Aug 25: Retrain Your Lizard Brain

 

When:  Mon, Aug 25, 6:30-8:30p
Location: New City Center, near 31st + Bloomington, Mpls.
With Good Trouble.
😷 (Masks up pls!)

Aug 27: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience

What: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience

When: Tuesday, August 27, 2024, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Where: Walker/New City Church,
3104 16th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55407 (map)
With: Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute and GOOD TROUBLE

REGISTER HERE: Eventbrite
Facebook event page 

How do we find our way through personal, cultural, and systemic trauma towards resilience?

Jul 9: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience

What: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience
When: Tuesday, July 9, 2024, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Where: Walker/New City Church,
3104 16th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55407 (map)
With: Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute and GOOD TROUBLE

REGISTER HERE: Eventbrite
Facebook event page 

How do we find our way through personal, cultural, and systemic trauma towards resilience?

Jun 13: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience

 

What: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience

When: Thursday, June 13, 2024, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Where: Walker/New City Church, 

3104 16th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55407 (map)

With: Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute and GOOD TROUBLE

REGISTER HERE:  Eventbrite

Facebook event page

How do we find our way through personal, cultural, and systemic trauma towards resilience? Our culture is honestly pretty terrible at having community rhythms to process this and tools to live towards growth. Singing and somatic practice are one container offering a space to practice working through our grief, pain, and conflict towards finding joy, courage and connection.

Inspired by the STAR* training, you’re invited to a monthly community song circle of simple songs, taught call and echo, and somatic practices to check in with how our bodies are processing. You don’t need to “be a singer” - we’re not singing to perform; we sing because it changes us.

What to Bring:
To make the most of our time together, please remember to bring the following items:

• Water to stay hydrated throughout the event
• Clothes that are suitable for easy movement
• Yoga mats, pillows, and blankets for your comfort during somatic practices
• A journal and pen for any reflections or insights you may wish to jot down

Donation Guidelines

We request a donation for tickets to this event - any amount between $10-$50; we use a sliding scale in order to make this work as accessible as possible to people. For reference, we consider:

• $10 is a Sliding scale solidarity rate for folx who would not otherwise be able to come
• $25 is a Full price ticket that allows us to break even for this event
• $50 is a Benefactor rate that allows more people to attend by covering costs for our community.

If you want some help thinking through what you might be able to donate, we've found this graphic really helpful in thinking through the amount of financial privilege you carry and how it might apply: https://www.transgendertraininginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Sliding-Scale-Guidance2.png

COVID-19 Precautions:

Setlist from May 2 Retrain Your Lizard Brain

Here are the songs we sang at the very first Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience at Walker/New City Church on Thursday evening, May 2, 2024.  Enjoy the links to online recordings for your at-home remembering pleasure!  

• Neuroplasticity Song (Ahlay Blakely)
• The Center Will Hold (text: Brene Brown, from Atlas of the Heart; music: clb)
• Do You Feel? Do You Heal? (Lu Aya Nephew, The Peace Poets + Deirdre Shabaaz)
• The Cure for the Pain (text inspired by Rumi; tune: Yam)
• Grief is Coming (Aurora’s Song) (Liz Digitale Anderson)
• The Shame Song (Ahlay Blakely) 

* no online recording available. If you discover one, please let us know in the comments!

Here are some of the Resources we promised to share:

• About the Card Decks: Having a tangible tool to sit with and reflect our feelings back to us helps us slow down, process, and make space for emotional work and intentions we otherwise tend to ignore. In May we spread out the Rest Deck by Tricia Hersey and the Artist Grief Deck, made by hospice workers in the pandemic.
• Instruments we use: 
• CajonTab by Louson Drum - Conie has a 12" CajonTab; Liz has one of the Pro series. Get to know a bit of the cajon's musical history here. Use Liz's affiliate link to get 10% off!
• Shruti Box, literally "sound" or "singing" in ancient Sankrit, replicates the sound of the Tambura, an East Asian Indian drone instrument. Part of the family of drone instruments that show up in many cultures, related to bagpipes and harmoniums. Conie's instrument is from Shrutibox.com run by Ron Kravitz of https://www.musicinthemoment.com/ in Philadelphia, PA.

Thank you to the crew who jumped in to retrain their lizard brain!  The right people were there, tenderness, grit, and support were shared. Community was tended. This is part of the world we're working towards!

Many thanks to Mni'sota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute for offering the amazing Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Resilience (STAR) training that Liz and Conie took in June 2023 and to being interested in partnering with us when we expressed interest in offering a hand-on offering.  Many thanks to Jean for their supporting hands-on support to bring this into being!  

We're planning to make this session monthly because the work of Trauma Awareness and Resiliency is long and slow!  The next Retrain Your Lizard Brain session will likely be Thursday, June 13, 2024; stay tuned for details on this blog as they unfold or sign up for the In-person Singing and/or the Good Trouble Songleaders newsletters

Keep singing and stay warm, hydrated and creative!

Love, Liz and Conie, a.k.a. Good Trouble

May 2: Retrain Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma & Resilience

What: Train Your Lizard Brain: Somatic Singing for Trauma Awareness + Resilience

When: Thursday, May 2, 2024, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Where: Walker/New City Church, 

3104 16th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55407 (map)

With: Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute and GOOD TROUBLE

REGISTER HERE:  Eventbrite

Facebook event page: https://fb.me/e/wDVOicsyt

How do we find our way through personal, cultural, and systemic trauma towards resilience? Our culture is honestly pretty terrible at having community rhythms to process this and tools to live towards growth. Singing and somatic practice are one container offering a space to practice working through our grief, pain, and conflict towards finding joy, courage and connection.

Inspired by the STAR* training, you’re invited to a monthly community song circle of simple songs, taught call and echo, and somatic practices to check in with how our bodies are processing. You don’t need to “be a singer” - we’re not singing to perform; we sing because it changes us.

What to Bring:
To make the most of our time together, please remember to bring the following items:

• Water to stay hydrated throughout the event
• Clothes that are suitable for easy movement
• Yoga mats, pillows, and blankets for your comfort during somatic practices
• A journal and pen for any reflections or insights you may wish to jot down

COVID-19 Precautions:

Oct 18: MGH Huddle Up

We are convening folks from past reads of My Grandmother's Hands (MGH) for a time of community catchup, discernment, and mutual support on

Jul 12: MGH Huddle Up!

 

We are convening folks from past reads of My Grandmother's Hands (MGH) for a time of community catchup, discernment, and mutual support on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, 1-2:30 p.m. CT. RSVP here to receive the link to join, whether its for part or the whole time.

When:  Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Time:  1-2:30 p.m. CT (11a-12:30a PT / 2-3:30p ET)

Register here

If you haven't read MGH with us before, rest assured. We will be accompanying another set of groups soon. Stayed tuned by signing up for our MGH newsletter.

Reading My Grandmother's Hands, Take 2022

It's time to read My Grandmother's Hands in community!  You are welcome to join us whether you have participated before or are newly joining us.  

We are organizing this reading with Music that Makes Community, an organization near and dear to our heart for their work to empower and liberate the spiritual life of communities through singing.  Check out more of their work here.

Groups start late in April and continue meeting every other week for eight 90-minute sessions.  Nine (!) scheduling options are available, including weekend and weekday evening.  See the details, select your best times, and register on this scheduling survey form: https://forms.gle/XErMmM9vkjCBG2wQ9.  

Mar 17: MGH Huddle Up!

 

We're convening folks from past reads of My Grandmother's Hands (MGH) for a time of community catchup, discernment, and mutual support on Thursday, March 17, 2022, 1-2:30 p.m. CT.  RSVP here to receive the link to join, whether its for part or the whole time. 

In particular, we will experience and explore the triad work Resmaa recommends in this Psychology Today article.  Then you will be invited to consider making a commitment to continue this triad work with two others of the same racial affinity group.  

If you haven't read MGH with us before, rest assured.  We will be accompanying another set of groups starting in late April.  Details are being worked out at the moment, so stayed tuned by signing up for our MGH newsletter.

Help Wanted: Advisory Board Members

 

Help Wanted:

Creating new  

Biracial & Rural* culture 

through storytelling events & retreats.

Do you fit the description of 

being black, indigenous, person of color 

who experienced otherness 

in predominantly white rural spaces. 

AND 

(pick one or several)

- desire to create more community and care 

for and with others like yourself?

- want to dig into the Mixed Bill of Rights and 

the Oath of Responsibility by Maria P.P. Root

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Conie Borchardt (@pointsoflight_mu)

- want to explore the somatic practices 

within Resmaa Menakem's My Grandmother's Hands book

with other mixed folks?

- love to share your artistic practice with others?  

Or accompany folks on their artistic explorations?

- have space and interest to plan and implement logistics 

for an arts-centered retreat for next summer?

 

* Read more about our thoughts on inclusion, 

the limitations of names, 

and what we're doing about it here.

Read My Grandmother's Hands: Spring-Summer 2021

We're facilitating a book read of Resmaa Menakem's My  Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies*, with Music that Makes Community this spring-summer.

If you've read our Reflection for the UCC Musician's Association, then you know how transformative this book is.

Would you like join us?  

Here's the overview: