ABOUT HOLISTIC RESISTANCE
Holistic Resistance is a team dedicated to undoing racism and oppression through questions, connection, embodiment, and slowing down to see ourselves and each other. We lead workshops, coach clients 1-on-1, and facilitate custom programs for businesses and organizations.
Holistic Resistance is made up of a core team of facilitators who hold many different identities around race, gender, sexuality, and disability. We use a trauma-healing approach to honor both our own experiences and the experiences of the people we work with. We use these lenses to share our own experiences of both systemic and interpersonal oppression, and invite people to notice their own lenses. We meet people where they are at with compassion while also inviting them to grow beyond the lenses they carry. With an emphasis on personal relationship and closeness, we aim to build life-long connections and transformation in the communities we work with.
Our approach:
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We use a trauma-healing approach to honor both our own experiences and the experiences of the people we work with. We share our own experiences of both systemic and interpersonal oppression, and invite people to notice their own lenses.
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We meet people where they are at with compassion while also inviting them to grow beyond the lenses they carry.
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We prioritize the wellness of People of Color and LGBTQ2S+ people while we work to create a new culture where anti-racism and queer liberation is possible.
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Because the trauma of oppression and privilege is stored in the body, we focus on embodiment and body sensations to lead our work. We’ve found that slowing people down and inviting them to notice what is happening in their bodies is an essential part of this work.
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With an emphasis on personal relationship and closeness, we aim to build life-long connections and transformation in the communities we work with.
ABOUT THE TEAM
AARON JOHNSON
Aaron Johnson (he/him) is an earth builder, teacher of closeness, and activist. He graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 2007 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. He has made a lifelong commitment to use the skills he possesses to end racism. In addition to using intimacy and closeness to blackness as a primary means to that end, the tools he frequently uses are speaking, teaching, singing, photography, filmmaking, and minimalism. Aaron leads a mentoring program called Turn It Up Now that focuses on elevating the power, talent, love, and work ethic of youth. He believes that deep connection is one of the most powerful tools one can use in dismantling racism.
AARON
JOHNSON
PORSHA BEED
Porsha Beed (she/her) is an intimate activist and mentor who specializes in teaching young people and adults about the importance of deep human connection, holistic resistance, and the importance of self-love and resiliency. She is passionate about dismantling racism and oppression. As an earth builder and integrator of race, she strives to build a lifelong community to end racism. Her love for the Earth and for intentional community is the nest in which Porsha has chosen to fight systems of oppression.
PORSHA
BEED
JENNIE PEARL
Jennie Pearl (she/her) is a facilitator, yoga teacher, and bodyworker who leads from emotion and embodiment in liberation work. She is committed to bridging the gap between racial justice and healing work. She founded and facilitates Wake Up: a group for white-identified people who want to unlearn their racism and white supremacy culture from the inside out. She believes cultivating ongoing anti-racist relationships is a necessary aspect of the work white people must do in order to dismantle racism.
JENNIE PEARL
CAMILLEA JOHNSON
DYLAN WILDER QUINN
Dylan Wilder Quinn (they/them) believes closeness is necessary to dismantle oppression. Their balance of life experiences as a childhood abuse survivor and holding both oppressed (trans, queer, nonbinary, living with PTSD and chronic pain) and oppressor (white, masculine) identities drives their empathy for others, and they have committed to social justice for their life. They work with others to hold more complexity about the world and people around them. They are passionate about mentoring trans and queer people, teaching about gender and sexuality, and reaching for community with fellow white people who care about dismantling our racism. They are building a world with others that moves beyond shame and judgment and lifts each other up to grow and continue in this work.
DYLAN
WILDER
QUINN
CAMILLEA JOHNSON
MISHA KELLNER-ROGERS
Misha Kellner-Rogers (she/they) does not separate this work of social justice, from their life and life’s work. Misha believes in healing and continues to give up attempts to be free from the discomfort that it requires, to touch and hold the complexity that it engenders. She continues to turn towards community and inquiry; building and staying in relationship as trauma unwinds in the process of working towards anti-racism. Misha has a background in trauma-centered bodywork and yoga. She stays in process with accountability to hold space as a cis, currently able-bodied white person. Misha supports Holistic Resistance on the admin side of things and in facilitation which provides many opportunities for learning and growth. Although they have never been much of a hat wearer, wearing various hats feels like the right fit, as this work has no one shape nor role.
MISHA
KELLNER-
ROGERS
CHELSEA MENEY
Chelsea Meney (They/Them) is a Black, Trans masculine, Queer, social justice facilitator. They earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from The University of Maryland, College Park and work as a Trauma informed Licensed Massage Therapist. They are a lifelong student of somatic embodiment teachings Alchemical Alignment and have devoted their life to fighting for BIPOC folks having a birth right to access land, mentorship, ancestral earth building skills and healing - body first, mind second. They are a ground holder that values staying human as the veils between the unseen and seen, not yet felt and deeply felt, melt, metabolize and integrate into the body. They believe reaching for heart centered relating, deep listening and striving to accurately see ourselves and each other is at the root of dismantling racism & white supremacy. Chelsea’s intersectional oppression paired with their practitioner skills has softened them to be a teacher of unwavering empathy with a vast capacity to sit with and move through white trauma stories, complexity, grief, and shame without judgment or blame. Life is my teacher, love is my intention, and balance is my baseline.
CHELSEA
MENEY
DODIE WHITAKER
Dodie Whitaker (she/they) is a multifaceted performer, educator, song activist and mom who brings her enthusiasm, diverse musical background and passion for singing into connection and collaboration with people of all ages and walks of life. A resident of Viroqua, Wisconsin and an active community song leader in the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin, Dodie blends social justice and inclusion work with over 40 years of professional musical experience to create partnerships that engender lasting systemic change through education, advocacy and community building. A theater geek and perpetual “camp counselor,” Dodie infuses laughter and love into her work as a facilitator, and believes with all her heart that the power of harmonious collaboration can heal the world.
DODIE WHITAKER
GREGORY FLYNN
Gregory Flynn (he/him) is a facilitator, coach, and collaborator who seeks to disrupt systems of oppression in his work and life. Much of what he does is about building connection and community, especially for white-bodied men—a population that's often absent from social justice spaces. With a background in organizing and community building, Greg now works largely with mission-driven organizations as they find their way in today's changing world. In 2020, he started Men Connecting: Understanding Whiteness, a 10-week online program for white-bodied men to explore how whiteness moves in and through them. He's alumni of the HR facilitation training, as well as Disrupting our Whiteness. Greg offers deep gratitude to his teachers, including Aaron, Porsha, Dylan, and Jennie of Holistic Resistance, as well as the many authors, speakers, and facilitators who have helped to shape how he works in anti-oppression spaces.
GREGORY
FLYNN
GRACE BRYANT
Grace Bryant (they/she) loves inviting people into the shadows, discomfort and fun of sex, sexuality & intimacy, community building, anti-oppression, and dismantling our inherited and created conditions. They founded Sacred Embodiment Community whose vision promotes connection and transformation through social change, awakened embodiment, conscious relating and spiritual liberation. Grace offers intimacy, relationship, spirituality and life coaching through touch & bodywork, energy work, emotional awareness and mindfulness. Grace has also worked with youth, educators and parents for two decades in the fields of performing arts, leadership, environmental education, yoga and mindfulness, emotional awareness and dismantling inherited conditions. They are exceptionally grateful for all of the communities, colleagues and courageous people in their life who inspire creativity in the chaos and have taught them so many tools of radical acceptance, and personal and societal dismantling.
GRACE
BRYANT
HEATH KOWALEWSKI
Heath Kowalewski (they/them) is committed to the lifelong journey of dismantling racism from a place of open hearted love, humility, and courageous vulnerability. They are passionate about working with other white-bodied folks to deeply feel and process the traumas of white supremacy culture in order to build resiliency to stand strong with folks of color in the fight for liberation. As a non-binary, transmasculine, queer individual they are also committed to understanding the intersections of gender and sexuality with oppression and racism, and to serve as a bridge of connection across gender and sexuality, particularly with other white folks. Heath’s work with Holistic Resistance since 2018, including a 6-month Facilitator Training, is a foundational and ongoing influence, support, and accountability in how they engage in anti-racist work — from philosophy to practices that include trauma-awareness, somatic wisdom, active listening, inquiry, creativity, singing, earth connection and reaching for lifelong connections. They see each breath, each moment, as an opportunity to lean deeper into healing their own healing process and to continuously increase their capacity as a white-bodied individual to stay awake and connected to the reality of oppression. Heath’s identities include community organizer, dancer, builder, relational activist, deep lover, and plant witch.
HEATH
KOWALEWSKI
ANNA-BROWN GRISWOLD
Hi, I’m Anna-Brown.
(she/her pronouns, white-identified)
I’m a trauma therapist and facilitator in occupied Coast Salish/Duwamish land known as Seattle. For most of my adult life, I have been experimenting with how to integrate the transformative power of meditative practice, the skills of psychotherapy, and a good dose of radical analysis to challenge and dismantle oppression. Working primarily with white-bodied folks, I offer support and tools for awakening and social justice:
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Somatic and emotional capacity
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Stamina, resilience, and relational connection
Undoing cultural and structural white supremacy requires us to digest pain, trauma, and emotion while deepening and strengthening connection. I support individuals, groups, organizations, and communities engaging in this work.
ANNA-BROWN GRISWOLD
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