Fridays July 11 - August 29
1:30 - 3:30pm
FREE
Cherry Hill, Seattle- fully accessible location disclosed on registration
If you are a survivor of relational/ gender-based violence and you have ideas about how to affect policy around systems, organizing supportive spaces or resources for other survivors, or creating in some other way based on your lived and unique understanding, please join us for this unique workshop.
Yoga therapy utilizes yoga in the process of healing, offering nervous system stabilization as you restore relationship with your essential wholeness. This workshop will combine therapeutic applications of yoga with movement, breath, and meditation for trauma with coaching for social change.
About the facilitators:
Deborah King (C-IAYT) is a yoga therapist certified by The International Association of Yoga Therapists. Currently, she is privileged to create specialized practice for people navigating multiple sclerosis, cancer, and postnatal mental health challenges through Swedish Medical Centers. In addition, she partners with The Dove Project to create yoga therapy offerings for survivors of gender-based violence, and has a private yoga therapy practice on Vashon specializing in interpersonal trauma.
In addition to her vast and diverse background of training in all aspects of yoga, she holds certificates in Embodied Social Justice and Polyvagal Theory applied to yoga therapy. She is the author of the article When Safety is a Privilege, Not a Choice: Yoga Therapy with Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence, featured on the cover of the 2024 Winter issue of Yoga Therapy Today.
A lifelong practitioner and veteran teacher of 24 years, Deborah uses her understanding of physiology and the nervous system in an experiential way to guide her students in exploring the story and the process of their embodied self, uncovering, unwinding and also celebrating the asymmetries that make us human.
She is the proud mother of two extraordinary humans, who she learns more from every day.
Leigh Lester began working with under-invested communities over 24 years ago. Known for her ability to break big ideas into actionable pieces, Leigh’s magic powers include public speaking, training, networking, collaborating, facilitating and totally out-of-the-box ideation.
With over 20+ years industry experience, her main focus now is helping others create the right action steps to solve their problems. Her approach is hands-on, practical application focused on outcomes, steeped in years of personal experience. As the one minority in the room for many years, she puts her experience to good use affecting policy at the national level. She serves as a community advocate on the board of a national appraisal organization, she is a member of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Project Reach, she is a newly appointed member of HUD’s Office of Housing Counseling’s advisory committee, and she also serves as a Global Advisor with How Women Lead, a Bay Area leadership network that brings together influential women in an inclusive and highly supportive community to connect, learn, and promote the voices of all women and propel their leadership forward.
She is an avid traveler and splits her time between Mexico and Southern California with her canine daughter, Brini.