Fearless Heart: A Mindfulness + Self-Compassion Workshop for Trans BIMPOC*

I'm delighted to collaborate with Catherine White Hollman Wellness Centre to offer a FREE Anti-Colonial Mindfulness Workshop for our expansive *Indigenous, Black, Multi-racial  racialized, People of Colour communities of Two-Spirit, trans, non-binary, gender diverse experiences (Trans BIMPoC). 

This anti-colonial mindfulness workshop introduces practices of self-compassion to befriend and attend to what we fear to feel by accessing our direct experience of thoughts, emotions, and sensations.
 
Mindfulness is offered by centering embodied traditional knowledges for liberation. Space is limited to 10 participants.
 
To RSVP:
1. Read the “Detailed Description” below to see if this workshop series meets your needs.


2. Email or call Lu to reserve a spot: [email protected] , 778-829-8929


3. Workshop limited to 10 participants. RSVP early.

 
Workshop Date: Sunday, 2-4 pm, December 2, 2018
Location: Reach Community Health Centre, 1145 Commercial Drive
 
Facilitator: Mindfulness Facilitator, Lu Lam, M. Ed, CCC, is a Mindfulness Counsellor and  Consultant who is a trans-identified, Chinese-Taiwanese settler learning to be a guest.   He has 10 years of daily meditation practice and study.
 
Peer Support Mentor:  Shay Loo, BA Psych. is a mixed Chinese and Scottish trans woman from Vancouver and living on the land of the Musqueum, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Shay values giving back to her community and growing together through experiences. She has a certificate in narrative therapy and hopes to become to counselor in the future. She spends her time playing in the local queer sports leagues and walking along the sea wall. 

 DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Fearless Heart: A Mindfulness + Self-Compassion Workshop for Trans BIMPoC
Catherine White Hollman Wellness Centre presents a FREE Anti-Colonial Mindfulness Workshop with Lu Lam, M. Ed. CCC.
 
Fear can be carried in our cells through the impacts of colonization, historical trauma, and ongoing systemic, interpersonal, lateral violence of the everyday-even scientific research has caught up this truth. Instead of denying, disciplining, concealing fear, what if we honoured fear? What would be known if  we view fear a respected teacher? How could we be curious about fear-based insecurities like thinking we are too f*cked up to be loved. This workshop invites us to re-member our inherent wholeness and reclaim a deep sense of belonging, a right to heal and shine bright.
When we begin to pay gentle attention to fear, we radically change our relationship to difficult or scary experiences. Our brilliant, once life-saving ways to push away, numb, distract, ignore the stress of fear in the long-run impacts our holistic personal and community health. And every one of us has the capacity to heal our soul wounds, our grief with a fearless heart.
When we become first, aware that fear is present, we can then greet fear with deep self-compassion. This radical act of noticing taps into our intrinsic potential to grow resilience to the hardships in life. When we grow resilience, we also grow our possibilities to live with more trust in ourselves, more ease and wonder which ripples out into all our relations, offering power and sustainability to our liberation movements.
This workshop will be facilitated from an anti-oppression approach, which means that experiences of Indigenous, Black,  and traditional ways of knowing will be privileged, lived experiences of intersectionality and oppression are welcomed with respect, humility and sacred understanding. A critical perspective on mainstream mental health and the  medical industrial complex will be woven throughout.
Is this workshop for me? Take a few moments to reflect on these questions:
 
Do I self identify as a person living the intersectionality of being a  Two-spirit, non-binary, trans, gender diverse,  Black, Indigenous, Metis, Inuit, Multi-racial, Person of Colour, racialized person, visible minority (Trans BIMPOC)?


Do I have an interest in meeting my own direct experience (feeling, thought, sensation), whatever that may be, with facilitative support?
 
Am I looking for a non-judgmental non-pathologizing space where my whole being and the wholeness of my life are welcomed?
 
How many people will be in this workshop?
Approximately 10 participants.
 
What happens in this workshop?
In the first part, information will be shared on how self-compassion from a mindfulness paradigm may benefit us and our collective well-being. Psycho-education on how fear activates our heartmindbody systems will be integrated. Poetry is also used to illustrate mindfulness and compassion concepts. A mindfulness practice will be introduced and we will engage in this practice.  In the second part, the facilitator will open the workshop for any questions or reflections on the mindfulness and compassion practice.
 
What can I expect from attending this workshop?
This is a practice based experiential workshop. You can expect to experience practices in a supportive environment which encourages you to directly gently explore your feelings, thoughts, and sensations.  

You can expect to have time and space to ask any questions related to your experience of the mindfulness practices.

You can expect to learn how mindfulness based practices and paradigm can benefit our well-being in order to strengthen our social justice, anti-colonial,  liberational activist work.
 
Can you provide an example of a mindfulness and compassion practice?
An example of mindfulness practice could be being mindfulness of the breath.
 
A self-compassion practice may be  bringing your awareness with kindness; to whatever you are experience with an allowance for the experience with kind acceptance, no rejection, no changing, no pushing away what is present.
 
Facilitator
 
Lu Lam, M. Ed. C.C.C.  is a Chinese-Taiwanese trans-identified Mindfulness Counsellor and Consultant. He gratefully acknowledges the people of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueum), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations, where he works and lives as a settler learning to be a guest. Lu finds joy and is skilled in creating spaces for people to uncover who they truly are in order to re-inspire and strengthen our social justice work.  Lu brings over 18 years of front line counselling and facilitation experience to his work and is trained in mindfulness and critical diversity counselling approaches. He has a daily mindfulness practice of 10 years, is in continual mindfulness study, and regularly attends meditation retreats. www.lulam.ca
 
Peer Support Mentor: Shay Loo, BA Psych. is a mixed Chinese and Scottish trans woman from Vancouver and living on the land of the Musqueum, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Shay values giving back to her community and growing together through experiences. She has a certificate in narrative therapy and hopes to become to counselor in the future. She spends her time playing in the local queer sports leagues and walking along the sea wall.

---