Mindful Changemakers

A Social Justice Training for All

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change yourself.
change the world.

change yourself. change the world.

Mindful Changemakers is an 8-week mindfulness-based social justice training for all. It is designed to give you the space, community and tools you need for personal healing and the deeper understanding of how we need to work together for collective liberation.

Our program takes the necessary intersectional approach, looking at our human experience through the identity labels that define us — race, gender, sexuality and the body.
Our intention with this program is to help you socially locate yourself by understanding your proximity to power and privilege, and to provide you with tangible ways to heal and mindfully show up as a changemaker in the world.
Share, process and learn in an environment for all.

Space for Growth

If you’re overwhelmed and exhausted — you’re not alone.
We hear this all the time. Your own experiences of marginalization might be so internalized, that you don’t even know where to start. You feel helpless, angry, frustrated and maybe even guilty for craving joy and levity — or wanting to live your life while you continue to do the work. At the same time, you’re always worrying that nothing will ever change — and that you will never be understood or heard.
If you want to be a part of the change, but don’t know quite where to start — or want to heal and show up in the world with more resilience and compassion — this program is for you.
SECURE YOUR SPOT
Designed to immerse you in personal discovery, self-exploration, and awareness-generating conversations on identity, our goal is to support you in your personal transformation and our collective growth.
Mindful Changemakers aims to provide you with the education, tools, community and resources to jumpstart your understanding of the what, why, and how of intersectional allyship.
If you are feeling called to explore your role in oppressive systems, what it takes to heal, and what you can do to change through a mindfulness-based approach, these courses are for you.
Race
Sexuality
Gender
Body
Race
Sexuality
Gender
Body

Curriculum

Mindful Changemakers can either be taken live with a weekly interactive study group or independently at your own pace. We invite you to choose whichever form is best to support you and your learning journey.

MODULE 1 + 2: The Foundation

Take a deep breath.
We start by learning about who we are and what we’re doing here. Become familiar with the things you might hear throughout our time together. Explore the suggested readings, content, and resources to help you through the course. Learn how to practice listening to our bodily cues, and talk about feeling uncomfortable in a brave and compassionate space.
We will then lay the foundation of your practice by exploring how we can all embody social justice through mindfulness-based practices – unbiased compassion, deep listening and dismantling, radical rest and joy as liberation. We will learn what it means to reflect on the collective and how we can honor ancestors, land and traditions with these practices.
After setting our intentions and conditions as a group, we will explore and identify your proximity to power and privilege. Learn about the roots of harmful narratives. Define terms and concepts we often hear, like intersectionality, harm, and allyship, while also discussing boundaries, intent v. impact, and some we may not be familiar with yet.

MODULE 3 - 7: Our Four Pillars

These modules will provide you with a foundational understanding of each pillar through an intersectional lens, along with the resources and tools to show up as an ally. We take this approach because we believe that everyone has different access to power and that no matter how you identify, each of us can show up together for collective liberation.
  • Unpacking Race
    • Explore how the construct of race impacts individuals and communities, and acknowledge racial differences throughout cultures. We will learn the history of oppression and the ways in which it continues today – from identifying our own biases and discomfort, to acknowledging the harms of microaggressions and tone policing. Together, we will uncover and explore the ways white supremacy shows up in our own bodies and minds.
  • Dismantling Gender
    • We’ll begin with learning to define gender and that gender does not equal sex. Together we will become familiar with terminology related to gender (non-binary, transgender, gender non-conforming, cisgender, assigned at birth, and more), and uncover how binary language is limiting and oppressive and creates inequities and violence across all intersectional identities.
  • Embracing Sexuality
    • Together, we will explore our sexuality and sexual liberation — from understanding ways people identify sexually to learning the harmful narratives that limit our sexual liberation. Begin to understand the differences between gender identity and sexuality, and learn how oppressive systems affect people based on their sexual identity and expression.
  • Honoring the Body
    • Explore ableism, fatphobia, diet culture and how they each create harmful narratives that impact our relationships with our bodies. Together, we will acknowledge the violence against bodies and learn how certain bodies are excluded, exploited, and sexualized.

MODULE 8: The Action Plan

After an integration week, we will finish our time together by creating a plan that focuses on a mission and purpose and centers marginalized communities. We will explore the many ways we can put our plans into action – from mutual aid to community building. Through our self-reflection and examination of the intersectionality of oppression, we will lay a foundation to be mindful changemakers and take one more step towards collective liberation.

The Takeaways

What you’ll learn after completing Mindful Changemakers:
  • How systems of oppression have made you feel and impacted your life and the lives of others.
  • Where you have biases around the body, what is perceived to be an ideal body, and how that ideal body is perceived based on race, gender, sexuality, and ability.
  • The history of fluidity through gender expression, different gender and non-gender conforming experiences, and how you hold proximity and power as it relates to gender.
  • How and where you have the power to create change, and how healing, rest and self-care play a part in taking action.
  • How to take personal action towards dismantling oppressive systems, and receive action steps to uplift others and deepen your allyship.
  • How to continue to show up as you are, and begin to embody who you want to be.
  • How constructs of race, gender, sexuality, and body have negatively affected you, and how intersectionality impacts your lived experience and the experiences of others.

The Value

Investment: $500/person
We will provide a healing space for important conversations, amplify the voices and identities of people from all backgrounds, and offer a wide range of mindfulness modalities to serve your individual — and our collective — healing. Mindful Changemakers is offered in two different options:
 
  • Self-Study: This go-at-your-own pace option allows folks to sit with the material and learn independently on their own.
REGISTER FOR SELF STUDY

Extra Space

We are currently accepting scholarships at this time. 10 people will be awarded partial or full scholarships for this program based on that person’s need. We will be centering beautiful humans who hold multiple marginalized identities and who are committed to their journeys. If you are interested in requesting a scholarship, please click on the “Request A Scholarship” button below and fill out the form.

Payment installments are also available for those who need the extra space. Enroll by July 5 and register for three payments of $150. Any enrollment after will be $200 for the first payment, and $150 for the remaining two payments.
3 PAYMENTS OF $175 (SELF-STUDY)
REQUEST A SCHOLARSHIP

The Teaching Team

Our teachers’ intentions are simple: to make the practice as accessible and inclusive as possible, so we can all work towards collective liberation. From race to gender to sexuality to our bodies, we share the practice through an intersectional lens with the deep belief that by healing ourselves, we can heal the world around us. A GaneshSpace Founding Teacher will be facilitating the program from start to finish with expert guest teachers, specializing in certain topics through their lived experiences and training. Please note the guest teachers will only be available when you sign up to be a part of our LIVE cohort.

Designed by Founding Teacher Linda Lopes, you will be supported along this journey with ample education, resources, tools and technique for you to emerge as a Mindful Changemaker. We will be announcing our full teaching team soon. Until then, you can learn more about the GaneshSpace team here.

 

Guest Teachers + Speakers

Kristina Lopez

Kristina Lopez

(she/they)

Kristina Lopez (she/they) is an artist, death doula, and meditation teacher. Her practice is transformed by an intersectional lens dedicated to collective liberation. She intertwines Buddhist philosophy with contemporary theories of anti-racism, anti-capitalism, and sex positivity. She is a second generation Caribbean American born and raised on Lenape land in NYC. She believes that mindfulness and activism are both necessary in our search for freedom. 

Kristina will be guest teaching on economic class for the week covering “Your Unique Social Location”.

Dr. Lisa Betty

Dr. Lisa Betty

(she/her)

Dr. Lisa Betty (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in History at Fordham University. She teaches on themes of land, labor, migration, and diaspora in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa. Lisa has worked in the field of nonprofit advocacy serving in organizations that advocate for children, families, immigrants, and incarcerated people. As a child of a Jamaican immigrant, the development of safe-sustainable-healing spaces for Black, brown, Indigenous peoples – and interconnected ecologies and species – is another aspect of Lisa’s life.

Dr. Lisa will be guest teaching on race and wellness for the week covering “Unpacking Race”.

Daniel Sannito

Daniel Sannito

(they/them)

Daniel Sannito (they/them) moves through this world as a trans, non-binary educator, writer, and facilitator of yoga asana and meditation. Daniel shares offerings inspired by over ten years of personal practice and study in various traditions and lineages. They are a founding collaborator of the Trans Yoga Project, a writer and consultant with Chopra, and a collaborating teacher with Love Your Brain. They dedicate their voice to creating affirming space for all humans to explore and discover connection with their own hearts in the ways that serve them best. Stay connected with Daniel on Instagram: @danielsannito_  or visit their website at danielsannito.com to learn more about them and their offerings.

Nicole Teyuca

Nicole Teyuca

(she/her)

Nicole Teyuca (she/her) provides community outreach and co-facilitates support groups and leadership programming at TranslatinaNetwork located at 137 West 19th St., New York, NY 10011. Originally from Mexico, Nicole came to New York when she was 16, where she started living her life as a Transgender female. Nicole enjoys speaking openly about her experience as a former sex worker and activist for TGNC community Nicole also enjoys being an advocate and speaks publicly on issues concerning the LGBTQ Spanish-speaking immigrant community.

RESIZED Lu Headshot Photo (1)

Lu Chekowsky

(she/her)

Lu Chekowsky (she/her) is an Emmy-winning writer and creative director who built a successful career in media through gut, intuition, and addiction to approval. Lu has held roles in publishing, advertising, television and tech at: Conde Nast [Details and Lucky], Wieden+Kennedy [the advertising agency for Nike], Viacom [MTV, Comedy Central] and Facebook. At all of these jobs, it was her responsibility to make corporations come across like real human beings with real feelings, personalities and histories. In the four years since leaving her career to focus on healing her body and mind, Lu’s been working to tell her own stories, in her own voice.

M Camellia

M Camellia

(they/them)

M Camellia (they/them) is a yoga practitioner and facilitator, writer, consent educator, and advocate called to create profoundly accessible spaces for self-inquiry. They believe that yoga is a practice of collective liberation and challenge contemporary yoga practitioners to dismantle the systems and beliefs that hold us all back. M is a co-founder of the Trans Yoga Project and serves on the staff of Accessible Yoga, among other roles within the realm of yoga service. Their teaching and writing center Queer and Trans* identity, consent and agency, body liberation, and disability justice in relation to yoga philosophy and practice.

FAQs

Mindful Changemakers is for anyone interested exploring intersectionality in a brave, diverse space, where real, heartfelt conversation can take place. We have diverse facilitators, teachers of all disciplines, coaches, mentors and people interested in learning more in our spaces. Mindful Changemakers is made for everyone. We will meet you where you are in your journey, and do everything to create a healing space for all.

Weekly sessions will all be virtual and hosted via Zoom. The Zoom link will be shared prior to the start of the program. If you have to miss any of the sessions then the video and audio recording will be made available.

This is totally possible. Keeping all our programs accessible to anyone is one of our core values. email linda@ganeshspace.com to learn more.

Mindful Changemakers is a 6-week private program with a limited amount of people per group. We dive deep into the pillars of the human experience and see where internalized biases show up for you. We think that Mindful Changemakers is a great invitation for people who want to dive deeper and is complementary to our membership.

It’s both! We believe in an interconnected world, meaning that our personal actions and thoughts and the way we show up affects all of us. So that means that we cannot create a more equitable world if we are not examining our role in it — the way we think, speak, act and show up every day. So Mindful Changemakers dives deep into the belief systems we have internalized and examines if they are serving you and our collective. Mindful Changemakers is an immersive, hands-on and expansive version of our membership offering.

Our approach is to guide participants through exploring systems of oppression and understanding how we are socialized within them. We ask participants to socially locate themselves to discover their proximity to power, privilege and begin to notice how these systems impact their lives. We’ll then further break down and explore GaneshSpace’s four pillars (race, gender, sexuality, body) so that participants can explore their relationship with each pillar, the intersectionalities, understand dominant culture’s effects and our role based on our unique social location, dominant culture narratives, biases, and notice how this impacts their relationships with themselves, others, how it affects their existence in the world, and learn how to take action to create change for a diverse, inclusive, and equitable world. We incorporate mindfulness techniques and experiences through the program to help participants process, reflect, and regulate their nervous system.

Increased self-awareness, knowing how to take mindful action that is firmly rooted in compassion and not intended to harm others, and an understanding your intersectionality and how biases show up in yourself and the world around you.

STAY CONNECTED

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At GaneshSpace, we teach you how to take your practice and turn it into actionable mindfulness. Your financial contribution is not just a donation. It supports our community. It supports your practice. And it supports the world around us. Please consider making a contribution and adding us to any corporate giving program. Our EIN number is 87-1472371. All donations are tax-deductible.

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