Restorative Spaces
In days like today or years like the last few years, the process of reconnecting with each other and our humanity has felt essential.
Our daily routine feels different, body numbness and mental fatigue is present, even when we are not aware. Clusters of uncomfortableness emerge throughout the body, head, shoulders, stomach, back…
We look at the mirror and don’t see ourselves, we want to hold everyone that we love and somehow bring them to a different reality, transporting them away from what we know to be inevitable to all of us.
Day in and out of numbness, witnessing violence with disbelief, evidence of a community, a city, a state, a world we don’t quite understand and definitely don’t feel we belong.
Children losing the opportunity to become adults, while intellectual rhetoric ramps up. Jumping into actions feels a bit too soon, it might further disconnect us from each other and our purpose, feels that will move us closer to a transactional opportunity versus deep transformation.
In these moments, like today, last week and last month we need more than hold space for each other, we need to hold restorative spaces.
Restorative spaces center relationships, human needs, responsibility to our interconnectedness, collective reintegration and radical healing. Restorative spaces connect and reconnect individuals with each other and themselves.
In restorative spaces we feel supported and support others, while understanding that psychological, emotional and physical safety might not be present 100% all the time for everyone. We strive to tend and to see each other.
Restorative spaces are not perfect spaces, but are collective spaces.
Restorative spaces hold breath and stories; weaving emergent dialogue and silence.
Restorative spaces guide self-inquiry, meaning making at every discovery, at every new sense of awareness, welcoming another path, another connection, another story to tell and an unlearning to do...
Restorative spaces are not about you or me, it is about us. It forges bridges among each other holding shared values of humanity.
Restorative spaces are created in the intersections of our existence, it seeks to restore and to be.
Holding Restorative Spaces as an Individual & Collective Practice:
Start with yourself and your breath.
Tend to what comes to your body and mind with no need to hold on to anything.
Ask yourself what would feel supportive today and welcome the answer…
A glass of water, a prayer, a hug, journaling, music, sitting or standing…
Holding Restorative Spaces for others:
(after your began your individual practice)
Ask others, what feelings and emotions are coming up for them,
Locate in your body, what else is coming up;
Breathe, Hold, Connect.
What would feel supportive for our time together?
This might mean that you will not get to that agenda, or report or presentation as planned. Know that if people are not present they will not appreciate the work.
Offer time for breath and reflection, offer time for feelings and emotions.
Share stories. Breathe, Hold, Connect.