Your Body is Your Own: Coming Home to Our Bodies After Purity Culture

An online writing and mindfulness workshop to explore reclaiming the safety and abundance of our bodies after purity culture

Coming home to our bodies after purity culture can be a slow and challenging journey. The impacts of high control religion can linger in our hearts and bodies years after this trauma occurs, causing us to feel as if we are still stuck in the shameful narratives. But what if there was a way to let ourselves experience a new chapter of the story, to finally find some safety and peace within the places of ourselves that we were taught to feel shame?

You’re invited to join writers Annalise Parady and Kelsey Britt for a two-hour online writing workshop on purity culture. This workshop will take place over Zoom on Sunday March 8th from 4-6pm Pacific time.

Together, we’ll use poetry, guided written reflections, and gentle trauma-informed embodiment practices to unpack what purity culture is and how it has impacted our bodies, sense of agency, and our sexuality. With these writing and embodiment practices, we will witness our stories in community and offer ourselves the chance to reclaim the safety and abundance of our bodies.

This workshop will consist of:

· Introductions

· 3-minute trauma-informed grounding meditation

· Unpacking purity culture through poems & guided reflections

· 10-minute trauma-informed body reclamation meditation

· Writing prompts and time to write

· Time to share with group

No prior writing or meditation experience necessary. Capacity for this event is limited to twenty people to preserve intimacy and safety of group. Folks can participate to their degree of comfort. This class is a chance to be in your body, just as you are.

Annalise Parady (she/her) is a poet and a social worker. She was born and rooted in Wyoming, but currently lives, writes, and grieves in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. She and her friends like to make cult jokes about the high-demand religious group where they met in college. By day, Annalise can be found doing immigration policy advocacy. By evening, she turns to poetry and the desert for solace these days. Annalise also facilitates a peer writing group for grievers called Grief House, which you can find on Substack.

Kelsey Britt (she/they) is a queer writer and trauma-informed somatic sexuality educator. She grew up in rural Indiana and was shuffled between Catholic and Protestant churches for most of her childhood. In their work, they are passionate about supporting women and gender expansive folks feel more at home in their bodies and sexuality. She lives in Seattle with her quirky tortoiseshell cat Sage and a growing collection of plants. You can find more of her writing and offerings at www.kelseybritt.com.