Growing regenerative hope: embodied pedagogies of wellbeing, peace and resilience

Group Submission Type: Pre-conference Workshop

Description of Session

The action of protest is a symphony of emotional, mental, physical and spiritual experiences, evoked in diverse dialogue processes and enacted on Land. Protest is deeply relational and responds to parasitic, oppressive and/or exploitative dynamics between two or more parties (human, more-than-human included). In doing so, protest theoretically seeks to restore symbiosis, to end dis-ease and allow wellness to thrive for all concerned parties. This path towards equity, justice and rights has salutogenic as well as pathogenic outcomes, where those who engage in long-term activism encounter both an increased sense of belonging and agency while exacerbating mind-body-heart-spirit disease (Eaton & Warner, 2021). This seeming paradox, of being in service to “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible” (Eisenstein, 2013) while the wellbeing of self is sacrificed for ‘the greater good’, is common for youth as well as their educators (Conner, et al. 2023; Gorski, 2015). Furthermore, self-care amongst activists is often seen as self-indulgent and counter-productive to the cause, reinforcing a parasitic relational dynamic between involved parties, and leading to ineffectiveness in activist work (Gorski & Chen, 2015).
This raises the uncomfortable questions of whether the path towards a more just world must be forged through sacrifice of those championing the cause, and whether change-makers must exploit themselves into dis-ease in order to grow wellbeing for others?
This workshop suggests another pathway by welcoming symbiosis with self into our activism. Beyond the notion of working on or caring for the self, Growing Regenerative Hope gazes through an embodied, eco-spiritual, intergenerational and compassionate lens, to behold individual wellbeing as essential for social and ecological harmony to thrive in enduring ways (Bousquet-Kacera, 2016 - 2023). Grounding protest into the terrain of our mind-body-heart-spirit supports presence to how the work we do in the world is alive within our own embodiment, and how growing ourselves with the loving-kindness and harmonious reciprocity we forge in the world is intrinsic to our greatest cause. To cultivate this, educators and activists are offered an inter-arts pedagogical journey of embodied salutogenic praxes, shared as viable pathways to steward more peaceful, equitable and earth-honouring communities.
During this 3-hour workshop, participants will encounter: theories of inter-personal-neurobiology and how the imprint of trauma informs degenerative self-care; embodied pedagogies to awaken physiological spaces of resistance, resilience, hope, regeneration and reciprocity; relational practices for creativity rooted in whole-being presence. This workshop shares a buffet of embodied practices for future application in diverse learning communities and spaces.
By centring our felt-awareness through various somatic, dialogue, arts-led, and generative interventions, participants’ narratives of protest will be awakened as living seeds within the intergenerational soil of their fleshy and energetic mind-body-heart-spirit organism. The aspiration of this hybrid, inter-disciplinary pedagogical work is to welcome our regeneration and transmutation alongside our activism, so that we may grow whole and well together; mending our relationship to ourselves and our ailing world in a symbiotic dance of co-creative emergence.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Pre-Conference Workshop

Chair

• Danielle Denichaud, Light on Health

Workshop Organizer

• Danielle Denichaud, Light on Health

Presenting author

• Danielle Denichaud, Light on Health