How many of us have felt worried about others’ judgment of how we eat? How many of us have judged others? Where do these judgments come from? In this workshop, we explore our values and judgments about food. Which foods do we call “good” and which do we call “bad”? Where did we learn those values? Is the moral language of “good” and “bad” appropriate to describe food at all? (Hint: no.) We critically assess our understandings of “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” and work together to brainstorm strategies for creating a more positive food culture in our communities.

Let’s build our skills as support people! We want to normalize the practice of bringing someone to your healthcare appointment. This workshop will apply a full-spectrum doula framework to support us all in developing the skills needed to better support our loved ones in healthcare settings. Doulas are trained to provide emotional, physical, and informational support that is rooted in clients’ boundaries and wishes – we believe we can learn to provide this kind of support to our loved ones. This is a form of mutual aid and a way of taking back power within the healthcare system that can be so disempowering.

The so-called “obesity crisis” is a fatphobic myth that constructs fatness as a disease that needs to be eliminated for the good of society. In fact, fatness is not a disease, and dieting to lose weight isn’t sustainable and is an actual threat to people’s health. On top of that, this misinformation, along with discrimination and shame, prevents people in large bodies from accessing the healthcare they need. In this workshop we will challenge commonplace myths about fatness and health and develop self-advocacy strategies to use when faced with fatphobia in healthcare settings.

Body image affects all of us, but does it affect all of us in the same way? This workshop encourages all participants to explore their relationship with their own body as well as their relationships with the systems of oppression that shape our relationships with our bodies (e.g. fatphobia, racism, misogyny, etc.). We learn some of the history behind our culture’s current hatred of fat and interrogate the false association between fat and unhealthy. Ultimately, the workshop asks us all: What can we do to make our communities and our world better places to exist in our bodies?

Pleasure is powerful; it is healing, informative, and joyful. Yet, some of the most pleasurable experiences are often fraught, making them difficult to enjoy. Our conversations about sex, food, rest, and other pleasurable experiences are often filled with shame and attempts to control and restrict – pleasure is rarely the focus. Western ideals such as “mind over matter” and “I think, therefore I am” cause us to disconnect from our bodies, and see control of bodily desires as “morally good.” In this workshop, we will discuss mind-body dualism and how it has led to a culture that condemns bodily desires and glorifies ignoring, restricting, and controlling them. We will reflect on what we find pleasurable, the barriers stopping us from seeking those pleasures, and valuing a pleasure-filled life.

We’re in year 4 of pandemic times, and we’ve all experienced various levels of isolation, fear, and so many other feelings that impact our relationships to our bodies. Although we were all born with a deep sense of connection to our bodies, our culture of body disconnection teaches each of us in different ways to see our bodies as separate from our selves. For many of us, the pandemic, state oppression, climate destruction, and other traumas have made it particularly difficult to have a body lately and may have exacerbated our struggles with body disconnection.

In this workshop, we will reflect on the ways we became disconnected from our bodies in the first place and how recent world and local events have affected that process. We will learn some history of the sources of body disconnection in U.S. culture and practice some strategies for reconnecting with ourselves. We all deserve to heal our relationships with our bodies – let’s do it together!

We are taught that doctors and other healthcare providers are experts on our bodies and know what’s best for us. In reality, we know ourselves best. We have the right to ask questions, set boundaries, and have our boundaries respected. In this interactive workshop, we will apply a consent framework to healthcare appointments and challenge dominant understandings of how healthcare has to be. We will reflect on our own experiences with healthcare providers, our healthcare values and boundaries, and how systemic oppression interacts with the healthcare system. We’ll also provide a checklist for thinking through a healthcare experience before, during, and after an appointment so we will be more prepared to advocate for our own healthcare needs moving forward.

Too often our conversations about consent are limited to interpersonal interactions. Interpersonal consent is vital, but it is just as important that consent permeates all aspects of our culture, including our systems, institutions, and policies. In this workshop, we will work together to imagine a world in which bodily autonomy is respected as sacred. What would this world look like? How can we move our community toward that consent culture we all deserve?

Casual? Serious? Committed? Exclusive? Open? These are words we use to describe relationships, but what do they really mean? Likely they mean different things to each of us. We each have the power to imagine and define the kinds of relationships we want to be in beyond the monogamous heteronormative models that have been presented to us. In this workshop, we will have opportunities to identify and clarify our own relationship values and dream about the relationships that might work best for us. We will also build skill in communicating with others about our relationship wants and needs. There are as many different relationship styles as there are people in this world! Let’s empower ourselves and each other to build the ones we want. 

We hear a lot these days about the importance of setting boundaries. But we don’t always know what our boundaries are! In our individualistic culture, how do we assert boundaries while still maintaining mutualistic, empathetic relationships? In this workshop, we use a series of prompts to explore our emotional and physical boundaries in a variety of contexts. After identifying some of our boundaries, we will work on the important skill of expressing them.

Unfortunately, sexual shame is a pretty universal experience. We have all had times when we’ve felt like something is wrong with us, like we are less than what we are, due to our sexuality. Shame is dangerous; it prevents us from protecting ourselves, caring for ourselves, and valuing ourselves and each other. But healing is possible, and talking about it is the first step. We all deserve the freedom to explore our unique sexualities free from shame, feeling great about ourselves. At this workshop, we will begin to talk about some of our feelings of shame, connect with each other, hopefully laugh a little, and come out the other side a little more free.

In this workshop, participants will learn the difference between sex assigned at birth, gender identity, gender expression, pronouns, and sexual orientation, as well as many common identities in all of those categories. Participants will also have the opportunity to self-reflect through art and journaling on how these concepts apply to themselves and how they can express themselves authentically and freely.

We may hear the word ‘privilege’ often, but are we talking about it in ways that lead to greater understanding? This workshop provides an opportunity to think intersectionally about a variety of unearned privileges. Participants will examine a multitude of privilege categories, determine how those privileges affect people, recognize how each system of privilege hurts the privilege-holder, and walk away with strategies for dismantling these systems in daily life and professional practice.

We all have many pieces of our identities that hold different proximities to power. Some of our identities give us privilege and others create experiences of marginalization. This workshop provides an opportunity to think intersectionally about our identities, and the identities that exist within your community. There will be space for reflection on what your identities mean to you and how they impact the spaces you’re part of. Participants will co-create strategies for creating a workplace culture in which folks fight oppressive systems together and everyone is welcome to be their full selves.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. We are hurting, raging, grieving, dissociating, and surviving. Many of us feel an urge to “do something” but don’t know what to do. No one of us has to do it all, but we can each contribute somewhere.

In this workshop, participants will be supported through the process of identifying the skills and expertise they already have that can be put to work in service of abortion justice. Using a reproductive justice framework, we will explore six different action areas within the fight for abortion justice, choose accountability partners, and make individualized action plans for how we will engage in this struggle. We will discuss the barriers we feel to taking action, and how to overcome them. We are more powerful than we know, especially when we act together – let’s fight for reproductive freedom.

Too often our current reproductive rights conversation begins and ends with abortion. Safe access to legal abortion is vital, but true reproductive justice means more than that. In this workshop, we reflect on our own ancestor’s reproductive justice narratives and look at the history of reproductive injustices in the United States from genocide and rape of indigenous communities hundreds of years ago all the way up to the forced sterilizations, inaccurate sex ed, and mass incarceration happening today. Participants will work together to think through how to continue to center marginalized communities when advocating for reproductive freedom.

When women talk as much as the men in a room, they are perceived as dominating the conversation. From young ages, we receive messages about how much we should and shouldn’t talk, what we should and shouldn’t wear, where we should and shouldn’t be. These messages are largely determined by our genders (as well as races and class statuses). This workshop explores these gendered messages and the space we take up (physically, verbally, emotionally). In the end, we think about how to begin to shift these dynamics in our individual lives and our culture at large.

White anti-racist work must be a lifelong commitment that continues past this current moment. In this workshop, white people will have an opportunity to express emotions about racist violence in a space where they will not be burdening people of color and reflect on early memories of race and racism. We will look at some qualities of white supremacy culture and work to identify where those qualities show up in ourselves. We will think through the barriers that often stop “conscious” white people from becoming ACTIVE in the fight against racism and learn strategies for overcoming those barriers. Finally, we will make commitments to continue learning and acting in the short-term and the long-term, and develop strategies to be accountable to those commitments.