Grounded & Growing is BACK!
"This has been an amazing opportunity to learn at a very high level about how to navigate challenging conversations and situations across lines of difference, with a thorough grounding in Jewish values and leading-edge spirituality."
~ Jewish Clergy, Grounded & Growing Alum
In May and June, we gathered our inaugural cohort of forward-thinking, justice-minded folks ready to establish or deepen their trauma-informed, Jewish racial justice practice, and it was powerful.
We introduced our participants to a new framework, the S.H.E.M.A. Process: a series of practices integrating multi-disciplinary wisdom and knowledge and providing a practical guide for navigating high-stakes, complicated challenges and opportunities, professionally and in our personal lives.
Often we get stuck when navigating challenges or conflicts because we don’t know how to fully account for all of the variables involved: both with the other players and in our own inner landscapes.
Recognizing that collective and individual trauma affects behavior will help you to courageously face what’s been getting in the way and come out on the other side with greater ease, consciousness, compassion, and even joy.
We see our colleagues in the work, professionals, organizers, and leaders, drive themselves into the ground, often spinning their wheels and struggling with relationships across lines of difference without fully knowing why. They often shoulder these frustrations with little to no ritual or practice to support and renew them. At the same time, too many regenerative or spiritual practices are taught as if they were separate from the world.
It doesn’t have to be either/or.
The S.H.E.M.A. Process creates more space and more intention in responses to friction, conflict, and disappointment. It provides alternatives to the defaults of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
Our pilot cohort learned important skills and deepened their self-awareness.
But don't take our word for it. Here's what our Grounded & Growing alumni are saying:
"Grounded & Growing was a really amazing experience to weave together trauma-informed work, racial justice and Jewishness. It resonated in a completely different way than any other justice training I have participated in to-date."
"Learning how the SHEMA process can be both a mechanism for internal growth, as well as a tool to help be proactive in changing my own ways of interacting with individuals and communities across lines of difference has been incredibly helpful."
"I have tried to bring Grounded & Growing principles into my professional life, especially as I lead conversations internally and with clients around DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) work."
"As Jews, I think so many of us are already committed to social justice and activism. Grounded & Growing provided an abundance of tools to help further my work in those areas, but it also provided a framework for me to figure out whether my presence is useful in any given situation. Am I needed here or do I just want to *be* needed? This program has given me so many things to take out into the world - as an ally and when requesting allyship from others."
"This is an incredible investment in yourself and the community to take a deep dive into social justice work and how it intersects with the world around us. "
"As a member of the Racial Justice Committee at my Temple, I have noticed that I have more confidence, more clarity about what I want to say, and more willingness to say what I want to say out loud. The emotional awareness model you teach has helped me when I encounter barriers. I really like using it."
"I know the S.H.E.M.A. Process will definitely be helpful at work. But more broadly when I find myself triggered by any experience."
TOP 10 REASONS TO SIGN UP FOR GROUNDED & GROWING
- The principles & practices we teach in this program can change your life. (Hey, why should we waste your time beating around the bush?!)
- This program attracts incredibly thoughtful, committed, and inspiring leaders and individuals to participate.
- You’re guided by 2 seasoned, award-winning, and authentic facilitators and coaches.
- The time commitment is flexible, depending on what you have available. We recommend you attend some sessions live, but you can catch the recordings some weeks if you have personal or work conflicts with the live sessions. Our past participants found the content of the program so beneficial, that most who missed sessions easefully caught up when necessary and were also supported by their fellow participants.
- You’ll likely notice from the first lesson how immediately relevant and applicable Grounded & Growing insights are in your daily life.
- Once you sign up, you’ll have access to all the Grounded & Growing materials from your cohort for the lifetime of the product. The access to the materials for some of our products is time bound (e.g. for the length of the program, 6 months, 1 year, etc.). But because this is material that is enduring, we anticipate your need to revisit and/or clarify as you deepen your roots and continue to grow–we’ve got you covered!
- Given how rich and transformative the course content is, we’re likely to expand the program going forward. Now’s the time to hop aboard if you’re interested in a more compact/shorter–and likely less expensive–version (and potentially receive discounts to join future iterations to deepen your understanding and application).
- Need a boost to help you advance toward your personal or professional aspirations, but are daunted or stuck? Grounded & Growing will absolutely, concretely help you with that.
- Social justice analysis and deep intercultural competence are woven throughout the S.H.E.M.A. Process.
- This program is phenomenally rich and unique. The S.H.E.M.A. Process we teach in Grounded & Growing is a sophisticated, yet approachable/practical framework that ensures you ask more of the right questions to access greater insight and wisdom and utilize more transformative practices. Your life and career will be increasingly enhanced when you regularly apply the insights and reframes Grounded & Growing provides.
Grounded & Growing participants will come away with:
Greater analysis
of predictable patterns of behavior, and what's behind those patterns
Tools and mindsets
to more effectively navigate intercultural conflict
A new framework
to develop, enhance, or integrate a regular mindful/spiritual practice for pursuing justice.
The participants in this intimate program will learn our S.H.E.M.A. Process: a series of practices integrating multi-disciplinary wisdom and knowledge and providing a practical guide for a trauma-informed racial justice practice.
The techniques and tools in this course will provide support for navigating conflict across lines of difference (including and especially racial difference), whether professionally or personally.
If you’re ready to show up more fully in your wholeness for the sake of our wholeness, it’s time.
We built this experience for people who are ready to deepen their existing racial justice analysis and antiracism and integrate them with (self-)compassion and mindful practice. The ideal participant has a commitment to a more just world and a desire to humbly and mindfully–but efficiently–advance your learning journey.
This transformational curriculum will be delivered in real time through weekly group calls with April and Tracie.
What's different about this cohort?
We knew we had a goldmine when we first conceived of this program, and were working to balance everyone's busy lives, so we condensed it to 6 weeks. The first cohort made it clear that they wanted--more. Shamatnu -- We heard you!
For the upcoming cohort, instead of 6 sessions with a bonus session, Grounded & Growing will span a full 10 weeks, from the bonus/recommended Kick-off to the closing siyyum/conclusion.
We're also offering the sessions twice each week. Except for kick-off and siyyum/conclusion, you can pick which day/time works better for your schedule, Tuesdays at 3pm ET | 12pm PT or Thursdays at 12pm ET | 9am PT. You can come to the same time each week, or mix and match as it suits your schedule. And if there's a week when neither slot fit, you can always watch the session recordings.
Tuition for this experience is $772.
Payment plans are available.
Meet your facilitators, April & Tracie:
April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker are the executive leadership of the Joyous Justice, LLC team, and the co-hosts of the podcast Jews Talk Racial Justice with April & Tracie.
As the founder and director of Joyous Justice, April brings her insightful and award-winning expertise from nearly 20 years of leading-edge professional and grassroots organizing leadership in Jewish and interfaith social justice spaces. Additionally, she incorporates her knowledge from 10 years of counter-oppressive, trauma-informed peer counseling, as well as spiritual inspiration from her Kohenet Hebrew Priestess training in anticipation of her Summer 2023 ordination.
Tracie is Joyous Justice's and April's esteemed Senior Partner and brings her 20+ years of executive, operations, and social justice leadership to Joyous Justice's work. She is a leader for Jewish social justice efforts in her roles as chair of the social justice committee at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and as co-chair of the Baltimore leadership council of Jews United for Justice.
Each comes to the work of social justice and organizational leadership with her own perspectives, experiences, and expertise which complements the other. April's loving, bold vision filtered through her multi-disciplinary mind & expertise, combined with Tracie's skill and passion for articulating complex subjects and systems to folks newer to social justice and spirituality with a balance of principles and practice that is more beginner-level accessible, makes them an effective and memorable duo.
On top of it all, they're good friends who care deeply for one another and for their work--and it shows. One pilot participant put it this way:
"I never experienced April or Tracie's teaching and they each bring profound wisdom, skill, presence. I love how they both take turns in breaking down big ideas step by step and sharing of their personal processes. You are both powerful, energetic teachers and I'm grateful for the time to sit and listen and learn from you."
photo: Michael Temchine
More praise for Grounded & Growing from participants:
"What I’ve learned through Grounded & Growing helped me successfully navigate a recent lay leadership challenge I faced. Instead of reactively responding to a problematic email from a committee leader right away, I used the self-coaching framework which helped me realize I had gotten into a pattern of getting overly frustrated with him without doing anything to change the pattern. I ultimately reached out to a trusted confidant to talk it through and then checked in the person of color who was impacted by the white committee leader's original email and then back with the committee leader. In the end, I think I had a much looser grip on the outcome and also had the chance to mindfully connect with the new committee member and the committee leader in ways that I think were generative and forward-moving."
"One notable success I’ve already had in applying the S.H.E.M.A. Process is a friend and colleague came to me with an overwhelming professional situation in their community, and I was able to use the S.H.E.M.A. Process and tools to help them understand what was actually happening, why it was causing them to panic, and helping them work to a thoughtful place where forward steps were possible."
“It has definitely given me perspective on my work culture--I work at a synagogue where my boss is very much of the "form ten committees to solve a problem" mentality. Knowing this impulse is part of a Jewish survival pattern makes me feel a bit more confident in my instinct for stillness and processing before acting.”
"What I’ve learned in Grounded & Growing is relevant and helpful in both my personal and professional life. It offers a reliable, yet customizable framework for things I might have hodge-podged together before without the intention needed for forward movement."
"What’s been a welcome surprise for me during this program is the confirmation that what I am processing IS difficult, amazing new friends I’ve made, and the connection to ancestral trauma coping mechanisms that are still controlling my/our daily life/lives."
"I’m noticing that the reframes and insights you taught for the H of the S.H.E.M.A. Process are coming up daily and it brings so much helpful perspective to any situation I’m experiencing or witnessing."
"I have been surprised with the amount of hope these sessions have generated. It is hard for me not to feel like we [our society, some of our communities] are going backward in many ways, and also not to let my frustrations with where my community folks are overwhelm me. Looking at the framework that April and Tracie have laid out, I have found ways in which I can still take the work and the challenges seriously without it consuming every part of my mind and heart."
Key Dates:
Registration Closes - Fri July 15 @ 11:59 ET
***All sessions are recorded, so you can catch up if life gets in the way!***
BONUS / Recommended Kick-Off Session for Participants
Wed July 20 @ 12pm ET | 9am PT (1.5 hrs)
Sessions 1 - 8
Choose: Tue or Wed from 7/20 - 9/14
Tue 3pm ET / 9am PT (1.5 hrs)
Wed 12pm ET / 9am PT (1.5 hrs)
Siyyum / Closing
EITHER Tue Sep 20 @ 3 pm ET | 12pm PT
OR Wed Sep 21 @ 12pm ET | 9am PT
(final date determined by participants' availability)
