Embodied resilience
“Our bodies have answers to questions that we don’t know how to ask.”
- Katherine May
Learn embodied resilience skills
Learn skills, practices and frameworks that help you build both stability and flexibility in your nervous system so that you can navigate the escalating crises we are living through with more stability, freedom and connection. Scroll down to read more about embodied resilience and what it looks like in practice.
Embodied resilience develops through regular practice over time, which can be done in groups, teams and 1-to-1. The free taster sessions are a great way to experience the approach before deciding to go deeper. I look forward to meeting you at one of them.
My interactive sessions are a great way to dip your toes into embodied resilience work through a mix of theory and practice.
Upcoming dates:
Wednesday, 11 February 2026 from 12-1pm GMT on Zoom
Wednesday, 18 February 2026 from 10-11am GMT on Zoom
You will leave with:
An expanded definition of resilience that is collective rather than individual and recognises how systems and institutions shape our lives
A deeper understanding of how trauma, stress and burnout impact our collective capacity to create change
The chance to try out embodied resilience practices that help settle the nervous system in a supportive environment where all practices are invitational
New connections with others who are interested linking the personal and the systemic for the purpose of collective change
Spaces are limited to enable more safety and interaction.
A 3-month online learning and practice programme for people interested in the connection between embodiment and systemic change.
Through a mix of monthly workshops, weekly practice sessions and 1-to-1 support, the course teaches you the theory and practice of embodied resilience. It supports you to embed this practice into your day-to-day life in a way that is easeful and sustainable, even on days when you don’t have a lot of time or motivation.
Over time, you learn to build more stability, freedom and coherence inside your body. This, in turn, expands the collective capacity of the groups you are part of to hold difference, change, complexity, uncertainty and conflict as well as connection, imagination, joy and creativity.
Upcoming cohort starting on 11 March 2026
Visit the course page for more information: https://www.orchidculturechange.com/course
Spaces are limited and offered on a sliding scale. A £50 deposit is required upon registration.
1-hour sessions on Zoom at a time that works for you
These are tailored sessions for anyone who wants to figure out how they can resource themselves to create the change for the world they long for.
Working 1-to-1 allows us to take a much closer look at the specific challenges you are navigating and how you can embed embodied resilience practices to create more spaciousness, stability and freedom inside yourself and the work you do out in the world.
The sessions are designed to support you to:
Explore the factors that are currently expanding / diminishing your resilience
Set specific goals for changes you want to aim towards
Understand your default stress response and how it has been shaped by your survival strategies
Identify tools and practices that work for your body to down-regulate your stress response in the moment
Develop a sustainable, tailored practice recipe that you can embed into your daily routine
Track shifts over time, adapt the practice recipe as needed and celebrate big and small changes
The first session is a chance for you to find out if this approach and working with me is right for you.
It will involve some gentle practices and me asking you some intake questions to understand your context better. You will also be able to ask me any questions.
If you’d like to continue after the first session, I ask for a commitment of 5 sessions so that we have a good chance of tracking some shifts over time.
Cost ranges from £60-£140 per session - you pick the contribution that is right for your context.
Feel free to set up a 30-minute call with me to ask any questions and have a chat before signing up.
Have you been asking yourself:
How your team, organisation or group can navigate an increasingly challenging working environment?
Whether you and your team members can sustain working under a lot of external pressure?
How you can best support the people or clients you work with who are dealing with a lot of stress and trauma?
How you can navigate internal tensions and conflict in ways that allow people to stay in relationship?
How you can give and receive generative feedback without sending people over the edge?
Why people are often over-reacting to situations at work in ways that seem disproportionate?
What to do about staff turnover and how you can better support people to stay?
If any of these questions resonate, know that you are not alone in asking them.
I have seen many groups and organisations struggle with burnout, exhaustion and internal tensions in the context of increasing pressure and scarcity. These are not a sign of failure, but a symptom of our times.
Embodied resilience can expand your staff’s individual and your team’s collective capacity to sustain its work, deal with conflict and uncertainty and adapt to change.
I’d love to support you and your team to sustain yourselves and your work in the long term.
A study by Lumos Transforms, published in November 2025, tracked the impact of embodied resilience practice over 11 weeks with nearly 120 participants from six rights organisations.
The data showed significant increases in internal stability and relational capacity across the participating organisations.
What is embodied resilience?
Embodied resilience is a trauma-informed, somatic approach to real-time stress navigation that expands your capacity to navigate the challenging times we’re in without burning out.
Resilience is often understood as the individual ability to bounce back from adversity. Such an understanding doesn’t recognise that adversity, stress, trauma and oppression are highly unevenly distributed across society.
Embodied resilience reframes resilience as inherently collective and political. It is not about bouncing back from oppression, but bouncing forward together to create a world that includes all of us.
It focuses on expanding our inner resources so that we can collectively change the conditions that create our stress, injustice, trauma, burnout or alienation in the first place. Doing so enables more freedom, coherence and connection to ourselves, each other and the world around us.
Embodied resilience is a multi-modal approach based on the teachings of The Resilience Toolkit and combines the following cognitive and embodied elements:
Body-based practices: Simple, portable and adaptable exercises that can be practised anywhere in under 2 minutes. They help the body de-escalate its stress response when it’s safe to do so.
Systemic frameworks: Designed to enable a more holistic analysis of individual and collective resilience. They also help illuminate the connection between the personal embodied practice and collective action.
Scientific models: Taken from various disciplines including neuroscience, ethology and psychology. They illustrate how stress manifests in the body and how people’s survival responses are shaped by the conditions around them.
Peer learning: Embodied resilience is an inherently collective approach. Learning, reflecting, co-regulating and building community with people who share similar questions is one of its most potent elements, particularly in a hyper-individualist culture.
Trauma-informed facilitation: Trauma often occurs when people have no choice and no witness. Agency, care and collaboration are central to the way I have been trained and facilitate. Everything we do is invitational, so you can choose what works for you and let go what doesn’t.
By building more stability inside of your own nervous system, you also expand the collective capacity to hold both difference, change, complexity, uncertainty and conflict as well as connection, imagination, joy and creativity.
What does it look like in practice?
Each sessions uses a mix of body-based practices, systemic frameworks, scientific models and peer reflection to explore how stress and resilience manifests in our individual and collective bodies.
The embodied practices are simple, portable and adaptable and can be practised anywhere in under 2 minutes. They help the body de-escalate its stress response when it’s safe to do so. Some of the practices include gentle physical movement, which is optional and can be adapted to your body.
The work is gentle by design, not because the challenges are small, but because gentleness is what allows change to happen without getting overwhelmed or traumas being triggered.
Through regular practice, expanding your inner capacity can enable things like:
Noticing your own boundaries and limitations before they have been crossed, which prevents burnout and enables sustainable working and relationships
Staying socially connected to others even and especially when under pressure, which prevents isolation
Communicating with more emotional clarity and presence, which prevents misunderstandings and conflict
Giving and receiving appreciation and care, which deepens relationships and improves wellbeing
Receiving critical feedback without getting panicked or defensive, which builds trust, integrity and leadership
Navigating tension and conflict in ways that preserve rather than rupture relationships, which strengthens relationships and prevents hurt
Accessing more creativity and imagination, which unlocks new strategic possibilities for your work and life
What participants have said