Presence
A monthly online affinity space for white folks to practice for Somatic Abolitionists: White bodied Anti-Racists
2024 Dates: April 15th, May 20th, June 17th, July 15th, August 19th, September 16th, October 21st, November 18th
| 3rd Monday of the Month |
| 4 - 6 Pacific, 5 - 7 Mountain, 6 - 8 Central, 7 - 9 Eastern |
Payment Options:
Option 1: Monthly Subscription (cancel anytime) $75
Option 2: Yearly Subscription (one payment $100 off) $800
*sliding scale/payments plans upon request
In order to invite true depth and intimacy in, we must remain in humility of how we are showing up, knowing race is always present.
“Whiteness is one of the biggest and most long-running scams ever perpetrated.”
— Quinn Norton
Presence is an online affinity space for white folks
Presence is a space to reflect on how race is at play in your life and relationship with self and others. Whiteness and white body supremacy have inevitably played a part in our ability (or inability) to be connected, embodied and fully, authentically ourselves (and allow others to be and do the same). In order to invite true depth and intimacy in, we must remain in humility of how we are showing up, knowing race is always present. Always.
So, if race is always present, we are being asked to reckon with HOW that plays out. If you know how it shows up, then you can start to unlearn, relearn and choose differently. To choose presence and live in accountability, humility, curiosity. Instead of constriction, headlessness, denial, and conceit. Therefore, it is personal and starts within us (before anything else) and our everyday choices in how we show up. How we live out our outdated, toxic conditioning of superiority is on us. On us, to move uniquely (out of solidarity with whiteness, i.e. silence) and model what it is to be in a healthy relationship with self and others when it comes to the truth around race. To find purpose and taproot into the ripple effect of our words, behaviors, values.
FAQ:
//So how do we practice? What might it look like for you to be a present and embodied white ancestor? What might it mean, in terms of risk, cost and commitment...To work with, heal and “grow up” our frozen, constricted nervous systems, so used to staying silent and keeping the status quo.
//How do we choose presence and embodied existence in these white bodies? We lean into and start the long, lifetime work of building community and creating a new culture and way of being that Resmaa Menakem is calling, Somatic Abolitionism. Let’s come together as white people to unlearn, decondition, then metabolize. And this is a space to do that. A place to metabolize and practice unlearning and give up the imagination of race that is still very much stuck in our bodies. Which will only take time. And folks rooted like a dandelion taproot. Not going anywhere. Committed to generational work.
Monthly white body affinity space on the 3rd Monday of the month will not be recorded in order to create a container for folks to truly share the messy.
Can’t make it LIVE to every session? No worries.
+Recordings of Groundings
+Follow up email with Outline, Themes and Resources
+In time community and support
Squarespace will charge you this one time fee for your first Session and then I will create an ongoing invoice/subscription
Monthly white body affinity space on the 3rd Monday of the month will not be recorded in order to create a container for folks to truly share the messy.
Can’t make it LIVE to every session? No worries.
More details about this cohort here
*There will be no reimbursements if you do not attend all of your paid for sessions.
One Time Payment & Price/Monthly white body affinity space on the 3rd Monday of the month will not be recorded in order to create a container for folks to truly share the messy.
+ 3 months of Bi-weekly (Six 1:1 calls) coaching
Please reach out if in need of a different payment plan.
*Can add Voxer access for more on demand support (See other tier option)
“ White people have a very, very serious problem.
And they should start thinking about what they can do about it.
Take me out of it. ”
— Toni Morrison
Is this for you?
You may recognize yourself in these reflections from other white folks around frustrations and attempting to live into anti racism...
I am sitting in the discomfort of not knowing the best way to show up and be anti-racist. Struggling with the heaviness of this fight. Struggling with myself and how to move beyond shame when I've caused harm.
I live a double life, in one I have conversations with those who understand systems of oppression, in the other I avoid those conversations out of fear of being too much.
I find it hard to balance holding everything back to be pleasant and throwing everything out there and going too far.
I still have a lot to learn and have been struggling with feeling confident enough to speak up, share my experience and educate people around me. What are my next steps supposed to be?
I still have a lot to learn and have been struggling with feeling confident enough to speak up, share my experience and educate people around me. What are my next steps supposed to be?
This work is hard
If this keeps you from showing up, know that you are not alone. Stuck in believing that there is some check list or right way to be anti-racist. That someone else has the answers to how to live authentically as you. No one can claim that or find that for you. We all have different capacities and roles to play. And it will continue to take time and practice, mistakes and harm, to find your way into a space of conflict transformation, of question asking and out of performance. Free to choose that next right step, your right now role. There is still work to be done
To be integrated. To be practiced. As we, white people, are unable to be present and hold the depth and truth and weight of race. Present to the dense energy of discomfort. The right to remain comfortably centered is the default.White folks are disembodied and disconnected. And that is very much on purpose. Many folks want to claim we have come so far. That race is so far in the past. And yet it is that framing that keeps us from truly creating a world that all can live and thrive. Our humanity is trapped and wrapped up in the story of race. Our bodies are constricted, and wrapped so tightly, that we quickly become dysregulated in conversations of race and identity. Conversations of harm and repair.
“Healing from white-body supremacy begins with the body — your body. But it does not end there. In order to heal the collective body that is America, we also need social activism that is body centered. We cannot individualize our way out of white-body supremacy. Nor can we merely strategize our way out. We need collective action — action that heals.”
— Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands
White Folks,
Who are here for healing
For community, For emergence, Collaboration, For listening
And true, deep, authentic relationships
For truth telling and reflection
For collective soul searching and deconditioning from a virus that has been here and continues to murder in the name of white body supremacy
To be full bodied, embodied
Connected to our grief, anger
In order to walk in true humility
A community of healers, doing our personal investigative work
Tap Rooted to regenerate and self heal into something new
ABOUT MAREN (CV)
I am primarily trained in my anti-racist analysis through…
Glenn Singleton, Pacific Educational Groups, Courageous Conversations About Race Protocol
Heather Hackman, West Metro Education Program (WMEP)
Lee Mun Wah, Cross Cultural Facilitation Skills and Mindful Inquiry
National Urban Alliance, Summer Academy
Dare 2 Be Real Training (Anti-racist youth leadership program)
Building Bridges Facilitator training and community trainings
Resmaa Menakem, Somatic Abolitionism
Kelly Germain, Energetic Justice
I have facilitated conversations around restorative justice, social justice and anti-racism for over 6 years, as a teacher, as a business and culture consultant and most recently in white affinity space through Building Bridges.
What I believe in, have to believe in, is that white people have the capacity to change. It took me 30 plus years of my life. What will it take you?
Let's be a dandelion head together. Slowly, closely, intimately becoming rooted. Rooted in self. Rooted in community. Rooted in where we have been, where we are and where we want to be. In authenticity, humility, and accountability. Where our work will seed new hope, spread out into the world, influence our field and ultimately bring in more and more folks into this work together. For the rest of our lives.
Testimonials
I highly recommend working with Maren. She allows you to be yourself, to bring your whole self into the space, and accepts you for who you are while also helping you to get where you are going. Even if you are not quite sure where that is. You learn that it's about the journey, that is slow going, and that it's not a race but rather a life.
The Presence group brought mindfulness and thoughtfulness into my life. I need to be pushed to do more and better because otherwise I fall into helping others and slack off on my own work. In Presence, I was looking for a next step because I am still envisioning this work and Presence helped me to continue to build my ever-evolving vision of the future in which equity is reached and sustained.
Cannot wait to do more work with Maren in the future! - Jessica S
This is a SLOW process. My life is better because I am slowing down now for literally the first time ever. I am allowing things to look different than I ever thought they could or would or should and it is uncomfortable and I am learning that that's ok.
I feel like things have been a helpful progression. I really liked the intimacy of Uprooted, and I felt like Presence tapped into that too. It was really wonderful seeing familiar faces and continuing to share in this journey with other folx.
What would you say to someone who was in your shoes, who is thinking about joining Presence or working with me?
See what gifts you can allow yourself to received in being with other whites who are committed to the "waking up white" journey and who are struggling with it and who offer wisdom in sharing their journeys? Anyone who is familiar with 12-step work could get the value of learning from sharing as we have.
Do it!
Spend some time really thinking what you want, how you want to transform, and where you are at. I would say DO IT, AND I think it's important to be aware of where you are and why you want to join Presence, work with Maren. By no means am I saying you need all the answers. I do think it's helpful as you make this commitment to know your own why of working with Maren - it will evolve, it will change, it will grow, AND I found it helpful to have an idea of why this work and why this moment. AND - it's transofrmational. It has changed me down to my bones and heart and blood flowing through. I am supported and challenged. Held and held accountable. It has been one of the greatest gifts of my last two years.
I would say "Please do!" Maren is amazing. She is caring, direct, insightful, humble, and just all around human in her approach, which is something I greatly admire.
DO IT. NOW. It's not like anything else you've done and it'll be weird and won't always feel good or helpful but it will always be good and helpful after.
