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RSVP by 10/14: Bearing Witness to the Wounded Healer

Fred

BIPOC communities and other historically oppressed and ignored communities have suffered under racist and patriarchal systems of oppression since the founding of our country. And they have been fighting against these systems for just as long.

This fight against and within a racist society is taking a toll on our community leaders. Chronic stress and generational trauma are harming our physical and mental health and our ability to show up every day, as fully human. Burnout and fatigue, and subsequently its health and life impact, are disproportionately experienced by those who identify as BIPOC.

Bearing witness to trauma within a community involves a profound collective experience. It requires individuals to acknowledge and empathize with the pain of others, which can be both a burden and a shared responsibility. This process often reveals the depth of trauma and its impact on communal bonds, exposing the underlying issues that affect everyone. To this end, we call all elders, healers, guides, mentors, artists, and community culture bearers and witnesses to the sacred process of rest that is our birthright. Please join us for our upcoming virtual workshop:

Bearing Witness to the Wounded Healer: Pathways to Well-being and Rest
Saturday, Oct. 19, 1-4 p.m.

Register here

RSVP by Oct. 14. Space is limited to 50 participants. If registration is full and you’d like to be added to our waitlist, please email root@nexuscp.org.

In our time together, we will explore the healer’s journey by combining storytelling and somatic practices to create a powerful healing dynamic in our group. Storytelling allows individuals to articulate and share personal narratives, offering a way to process and externalize their experiences. This verbal expression can bring clarity and validation, helping participants make sense of their trauma or struggles. When alternated with somatic practices — such as body awareness exercises, breath work, or movement — participants can connect their emotional and physical experiences, fostering a holistic sense of healing. Somatic practices help ground and integrate the emotions revealed through storytelling, releasing stored tension and promoting relaxation. Together, these approaches facilitate a comprehensive healing process by addressing the mind and body. The shared experience of storytelling and somatic work in a group setting also strengthens communal bonds, creating a supportive environment where individuals can heal together and build a collective sense of resilience.


Reclaiming Our Own Time (ROOT) is part of an ever-growing movement to provide resources, support, and spaces for rest and restoration for Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color movement leaders. ROOT calls for us to reclaim our humanity and return to our ancestral roots through the practice of rest and restoration. In this space, we lift up our elders, healers, guides, mentors, artists, and community culture bearers who have been holding our communities through joy, grief, and passing ancestral practices intergenerationally. We believe we must honor our healers by curating spaces where we can center rest and shared practices can emerge.

As part of our commitment to learn from and engage with our community healers, we are offering a series of engagements, including a listening session, two virtual workshops, and a three-day, in-person convening. This series will craft distinct spaces tailored to our healers in different ways.

  • Sept. 26: A community listening session to help shape and inform this series.
  • Oct. 19: “Bearing Witness to the Wounded Healer: Pathways to Well-being and Rest,” a virtual workshop for those who are tending to others in the community.
  • Dec. 4: “Reclaiming Our Own Time in an Anti-Rest System: Addressing Burnout for Medical Providers.” A virtual workshop for healers working in any capacity within large systems.
  • Feb. 27 – March 1, 2025: A three-day, in-person convening designed for all healers, wherever they find themselves on the healer’s journey.

Join us at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge near Old Cedar Bridge on Saturday, Oct. 5! We will go on a nature walk to observe how our plant relatives rest/hibernate in preparation for the winter season. Together, we will reflect on:

  • What we can learn from them
  • What their rest practices tell you about how you wish to rest
  • How we can stay connected to our plant relatives as we journey through rest

A light lunch will be provided. Space is limited to 20 people — please register at the link below!

Saturday, Oct. 5
10:30 a.m.
RSVP

If registration is full and you’d like to be added to our waitlist, please email root@nexuscp.org.

ROOT (Reclaiming Our Own Time) community events are open to all BIPOC folks. These gatherings aim to confront oppressive systems that hold our rest, healing, and wellness captive. Together, we can shift from a production-centered mindset to one of liberation.

Reclaiming Our Own Time (ROOT) is part of an ever-growing movement to provide resources, support, and spaces for rest and restoration for Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color movement leaders. In this space, we lift up our elders, healers, guides, artists and culture bearers who have been holding our communities through joy, grief, and passing ancestral practices intergenerationally. We believe we must honor our healers by curating spaces where we can center rest and shared practices can emerge.

We’re excited to invite you to a community conversation to help shape two virtual events and a three-day “Heal the Healers” convening in winter 2025. The healer’s convening promises to be a sanctuary of rest, reflection and rejuvenation amidst workshops on holistic care and professional growth. As an act of revolution and movement building, attendees will immerse themselves in sessions advocating the necessity of self-care, from meditation techniques to stress management. Experts will share insights on how rest prevents burnout, fosters resilience, and nurtures mental health. As participants experience connection and harmony within, the alignment reduces anxiety, promotes clarity of mind, and cultivates a profound sense of spiritual well-being. Rest creates space for contemplation, renewal, and a deeper understanding of one’s purpose and values.

We want to tailor this conference to meet the needs of our local community. We would like your suggestions for regional and national presenters, workshop ideas, experiences you’d like to have, and ways to network. If you’d like to inform us about this process, please join our Zoom meeting on Thursday, Sept. 26, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Register

 

Did you apply to the Open Road Fund this year? We invite you to join us for our final Community Care Call, where we will hold space for aftercare and community support. The video call will be hosted by three Black mental health practitioners — Dr. Aja King, Dr. BraVada, and Cedric Weatherspoon — alongside Open Road Fund staff, who will be available to provide support and answer your questions.

Monday, Sept. 16
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Register to receive the Zoom link!

Space is limited. Please only RSVP if you are certain you will attend.

We understand that many intense emotions can be stirred by the Open Road Fund application questions, especially those concerning our shared ancestry. And we also know that not being chosen for a gift from the Fund can trigger feelings of grief or despair.

This Care Call is an invitation to process and explore all the emotions that may arise from the application and selection process. Dr. Aja King, Dr. BraVada, and Cedric Weatherspoon will provide a healing space and practices that may help guide you through what you are feeling. This space is meant to be one where we can work through personal and collective emotions of shame, sadness, and anger. Please join us!

Interested in applying for a three-month sabbatical with Nexus? Watch one of our info sessions! We share everything you need to know about our Continuous Sabbatical Fellowship for BIPOC movement leaders.

The recordings cover:

  • Who Reclaiming Our Own Time (ROOT) is
  • An overview of the fellowship
  • Eligibility guidelines
  • Application timeline

July 22 recording:

Aug. 12 recording:

Join Nexus Community Partners and Project Equity for a free webinar July 24 at noon. Learn how to sell your business to your employees, and how employee ownership can be used to build a succession plan and a tool for employee retention and business resiliency. Register here!

Employee ownership can offer:

  • Lower turnover: Workers at employee-owned businesses have 46% longer job tenure than their peers in firms that are not employee-owned.
  • Higher productivity: Employee-owned enterprises reported productivity levels that were 9–19% higher than levels in traditionally structured similar businesses.
  • Higher profits: Employee-owned firms have an average profit margin almost 8.5% higher than the average private firm.
  • Greater resilience: In 2020, during COVID business shutdowns, employee-owned companies were less than half as likely to lay off employees and 6 times more likely to say they expected to make a full recovery.

Nexus Community Partners will also share more information about the LOCAL Fund, which offers grants and technical assistance for worker co-op startups, conversions of existing businesses, and existing co-ops in Saint Paul.

A group of employees smile in front of a colorful wall. Graphic reads: "Free webinar July 24. How to sell your business to your employees."

Join us on July 6 from 12 PM to 2 PM at Minnehaha Park for our Reimagine Rest pop-up event, featuring paletas from La Michoacana. 🌿✨

This is your open invitation from ROOT to hang out, practice, and discuss rest with other community members. Our pop-ups are designed as spaces where you can “pop-in” without a set agenda. It’s all about creating moments to experience rest and meaningfully connect. 🫧💬

ROOT (Reclaiming Our Own Time) community events are open to all BIPOC folks. These gatherings aim to confront oppressive systems that hold our rest, healing, and wellness captive. Together, we can shift from a production-centered mindset to one of liberation. 🖤✊

We hope to see you there, creating a space for rest and reflection.

#ReimagineRest #CommunityHealing #BIPOCLeaders #RestIsResistance #WellnessJourney #Liberation

📍 Minnehaha Park – Pavillion Wabun F

 

The Open Road Fund 2024 opens this Juneteenth (6/19)! Join us at an upcoming information sessions to learn more and get ready to apply!

Click here to Register

Wednesday, June 26th, 12pm-1:30pm

During these sessions we will:

  • Introduce the Open Road Fund and the Open Road team.
  • Show participants how to apply, including a live walkthrough of the application.
  • Explain how the Open Road Fund selects grantees, and answer any questions you may have.
  • Discuss what wealth building grant awards can be used for.

Watch the June 5th Info session recording here or below.

These info sessions are free and open to the community. Each session will take place on Zoom and will be recorded. 

 

We’ll be kicking off Black History Month with another Black Study Session on Wednesday, February 1st, from 5-7pm on zoom. Registration link will be live soon!

Join us to learn about Black cooperatives, to meet other community members, and to learn more about community wealth building efforts, including the Black Community Trust Fund. These sessions are Black-centered, but all community members are welcome to come connect and learn. From housing collectives and social clubs to freedom farms and mutual aid, Black social, cultural, and economic solidarity IS Black History. Cooperation and collectivism live on as we fight for our liberation, and center our healing and joy.

Did you miss our first North Star Information Session this morning? Thankfully we recorded it! Watch it below to learn about the 2021 North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship and our focus on Housing Coops and Land Trusts, and Investment Cooperatives.

You can apply here by filling out the application, or you can submit a video response with your answers to the application questions.

 

When this North Star cohort started in October, it was our first virtual cohort, our first cohort organized around collective land ownership, and our first cohort where entire cooperatives participated together. In anticipation of North Star graduation this Wednesday, we will be revisiting some of the North Star sessions, what they learned, and sharing some resources. 

Cooperatives provide a different model of ownership and wealth sharing, and in the process, we are asked to invest deeply in one another, identify and communicate our needs, and skillfully navigate conflict. At Nexus, we realize that we are all connected – what affects one person or community, affects another – and this kind of approach to decisions and conflict is one part of learning how to honor our responsibility for each other. In April, Autumn Brown joined our North Star to discuss democratic decision making and conflict resolution. 

A co-owner at AORTA, Autumn taught us about different models of democratic decision making and strategies for working through conflict. Autumn emphasized the importance of breaking down HOW decisions are made, identifying who has the final say, and thinking about if you like how it is. These considerations are key for any group of people starting a cooperative. 

A key piece of democratic decision making is navigating conflict—a natural and healthy part of people working and/or living together. Autumn talked about how to prepare and plan for conflict before it even happens, making it easier for conflict to be handled well, and be generative and healthy for the group. For example, self-evaluations of conflict styles, helping cooperative members understand how they feel about conflict, and how they like to address it, help cooperatives determine their approach to conflict before it starts. 

Conflict resolution skills are foundational in cooperatives, and in our lives, communities, and movements as well. Dealing with conflict in grounded and centered ways can be difficult, but is essential. As we fight for better futures for all of us, we must simultaneously consider how we govern ourselves—how we want to be together, how to make decisions together, how we want to deal with hurt and harm, and what accountability means to us.

Do you want to learn more about North Star? Mark your calendars for graduation this Wednesday (5/26)! Learn about our incredible fellows, and hear some of our keynote speaker Noni Session’s wisdom (East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative). Click here to RSVP.