Decolonizing Wellness and Embracing Empowerment for Change with Rebeckah Price

Explicit content warning

02/22/21 • 68 min

In this episode, I had the honour of speaking with Rebeckah Price about the powerful work she has been leading for many years to reshape and decolonize wellness. She discusses what it actually means to create real systematic change in the health and wellness community for BIPOC and other marginalized communities, given the inherit inequities that exist in the wellness industrial complex. Rebeckah's deep commitment to liberation is truly inspiring and will move you, as it did me.
Two stand out quotes that summarize the wisdom Rebeckah shared:
"Any people that come from a history of resistance, the idea of liberation is fundamental to who you are."
"Wellness is an industrial complex because it's inherently telling you there's something wrong with you, that you're broken, and that's coming from a colonial mentality."
More about Rebeckah:
Rebeckah Price is a wellness advocate and yoga instructor (RYT 200), that draws on her wealth of knowledge of working in underserved, marginalized, racialized, and immigrant communities in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. In 2015, Rebeckah founded irise yoga + wellness- as a way to connect, promote, bring awareness to and foster the inclusion of people of colour and other historically marginalized groups in yoga and wellness spaces.

Rebeckah's work is rooted in an intersectional understanding of power and harnessing the tools and resources to facilitate community change. With over 20 years in the not-for-profit sector as a Community Development and Engagement Specialist, Rebeckah has worked on and developed strategies and policies related to diversity & inclusion, equity, conflict resolution, settlement and integration and creating safe, cohesive communities. Rebeckah uses her lived experience as a Woman of Colour and her unique expertise in community development and engagement to bridge and address the gap of diversity in the wellness industry through workshops, etc.
Support Rebeckah's work via her Patreon page or be sure to follow her on Instagram.
To learn more about her work, visit websites iRise Yoga and Wellness or at the Well Collective.

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Previous Episode

'Process Not Perfection' in Complex Trauma and Addiction Recovery with Dr. Jamie Marich

In this episode, I had the honour to speak with Dr. Jamie Marich about ongoing and ever changing trauma and addiction recovery. Two of the things she said resonates so deeply for me:
"When I look at change, so much about it is in the healing power of consistency and I think that's fundamentally good for people who have survived complex trauma."
AND
"We may have parts and aspects of self but we all represent a working wholeness. What you have is already inside you. It just may take some processing to fully embrace that as truth and live it fully."
Jamie is one of the bravest and most authentic trauma therapists and experts I know. She speaks openly about living in both addiction recovery and with dissociation, paving the way for our shame to fall away and transformation to emerge, bringing us back into our innate wholeness.

Jamie Marich, Ph.D., LPCC-S, LICDC-CS, REAT, RYT-500, RMT travels internationally speaking on topics related to EMDR therapy, trauma, addiction, expressive arts and mindfulness while maintaining a private practice and online education operations in her home base of Warren, OH. She is the developer of the Dancing Mindfulness approach to expressive arts therapy, the co-creator of the Yoga Unchained approach to trauma-informed yoga, and the developer of Yoga for Clinicians. Jamie is the author of numerous books, including the popular EMDR Made Simple and EMDR Therapy and Mindfulness for Trauma Focused Care) written in collaboration with Dr. Stephen Dansiger. North Atlantic Books published a revised and expanded edition of Trauma and the 12 Steps in the Summer of 2020.

For more information on how to connect with her work, go to: www.jamiemarich.com
Find her on Instagram or Facebook Purchase one of her books

To contribute the podcast please visit our Patreon, where 10% of the proceeds will be donated to DOCTORS WUHOUT BORDERS and another 10% will go to a different organization fighting racism each month.

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"Healing is Holding and Being Held" with Molly Boeder Harris

***Trigger warning for this episode - we discuss sensitive topics including sexual assault and violence.

In this episode I had the pleasure of speaking with Molly Boeder Harris about her work and her journey with the Breathe Network and her own experiencing recovering from sexual assault. The Breathe Network connects survivors of sexual trauma with sliding-scale, trauma-informed, holistic healing practitioners across the United States and Canada.
We talk about:

How understanding our nervous systems is not just relevant for people living with acute or overt trauma histories and is a useful resource for navigating life.
How we over protect certain area of the body in the somatic and movement world and then neglect to think about other areas of the body that are unique and specific to a survivor's story.
How the body is a resource for pleasure and joy and goodness in the way we offer yoga and somatic practice to trauma survivors.
How long it can take a survivor to come to terms with the fact they've experienced sexual assault.
The ways that the Breathe Network focuses on anti-oppressive best practices for trauma education in addressing both personal and collective trauma.

...and much more.
More about Molly

Molly Boeder Harris is the Founder and Executive Director of The Breathe Network, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), and a trauma-informed yoga teacher and trainer. Her own experiences surviving sexual trauma catalyzed her to enter the trauma healing field in 2003, beginning with her work as a medical and legal advocate with children and adult survivors, a campus violence prevention educator and as a yoga teacher specializing in working with survivors. She earned her Master’s Degree in International Studies and her Master’s Certificate in Women’s & Gender Studies, which inform the way she holds both individual and collective forms of trauma and oppression close together in her work. Over the last 2 decades of her career and healing trajectory, she has found that the practices which recognize the whole person – body, mind and soul – and which also honour the ways in which trauma and resilience manifest physiologically, offer the greatest possibility for embodied justice and social change.
To learn more or reach out follow Molly on Instagram (@mollyboha) and (@thebreathenetwork)
Visit the Breathe Network's website: www.thebreathenetwork.org
If you're enjoying the podcast and would like to contribute, please visit the Patreon

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