Episode 21 - Grieving and Liberation with Michelle C. Johnson

Say hello to Michelle C. Johnson, our guest for Episode 21! She went DEEP to offer:

-- why she doesn't buy into dominant culture's definition of "productivity";

-- how collective grief is connected to freedom and liberation; and

-- her practice for staying grounded in a noisy world.

Her bio: Michelle Johnson is a social justice warrior, author, dismantling racism trainer, empath, yoga teacher and practitioner, and an intuitive healer. With over 20 years of experience leading dismantling racism work and working with clients as a licensed clinical social worker, she has a deep understanding of how trauma impacts the mind, body, spirit, and heart. Her awareness of the world through her own experience as a black woman allows her to know, first-hand, how privilege and power operate.

Michelle has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary and a Master's degree in Social Work from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She has worked in several non-profits and served as an elected official and on many non-profit boards of directors. She has worked with large corporations, small non-profits, and community groups, including the ACLU-WA, Duke University, Google, This American Life, The Center for Equity and Inclusion, Eno River Unitarian Universalist Church, Lululemon, and many others. Michelle published Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World in 2017; she teaches workshops in yoga studios and community spaces nationwide. She is on the faculty of Off the Mat Into the World, and she serves as the Co-Director of 18 Springs Healing Center in Winston-Salem, NC. Michelle was a Tedx speaker at Wake Forest University in 2019, and she has been interviewed on several podcasts in which she explores the premise and foundation of Skill in Action, along with creating ritual in justice spaces, our divine connection with nature and Spirit, and how we as a culture can heal.

Michelle leads courageously from the heart with compassion and a commitment to address the heartbreak dominant culture causes for many because of the harm it creates. She inspires change that allows people to stand in their humanity and wholeness in a world that fragments most of us. Whether in an anti-oppression training, yoga space, individual or group intuitive healing session, the heart, healing and wholeness are at the center of how she approaches all of her work in the world.

Her #TNWIDTakeaway: "I want to just encourage people to be in their wholeness and to really nourish and honor the different parts of themselves that need to flourish and come forth, like in their work and their practice."

For more information, including the show notes, click here: https://stephanieghoston.com/tnwid-episode-21