You are invited to join Justine Fanarof in person and virtually for our summer 2022 series, Practices for Resiliency in Times of Uncertainty.

This summer’s practice will focuses on sustainable relational compassion practices for staying securely attached and somatically grounded in an uncertain world.

We will look at and explore the following and more:

What is compassion?

How does compassion practice yield important benefits like psychological well-being, adaptive physiological and behavioral responses to stress, and prosocial behavior?

How do we develop an ability to return to a strong, secure base as needed for replenishment under challenging circumstances?

Let’s gather across the land on Zoom in community and experience gentle movement and mindfulness practices supporting compassion over the summer.

We also experience connection via sangha, which is one of the key components of life.

Together we continue working with a healing justice oriented approach and guiding texts such as How to Connect by Thich Nhat Hanh and Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown.

Together we deepen our understanding and awareness of how we know ourselves from the outside in, objectively, and from the inside out, subjectively, using an approach grounded in neurodharma and the teachings of Rick Hanson, PhD.

Together we practice gentle movement, breathwork, meditation, yoga nidra & community/sangha. Everyone needs a sangha ❤

Virtual location: Zoom

In-person location: TBD

6 Tuesday evenings at 6:00 PM Pacific/8:00 PM Central

June 14, 21, 28 & July 12, 19, 26

Series*: $240 series
$45 per drop-in

To Register: Email me with your name and if you are doing series or drop-in.
Make payment in advance of session via Zelle justinekerri@gmail.com or Venmo @justinefanarof

*Sliding Scale Available: No one is ever turned away for inability to pay. Please email me if you’d like to discuss what’s possible.

I was delighted to be a presenter today on women’s wellness for the City of Houston’s Department of Neighborhood’s A Month of Service (AMOS) virtual program. AMOS program partners include Neighborhood Recovery Community Development Corporation, Harris County Appraisal District, Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office, Houston Volunteer Lawyers, Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law Earl Carl Institute for Legal and Social Policy, Lone Star Legal Aid, and the Houston Bar Association. We had a wonderful and interactive program that focused on justice oriented practices.

I was invited by Laura Parker, my magical friend/neighbor, to participate in a Beltane celebration. We gathered at Anna’s beautiful farm outside of town, lay quilts down, practiced and shared healing arts, ate a beautiful potluck meal, and made flowers out of crowns. It was a meaningful gathering of like-hearted folx, and it was my first time teaching and sharing energy work in person since the pandemic began almost two years ago.

I offer the practices of May with an intention of sharing the wisdom and compassion of healing metta, with prayers of loving kindness for all beings, in honor of all we have collectively lost and found in these light and shadow times.

May we gather together in meaningful ways.

May we nourish community.

May we feel loved, rooted, grounded, and free.

—You are invited to join our Zoom based sangha/community, where the energy flows every Tuesday evening thanks to the magic of the Zoom engineers–thanks y’all!—

Sliding scale always available.

This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before!

-Maya Angelou

Hello 2022–what a long, strange trip it continues to be. So, let’s gather on Tuesday evenings at 8PM Central for gentle movement, connection, and mindfulness practice.

Winter series is from Tuesday, January 11, 2022 through Tuesday, February 22, 2022.

Join for the series or drop-in as your schedule allows.

GENTLE MOVEMENT
MINDFULNESS OF BREATH
SOMATIC MOVEMENT
YOGA NIDRA MEDITATION

Sessions are one hour, and will be recorded and shared if you are unable to attend live.

Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile ❤

Our sangha will wrap up 2021 and move gently into 2022 together with an 8 week Mindfulness of Breath series. Course starts on Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 6PM Pacific/ 8PM Central/9PM Eastern, meets weekly at that day and time, and goes through Tuesday, January 4, 2022. Join for the series or drop in depending on your schedule. All classes will be recorded and shared to those who register and are unable to attend a live session. Cost is $180 for the series, $25 to drop in, and sliding scale is available.
_
This series will teach you accessible and useful mindfulness practice that supports using awareness of the breath and body as initial foci for meditation. These tools support living a life grounded in freedom rather than being constantly reactive to the whirlpools of the mind that cause suffering, fear, anxiety, depression, etc.
_
I practice and teach mindfulness as tenderness and care in an embodied, justice oriented sense. May the seeds of attention we plant in the mud of uncertainty yield flowers of contentment, happiness, and joy. And, may we do so with friends, lovers, family, strangers, dogs, cats, and other wonderful members of our home communities.
_
Looking forward to seeing y’all soon, wherever you are.

Science tells us that a useful way to slow down, de-stress, and self-regulate is through extending the exhale. This month I’m offering a way to check in with your own tools of self-awareness, including self-regulation, through a four part Intro to Breathing & Meditation Course.

We will meet on Zoom on four Thursdays, Sep. 9, 16, 23 & 30th from 6:00 – 7:15 PM Pacific/8:00 – 9:15 PM Central to explore a range of breathing and meditation practices.

The Intro to Breathing & Meditation Course is open to new and experienced practitioners, and we will cover a range of topics, including:
-finding your seat (or not seat)
-grounding meditation
-release valve breath
-sensing your body as a whole meditation
-balancing heart mind meditation
– 4 levels of mind: understanding your mind/thoughts and why you are not them
-gentle yoga for mindfulness practice

REGISTRATION: Please contact me if you’d like to register. The cost is $150, payable via Venmo or Zelle. As always, if you want to practice and are requesting a sliding scale please let me know. Zoom info will be provided to all attendees upon registration. If you register for the Course and are unable to make a session please email me and I’ll send you the recording.

If you are new to the sangha please also fill out this form.

Venmo @justinefanarof
Zelle justinekerri@gmail.com

All the things, here and now.

feeling breath

feeling love

feeling equilibruim

practices to nourish the heart, this month y siempre

The American Psychoanalytic Society’s COVID-19 Advisory Group has issued an important statement on Pandemic Trauma and Stress Experience, PTSE. Read the statement to learn more and gain a deeper understanding of the individual and collective trauma and stress experience of our time.

Two palms together dear ones.

Like many of you, today I’ve been taking the time to sit with Dr. King’s teachings, including the I’ve Been to the Mountaintop address, which was given a day before he was murdered in Memphis, TN in April 1968.

Dr. King was in Memphis supporting the efforts of the sanitation workers who were striking in response to the workplace death of two of their colleagues, with demands for fair pay and humane working conditions. If you’ve seen the I AM A MAN poster, you may know it was used by those marching.

As we sit deeply in this moment of reckoning, I continue to struggle with the system of whiteness that was created to enslave, imprison, murder, and subjugate millions of people of color. I vow to keep listening, acting, and participating. I vow to stay aware, awake, and connected to community, even as we struggle with isolation during the pandemic.

This is the practice of yoga on the mat and into the world.

I am ecstatic this week our world will see a man of faith and principles and a woman of color and clarity, both compassionate, wise, and experienced, lead the USA. May we step forward into a new space. May we continue to see the stars!

Watch me first:
The Root: 1,300 Men: Memphis Strike ’68

Listen to me next:
Dr. King’s I’ve Been to the Mountaintop address, Memphis, TN, April 3, 1968

Get involved now:
Marjorie Joseph, ED Houston Coalition Against Hate (HCAH) and I wrote a letter May This Moment regarding the insurrection at the Capitol and next steps for moving forward. We encourage you to read the letter, and to get involved. If you’re able to donate to HCAH, please know we appreciate any amount.