Healing Racial Division
Gathering together to do the inner work needed to heal racial division
Who is this course for?
This course is for you if you’re interested in growth and transformation and if you’re ready to take a closer look at whiteness.
More specifically, if you’re a spiritual seeker who’s concerned about racial division and who’s seeking to deepen your understanding of racial hierarchies. If you’ve felt too alienated to engage in honest discussions about race, this might be the right setting for you.
Or this course might be the right fit if you’re a social justice advocate and/or DEI trainer who’s longing to access more spiritual support. You might’ve encountered the limitations of your viewpoint and are seeking to be informed by a transcendental perspective.
The course is designed to help you meet any shame, guilt, rage or hopelessness that arises with open-heartedness and compassion. We’ll engage in simple practices to open our hearts. We’ll aim to move from approaching this problem from an intellect-only stance to begin to listen with “ears of our hearts”.
What’s different about this approach?
We’ll ground in a perspective that simultaneously acknowledges racial division and suffering while honoring the truth of our interconnectedness and oneness.
The course is designed to challenge rigid binaries, polarization and exclusion. We’ll endeavor to adopt a heart-centered and more inclusive view of humanity (and our place in it).
This involves grappling with the limitations of our current reality while desiring (and having the courage to envision) a more healed and humane world.
Rooting in both radical honesty and loving-kindness, we’ll cultivate more inner spaciousness and increase our capacity to relate to ourselves and others in a racialized world.
Why is this course needed?
Despite evidence and accurate information, racial division persists. This course will use a variety of methods to transform our hearts and minds, disrupting these entrenched patterns.
Presenting others with facts doesn’t necessarily change beliefs. There’s plenty of scholarship that helps us understand the mechanisms that justify large scale patterns of cruelty and inhumanity.
What would it be like to invite in new possibilities for working with race and racial divides? How might we cultivate a space where we feel supported in facing some of the more troubling aspects of our current reality? How do we do this in a way that encourages bravery, stamina and vitality?
What is inner work?
Inner work involves examining and reflecting on our lives, including our imperfections and what makes us human. Inner work offers us the opportunity to embrace our own complexity and practice self-compassion.
In this course inner work will look like: reflective exercises, mindfulness practices, somatic awareness, guided visualizations, journaling, compassionate listening.
We’ll cultivate spaciousness to be able to meet difficulties with courage.
What can I expect to come away with?
- Become more adept at engaging across racial divides
- Understand the roots of racial division and dehumanization
- Increase compassion and emotional tolerance concerning issues of race
- Name and give space to difficult feelings like anger, shame, vulnerability, and despair
- Diminish either/or thinking and gain a greater capacity to hold opposites
When and Where
Classes will be held live on Zoom. In order to cultivate the intimacy needed to do this kind of healing, we will meet once a month. Classes with not be recorded.
Friday classes 12pm to 2:30pm EST (9am- 11:30 am PST)
March 22nd, April 19th, May 17th, June 14th, July 12th and September 20th (note: we’re not meeting in August)
Thursday Practice Sessions 6-7pm EST (3-4pm PST) (subject to change based on participants’ availability)
April 4th, May 2nd, May 30th, June 27th, August 1st, September 5th
(Besides self reflection and mindfulness practices, in between classes you'll be invited to watch films and other activities that cultivate creativity, wonder and awe.)
COST: $850
Who is your facilitator?
Eloiza is a person of mixed racial and ethnic lineage. Her mother is descended from Northern Europeans, mainly British and Dutch. Her father’s people are from Puerto Rico, his roots include Central African (Mbundu people), Indigenous Puerto Ricans (Tainos), and Europeans.
At the age of 18 she participated in her first Undoing Racism workshop with the People’s Institute. She completed their Advanced Training at 21. As an undergraduate she was a double-major in Sociology and Women’s Studies (with a minor in Caribbean Studies). Her academic program deepened her knowledge of the history and current reality of caste-like division in the United States and beyond.
She later earned two Masters Degrees, an MA in Social and Cultural Studies in Education from UC Berkeley and an MSW from Rutgers University. The majority of her coursework for both programs focused on race and gender bias and justice, equity and diversity.
For 15 years Eloiza studied non-dual philosophy and healing with A Society of Souls.
** This course was developed with the generous support of the Foundation for Non-Duality a 501c3 charitable foundation. Part of their outreach is to help alleviate suffering in the world through Jason Shulman’s teachings on nonduality. Nonduality is a way of living that sees reality from both the universal and personal perspective, knowing that the two are intimately tied and ultimately inseparable. To learn more about The Foundation for Nonduality please visit www.nonduality.us.com.