We Believe

We believe that the combination of activated and politically engaged practitioners, alignment around liberatory principles of culture building, and the development of clearly articulated emotional competencies, will support a more thriving and inviting ecosystem supportive of movement.

We believe that the healing necessary to fully reinhabit our own bodies and ecosystems is the healing that will ultimately transform oppressive systems. We believe that healing happens through relationship, and that relationship is the primary site of change. It is healing in relationship that transforms systems.

We especially believe that shifts to culture and practice inside our systems, including familial, organizational, and movement require the commitment and transformation of Transformational Characters who are committed to taking on healing in their lifetimes and lineages that activates shifts and transforms their surrounding networks.

We know that our relationships with each other are the foundation for the change work we do. To strengthen our bonds, we have to engage trauma healing and resilience building in our physiology and through practice. To live out these bold visions for interdependence, for the abolition of harmful systems, we have to develop embodied and emotional capacities that reinforce these visions and make them possible.

Mission

Our mission is to change the conversation, practice, and politics of healing through strategic training and interventions at interpersonal, organizational, cultural, and environmental scales.

Vision

We envision a world where we use power to heal rather than destroy. One where people are free to fully feel their lives and are neither forced into numbness nor reactivity. We envision a world where our relationships with ourselves, each other and the environment are authentic, intimate and regenerative.

Our Values

RELATIONSHIP is central to everything we do
- Transformation happens through relationship
- It’s not only about what we do, but it’s about how we and others feel in the doing
- We appreciate and care for ourselves and each other by practicing mutuality and boundaries
- Relationships are where we learn to change and grow and where the impacts of our shifts are felt
- We value relationships, so we practice proactive accountability
We encourage a learning approach and living CURIOSITY
- We support experimentation and innovation
- We believe in grounded development and growth
- Engaging curiosity we develop our ability to be with the unknown
- We create new futures by expanding our own imagination and encouraging curiosity in others
- We stay committed to learning more about ourselves and this path
- Feedback keeps a system alive. We learn from the feedback we receive and make shifts where necessary
We Practice COURAGE and Take Risks
- We take risks towards what we have not yet seen, grounded in wisdom of what we’ve learned
- We are willing to do and say things that are hard when necessary and with support
- It takes courage to become who we are. We encourage each of us becoming ourselves
- We can and do change. We are each committed to the hard work it takes to live our values and visions
We seek a standard of EXCELLENCE, not perfection
- Through excellence we convey our intention, commitment and care
- Excellence comes from our most authentic and powerful selves when we are not hiding or proving
- We are unafraid of embodying our power
We maintain RECIPROCITY in all we do
- We believe that giving back more than we take creates abundance
- Awareness and acknowledgment of how we impact and are impacted by the web of relationships keep us in right relationship with each other and the earth

Theory of Change

Our work uses embodiment as the standard of change, which means it is not enough for us to envision new ways of being, but we need support to practice, to feel, and to stay the course of transformation. To that end, we offer tools and principles through which people can build and practice liberatory culture within their bodies, organizations, and networks.

Healing justice frameworks have opened up a conversation on the politicized nature of healing, reaching many that would not have otherwise found their place in change-work and creating new conversations and practice inside of movement spaces.

We believe that the combination of activated and politically engaged practitioners, alignment around liberatory principles of culture building, and the development of clearly articulated emotional competencies, will support a more thriving and inviting ecosystem supportive of movements.

Lineage

Our work exists in an ever-growing lineage of remembering, learning and exploration. It is deeply influenced and informed by the work of generative somatics from 2010-2019, by humanistic and feminist psychotherapeutic models, and by Buddhist practice and philosophy. Foundationally, though, this work is in communication with each of our indigenous histories and is most interested in awakening our bodies to our web of relationships through culture. We are especially held by Black and Native teachings in the Southern United States and all that they have to teach us about where we are and what can be recovered.

Explore our Lineage of Embodiment Panel Series

Meet the TEI Team