It is a generic kind of love if we don’t know the person. It doesn’t feel as personal to us when they don’t really know who we are. I wonder if our unconscious mind interprets disconnection from ourselves (which we now know is due to trauma) as a lack of…

What would you change if you were in charge of the world? I would give everyone safe housing, food, and a well-regulated nervous system so we wouldn’t be ruled by our primitive brain and fight/ flight/ freeze survival strategies Systemic oppression would disappear along with greed, objectification and exploitation Everyone…

It is safe to get to know yourself and welcome your whole being into awareness. Hmm. Is this true in your experience? It can be! We learn about trauma and what gets in the way of being on our own side. We explore gently caring for and nurturing ourselves. We’re…

When we were children, everyone was bigger, stronger, and could boss us around. What do you feel when you think about challenging an authority figure? Dread? Anger? We assess present moment threat using our experiences from the past, when we depended on authority figures like parents, teachers and older kids. …

Our rights to freedom in our bodies are under attack. What do we do with our anger and outrage at continued injustice? First we look at what all of these have in common: Roe v Wade, racism, gender pay inequality, the patriarchal rape culture, colonialism and Indigenous rights, environment crisis…

Fear, Isolation, and Social Justice “When a structure is broken, we are fools if we simply ignore the defect in favor of pretending that our democracy isn’t cracking at the seams. Our obligation is to understand where the problem is, find a solution, and make the broken whole again.” …

Everyone these days knows about “the gays”. When I was a kid growing up in a small prairie town in western Canada, I had no idea. I didn’t know that a male friend who curled his hair and wore makeup was gay. I didn’t know what to make of the…

Inquiry from Sunday Class Something interesting happens when we work with arrested self protection. It doesn’t happen with everyone, but it can with those of us who felt unable to speak out and protect ourselves. We make excuses like “other kids had it worse”, “my parents couldn’t help it”, or…

“Arrested self-protection stifles our healthy anger.” Pete Walker Guided inquiry from Sunday community class When our experiences with anger have never allowed us to feel and express it safely, we suppress it. Children can’t afford to turn against their parents so we turn against ourselves. Feeling our emotions is different…