Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging
This is a living document. This is an evolving statement as the organization changes and grows.
Embodywise is committed to creating a safe learning environment that treats every student with respect, compassion, curiosity, and connection.
We recognize that significant harm has occurred to many people through implicit and explicit bias over many generations and are actively committed to ending racism, cultural insensitivity, and other forms of bias.
We acknowledge that the field of somatic psychology has primarily evolved in a white-dominant culture with little input from diverse opinions and lived experiences.
We are developing our new offerings with a commitment to evolving our work to reflect broader cultural diversity and dynamism.
We believe that to become fully embodied, people need to feel safe, heard, connected, and received with compassion. Our goal is to help transform harmful dynamics from the dominant culture and contribute to becoming an embodied, vibrant, diverse, collaborative, and awake community and society.
We want to acknowledge that harm can occur in the therapeutic relationship when the practitioner is not aware of their own social location and internalized bias and is not trained to track the client’s own social location.
To support this goal, we commit to:
- Responding to all DEIB-related feedback with compassion, non-defensiveness, and targeted action
- Taking an active role in ending racism, gender discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, colonialism, and other forms of marginalization and discrimination
- Continuously working to decenter white people’s experiences and transform their own implicit bias
- Continuously improving our work in response to feedback from our community, especially from those who experience marginalization
- Providing ongoing DEIB-focused coaching and training to our staff
- Partnering with experts in the field of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging including our amazing consultants at Holistic Resistance
- Respecting our students’ neurodiversity by providing educational methods that allow them to learn in their own way and at their own pace
Providing a sensitive learning environment in which our core teachings on transforming deeply-held trauma and beliefs can help individuals to unburden from systemic and collective trauma
If you experience culturally insensitive behavior from our faculty or staff, please contact us. We recognize speaking about your experience can be an emotional hurdle. We hope one of these options feels accessible to you. We are open to receiving feedback or any harm you might have experienced through the communication of your choosing.
- Speak to the lead instructor for your training or workshop
- Confidentially contact our office manager, Hillary Keith, at info@embodywise.com or 415-839-6788
- Report your concerns on your class evaluation form, which allows you to submit feedback anonymously if you wish
We also welcome your input on how to make any aspect of our work more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, fostering a deeper sense of safety and belonging for all human beings.
In alignment with our principles of unity and nonviolence and our core practice of loving presence, the Hakomi Institute is committed to taking an active role in ending racism, gender discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism and other forms of marginalization and discrimination.
As a community dedicated to psychological healing and growth, we realize that the core of all discriminatory behavior is unseen implicit bias that needs to be acknowledged and brought to conscious awareness. We respect the contributions of the social justice movement in bringing awareness to the need for psychological work around unconscious bias. This is a significant evolution in human consciousness that we both celebrate and support.
Our Commitment
Our institute, its leadership and the healing methods we teach first evolved in North America and are influenced by the unconscious power dynamics and privilege of the dominant culture in the United States. Hakomi’s faculty and staff are committed to an ongoing process of examining and owning our unearned privilege, working on our implicit bias, becoming more culturally humble and aware, and building a more diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible international community.
Our Learning Edges
Hakomi faculty members are at differing levels in the work of examining our implicit bias. Given this, expect us to experience our own learning edges at times as we work alongside you in our classes to become more culturally aware educators and helping professionals. When working with cultural issues, we’re committed to interacting in ways that support deep truth telling as well as Hakomi’s core principles of mindfulness and nonviolence.
Our Overarching Goal
Our goal as an organization is to break free of unhealthy power dynamics we’ve inherited from the dominant culture and become the most vibrant, diverse, and culturally aware and supportive community we’re capable of being. We realize that this will require a lifetime’s work, if not the work of several generations. Our commitment to this goal arises from several things that matter deeply to us: embodying Hakomi’s principles more fully in our lives and in our work, developing compassionate, humble and self-aware helping professionals, and creating a learning environment that’s as safe, inclusive, welcoming and accessible as possible.
Resources and Initiatives
- Hakomi’s DEI Committee informs our work to support diversity, equity and inclusivity. For more information, please contact committee chair Lorena Monda at HakomiDEI@gmail.com
- To offer feedback or suggestions about how to improve diversity, equity and inclusion within Hakomi’s California community, or to report or seek support to repair culturally insensitive interactions within our community, please contact us
- View a list of DEI-related resources below
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Resources
Developing an awareness of cultural differences, examining your implicit bias, and learning how to work with diverse clients are essential skills for helping professionals. Listed below are introductory resources in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. We’ve kept this list short to avoid overwhelming you, in the hopes that you’ll actively consult some of these resources over time.
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
Written by a somatic psychotherapist of color, this book offers a compassionate deep dive into healing racialized trauma in three specific groups: white people, people of color, and police. It also includes a compelling discussion of intergenerational trauma and its effects from medieval times to the present day.
Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla Saad
This practical and challenging workbook will support you to engage in a process that’s essential for any helping professional: examining, owning and dismantling implicit bias towards groups that our culture marginalizes so you can stop inflicting (often unconscious) damage on people of color.
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
This book underscores the need for white people to develop the psychological stamina required to have honest and meaningful discussions about race-related issues, a capacity that the author sometimes refers to as “racial stamina.”
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
Peggy McIntosh coined the phrase white privilege, and first discovered the concept of “privilege” or “advantage” as a feminist studying why men had so many social advantages and privileges compared to women. Understanding the concept of privilege—even if the word initially stirs defensiveness in you—is important for all human beings, and essential for helping professionals. Peggy McIntosh’s article on this topic is a classic, must-read article on the topic.
9 Phrases Allies Can Say When Called Out Instead of Getting Defensive by Sam Dylan Finch
The ability to receive clients’ feedback about culturally insensitive behavior on your part in a non-defensive way is an essential skill for helping professionals. This article will get you pointed in the right direction.
What Exactly Is a Microaggression? by Jenee Desmond-Harris
Understanding microaggressions you’re unconsciously engaging in, how they impact your clients, and how they point to unseen implicit bias and lack of cultural awareness is essential for helping professionals (and all human beings). This article is a good starting point for learning more about the topic. Another way to learn common microaggressions is to go to Google images and type in “microaggression images” to see people from different cultural groups holding signs containing common microaggressions.
Understanding Non-Binary People: How to Be Respectful and Supportive
The title of this article is self-explanatory—a resource offered by the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Avoiding Ableist Language
A list of terms that people with disabilities often find offensive and unsupportive.
An Incomplete Guide to Inclusive Language
Although written for high tech companies, this is one of the simplest and clearest overviews we’ve seen on how to use more inclusive, culturally respectful language.
UNTraining
This training is legendary in the San Francisco Bay Area and helps people to unpack implicit bias. This group currently offers “untraining” in racism for four groups: white liberals, people of color, people of Chinese descent, and white Jewish people. The founder of this training shares principles in common with Hakomi and is widely known for being nonjudgmental, nonshaming, compassionate and focused on developing self-love.
Free Racialized Trauma E-Course from the Cultural Somatics Institute
A course designed by Resmaa Menakem to “somatically abolish White Body Supremacy in 9 generations.”
Online Course: Healing From Internalized Whiteness
This 10-week online training is primarily for white-identified people; it’s a trauma-informed, healing-engaged, spiritually-grounded, and communally-held approach to anti-racism work.
Podcast: You Can’t Resolve What You Don’t Acknowledge: The Illusion of Race
This is an interview conducted by a member of our Hakomi community, Sam Sebastian with Dr. Joel A. Brown, a diversity and inclusion strategist who works on cultivating cultures of belonging, meaning, and innovation.
Website: Mindful Diversity
There are several good articles and a great resource list on this website offered by Angella Okawa, a Hakomi-trained coach, psychotherapist and educator in the Bay Area.
Website: Robin DiAngelo: Critical Racial and Social Justice Education
The resource page on Robin DiAngelo’s website is chock full of wonderful, practical and accessible articles.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Considerations for Hakomi
A thoughtful article by Deah Baird, a Certified Hakomi Trainer from Portland, about the importance of practicing Hakomi with ever-deepening cultural awareness and humility.