Spring 2023

Coming Home to your Body – Spring Yoga Series

Outdoor Yoga With Patty Adams

Registration requested – register now.

WELCOME BACK TO YOGA WITH ME! I have truly missed practicing IN PERSON with y’all and can’t wait for this opportunity.

This will be a back-to-basics yoga class because, real talk, my body has been through the mill in the TWO YEARS since I stopped teaching regularly. Maybe yours has too? 

Let’s be sweet and tender and compassionate towards our bodies/ourselves as we (re)kindle relationship…

As always, you will have FULL CHOICE in how you participate. If you need “more,” you get to adjust! If you need “less,” you get to make that happen. This is a fiercely non-competitive and ferociously choice-centered space.

Also, it is outdoors on purpose because that’s what is feeling best for me and for most of you (based on my IG poll). 

• Please feel free to mask, maintain your distance, etc. as you need to. 
• FYI at this time, I do not plan to mask while I teach.
• And please be judicious about your own participation if you are not feeling well or have a recent known exposure.

Day and Time: Friday, 9:15 – 10:15am
Dates: May 12, 19, 26 and June 2 (4 weeks) + potential raindate of Friday, June 9 if needed

Location: Forest Hills Park, in the field beside the picnic shelter.

Ease into the Season – Supporting Seasonal Shift

Sunday, June 11 from 10-1:30 at Respite in the Round

Yoga | Community | Attunement with Nature

The changing seasons provide an important invitation to reset, recenter, and resource ourselves. As we reckon with the increasing heat and ever-expanding toll of climate change, it is crucial that we look for daily ways to manage the heat, reduce the friction, and minimize the impact of the seemingly endless summer…

In the buildup to the Summer Solstice and the official start of summer, join Patty Adams for an outdoor offering combining yoga, community building, and an exploration of how to attune with the seasonal shifts to navigate change with more ease. Includes herbal support tea. Registration required.

Optional community potluck brunch and creek dip to follow at 1:30pm – open to all.

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Past Schedule

Ease into the Season – Supporting Seasonal Shift

Sunday, March 19 from 10-1 at Respite in the Round

Yoga | Community | Attunement with Nature

The changing seasons provide an important invitation to reset, recenter, and resource ourselves. On the cusp of the Spring Equinox, join Patty Adams for an outdoor offering combining yoga, community building, and an exploration of how to attune with the seasonal shifts to navigate change with more ease. Includes herbal support tea. Registration required.

Optional community potluck brunch to follow at 1pm – open to all.

Come for Saturday night bonfire, stay and camp, and wake up on-site for the workshop!

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April 15 – Save the date – April 15

Community Healing Day – a love offering to Trans and Queer kin

At the Respite in the Round

Join a group of local queer and trans healers in a daylong, outdoor offering combining collective healing practices, individual somatic sessions (optional / limited), and self-directed exploration. Lunch and snacks provided. Sliding scale. Organized by Patty Adams / Liberation Healing Arts.

More info and registration to come. Sign up for Patty’s newsletter to get first access to individual slots.

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Ongoing –

A Changing Climate: Cultivating Capacity, Community, and Culture Shift

Wednesdays in March
12:30 – 2pm
Outdoors at Duke Gardens

Enrollment is closed for this small group experience. Outdoors at Duke Gardens in March. Go here then scroll down to “The Piedmont Naturalist Series.”

Climate change is real, it’s here, and it’s all around us. 

Yet many of us can’t bear to even think about this mammoth reality, much less process our emotions or discern how to take effective action. Most of us are trying to navigate this overwhelming reality alone, even as social science research is clear that we need each other: for community, for connection, and for cultivating the kind of radical hope necessary to stay present and engaged at this crucial moment in our collective history.

How can we make choices in our daily lives to turn towards this reality and cultivate the tools, community connections, and culture shift we need to face the climate reality? How can connection with the natural world support us in remembering we are part of Nature and can act to steward and protect it?

In this experiential series, somatic therapist and community healing artist Patty Adams will co-create a space for connection and reflection to support participants’ ability to intentionally make space for the emotional, cognitive, and spiritual impacts of the rapidly changing world.

Participants can expect a mix of solo reflective practices, dyad/triad sharing, and full group processing. 

Expected outcomes include:

• learning and practicing skills for climate resilience;
• cultivating community with other climate-aware folks;
• exploring ways to integrate climate awareness into our daily lives in manageable yet meaningful ways;
• learning more about how Duke Gardens is embracing adaptation in the face of climate change.

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Nature is Healing | Healing is (your) Nature

Saturday, November 5 (IN PERSON)
An outdoor healing encounter with Nature, Self, and Community
At the Respite in the Round (40 mins north of Durham)

ReSource: Grounding in Practice

Wed Nov. 9 – Wed Dec. 21 (ONLINE)
Small group, closed cohort offering
Somatic Basics, Seasonal Rituals, Tools for Healing

Pop Up Yoga (IN PERSON)

Last-minute offerings in the outdoors
Sign up for emails or follow me on Instagram for the heads-up

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Nature is Healing | Healing is (your) Nature
Saturday, November 5
10:30am – 5pm
Followed by an optional potluck with full moon bonfire and grief ritual

At Respite in the Round, a healing space in rural North Carolina about 40 minutes north of Durham

Enjoy a day of somatic and reflective practices, community connection, yoga, meditative movement, and nature bathing while exploring your relationship to the natural world, to yourself and to community.

Investment: $75 full day / $55 half-day (morning + lunch or afternoon + lunch)

Your investment covers the cost of programming plus snacks and lunch
Specialty coffee and tea bar available in the morning, by donation
Optional potluck dinner with full moon bonfire and grief ritual at dusk.

Feel free to stay and camp at no additional cost.

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ReSource: Grounding in Practice
A virtual, time-limited cohort experience
Somatics, Self-Reflection, and Seasonal Care

Join this small group, closed cohort where we’ll explore accessible tools to support self-regulation and self-awareness.

Feel more grounded in your body and in your community.
Connect more with your hope and your purpose.
Find steadiness amidst the ebb and flow of life.

Investment includes: 3 large group encounters, 5 short morning practices, 2 private sessions

Group Encounters: Wednesdays 6-7:15pm EDT | November 9, November 30, December 21
Morning Practices: Fridays 8:30-8:50am EDT | November 11 and 18, December 2, 9, and 16
Individual Sessions: Available Mon-Thur daytime hours, between Nov 10 – Dec 21 (Solstice)

Like balm for your body, medicine for your mind, and salve for your spirit.

-> Learn the basics of somatics and accessible tools for self-awareness / self-inquiry / self-care plus simple rituals to honor seasonal shifts

-> Attention to the changing seasons and ways to adjust daily life rhythms to support an easeful embrace of Fall, the holiday season, and the end of the calendar year

-> Community building and connection to nourish your spirit

Investment: $299 / Early bird $249 register by 11/3 at 11:59pm

Sliding scale available and payment plans. Reach out to inquire.
Partial insurance reimbursement may be available.

Somatics for Queers: Resilience Skills for Collective Liberation – scroll down

Go here for details on YOGA CLASSES.

Keep reading for details on the SOMATICS SERIES.

Somatics for Queers: Resilience Skills for Collective Liberation

Facilitated by Patty Adams
Mondays, 7-8:30pm Eastern

3 Part Series runs Monday June 15, 22, 29 – Participation in the whole series encouraged

Go here to sign up for the series // See full schedule and select individual Drop-In classes to sign up for specific dates.

$39-60 for the Series / $13-20 per session, Subsidized passes available.
Venmo, Paypal, Square accepted.

A portion of each week’s proceeds will go to local (Durham, NC) and national Black liberation efforts. I will send a record of my donation receipt to everyone who enrolled/attended each week’s session.

This series is carefully curated and intentionally facilitated by Patty Adams, to explore somatic skills for self-regulation and resilience. Learn tools and practices to support you in accessing your embodied wisdom in service of skillful, consistent, and grounded action in the world. 

Rooted in anti-oppression values and praxis, this politicized somatics space will center LGBTQIA+ folks but is inclusive to all those who are wanting to show up fully in service to the work of liberation.

Patty is a fat cis white queer therapist and healing justice worker with more than 20 years experience working at the intersections of social movements and healing justice. 

There are many great folks doing this type of work from their own social locations and rooted in their own identities. If you are seeking work led by Black folks, please consider the work of Prentis Hemphill, Lama Rod Owens, Resmaa Menakem, rev Angel kyodo williams, Michelle Cassandra Johnson, Octavia Raheem, Soma Integrative Wellness, and others. Feel free to share with me other Black healers, especially queer and trans identified folks, you follow and whose work we should be lifting up at this time. 

This moment and this movement need all of us bringing our full selves to the work. 

And many of us arrived to this moment already engaged in deep personal work, already struggling under the staggering weight of intersectional oppression, disaster capitalism, and intergenerational trauma.

We need tools to meet us at the level of our individual suffering while also helping move us towards greater collective capacity. 

We need skills to support us in the everyday moments of dysregulation and stress while also helping us take our commitments to racial justice and collective liberation to the next level.

We need practices to help us feel and process and move through our own feelings and experiences while also helping us stay present to the pain and suffering of those chronically targeted by systems of violence and domination.

It is a false dichotomy to believe we must be fully healed or completely at peace within ourselves before we can take effective action in the world, or that we must abandon and betray ourselves entirely in the service of the larger collective project of liberation. It is not either/or, but both/and.

Join this collective practice space to support you in engaging in the both/and – the dialectic, the dynamic balance. Never giving up on the daily work of building conditions for true freedom for all beings.

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Past Events

All month, as part of my “Because I Love My Body” series, I am teaching extra classes. Drop-ins welcome! All classes start at 5:45, but have different lengths and areas of focus. Read on for more!

Mondays, 5:45 – 6:45 – An elegant and efficient all-levels class (60 mins)
Wednesdays, 5:45 – 7:05 – Regular weekly all-levels class (80 mins)
Fridays, 5:45 – 6:45 – A mix of slow movement and restorative yoga (60 mins)

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Throughout January, commit to practicing because you love your body.

The basics:

• Join me for three (3) weekly LIVE yoga classes in Durham, MWF at 5:45pm
  Jan 1 – Jan 31
  
• Access home practices on Tues/Thur via Dropbox, customize to meet your needs
  
• Commit to doing JUST ONE THING over the weekend because you love your body – it’s 100% up to you what that is!
  
• Option: use HabitShare app to share your daily practice with the rest of the crew so we can cheer each other on and build a community of practice
  
• Wrap-up potluck for Series Participants, Friday 1/31 after class
  

SPECIAL New Years PRACTICE KICK-OFF
JOIN ME WEDNESDAY 1/1 FROM 5-7
To Kick Off Our Month of Practice
Everyone welcome, as space allows
<< Pre-registration Strongly Suggested >>

For All-Access Members

An “all-access” pass to January 2020 special series and community challenge.
Includes 14 lives classes MWF at 5:45, plus at-home practices for Tues/Thurs and access to community accountability tools.

Mon 5:45 – 6:45 | An elegant and efficient all-levels class
Wed 5:45 – 7:05 | Regular weekly all-levels class
Fri 5:45 – 6:45 | A mix of slow movement and restorative yoga

<< Drop-ins available to all these classes, as space allows. >>

Space is limited, so I’ll only be offering 12 spots to the Series.

PLUS Meditations and Short Practices delivered to you via Dropbox. 
Mix and Match to create your ideal daily practice. Unlimited access to these recordings for the entire month of January.

Option to track our daily practices through an app, to help us cheer each other on and increase accountability. Use HabitShare for this. https://habitshareapp.com/

Investment

$99 FLASH SALE 12/26 ONLY – jUST about $7 per class!
Use coupon code FLASH26

$108 early bird rate until 12/30 – under $8 per class!

$125 AFTER 12/30 – less than $9 per class

$28 – Dropbox only access. Receive access to the Dropbox files where you can anchor and supplement your home practice. All-access to these files throughout January. Opt-in to live classes, as space allows, for regular drop-in rates.
Buy now.

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Build a stronger relationship with yourself & your community while increasing your capacity for navigating shift & change.

In this popular-education space, participants will co-create a space for embodied exploration & shared authentic experience. This is an offering that we hope will increase our mutual understanding of survival responses & paths towards more embodied freedom and collective wholeness.

In this space, you will be invited to:

• Deepen your understanding of the language of your body. Increase your capacity to understand and respond to sensations.

• Explore basics of the nervous system including terminology, energetic states, and self-regulation tools for increasing resilience.

• Learn somatic tools to respond mindfully to challenges and shifts, rather than reacting from a place of activation.

Suggested $15-35. Reach out to us if this doesn’t feel accessible and you need to discuss other options.

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Go here for more on my weekly yoga classes in Durham.

Coming home to your body.

A healing space for LGBTQQIA+ folks.
Fall 2019.
Go here for info.

I believe (in) you, a healing space for survivors.

Wednesday 10/10/18 from 7:30 – 9pm
906 Broad St, Durham
Go here for more information and to register.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018 // 7:30 – 9:00pm in Durham, NC
Blast It Out – Intermediate Yoga Class
More info here.

Saturday, March 31, 2018 // 1:00 – 4:00pm // Greenfield, MA
Yoga for Resistance, Resilience, and Recovery
More info and sign-up here. Sign up strongly suggested.

Sunday, April 1, 2018 // 10:00 am – 1:00 pm // Easthampton, MA
Beyond Survival/Healing as Resistance: Queer/Trans Yoga Workshop
More info and sign-up here. Sign up strongly suggested.

Brave Space – Social Justice + Yoga

Using the tools of yoga to sustain us.
Monday, March 19, 2018
University of North Carolina at Pembroke
Co-led with Faculty member Dr. Michele Fazio

National Social Work Month Presenter

The responsibility of Social Workers to take Collective Action
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Hospice and Palliative Care of Charlotte

Embodied Learning Summit

Saturday, February 24, 2018 9am – 4pm
Duke University
Sliding scale: $5 – 50

Theme: Shining the Light – Yoga and Racial Justice.
I will be offering the keynote address.
There are also workshops available throughout the day. Go here and here for more info and to register.

 

Fall with Grace

Skillfully navigate the transition to Fall by embracing the seasonal invitation to Slow Down, Turn In, Get Grounded

Thursdays 7:45 – 9pm at Durham Yoga
September 7 – October 26 | 2018
8 Week Series $108 / Drop-in $15
*Sign up for the whole series and receive two special offerings. Details below.

Restorative Yoga | Ayurveda | Seasonal Support | Trauma Healing

An 8-week series combining mellow and restorative yoga, breathwork, and the wisdom of Ayurveda to support your seasonal transition and overall health.

For many, the transition to Fall is a rough one. It can include increased insomnia, agitation, a seasonal down-turn, disrupted digestion, and overall diminished energy and quality of life. Additionally, Fall’s increase in air energy adds to that which we already have in excess in our dominant culture – overstimulation, constant shifts and changes, and overall hypermobility. Ayurveda tells us that like increase like, and the way to find health is by balancing the internal and external energies.

This series is designed with this principle in mind: an understanding that the microcosm is a reflection of the macrocosm, and if we are to stay steady and enjoy ease (i.e. prevent dis-ease), then we must continue to respond to conditions and adjust how we tend to ourselves. We must acknowledge that how we care for ourselves from season to season must also shift.

If you struggle with anxiety, restlessness, agitation, “monkey-mind,” or other common imbalances of this type, this series is for you. If you are seeking to incorporate more ritual and reflective into your life, this series is for you. If you are looking to find more balance and ease in your life, this is for you.

In order to assist in balancing the energies of Fall, this class will be a calmer and more meditative space than my other regular yoga offerings. It will include moderate yoga asana, breathing and meditation practices, as well as an exploration of the role of the psoas and its relationship to a healthy nervous system, a strong center, and an overall experience of groundedness. The psoas is the first muscle to contract in fight/flight/freeze response, and it therefore is directly linked to our trauma and threat responses. By working to progressively release, balance, and engage the psoas, you’ll find a deeper sense of well-being, centeredness, and connectedness.

Additionally, each week we will discuss a different tool or technique from Ayurveda, yoga’s “sister science,” for assisting in an easeful transition by supporting balance. These will be food and lifestyle recommendations that will foment deep nourishment, such as abhyanga (self-massage) and other restorative practices.

*You can drop in to any single class, but the greatest benefit will be obtained by committing to the whole session. In this way you will be able to progressively incorporate the tools and practices and experience optimum ease. For those who sign up for the whole series by Monday, September 4th, I will also be offering a few extras.

An Ayurveda “Fall with Grace” Kit, including

• 4 oz Banyan Botanicals Organic Unrefined Sesame oil for abhyanga (self-massage),
• 8 oz each Banyan Botanicals CCF tea and Suki’s Detox Chai tea blends to warm the body and support healthy liver function, and
• A cotton-covered eye pillow to support restoration and contemplation.

In addition, those who book the whole series will receive a free and personalized guide to managing your doshas. The dosha is your “biological humor,” the unique combination of the five elements that are present in you. Learning to understand your nature through the doshas is fundamental to embracing a lifetime of health.

• In order to take advantage of this offering, you must be willing to complete several dosha self-assessment materials which I will make available to you via email. That should take about 20-30 minutes of your time.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras tell us, “sthira sukham asanam.” When we get steady in a good space, when we can get ourselves calibrated to ease and not dis-ease – to balance and not imbalance – then our life force will flow and we will experience the profoundness of being centered and grounded. From this state of dynamic health, everything else will flow.

See you on the mat.

Embodied Anti-Oppression Practice

Saturday, 12/17/16 from 2-5pm
Durham Yoga Company, 502 Rigsbee in downtown Durham.
On Facebook here – please share.

By Donation.

This is a challenging time. Many of us are still reeling, still cycling through trauma and grief responses. This is absolutely understandable and totally appropriate – get what you need in this time!

Many of us also need spaces that help us accept the truth of what is right now, and help us practice interrupting the kinds of oppression and violence that are increasing in this era.  We need practices which help us understand our own fear responses, for understanding how to gauge safety vs. comfort, and for increasing our capacity for engagement.

In order to challenge the white supremacist ideology that we have a right to be comfortable and an obligation to be polite, we must examine how that lives in our bodies and shows up in our relationships – towards the end of developing skills and tools which can increase our capacity to engage in a variety of situations – from interrupting “casual” incidences of oppressive language to more aggressive forms of discrimination, antagonism, and violence.

This workshop offers:

• Space to be together in community
• A trauma-informed analysis of this moment
• Anti-oppression praxis opportunities

In this space we will:

• Offer a short analysis about how we got to where we are (political/social context)
• Introduce basic model of trauma, rooted in an anti-oppression analysis, and help folks contextualize their individual and collective responses to this moment, as well as helping folks assess what they need in this time to recover and get/stay involved
• Offer grounding techniques rooted in embodiment, yoga, and somatic practices
• Engage in roll-playing to help us understand where and how we are challenged by the spaces we’re in, and how we can move beyond comfort to take risks and engage in the ways we are being called to right now to stand up and protect/defend each other
• Encourage folks to understand what bold and courageous action looks like for each of us right now, and figure out ways to support that going forward.

Based on feedback from the first time offering this workshop on 11/20, we’re sharing this framework as well of what the workshop isn’t and what it is (or aims to be).

What this workshop ISN’T:

• Yoga class
• Nonviolent Direct Action Training
• (Strictly speaking) A de-escalation training
• Anti-Racism 101 / Anti-Oppression 101
• Action/Strategy session
• Marshal training
• Primarily a space for discussion (though some may arise)

These things are all valid, they are just not primarily what the Embodied Anti-Oppression Practice workshop is about. If you’re interested in the above, there are will be upcoming opportunities to engage in some of these.

What this workshop IS (or aims to be):

• Community- and skill-building space
• Trauma-informed space
• Space to practice interrupting challenging words and behaviors
• Accountable to relationships across intersections
• Meant to build courage and foment action
• Prompt for deeper self-reflection, self-awareness, ongoing work

Open to all. No movement/yoga experience needed. By Donation. Proceeds will go to support local People of Color-led racial and economic work, and to Triangle SURJ, which has a Resource Steward Team, a mixed-class team making decisions about how to manage the resources that flow in to and out of TSURJ in accordance with values and relationships of accountability. Details of the disbursement of proceeds will be published on this event page following the event. A small portion will go to the lead trainer to support her livelihood.

Please wear comfortable clothing suitable for movement.

Background:
Host and Lead Trainer Patty Adams organizes locally with Triangle SURJ, a multiracial coalition to bring white folks into the struggle for racial justice. She is also an experienced yoga teacher, psychotherapist, facilitator and anti-oppression trainer. She is offering this workshop in the spirit of taking bold action and encouraging others to do the same. More about Patty at Liberation Healing Arts.

Co-host and Co-trainer Kristen Cox also organizes with Triangle SURJ and has years of experience in embodied practice including dance and other forms of conscious embodiment and cultural organizing work.