, and social equality. He writes about everything that is or was once alive, from the microbes that secretly rule the world to the species that are blinking out of it, from the people who are working to make science more reliable to those who are using it to craft policies. He is married to Liz Neeley, founder of Liminal Creations, and is a parent to Typo, a corgi.
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Deb Dana, LCSW
Author, Consultant, and Developer of the Rhythm of Regulation Training Series
Panel: Women in Trauma-Informed Leadership
Read BioDeb Dana, LCSW
Deb Dana, LCSW is an author, clinician, and consultant specializing in using the lens of Polyvagal Theory to understand and resolve the impact of trauma and create ways of working that honor the role of the autonomic nervous system. She developed the Rhythm of Regulation Clinical Training Series and lectures internationally on ways Polyvagal Theory informs work with trauma survivors. She partners with Sounds True through the audio program Befriending Your Nervous System: Looking Through the Lens of Polyvagal Theory and her 2021 release titled, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory. Learn more here.
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Lama Rod Owens
Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School. He’s also an author; some of his works include Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger and Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, which he co-authored. His teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care.
A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod activates the intersections of his identity to create a platform that’s natural, engaging, and inclusive. Applauded for his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness, the Queen has been featured by various national and international news outlets.
Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is to show you how to heal and free yourself.
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Dr. Dan Siegel
Dr. Dan Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, which focuses on the development of mindsight and teaches insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families, and communities.
Dr. Siegel has published extensively for both professional and lay audiences. He has five New York Times bestsellers, including Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence and Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human. He has also collaborated with others in his field on multiple other publications. He serves as the Founding Editor for the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology which currently contains over eighty textbooks.
Learn more at drdansiegel.com and mindsightinstitute.com
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Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone
Author, Jungian Psychotherapist, and Renowned Jewish Scholar
Metabolizing Intergenerational Trauma
Read BioRabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD, is an author, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in the international Jewish Renewal Movement, and a renowned Jewish scholar and teacher. Widely known for her groundbreaking work on Kabbalah, depth psychology, intergenerational trauma healing, and the re-integration of the feminine wisdom tradition within Judaism, Rabbi Tirzah lectures and teaches internationally about spiritual and ancient wisdom practices that are honed to assist us at this critical time in world history.
She is the author of the award-winning book, Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma (Monkfish, 2019) and is the recipient of the 2020 Nautilus Book Award Gold in Psychology and the Jewish Women’s Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology 2020 book award.
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Terry Real, LICSW
Bestselling Author, Family Therapist, and Founder of The Relational Life Institute
Relational Living
Read BioTerry Real, LICSW
Terry has been a practicing family therapist for more than thirty years, and his work has been featured on NBC Nightly News, Today, Good Morning America, the CBS Early Show, and Oprah, as well as in The New York Times, Psychology Today, Esquire, and numerous academic publications. His most recent book Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship is a New York Times Bestseller. In 2007, his first book I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression quickly became a National Bestseller.
Terry founded the Relational Life Institute (RLI,) which is dedicated to teaching the general public how to live relational lives and to teaching mental health professionals the practice of Relational Life Therapy. RLI uses Terry’s work to advance the concept of “Relational Living” to help people address relational and psychological health in three critical relationship areas: parenting, coupling, and workforce effectiveness. The institute offers workshops for couples and professional trainings around the country as well as support services, books, CDs, and other products.
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Dr. Lyla June Johnston
Indigenous Musician, Author, and Community Organizer
A Home for All Species
Read BioLyla June Johnston
Dr. Lyla June Johnston (aka Lyla June) is an Indigenous musician, author, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne,) and European lineages. Her multi-genre presentation style has engaged audiences across the globe towards personal, collective, and ecological healing. She blends her study of Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives, and solutions. Her doctoral research focused on the ways in which pre-colonial Indigenous Nations shaped large regions of Turtle Island (aka the Americas) to produce abundant food systems for humans and non-humans.
Acclaimed Poets
Readings and conversations
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Ada Limón
Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her book Bright Dead Things was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her work has been supported most recently by a Guggenheim Fellowship. She grew up in Sonoma, California and now lives in Lexington, Kentucky where she writes and teaches remotely. Her most recent book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, is out now from Milkweed Editions. She is the 24th Poet Laureate of The United States. As the poet laureate, her signature project is called You Are Here and focuses on how poetry can help connect us to the natural world.
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Claudia Rankine
Claudia Rankine is the author of five books of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric; three plays including HELP, which premiered in March 2020 (The Shed, NYC), and The White Card, which premiered in February 2018 (ArtsEmerson/ American Repertory Theater) and was published by Graywolf Press in 2019; as well as numerous video collaborations. Her recent collection of essays, Just Us: An American Conversation, was published by Graywolf Press in 2020. She is also the co-editor of several anthologies including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind. In 2016, Rankine co-founded The Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII).
Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, and the National Endowment of the Arts. A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Claudia Rankine joined the NYU Creative Writing Program in Fall 2021. She lives in New York.
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Andrea Gibson
Andrea Gibson is one of the most celebrated and influential spoken word poets of our time. Best known for their live performances, Gibson has changed the landscape of what it means to attend a “poetry show.” Gibson’s poems center around LGBTQ issues, spirituality, feminism, mental health, and social justice. The winner of the first Women’s World Poetry Slam, Gibson is the author of seven award-winning books and seven full-length albums. Their live shows have become loving and supportive ecosystems for audiences to feel seen, heard, and held through Gibson’s art.
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Jericho Brown
Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s first book, Please (2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by Library Journal, Coldfront, and the Academy of American Poets. He is also the author of the collection The Tradition (2019), which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award and the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared in Buzzfeed, The Nation, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Time, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry anthologies.
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Carolyn Forché
Award Winning Poet of Witness, Human Rights Advocate, and National Book Award Finalist
Poetry of Witness
Read BioCarolyn Forché
Carolyn Forché’s first volume, Gathering the Tribes, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, was followed by The Country Between Us, The Angel of History, and Blue Hour. Her most recent collection is In the Lateness of the World. She is also the author of the memoir What You Have Heard Is True (Penguin Random House, 2019), a devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others, which was nominated for the 2019 National Book Awards. She has translated Mahmoud Darwish, Claribel Alegria, and Robert Desnos. Her famed international anthology, Against Forgetting, has been praised by Nelson Mandela as “itself a blow against tyranny, against prejudice, against injustice,” and is followed by the 2014 anthology The Poetry of Witness. In 1998 in Stockholm, she received the Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture Award for her human rights advocacy and the preservation of memory and culture.
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Pádraig Ó Tuama
Distinguished Irish Poet, Theologian and Mediator, and Podcast Host: Poetry Unbound
Hosting Poet Conversations
Read BioPádraig Ó Tuama
Pádraig Ó Tuama is the host of On Being’s Poetry Unbound — a podcast that has gained over 10 million downloads since its start in 2020 — and also the author of Poetry Unbound; 50 Poems to Open Your Life. Profiled by The New Yorker, and published in Poetry Ireland, the Harvard Review, The Kenyon Review, and many others, he brings interests in conflict, language, religion, and power to his work. His most recent collection is Feed the Beast (Broken Sleep Books, 2022).
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Natasha Trethewey
United States Poet Laureate (2012-2014), Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet
Wounds Into Writing
Read BioNatasha Trethewey
Natasha Trethewey served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States (2012-2014.) She is the author of five collections of poetry, Monument (2018), which was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award, Thrall (2012,) Native Guard (2006,) for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Bellocq’s Ophelia (2002,) and Domestic Work (2000,) which was selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet and won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. She is also the author of the memoir Memorial Drive (2020.) Her book of nonfiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, was published in 2010.
She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. At Northwestern University she is a Board of Trustees Professor of English in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. In 2012 she was named Poet Laureate of the State of Mississippi and in 2013 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Jake Skeets
Jake Skeets (he/him) is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, winner of the National Poetry Series, American Book Award, Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Whiting Award. His poetry and prose have appeared widely in journals and magazines such as Poetry, The New York Times, and The Paris Review. He holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. His honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Arts Projects, a Mellon Projecting All Voices Fellowship, and the 2023-2024 Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. He is from the Navajo Nation and teaches at the University of Oklahoma.
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Thomas Hübl
Host, Teacher, Author of Attuned and Healing Collective Trauma, and Founder, Academy of Inner Science
Creating Healing Spaces
Read BioThomas Hübl
Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma, with a special focus on the shared history of Israelis and Germans, and facilitated healing and dialogue around racism, oppression, colonialism, and genocide.
He is the author of the books, Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.
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Dr. Julia Kim
Julia Kim is an explorer of the terrain connecting inner transformation and systems change. She draws on her past career as a physician and public health researcher in Africa and Asia, Senior Policy Advisor at the United Nations (UNDP and UNICEF,) and Program Director at the Gross National Happiness (GNH) Centre in Bhutan. She integrates global experience in the fields of leadership development, contemplative practice, program facilitation, research, and policy in the fields of well-being, well-being economics, global health, and sustainable development. Julia is an associate of the Presencing Institute and an Executive Committee member of the Club of Rome. She holds degrees from Cornell University, the University of Manitoba, Tufts University, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
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Randima Fernando
Randima works at the intersection of technology, mindfulness, and social impact. He is a Co-Founder of the Center for Humane Technology, which has helped over 100 million people globally understand the harms of extractive technology through the documentary film “The Social Dilemma,” the podcast Your Undivided Attention, and many other projects. Randima previously served for seven years as founding Executive Director at Mindful Schools, a nonprofit that has taught mindfulness to millions of kids and over 50,000 educators worldwide. Before that, Randima led many award-winning projects and authored three #1-ranked books on 3D graphics over seven years at NVIDIA. He also serves on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
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Stephen Gyllenhaal
Founder, Identity Development Institute and Filmmaker
The Healing Power of Resonance
Read BioStephen Gyllenhaal
In 2017, after 50 years in the psychological sector, Stephen founded The Identity Development Institute focusing on the impact of trauma from conception through pre-verbal development.
He’s also been an award-winning Hollywood director, primarily focusing on psychological issues: adoption and racism–LOSING ISAIAH, dissociative Identity Disorder–SHATTERED MIND, racism and mental illness–PARIS TROUT; autism and tourettes–A DANGEROUS WOMAN, bullying–GIRL FIGHT, repressed memory–A KILLING IN A SMALL TOWN, agoraphobia–SO B IT, alternative healing–LEAP OF FAITH, unconscious drives–TWIN PEAKS, and WATERLAND.
In 2016 he turned to documentaries: IN UTERO, exploring the science of human development from conception through birth, UNCHARITABLE (2023) targeting society’s primary “engine of change,” the mission-driven non-profit sector, and how it’s hobbled by an outdated ethos, and THE BOND (to be released in 2024,) a film for expectant parents exploring the science and millennia-old-feminine-wisdom of how to best nurture children in the womb.
He’s father to two wonderful filmmakers as well as a young son, grandfather to two grandkids, he’s published a book of poetry, Claptrap: Notes From Hollywood, and is writing two books: A Professional Patient and Liquid Motel.
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Dr. Diane Poole Heller
Diane Poole Heller, PhD, is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and teaching expert in the field of adult attachment theory and trauma resolution. Her signature approach—DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience)—provides therapists and individuals with relevant skills and practical exercises that facilitate healing from attachment and trauma wounds. Through various training programs, books, lectures, and her own work as a clinical therapist, Dr. Heller has helped countless people in their healing journey toward experiencing greater intimacy, wholeness, and more fulfilling relationships. She believes that when we heal ourselves first, we heal our families, our communities, and the world as a whole.
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Edgar Villanueva
Author, Activist, and CEO, Decolonizing Wealth Project and Liberated Capital
Decolonizing Wealth
Read BioEdgar Villanueva
Edgar Villanueva is an award-winning author, activist, and expert on issues of race, wealth, and philanthropy. Villanueva is the Principal of Decolonizing Wealth Project and Liberated Capital and the author of the bestselling book Decolonizing Wealth (2018, 2021.) He advises a range of organizations including national and global philanthropies, Fortune 500 companies, and entertainment on social impact strategies to advance racial equity from within and through their investment strategies. Villanueva holds a BSPH and MHA from the Gillings Global School of Public Health at The University of North Car
Learn more at decolonizingwealth.com and at edgarvillanueva.net.
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Shelly Tygielski
Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Teacher and Founder, Pandemic of Love
Growing Through Trauma
Read BioShelly Tygielski
Author, philanthropist, and social activist Shelly Tygielski has been hailed by individuals ranging from President Joe Biden to Arianna Huffington and Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn to Maria Shriver. She is the founder of the global, grassroots mutual aid organization, Pandemic of Love. Her work has been featured in over 100 media outlets, including CNN Heroes, The Kelly Clarkson Show, CBS This Morning, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. She is the Executive Producer and co-host, with actress and activist Debra Messing, of the television show “All Hands on Deck.” Shelly is a mindfulness teacher and a Garrison Institute Fellow who has been called one of the “12 Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement” by Mindful Magazine.
Shelly teaches formalized self-care, community-building, and resilience to organizations around the world and has taught at over 75 organizations and conferences. She and her husband are currently living a nomadic existence, moving to a new location every few months. Shelly holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Miami, a Master’s Degree from Columbia University, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Philanthropic Leadership from Indiana University’s Lilly School of Philanthropy.
Learn more at shellytygielski.com and pandemicoflove.com.
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Fleet Maull, PhD
Dharma Teacher, Founder of Heart Mind Institute & Prison Mindfulness Institute, and Author of Radical Responsibility
Incarceration Trauma and Healing
Read BioFleet Maull, PhD
Fleet Maull, PhD is an author, meditation teacher, mindset coach, social entrepreneur, and peacemaker who works at the intersection of personal and social transformation. He founded Prison Mindfulness Institute and National Prison Hospice Association, catalyzing two national movements, while serving a 14-year mandatory-minimum federal drug sentence, from 1985 to 1999.
He also founded the transformational education platform Heart Mind Institute and co-founded the Engaged Mindfulness Institute where he trains trauma-informed mindfulness teachers who work with individuals and communities impacted by trauma and marginalization. He has served on the leadership team for the annual Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreat for more than 20 years. He co-founded the Rwanda Bearing Witness Retreat and has trained genocide survivors as volunteer trauma para-counselors working in villages throughout Rwanda.
He is a Roshi (Zen master/senior teacher) in the Zen Peacemaker Community, a senior Dharma teacher in the Shambhala-Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and leads meditation retreats worldwide. He developed Neuro-Somatic Mindfulness or (NSM)®, a deeply embodied, neuroscience and trauma-informed approach to mindfulness & awareness meditation practice that facilitates self-healing, self-regulation, and awakening. He founded both the Global Resilience Summit and the Global First Responder Resilience Summit and co-founded The Best Year of Your Life, SummitPalooza, and The Self-Care Summit.
Dr. Maull is the author of Radical Responsibility: How to Move Beyond Blame, Live Your Highest Purpose and Become an Unstoppable Force for Good; Dharma in Hell: The Prison Writings of Fleet Maull, and The Resilient C.O.: Mindfulness-Based Wellness & Resiliency for Corrections Professionals.
Learn more at www.fleetmaull.com and www.heartmindinstitute.co.
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Fatimah Finney
Fatimah Finney, MA, LMHC is a serial goal-setter, lover of new ideas, and imaginative thinker. She is a skilled licensed mental health counselor and a trainer at the Internal Family Systems (IFS) Institute. She supports a diverse client group as an EAP Counselor with a focus on workplace and relational trauma. Fatimah is a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and uses this tool to help her consulting clients gain insight into their strengths and growth edges for navigating differences while providing strategies for better cross-cultural interactions. Fatimah has been featured on IFS Talks podcast where she discusses the intersection between IFS and Intercultural Competence.
Her chapter on using IFS with Black clients will be published in the upcoming book, Altogether US, which is available for preorder now. She recharges her spirit by playing with her children, taking walks with her parts, and dabbling in creative writing. Her micro essay In My Skin: An Autobiography was recently published in the anthology Nonwhite & Woman: 131 Microessays on Being in the World. She is a firm believer in the power of collective healing through community care and seeks to eradicate the systems of oppression that block the possibility of it.
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Jerry Tello
Internationally Recognized Speaker, Healing Practitioner, and Community Elder
Sacredness of Soul
Read BioJerry Tello
Jerry Tello is a servant community leader, healing practitioner, and internationally recognized author and voice for healing and justice. Born from a family of Mexican, Texan, and Coahuiltecan roots and raised in the South Central/Compton areas of Los Angeles, Maestro Tello is considered an international expert in the areas of healing, and culturally based, trauma-informed, healing-centered strategies and curricula. For over 45 years he has dedicated himself to the prevention and healing of individuals, families, communities, and systems by speaking to over half a million people and training thousands of facilitators across the nation. He is the co-founder and Director of Training and Capacity Building for the National Compadres Network (established in 1988) and oversees Sacred Circles Center in Whittier California. He has received many major awards including Maria Shriver’s Annual Advocate for Change award; the White House Champions of Change award; the Presidential Crime Victims Service award, presented by President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno; two California Governor’s Awards, the Ambassador of Peace Award presented by Rotary International, and numerous other acknowledgments. He has authored numerous articles, videos, webinars, curricula, and books including the award-winning book Recovering Your Sacredness, A Fathers Love, and a series of children’s books. He co-edited Family Violence and Men, and a series of motivational health and healing CDs. He is the partner to Susanna and together they have 5 children, 6 grandchildren, and a large extended family.
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Lama Tsomo
Lama, Author, and Co-founder, Namchak Retreat Ranch
Buddhist Practices for Healing
Read BioLama Tsomo
Lama Tsomo is an American lama, author, and co-founder of the Namchak Retreat Ranch, an organization dedicated to sharing Tibetan Buddhist wisdom and meditation practices. Born into a Midwestern Jewish household, she followed a path of spiritual inquiry and study that ultimately led to her ordination as a lama in Tibetan Buddhism. After a decade of practice, she became fluent in Tibetan and now teaches students in the U.S. and abroad. She is particularly passionate about reaching young people and supporting those working for positive social change. She holds an M.A. in Counseling Psychology, and is the author of the Ancient Wisdom for Our Times Tibetan Buddhist Practice Series, and co-author of The Lotus & the Rose: A Conversation Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity.
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Shawn Ginwright, PhD
Chief Executive Officer, Flourish Agenda, Inc
Seeing Beyond Oppression
Read BioShawn Ginwright, PhD
Shawn Ginwright, PhD, is a leading innovator, provocateur, and thought leader on African American youth, youth activism, and youth development. He is a professor of education in the Africana Studies Department and a senior research associate at San Francisco State University. He is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flourish Agenda, Inc., a research lab and consulting firm whose mission is to design strategies that unlock the power of healing and engage youth of color and adult allies in transforming their schools and communities. Dr. Ginwright’s new book is The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves (North Atlantic Books.)
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Jude Currivan, PhD
Cosmologist, Best-Selling and Award-Winning Author, and Co-Founder, WholeWorld View
The Breath of the Universe
Read BioJude Currivan, PhD
Dr. Jude Currivan is a cosmologist, futurist, planetary healer, author, member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle, previously one of the most senior international business women in the UK and co-founder of WholeWorld View. She has a Master’s degree in physics from Oxford University specializing in quantum physics and cosmology and a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Reading in the UK researching ancient cosmologies. She has traveled to over 80 countries, worked with wisdom keepers from many traditions, and is a life-long researcher into the nature of reality. She is the international author of 7 nonfiction books, both award-winning and best-selling– The Cosmic Hologram (2017) and The Story of Gaia (2022.) In 2017 she co-founded WholeWorld View to serve the understanding, experiencing, and embodying of unitive awareness and conscious evolution. She is also a faculty member of Ubiquity University and Humanity’s Team.
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Julian Brave NoiseCat
Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, filmmaker, and aspiring oral historian, currently working on his first book We Survived the Night and directing a documentary about the search for unmarked graves at the Indian residential school his family attended in British Columbia. He is a fellow at the Center for Racial Justice at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy as well as the Type Media Center, and his work has garnered support from the Sundance Institute, among others. He is also a columnist whose work has appeared in major publications like The New York Times and New Yorker, and has won numerous awards including the 2022 American Mosaic Journalism Prize. Named on the TIME100 Next list in 2021, Julian has also been a political strategist and cultural organizer, notably helping to lead an Indigenous canoe journey in 2019 and advocating for the appointment of the first Native American cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland, in 2020. Raised in Oakland, California, he’s a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen. He’s also a champion traditional dancer, and has even won a horse in the powwoww circuit.
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Kayly Ober
Senior Program Officer, U.S. Institute of Peace
Climate Displacement and Resettlement
Read BioKayly Ober
Kayly Ober is a senior program officer for the climate, environment, and conflict program at USIP. Prior to USIP, she was the senior advocate and program manager of the climate displacement program at Refugees International. She also served as a member of the Task Force on Displacement established under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage.
She has worked on climate change and migration issues for more than 15 years, during which time she has held positions at organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the Overseas Development Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the World Bank, where she authored the flagship report “Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration.”
Learn more here. -
Dr. Peter Kalmus
Dr. Peter Kalmus, who speaks on his own behalf, is a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is the recipient of NASA’s Early Career Achievement Medal and NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal. Peter has a BSc in physics from Harvard and a PhD in physics from Columbia. His research interests include improving future projections of coral reef decline from increasing ocean heat and extreme humid heat. Peter is also a climate activist. He engages in climate civil disobedience, for which he has been arrested twice. He is co-founder of the Climate Ad Project and the climate app Earth Hero, and the author of numerous articles and the book Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution. He lives in North Carolina.
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Yolo Akili Robinson
Executive Director, Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM)
Racial and Gender Justice
Read BioYolo Akili Robinson
Yolo Akili Robinson (he/him/his) is a non-binary award-winning writer, healing justice worker, yogi and the founder and Executive Director of BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective). BEAM is a national training, movement building and grant making organization dedicated to the healing, wellness and liberation of Black communities. Yolo has worked primarily in three areas: Batterers intervention/family counseling with Black men and boys, HIV/AIDS, and healing justice/wellness. In 2018, Yolo was awarded the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “Health Equity Award” for his work. He was also featured at the 2020 BET Awards as an “Empowerful Spotlight,” highlighting his work facilitating the vision of BEAM. His writings and work have appeared on Shondaland, GQ, Women’s Health, USA Today, Vice, BET, Huffington Post, Cassius, Ebony, Everyday Feminisms and more. He is the author of the social justice themed affirmation book, Dear Universe: Letters of Affirmation & Empowerment for All of Us (Michael Todd Books, 2016) and a contributor to the New York Times Best Seller; Tarana Burke and Dr. Brené Brown’s anthology on Black vulnerability and shame resilience, You are Your Best Thing (2021, Random House Books).
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Nadine B. Hack
CEO, beCause Global Consulting and Author of The Power of Connectedness
Compassion and Connection
Read BioNadine B. Hack
Nadine B. Hack is the CEO of beCause Global Consulting. Her awards include Responsible CEO of Year Shortlist; Top Corporate Social Responsibility Leader; Top Trustworthy Business Leader Lifetime Achievement; Top Ethical Green Business Influencer; Enterprising Woman of Year; Inspiration Lifetime Achievement presented at Säid Business School Oxford University. Her company beCause Global Consulting was named Best Specialist Stakeholder Engagement Consulting Firm, and featured in a cover story in AI Global Media magazine.
She is a Forbes Councils author and her TEDx talk “Adversaries to Allies” has 15K+ viewers. She’s the first female Executive-in-Residence at IMD Business School, focusing on responsible leadership, diversity and inclusion, sustainability, human rights, global citizenship, entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership development. She’s a fellow at Salzburg Global Seminar and New Westminster College. She holds Master’s degrees from Harvard and New School.
She’s currently writing a book, “The Power of Connectedness” with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Boards include: senior advisor Global Citizens Circle; Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights; Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Switzerland; Synergos Institute; and the Africa-America Institute.
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Josh Goldberg
CEO, Boulder Crest Foundation and Author of Struggle Well
Trauma Healing for Veterans
Read BioJosh Goldberg
In January 2023, Josh became the first Chief Executive Officer of the Boulder Crest Foundation, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring first responders, combat veterans, and their family members live great lives in the midst of struggle, stress, and trauma. In this role, Josh is responsible for Boulder Crest’s operations and activities, overseeing Boulder Crest Arizona, Boulder Crest Virginia, the Boulder Crest Institute, Boulder Crest’s Training and Education work (to include the Warrior PATHH and Struggle Well program and mobile applications,) and their fundraising, marketing, and partnership efforts.
Josh, along with Boulder Crest’s Founder and Chairman, Ken Falke, co-authored Struggle Well: Thriving in the Aftermath of Trauma. In addition, Josh and Ken co-authored Transformed by Trauma: Stories of Posttraumatic Growth alongside Dr. Richard Tedeschi and Dr. Bret Moore.
In 2017, Josh was named one of 60 Presidential Leadership Scholars. Established by the presidential centers of George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson, the Presidential Leadership Scholar program is an innovative leadership program designed to ensure that scholars have the opportunity to succeed in creating and executing meaningful and impactful leadership projects in communities across the nation.
Learn more here. -
Tjada D’Oyen McKenna
As Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Corps, Tjada leads a global team of more than 5,600 humanitarians, who provide immediate relief and help communities forge new paths to prosperity in the face of disaster, poverty, and the impacts of climate change, reaching 37 million people in more than 40 countries. Previously, Tjada served as Chief Operating Officer of CARE, where she oversaw the organization’s programming and global operations. Tjada spent more than a decade working to end world hunger in roles with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. government.
During the Obama administration, Tjada served as the Deputy Coordinator of Development for Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative, and the Assistant to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Food Security in Washington, D.C. Tjada also brings a passion for innovation to her work, developed early in her career, through various roles at McKinsey & Company, American Express, and General Electric. Tjada earned a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
When she’s not working, Tjada enjoys reading, spending time with her husband, Joe, and chasing their two young sons. To learn more about what Tjada is up to as CEO of Mercy Corps, she can be followed on her Twitter handle @Tjada.
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Tiokasin Ghosthorse
Host of First Voices Radio National/International
Embracing Earth’s Wisdom
Read BioTiokasin Ghosthorse
Tiokasin Ghosthorse is an educator, musician, and international speaker on peace. He is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and has a long history with Indigenous activism and advocacy. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host, and Executive Producer of First Voices Radio for the last 31 years in New York City and Seattle/Olympia, Washington.
In 2016, he received a Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Other recent recognitions include Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Fellowship in Music (2016), National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Nominee (2017), Indigenous Music Award Nominee for Best Instrumental Album (2019), and National Native American Hall of Fame Nominee (2018, 2019). He was also recently nominated for the 2020 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities.
Tiokasin is a master musician of the Lakota cedar flute(s) where stories and cultural knowledge are conveyed through music. We must stop with the idea of creating peace on Earth and begin creating peace with Earth. Tiokasin is a “perfectly flawed human being.”
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Britt Wray, PhD
Author and Researcher at the Forefront of Climate Change and Mental Health
Climate Anxiety
Read BioBritt Wray, PhD
Britt Wray, PhD is the Director of the Chair’s Special Initiative on Climate Change and Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of Stanford Medicine. She is the author of 2 books, the most recent being Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis, an impassioned generational perspective on how to stay sane amid the climate emergency, which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award.
Britt has spoken at TED and the World Economic Forum, and her work has been featured in The New Yorker, New York Times, Washington Post, among other publications. She holds a Climate Psychology Certificate from the California Institute of Integral Studies and is a Fellow in the Climate Health Organizing Fellowship offered by Harvard C-Change. She is the Founder of the weekly Gen Dread newsletter (gendread.substack.com), which shares insights and expert advice for coping with climate distress and taking climate action.
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Miguel Salazar
Miguel Salazar Aparicio was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He is a director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer of some of the most representative Colombian documentaries of recent years. Historian from the Universidad de los Andes (2000), with an MFA in film and television production and direction from New York University (NYU) (2004). Founder and director of Producciones La Esperanza. Among his productions are Ciro & Yo, The Smiling Lombana, Carta a una sombra, La Toma, Robatierra and Martillo, winners of awards at numerous festivals, with a successful premiere in commercial theaters and broadcast on various television channels and platforms around the world.
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Maki Sato, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Tokyo
Panel: Climate Advocacy and Healing
Read BioMaki Sato
Maki Sato is interested in environmental philosophy that includes a new emerging set of skills and ideas not limited to the relationship between humans and nature but sharing of the global commons, Shintoism, AI, and robotics.
Artists and Musicians
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Yehudit Sasportas
International Artist and Professor at Bezalel Academy
Artistic Navigation of Shadow
Read BioYehudit Sasportas
Yehudit Sasportas is one of the most prominent and prolific Israeli artists working in the local and international art scene today. Her work is focused on site-specific installations, which include sculptures, drawings, video, and sound works, and calls for an intense and overwhelming sensory experience. Her installations have gone through a process of adapting and responding to the architecture of various museum spaces while forming into artworks that present a new way of reading architecture itself, as well as the wider cultural context it was created in.
Her sculptural installations deal with a fascinating correspondence taking place between subconscious materials, unspoken and unseen, and the way these layers of information activate conscious areas across the surface. Sasportas’ Active Consciousness films, which were made over the course of more than seven years, present relatively simple actions, yet such that provoke a deep and condensed discussion about the manner in which we experience, understand, and project our own personal stories onto reality. This series as well as others have brought Sasportas’ works to receive meaningful recognition as an artist with clear political relevance.
Sasportas represented Israel in the 2007 Venice Biennial and has presented more than ten international museum solo exhibitions during the last decade, in venues such as The Arter Museum, Istanbul, The Kunsthalle Basel, The Berkley Museum of Art, San Francisco, The Kunstverein Braunschweig, DA2 Domus Atrium, Salamanca, and The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
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Ohad Naharin
Ohad Naharin is a choreographer and the creator of the Gaga movement language. Born in 1952 in Mizra, Israel, he began his dance career with Batsheva in 1974 and made his choreographic debut in New York in 1980. In 1990, Naharin was appointed Artistic Director of Batsheva Dance Company and established its junior division, Batsheva – the Young Ensemble. In addition to his stage-work, Naharin developed Gaga, the innovative movement research and daily training of Batsheva’s dancers that has spread globally among both dancers and non-dancers. Gaga’s movement language is continually evolving.
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Kim Rosen
Author, Spoken Word Artist, Ceremonialist, and Founder, S.H.E. College Fund for Maasai Girls
Feast of Losses
Read BioKim Rosen
Kim Rosen, M.F.A., has awakened listeners around the world to the power of poetry to heal, connect and disarm individuals and communities. She is a poet, spoken word artist, ritualist, and guide of inner exploration. Her current passion is creating environments through poetry, music, silence and ceremony to open to aging, death and letting go. Her recent audio release, Feast of Losses, is a collaboration on the same theme with cellist Jami Sieber, with whom Kim has co-created several previous albums. She is the author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words (Hay House, 2009). In 2007, she spoke a poem to a group of Maasai girls who had fled FGM and Early Childhood Marriage, and that moment became the seed of the Safe House Education (S.H.E.) College Fund, (www.shecollegefund.org), which sends Maasai girls in Kenya to college.
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Jami Sieber
Electric cellist and vocalist Jami Sieber reaches inside the soul with compositions that are contemporary, timeless, lush, and powerfully evocative. Jami creates her own kind of world music, boasting immediate emotional impact and conveying a visionary presence that goes beyond the gorgeous melodies and moving rhythms. Jami’s musical path moved from classical to folk, to rock/pop, to world and improvisation. Since launching her solo career, Jami has entered into dynamic collaborations with an extraordinary spectrum of dancers, actors, poets, visual artists, improvisers, vocalists, and instrumentalists that span the globe. Her compositions have been used for film, (Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning, Queen of the Sun, Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton), dance, theater, and the popular video game – Braid. She has to her credit 10 self composed and produced recordings that have garnered numerous awards. Jami’s life-long commitment to the environment, social justice, and the healing arts is at the heart of her music, reflecting a deep dedication to the arts as a medium of exploration and awareness of the interconnectedness of all beings.
ADditional musicians to be announced
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Ciro Galindo
Ciro Galindo is the protagonist of the documentary Ciro & Yo. Through Ciro’s story we can understand the history of Colombia. He is a privileged witness, on the ground, of a war that seems distant and confusing. Ciro & Yo narrates Ciro’s journey to encounter his past, as he seeks to rebuild his life and build a future for himself and his son. Like so many Colombians, Ciro is a survivor who, after sixty years of fleeing the war, dreams of living in peace and dignity.
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Helen Epstein
American author and journalist Helen Epstein is a daughter of Holocaust survivors and is best known for her non-fiction trilogy Children of the Holocaust; Where She Came From; and The Long Half-Lives of Love and Trauma. All three are widely translated and reviewed here. Born in Prague and raised in New York City, she lectures in the Americas and Europe. Most recently, she edited her mother’s memoir Franci’s War and wrote Getting Through It, a medical memoir of surviving surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation to treat GYN cancer. She is now working on a book about her life writing non-fiction.
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Miguel Salazar
Miguel Salazar Aparicio was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He is a director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer of some of the most representative Colombian documentaries of recent years. Historian from the Universidad de los Andes (2000), with an MFA in film and television production and direction from New York University (NYU) (2004). Founder and director of Producciones La Esperanza. Among his productions are Ciro & Yo, The Smiling Lombana, Carta a una sombra, La Toma, Robatierra and Martillo, winners of awards at numerous festivals, with a successful premiere in commercial theaters and broadcast on various television channels and platforms around the world.
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Dr. Aimie Apigian, MS, MPH
Dr. Aimie Apigian, MS, MPH is a leading medical expert on how life experiences get stored in the body and restoring the body to its best state of health through her signature model and methodology, The Biology of Trauma™. She is a double board-certified medical physician in Preventive Medicine and Addiction Medicine. She has a Master’s in Biochemistry and a Master’s in Public Health. She is also a Certified Functional Medicine physician and has training and certifications specifically in neuro-autoimmunity, nutrition, and genetics for addictions, mental health, and mood and behavioral disorders. She has several certifications in various trauma therapies including the Instinctual Trauma Response Model (an art trauma therapy,) Somatic Experiencing, and NeuroAffective Touch.
Dr. Aimie developed The Biology of Trauma™: a methodology that courageously both adds to and bridges trauma work and medicine by reverse-engineering the chronic effects of trauma on the nervous system and body on a cellular level.
Dr. Aimie’s personal life experiences lead her into trauma therapy training, first for her adopted son, and then for herself. A unique lens for understanding trauma has come out of it, joining the two worlds of neuroscience and trauma therapy uniquely.
Dr. Aimie is the founder and CEO of Trauma Healing Accelerated, offering her foundational online course: “The 21-Day Journey to Calm Aliveness,” which is an experiential journey into the nervous system that is open to all as well as her 8-module certification course for practitioners, “Biology of Trauma,” that teaches the protocols of addressing The Biology of Trauma on the different systems of the body.
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Vanessa Nakate
Climate Justice Activist and Author of A Bigger Picture
Panel: Climate Advocacy and Healing
Read BioVanessa Nakate
Vanessa Nakate is a climate justice activist from Uganda and the first Fridays For Future striker in Uganda. She is the author of A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis, and is the founder of the Rise Up climate movement and the Vash Green Schools Project, which aims to install solar panels on all of Uganda’s 24,000 schools. She has spearheaded the Save Congo Rainforest campaign. The United Nations named her a Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals in 2020, and Time magazine named her to its Time100 Next list in 2021.
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Bob Delaney
Bob Delaney’s life story has been told in his two books – Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob and Surviving the Shadows: A Journey of Hope into Post-Traumatic Stress. His most recent book is Heroes are Human: Lessons in Resiliency, Courage, and Wisdom from the COVID Front-lines.
Delaney was a New Jersey State Trooper who went deep undercover for three years to infiltrate the Mafia in the late 1970s. The assignment took a toll and he dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder. His personal journey of healing led him to become a student and advocate for post-trauma awareness. He has worked with the military, law enforcement, firefighters, first responders, healthcare workers, and many others by providing post-trauma awareness and education.
His contributions to PTSD awareness and support to military officials and their families have been recognized with honors and proclamations from many, including President Barack Obama and senior-ranking military leaders. In 2010, President Barack Obama conferred upon Delaney the President’s Volunteer Service Award.
He has twice received the United States Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, in 2011 for his assistance in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings and in 2013 for his work with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Delaney is the 2020 recipient of The Theodore Roosevelt Award, bestowed on four U.S. Presidents (Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan) and other distinguished citizens. Delaney received a B.S. in Criminal Justice from New Jersey City University and an M.A. in Leadership from St. Mary’s College of California. He is also a Harvard Global Mental Health Trauma Recovery alumnus and presents globally on leadership, resiliency, trauma, and self-care.
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Maria Leister
Director, Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma
Panel: Women in Trauma-Informed Leadership
Read BioMaria Leister
Maria Leister, JD, is a human rights advocate and speaker dedicated to leveraging interdisciplinary human rights scholarship and frameworks to facilitate healing from trauma and creating just societies. The focus of her work is on investigating how dehumanization impacts the most vulnerable populations, and the importance of supporting principles around human dignity, which she believes is a foundational pillar underlying all human rights advocacy and justice efforts. Maria is a faculty member and co-director of Harvard Medical School’s Global Mental Health Trauma and Recovery Course, which educates hundreds of healthcare and mental health providers from around the globe each year. At Kotter International, Maria leads the business development of the leadership development practice for clients seeking skills and support to lead change initiatives. Maria received her Juris Doctorate from Indiana University, Bloomington, and was a fellow of Harvard University’s Administrative Fellows Program.
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Father Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam
Cosmologist, Environmental Philosopher, Theologian, and Writer
Gardening with God
Read BioJoshtrom Isaac Kureethadam
Fr Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam serves in the area of “Ecology & Creation” at the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. He is also Chair of Philosophy of Science and Director of the Institute of Social and Political Sciences at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. Fr Josh’s double passion is to pass on to younger generations not only a sense of awe and wonder before the grandeur and majesty of the universe, but also a deep concern for the increasingly precarious state of our common planetary home.
For nearly a quarter of a century, he has been particularly engaged with ecological issues, teaching courses, conducting workshops for young people and committed grassroots activists, and publishing articles and books in this area. He has been particularly associated with the study and diffusion of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter on Care for Our Common Home. His publications include Creation in Crisis: Science, Ethics, and Theology (Orbis Books, 2014,) The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis (Cambridge Scholars, 2017,) The Ten Green Commandments of Laudato Si’ (Liturgical Press, 2019,) and The Laudato Si’ Reader (2022.)
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Barbro Svedberg
Specialist/Senior Advisor at Folke Bernadotte Academy
Mediating Active Conflict
Read BioBarbro Svedberg
Barbro Svedberg is deeply committed to advancing the processes of peace, dialogue, and meditation, with a special focus in the MENA region. Before joining the Folke Bernadette Academy (FBA) as a specialist and senior advisor, she served as deputy director at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign affairs, focusing on mediation and peace process support. Previously, she served as a policy specialist at the Swedish International Development Agency.
Barbro has also contributed significantly at the WILPF International Secretariat in Geneva, where she directed the MENA and later the Crisis Response program from 2012 to 2017. During this time, her efforts were devoted to promoting inclusive peace and security, with a particular emphasis on engaging women and civil society in processes concerning Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.
As an independent consultant in Geneva, she specialized in human rights, international law, leadership, and program management. For over a decade, Barbro contributed to public sector reform, good governance, organizational and leadership development, human rights, and gender equality initiatives across more than 15 countries while at the Swedish Institute for Public Administration
She holds an LLM in International Law from London School of Economics and a BA in International Politics from the University of Oslo. Barbro’s dedication lies in making a positive impact on peace and development through partnerships and fostering collective experiences and learning.
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Major (Rtd) Cormac Doyle
Founder, The Serenity Project and Creator, UltraBLS/VRT
Trauma Healing for Veterans
Read BioMajor (Rtd) Cormac Doyle
Cormac hails from Ireland. A near-death experience at age 15 influenced his desire to pursue a career helping others. He trained as a Registered Nurse Mental Health and completed his initial training in Dublin. He immigrated to England in 1985. After several years he enlisted in the Royal Air Force and completed 25 years of military service, serving in both the Royal Air Force and later the British Army. He has served on numerous deployments from The Former Yugoslavia to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a qualified Flight Nurse. He has worked at the command level within the RAF and the Army.
His extensive experience as a clinician has equipped him with the skills to develop a service unique to veterans’ mental health, which he self-funds. His particular area of interest is the assessment, management, and treatment of stress reactions, PTSD, CPTSD, and their impact on individuals, families, and work relationships. Cormac has created UltraBLS/VRT as an enhanced intervention based on EMDR, constructive conversation, progressive relation, client self-development, and human performance. With a colleague he has opened a one-to-one bespoke psychological trauma mental health retreat in Bulgaria – The Serenity Project. He trains selected individuals in UltraBLS/VRT.
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Flavia Valgiusti
Former Judge, Professor of Neuroscience and Law, and Trauma-Informed Law Consultant
Trauma-Informed Law
Read BioFlavia Valgiusti
Flavia Valgiusti is a lawyer, former judge, researcher, and social psychologist with expertise in trauma-informed law, restorative processes, and juvenile criminology. She is also a professor of neuroscience and law, combining academic knowledge with practical experience. As a UNICEF consultant, Flavia Valgiusti authored a handbook on trauma-informed approaches and successfully implemented a comprehensive training program in North Macedonia. Her work involved training professionals in the judicial, social services, and NGO sectors. Flavia Valgiusti has a postgraduate degree in Transpersonal Psychology and has received training in collective trauma from Thomas Hübl. She actively participated as a co-facilitator of the Pocket Project chapters focused on Collective Traumas in Argentina and Latin America. In addition to being involved in many child rights initiatives, Flavia Valgiusti founded the Children’s Advocates pro bono program at the Bar Association and currently directs the Bar Association’s Institute for Neuroscience and Law. She has made significant contributions to numerous magazine and book publications.
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Mia Mingus
Mia Mingus founded and leads SOIL: A Transformative Justice Project (www.soiltjp.org) which works to build the conditions for TJ. She is passionate about building the skills, relationships and structures that can transform violence, harm and abuse within our communities and that do not rely on or replicate the punitive system we currently live in.
Integration Practices
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Licia Sky
Somatic Educator and Co-Founder, Trauma Research Foundation
Meditation: Expanded Awareness
Read BioLicia Sky
Licia Sky is a somatic educator, artist, singer-songwriter, and bodyworker who works with traumatized individuals. She also trains mental health professionals to use mindful meditation in movement, theater exercises, writing, and voice as tools for attunement, healing, and connection. She is a regular instructor in trauma healing workshops at Cape Cod Institute, Kripalu, and Esalen. For the past decade, she has been teaching expanded awareness in workshops to clinicians and laypeople around the world.
Learn more at traumaresearchfoundation.org and liciasky.com.
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Phoenix Song
Teacher, Performer, Writer, and Healer of Phoenix Song Music
Chakra Sound Bath
Read BioPhoenix Song
Phoenix Song is a queer, non-binary Korean-American adoptee, teacher, performer, writer and healer, featured in SF Magazine’s Best of the Bay for yoga music. Phoenix specializes in world fusion music, and has performed and taught at UC Berkeley, Stanford and SF Jazz. They offer a monthly sound bath at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco with their band Fractals of Sound. Phoenix is a Tamalpa Associate Teacher of expressive arts, and is completing their teacher certification in Fitzmaurice Voicework. They believe that everyone can sing, and love to help people play their body instruments and free their voices to sing, sound and speak their truths and transform their life narratives. Phoenix also leads ancestral healing, grief, and diversity/solidarity workshops and trainings that use expressive arts, theta drum journeys, and somatic processes. Their 9-month free your voice and body stories training starts in September in Berkeley, CA. Reach out for online and in-person private or group sessions to free your life! These days, Phoenix’s love is working on their first historical fiction book about their Korean ancestors during the Japanese invasions of the late 16th century.
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Mimi Kuo-Deemer
Author and Teacher of Qigong, Meditation, and Baguazhang
Qigong for Vitality and Ease
Read BioMimi Kuo-Deemer
Mimi is an author and teacher of meditation, qigong, and internal martial arts (6th generation Baguazhang). She champions a balance of playfulness and precision, and never underestimates the value of wisdom with a healthy dose of humor. Her teachings draw inspiration from nature, the Dao, and the wisdom of Buddha Dharma. She particularly enjoys discovering and sharing ways that embodiment practices nourish and support our personal welfare, which by extension encompass the welfare of all life. Mimi’s two books include Qigong and the Tai Chi Axis, and Xiu Yang. Her programs and teachings extend across many platforms, including qigong practice videos and DVDs available on Amazon Prime, Commune, yogaandfitness.tv, movementformodernlife.com, Vimeo, and YouTube. Born in upstate New York, Mimi has lived most of her adult life overseas, in Beijing, London, and now Oxfordshire, where she lives with her husband and their dog, three cats, 8 chickens and 60,000 bees.
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Susanna Barkataki
Yoga Unity Activist and Author of Embrace Yoga’s Roots
Traditional Yoga for Self-Care: A Trauma-Informed Class
Read BioSusanna Barkataki
Susanna Barkataki, (she/her) has been called “a trailblazing yoga leader and visionary for our times.” An Indian teacher building bridges in the West, she is known for her work in decolonizing and embracing the roots of yoga. She founded Ignite Institute for Yogic Leadership and Social Change to train students in using authentic spiritual tools to create positive social change. She’s author of #1 International Bestseller Embrace Yoga’s Roots: Courageous Ways to Deepen Your Yoga Practice. Susanna’s trainings merge authentic yoga and social justice. She runs 200/300 Embody Yoga’s Roots Yoga Teacher Training programs and Yoga Class Curator, a year long training to deepen beyond YTT that are changing the face of yoga today. She consults with organizations like the UN, Yoga Alliance, TEDx.
additional INTEGRATION practices to be announced
As Part of the Collective Trauma Healing Upgrade Package Receive Direct Access to 20+ Gifts Including the Following
9 Free Gaga Online Classes
By Choreographer Ohad Naharin
Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution
By Peter Kalmus
White Hot Truth
By Danielle LaPorte
Scarred
By Sarah Edmondson
A Roadmap for Healing
By Dr. Aimie Apigian
Guided Parts Meditation
By Dr. Richard Schwartz
Money as Medicine Journal
By Edgar Villanueva
Mini-Journeys: Expanded Awareness In Practice
By Licia Sky
Getting Through It
By Helen Epstein
Bhutan and Beyond
By Dr. Julia Kim
Video Conversation
By Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone
Writing Prompts
By Andrea Gibson
Attachment Quiz
By Dr. Diane Poole Heller
Healing Centered Engagement Toolkit
By Shawn Ginwright
Wounds into Wisdom
By Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone
Documentary Ciro and Me
Ciro Galindo and Miguel Salazar
EMDR Music Therapy
By Major (Rtd) Cormac Doyle
Universal Heart Guided Attunement
By Jude Curivan
Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
By Nadine B. Hack
Archbishop Tutu’s written foreword to Nadine Hack’s book, The Power of Connectedness.
Struggle Well: Thriving in the Aftermath of Trauma
By Dr. Josh Goldberg
Somatic Experiencing
By Peter A. Levine, PhD
Meditating with the Ancestors
By Jerry Tello
UNICEF Trauma-Informed Handbook
By Flavia Valgiusti
Generation Dread
By Dr. Britt Wray
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