Healing the Colonized Heart
A Therapy Process Group for White-Identified People Committed to Antiracist Embodiment
If conversations about race leave you feeling overwhelmed, shut down, defensive, ashamed, confused, angry, numb, or stuck, you are not alone. Many people deeply want to engage differently, but were never given the tools, language, or support to do so.
You may find yourself:
Feeling overwhelmed and unsure where to begin or how to help
Wanting to talk about race, but afraid of saying the wrong thing
Caught between guilt and/or fear of causing harm
Feeling blame, defensiveness, or anger during conversations
Not understanding how you fit into the bigger picture
Together, we explore what has been inherited through family systems, culture, and societal conditioning.
Who This Group Is For
This group is intended for white-identified adults representing a range of social identities and lived experiences, who hold diverse lived experiences and/or backgrounds in antiracist learning, and are interested in deepening their work through a relational process and reflective therapeutic inquiry.
It is a good fit for individuals who are curious about how whiteness shows up internally and interpersonally, who are willing to acknowledge the impact of racism, and who are open to ongoing self-reflection within a group setting. This space is best suited for those seeking sustained engagement rather than one-time workshops or skill-based training.
From Seed to Root
Many of us have had exposure to reading antiracism books, listening to educational podcasts, and learning “the right” thing to say. Yet, we still get caught in our patterns of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn in difficult situations.
We may still catch ourselves seeking validation, avoiding conflict, or even unconsciously centering our own comfort.
This is because racism isn't just a systemic structure "out there”. It is actually deeply rooted inside of us. Whether we realize it or not, the seeds of what we’ve inherited lives in our nervous systems, our hearts, and our minds. This lives as a powerful force which shapes and influences our whole lives.
Facing Ourselves - What Is Our Work as White People?
This work is not about escaping systems or pretending we exist outside of them. It begins with turning inward and examining the ways domination, control, perfectionism, and disconnection have been internalized within us.
Our work is to stop unconsciously reproducing the very harm we were shaped within. To find our inner oppressor.
This is the movement from fragmentation toward integration. It is the shift from internalized blame toward structural awareness and from intellectual understanding toward embodied practice.
Group Offerings
Group 1 - Sowing Seeds
Just starting out on your antiracism journey? This group builds a foundational understanding of racism by exploring key terms, historical relevance, family socialization, and inherited systems of power & oppression. The goal is to establish a strong base of knowledge while growing awareness and recognizing how these dynamics live within us. Together, we move beyond identification into understanding how to do the internal work to stay more present and curious.
Group 2 - Tending Roots
This group is designed for members who can recognize and name how internalized racism lives in our bodies, reactions, and behavioral patterns. Together, we use presence and curiosity to learn how to stay in relationship with ourselves and each other during times of activation. This strengthens how to hold what we have inherited with deeper accountability, building responsiveness vs reactivity, greater somatic attunement, and skillful engagement in moments of racial tension and conflict.
Group Details
Weekly Commitment
Sessions are held weekly. This is an ongoing process group and consistent participation is essential, both for your own growth and for the integrity of the group.
Because this work can evoke discomfort and strong emotions, members are asked to commit to attending the first 12 sessions before deciding whether the group is the right fit.
Who Can Join
White-identified adults of any faith, identity, or sexual orientations are welcome.
Session Length & Cost
Each session is 90 minutes in length. Groups may be offered either virtually or in-person. More details will be shared upon submission of your interest.
The session fee will be discussed as part of the intake and onboarding process prior to joining the group.
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For many white people, not feeling personally impacted by racism is actually part of how the system works. Because whiteness has historically been positioned as the norm and granted social advantages, we often have the privilege of not having to think about race or notice how it shapes opportunity, safety, and belonging. In many ways, we are able to move through the world without feeling the direct consequences of racial inequity.
Not feeling its impact, however, does not mean it isn’t shaping our communities, institutions, and relationships. While our generation did not create these systems, we did inherit them and continue to benefit within the structures still designed to uphold racist policies and beliefs.
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Group 1: This group is for folx in the beginning of their journey. Together we build a foundational understanding of racism by exploring key terms, historical context, family socialization, and inherited systems of power.
Group 2: Designed for those with a solid foundation in this work, this group is for members who can recognize and name their internalized racism and track how it lives in their bodies, reactions, and relational patterns. This group is for those ready to go deeper into accountability, embrace a more embodied practice, and skillful engagement in moments of racial tension and conflict.
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Engaging in this group means entering into a personally challenging and respectful, boundaried environment where participants can be honest, reflective, and accountable without fear of humiliation or attack. At the same time, emotional safety is not the same as maintaining white comfort. This work often brings up discomfort, shame, defensiveness, or guilt, and those feelings are approached as part of the learning process rather than something to avoid or quickly soothe. Instead of reassuring one another in ways that protect comfort, the group practices staying present with difficult emotions, developing the capacity to reflect, repair, and remain engaged even when the conversation feels challenging.
The group is facilitated with attention to emotional containment, pacing, and impact. Clear agreements support respectful engagement, and the facilitator actively attends to dynamics as they arise. Discomfort is understood as part of the work, while harm and reactivity are addressed directly to support accountability and repair.
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Power dynamics are understood as inherent to this work and are actively attended to throughout the group. This includes noticing how whiteness, privilege, communication styles, identity, family values, and gender shape interaction and impact in the present moment. The facilitator holds responsibility for naming and working with these dynamics as they arise, while inviting participants to reflect on their own relationship to power, responsibility, and influence within the group.
Addressing power is an ongoing process rather than a one-time agreement. The group emphasizes awareness, accountability, and repair, with the goal of supporting more conscious and responsible ways of relating both within the group and beyond it.
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This space is intentionally held for white-identified participants because the work centers on examining how whiteness, and internalized white supremacy have shaped our identities, relationships, and ways of understanding the world.
In many spaces, people of color are expected, explicitly or implicitly, to educate white people, hold our discomfort, or guide our understanding. A white-identified group helps interrupt that pattern by creating a place where white participants take responsibility for their own learning, reflection, and accountability.
Through this structure, participants are invited to look more honestly at the ways colonial systems and racial hierarchies have been internalized, and to begin the ongoing work of unlearning them without placing further burden on those most impacted by them. The intention is to shift from unconscious participation in these systems toward more conscious, responsible ways of being in community.
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In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo describes white supremacy not as extremist hatred or overt acts of violence, but as a pervasive social system in which whiteness is normalized, centered, and positioned as the standard against which all others are measured. It operates through everyday assumptions, institutional practices, cultural norms, and unexamined beliefs that advantage white people while marginalizing people of color.
Within this framework, white supremacy is less about individual intent and more about an inherited structure that shapes perception, behavior, and power, often invisibly to those who benefit from it, while maintaining racial inequality as the default.
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If you have mixed heritage, you are welcome to join! This group is open to anyone who identifies as white in some way and feels called to examine how whiteness and internalized racism have shaped their experience.
Having mixed ancestry does not exempt any of us from being impacted by white supremacy culture. It is embedded in the systems, norms, and socialization we all move through. What matters most is your intention to engage in the work with honesty, accountability, and a willingness to look at how racial conditioning has influenced you.
If you’re unsure whether the group is the right fit, we can talk through it together.
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No. This group is not intended to replace activism, organizing, education, or community engagement. Rather, it supports the internal and relational work that can inform and strengthen how people show up in those active spaces. By increasing awareness of internalized patterns shaped by whiteness and power, participants may be better equipped to engage in antiracist efforts with greater accountability, humility, and sustainability.
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Yes. Feeling uncertain, defensive, or anxious is common and often expected when considering this kind of work. Exploring internalized racism can bring up vulnerability, guilt, shame, fear of getting it wrong, not knowing what to say, or concern about impact. These responses do not disqualify someone from participation; rather, they can be meaningful material for reflection within the group.
What matters most is a willingness to stay engaged, take responsibility for impact, and approach these feelings with curiosity rather than avoidance or defensiveness. Readiness is less about feeling confident and more about being open to process, accountability, and ongoing learning.
A Note from Your Group Facilitator
Welcome! And thank you for your interest! This group offers a facilitated, therapeutic space to engage in antiracist engagement at a deeper level - not just intellectually, but emotionally and relationally.
Many white people are taught (directly or indirectly) to see themselves as simply “normal,” rather than as having a racial identity, which can make conversations about race feel confusing, threatening, or uncomfortable. Understanding racism therefore involves more than gathering information. It also includes noticing emotional reactions such as defensiveness, guilt, fear, or the urge to withdraw, and recognizing these responses as part of the learning process rather than signs of failure.
Beginning anti-racism work often brings a desire to avoid discomfort or to find quick answers. Instead, this process invites a slower approach that includes self-reflection, curiosity, and staying engaged even when emotions feel challenging. In this work, we will be building the muscle to help sustain us in what it takes to remain engaged in anti-racism work over time.
This group is grounded in the understanding that meaningful support for decolonization and racial justice requires ongoing self-examination by white-identified people. Racism persists when whiteness remains unnamed and unexamined, and this group creates space for white-identified folx to explore how whiteness shapes their inner lives and professional roles.
This space is designed to support reflection on patterns, beliefs, and defenses that may no longer serve our individual or collective development. It offers an opportunity to notice and explore what arises internally, especially in moments of activation, with openness and intention.
Together, there is a path forward. Please join us!
Building Racial Stamina for Future Generations
It’s critical that we, as white people, face what we have inherited and learn to turn toward our discomfort in order to build our racial stamina, which means the capacity to stay present rather than retreating into silence or fragility. This work is ongoing and relational.
And like a wave, our work ripples outward, influencing the tides that will shape the course for generations to come...
