Embodied resilience
“Our bodies have answers to questions that we don’t know how to ask.”
- Katherine May
What is embodied resilience?
Embodied resilience is a trauma-informed, somatic approach to real-time stress navigation that expands people’s capacity to navigate the challenging times we are in without collapsing, burning out or turning on each other.
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 systemic. It’s not about becoming better at ‘managing’ stress, but instead focuses on strengthening our collective capacity to create a world that includes all of us.
This isn’t a new idea. It echoes the Palestinian concept of sumud, for example, which Dr. Samah Jabr describes as “an action-oriented” resilience. “Sumud is not only about your personal traits”, she explains, “it’s about the relationships you develop with other members of the community, […] it’s about challenging the reality [together] and making transformation and change.”
This approach focuses on expanding our inner resources so that we can collectively change the conditions that create our stress, our burnout, our 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 Resilience Toolkit developed by Lumos Transforms and combines the following cognitive and embodied elements:
Simple, portable and adaptable exercises that can be practised anywhere and in under 2 minutes to help the body de-escalate its stress response when it’s safe to do so.
Body-based practices
Designed to help you put your own experience into a wider systemic context and illuminate the connection between personal embodied practice and collective action.
Systemic frameworks
Drawing on models from neuroscience, ethology, psychology to illustrate how stress manifests in the body, mind and emotions and how our survival responses are shaped by the conditions around us.
Scientific models
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 and an anti-dote to individualism.
Peer learning
Trauma often occurs when people have no choice and no witness. Agency, care and collaboration are central to the way I have been trained. Everything we do is invitational, so you can choose what works for you and let go what doesn’t.
Trauma-informed facilitation
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, you will learn to:
Identify your stress level in real time
Discern whether that level of stress is helpful to the situation you’re in
De-escalate your stress response using a range of practices if it’s safe to do so
Access more internal safety and stability to change or leave the conditions that are causing your stress in the first place
This builds the foundation not only for individual healing but for collective transformation.
Over time, embodied resilience helps you expand your inner capacity for 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
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.
Learn embodied resilience skills
Embodied resilience develops through regular practice over time, both individually or in groups.
There are different ways you can practise with me, including:
Through 1-to-1 sessions - for a deeply tailored approach to your specific context
In peer groups - check out my course page and offering for the covid conscious community
As a team - by bringing embodied resilience into your group, team or organisation
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:
Thursday, 26 February 2026 from 12-1pm GMT on Zoom
Thursday, 19 March 2026 from 12-1pm GMT on Zoom
Wednesday, 8 April 2026 from 6-7pmBST 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.
What participants have said