#SelfCare Chronicle of the Second Training Module: “Healing our Selfs, Heal the World”

8/20/2019 #SelfCare Chronicle of the Second Training Module: “Healing our Selfs, Heal the World”

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#SelfCare Chronicle of the Second Training Module:

“Healing our Selfs, Heal the World”

We enthusiastically greet and share with you the pleasure of learning and meet in

the Second Training Module; “Healing our Selfs, Heal the World” organized by the

regional strategy of self care IM- Women Defenders and facilitated by Capacitar

International.

We had the opportunity to meet from October 22 to 24th in Mexico City. Fifty human

rights defenders pertaining to the commissions of self care at National Networks

from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, and members from the State

Network of Oaxaca Defenders, met with the aim of continuing the training started

last March.

The second module began with a ritual called

to the women ancestors in order to focus allenergies on achieving the goals of knowledge.

Then we talked about the implementation

of the knowledge acquired in Module I of

training. We were thrilled learning on how

some colleagues developed and explained

the techniques in their native languages

or employed the music from their cultural

tradition; how the practice of learned exercises

improves the work with groups or individuals

that we serve; how some already began to

teach linking it to the traditional medicines

of their countries; and how our families and

ourselves had beneficiated from some of the

shared techniques.

November 2015

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Among shared stories, all the creativity that we strive to improve the care for young

persons or with different capacities, women, organizations, towns and communities

and comprehensive protection, sneaks out.

Later, we work on two emotions that commonly invade the human rights defenders

by the contexts of injustice in which we work: the anger and fear and its effects on

our health.

After recognizing the social and personal causes generating these emotions, we

embrace and laugh accompanying the decision of learning on how to handle them

as this will improve our safety and welfare as well as, from the people surrounding

us. This was another step in the task of accepting our selves tired of being angry,

and eager to turn these emotions into creative and healing potential.

To deal with anger, we use ancient techniques from around the world to help

clean and balance our energy. Gradually we were feeling how our hearts started

beating differently; stronger, more compassionate (word that we understand as the

awareness of social and personal causes that generate this emotion in people) andtherefore more loving.

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Those techniques were based on how to vent, balance through polarity, to

release us from fear, despair, diseases, disorders and associated dispositions.

Techniques that help us to understand that we are together and united in this

harsh but beautiful world, we had time to heal to each other, to discuss with

passion and plan further meetings on the ground.

During the Training, many of us were also involved in a query about how we should

organize care for women with exhaustion or fatigue from performing activism. We

had two focus groups where we imagined how it could be the space that we call

“House of Healing and Respiro La Serena”, a regional initiative of the IM-Women

Defenders which has slowly been cooked in our dreams and hopes.

We said goodbye eager to meet again, knowing that wherever we are, each one of

us is building for herself and her closest, and practicing with increasing frequency

a careful and sustainable activism in the midst of the chaotic context that these

historical moments present to us.

The train reading materials that we use in the second module are enclosed. We are deeply grateful to Pat Cane and Alibel Pizarro

and their generosity in sharing their knowledge with us. We are also sending two radio capsules produced by the IM-Women

Defenders in order to socialize some of the lessons learned. The capsules contain the guide for two basic exercises for emotions

management; conscious breathing and balance emotions. We invite you to play them and use them as support material in differentspaces. Likewise, we send a short video recalling our frst training module:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gkzck2xsj2ze9z7/AAANQLR0eknCJDA7qI4qvM4Ua?dl=0

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https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gkzck2xsj2ze9z7/AAANQLR0eknCJDA7qI4qvM4Ua%3Fdl%3D0https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gkzck2xsj2ze9z7/AAANQLR0eknCJDA7qI4qvM4Ua%3Fdl%3D0

Documents

#SelfCare Chronicle of the Second Training Module: “Healing our Selfs, Heal the World”