Fierce Compassion: Contemplative Practices for Nurturing Social and Environmental Justice

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Student Leaders and Activists:
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A cross-campus UW Bothell event

Facilitated by Dr. Kamilah Majied, this retreat will engage participants in contemplative social justice community-building dialogue and action. The goal of this workshop is to build frameworks and skills necessary to stay in social justice efforts as whole people and as a community. This work requires attending to our individual, interpersonal, and institutional practices simultaneously. Participants will be guided through activities that teach them to use meditation and other contemplative methods to recognize and examine with care their emotional, cognitive, social and professional engagements.

We aspire for this to be a beginning; to plant and water seeds within each of us and our institution for nurturing a culture and community of care. This is a place to move forward from, with the long term goal of developing spaces and resources for ongoing healing and accountability.

This advanced level social justice forum invites participants to slow down and reflect, and to create a space for the emotional “heart work/ hard work” involved in recognizing the grief, shame, fear and anger (i.e., burnout) that often arises when tackling social and environmental injustice.

Practices employed in this session will facilitate

• Noticing thoughts, words, and behaviors that cause harm to ourselves and others;

• Attending to the unconscious and internalized racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, adultism, ageism, and ableism present in individuals and our institution;

• Developing “discomfort resilience” through contemplative play, art, humor, music, movement and guided meditations;

• Building a shared framework of a “fierce compassion” that expresses profound love while challenging complacency.

By integrating these frameworks and exercises into our learning, teaching, research, creative practice, and administrative activities, we create opportunities for power-conscious inclusive healing, connection, and socially-just engagement. We will practice listening to each other and moving toward transformative individual and communal commitments and actions for change. With the goal of institutionalizing humanitarian love, there will be an emphasis on developing sustainable, ongoing, resourced inclusivity and equity work throughout the University of Washington Bothell.

Agenda:

9:00-9:45 Registration, Coffee & Breakfast, Seating Set Up

9:45-10:00 UW Bothell Introduction to the Day

10:00-10:40 Arriving in the Space with Dr. Majied (Welcome Meditation, Land Acknowledgement)

10:40-11:15 Building our Shared Space (Foundational concepts, agreements, and practices)

11:15-12:00 Contemplative Writing & Listening

12:00-12:45 Mindful lunch

12:45- 2:15 Contemplative Writing and Listening: Individual, Interpersonal, and Institutional Reflection on Racism and Sexism

2:15-2:30 Movement Meditation with Music

2:30-3:30 Visioning a More Equitable and Inclusive UWB: Strategies for Growth

This event is sponsored by the following departments:
UW Bothell Organizational Excellence & Human Resouces
The UW Resilience Lab
UW Bothell School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences
UW Bothell School of Nursing
UW Bothell First Year Programs