Francesca Marguerite Maximé
I invite you to join me for Embodied Anti-Racism, a new course that uses mindfulness principles and a body-oriented approach in the journey of becoming anti-racist therapists and helping professionals. This course has been in development for over a year, and I am so excited to finally open it to the public.
Many of you likely have some understanding of somatic tools and the power of mindfulness practices. So it will be familiar to you when we use those resources to work with what comes up as we address racism in a deeper context. And we can all use this deepened awareness in order to offer our best to our clients—even if we don’t see many clients of color at the moment.
In my own personal journey as a Haitian-Dominican Italian-American multiethnic woman, it was my spiritual mentor Jack Kornfield who encouraged me down the path to becoming more enlightened about racism. Since that time in 2015, I have dedicated my life to educating myself about how racism shows up in therapeutic interactions. During this journey, I unexpectedly discovered that my mindfulness and somatic training have been invaluable allies…
…but trying to do this work alone is overwhelming.
When we try to untangle the many knots of racism woven through the whole fabric of our society, many of us get stuck in our minds and feel alone in our thoughts, with no one to talk to who can help us sort them out. In this course, we will be creating a community for discussing our experiences, teasing apart our confusion, and sharing our struggles. Because in community, this work becomes so much easier.
As a group, we will learn how to pause and examine our shame or traumatic experiences in the moment. We will unpack what it means to be a ‘white person’ and a racialized being. We will also look at neuroscience and Polyvagal Theory to better understand how our mind and body may react when issues of race come up. We will learn to use mindfulness and self-regulation to increase our ability to be fully present for ourselves and our clients.
We need to use both the left and right sides of our brains in our unlearning of racism.
Too many other diversity and cultural competency courses fall short because they focus on trying to be “PC” instead of diving in and interrogating whiteness. I don’t want to simply tell you what you should do to be a non-racist—I want to guide you along your journey of discovering how to be an embodied anti-racist.
As Michelle Obama said, “Make no mistake about it: There are still so many causes worth sacrificing for. There is still so much history yet to be made.” So, as a community of helping professionals, I encourage you to join me on this journey together!
FIVE pre-recorded Teaching Modules
Join Francesca for five pre-recorded training videos where you will learn how to use mindfulness in your work as an anti-racist.
FIVE recorded Q&A Calls
Each week we’ll come together to discuss current events and identify places where we see systemic racism in our daily lives. We’ll also have time to answer questions that come up as you move through your journey.
Private membership site to access Transcripts & Downloads
Find all your course materials in the user-friendly membership site. Each training is available in video and audio format so you are able to download and own all the content.
Accepting Your Assignment with Dr. Jack Kornfield
Dr. Kornfield explores the idea that our culture is in the midst of a difficult process that will eventually give birth to something new.
Sociocultural and Sociopolitical Considerations for Mindfulness with Dr. Shelly P. Harrell
In this interview, Dr. Harrell shares 10 considerations to integrate mindfulness into anti-racist psychotherapy practice.
Whiteness on the Couch with Dr. Natasha Stovall
Dr. Natasha Stovall, joins Francesca to explore whiteness, how it shows up in the therapy room, and how to use therapeutic tools to process conversations pertaining to race with a greater sense of curiosity, grace, and insight.
Everyday Racism with Susan Cousins
She lays out six categories of wellbeing with Francesca, including limits, boundaries, empowerment, and the impact of reporting a hate crime.
The Racist Part in You with Dr. Dick Schwartz
Dr. Richard Schwartz, discusses what he sees as the four legacy cultural burdens of the United States: patriarchy, individualism, materialism, and racism.
What's included
What Does it Mean to be an Embodied Anti-Racist?
Many structures in our culture have been systemized for decades and have racism cooked into them. If we want to create change, we first have to look at ourselves. Mindfulness is the tool we will use to examine different parts of ourselves, our bodily reactions, and any trauma that lies in our pasts. In this module, we will explore the history that we weren’t taught in school and how our bodies and minds react to this information.
In this module, we will discuss:
- The difference between ‘anti-racist’ and ‘non-racist’
- The Four Humble Abodes
- Attachment Theory and Relationality
- Scarcity mentality versus Abundance mentality
- Where suffering originates
- Understanding your Social Location/Positionality
Whiteness & Privilege: Systems We’ve Inherited
Many of us associate racism with an individual bad actor. As long as we don’t see ourselves as racist, then we get to be the ‘good’ people. This belief prevents us from actually seeing the systems in our culture that influence our neurophysiology and our neurobiology. In reality, we are inheritors of systems created long before we were born. In this module, we will use mindfulness to cultivate an awareness of these deeply ingrained systems and recognize their effects on us and what we can do about it.
In this module, we will discuss:
- What is ‘Whiteness?’
- How belonging and interdependence sustain ourselves and our communities
- Polyvagal Theory and the nervous system in relation to mindfulness
- Cultural Somatics that exist in our daily life
- The power behind privilege
- Shifting from feeling shame to feeling empowered
Racial Identity Development
Many of us are all familiar with various models of human development, such as those formulated by famous clinicians Freud, Erikson, and Piaget. In this module, we will turn our attention to the Stages of Racial Identity Development created by Dr. Janet Helms. We will discuss all six stages through the framework of what a white person may experience so we can better understand where we are in our own awareness of our identity as racialized beings.
In this module, we will discuss:
- Each stage: Contact, Disintegration, Reintegration, Pseudo Independence, Immersion/Emersion, Autonomy
- The purpose of guilt and shame
- How we can be both white and anti-racist at the same time
- Seeing white individuals as racial beings
- Reclaiming your heritage
Allyship: Are You ‘For’ or ‘With?’
Allies are necessary in the fight against racism. In the past, many allies have engaged in their work with good intentions, however, the outcomes may not have sustained the intended impact. The important question here is, who were they trying to help and why? What is the deepest intention behind the offering? In this module, we will examine how to be present with and attuned to our impulses to help. This approach is important because it can lead us to more appropriate and effective directions of embodied service, as well as allow us to be more compassionate toward ourselves and others. We will learn the difference between trying to save communities and collectively supporting our shared community.
In this module, we will discuss:
- What it means to be ‘for’ and ‘with’
- What it means to be a white savior
- The core mindfulness principle that will create a more collaborative partnership between you and your client
- How to bring up race in session in a way that may offer greater safety for your clients
- Shadism and colorism
Grief Work: Collective & Individual
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” ― Leonard Cohen
Grief is often seen as somber, but there are ways that we can support ourselves in our sorrow that also celebrate our shared joy. As we use mindfulness to shift our perspective, we see that our heartbrokenness can be an opportunity for something new to emerge. In this module, we will explore grieving the systems, beliefs, and behaviors that we inherited, both from an individual perspective and as a collective community. We will turn our attention to creating a new way of being grounded in wise, embodied, compassionate, anti-racist action.
In this module, we will discuss:
- How grief feels in our bodies
- The difference between grief and shame
- The idea of ‘Spiritual Bypassing’
- Creating our collective liberation
Here’s What we'll Learn together in
Embodied Anti-Racism: A Mindfulness Way for Therapists and Helping Professionals
Meet your presenter
Francesca Marguerite Maximé
Francesca Marguerite Maximé, LMSW, is a Haitian-Dominican Italian-American licensed somatic psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher, anti-racism educator, and award-winning poet/author in Brooklyn, New York. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her Master’s in Social Work from Fordham University. Maximé offers services to help address trauma, process grief, and reduce stress for adults, groups, and organizations. She is the host of the ReRooted podcast on Ram Dass’s Be Here Now Network. In 2019, Francesca received the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies Outstanding Student Advocacy & Service Award. She has been mentored in mindfulness meditation practices by celebrated author and clinical psychologist Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., and has also been a mindfulness student of clinical psychologist and internationally known teacher Tara Brach, Ph.D. Maximé’s work emphasizes issues pertaining to organizational, social, and cultural trauma as well as gender and racial equity and equality.
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