CONTEMPLATIVE BELONGING
A Guided Creative Writing Diversity & Inclusion Workshop
“How do we create community? When can we say that we truly belong?”
― bell hooks
Overview
This workshop is a contemplative answer to current DEI trainings, which are often singularly focused on “fixing” an external problem.
Our approach uses creative writing and mindfulness to encourage individuals to probe the inner depths of their intersectional relationship to DEIB (Diversity Equity Identity & Belonging). Using poetry and prose writings, participants are guided through a fully embodied experience of personal identity that includes, but is not limited to, race, gender, sex, ability, age, ancestry, spirituality and/or religion with somatic cues to learn the language of the body.
The writing in this workshop is personal and confidential (sharing work is optional). Our approach is centered on the framework of bell hooks’ notion in Teaching to Transgress that: “our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another … in recognizing one another’s presence.”
Workshop Structure
The workshop begins with grounding and creating a safe, bold, & expansive space
The heart of the workshop is the writing, using selected poetry as inspiration
The workshop concludes with the creation of a “Positionality Statement” to cultivate an understanding of how each individual is uniquely positioned within organizational communities
Workshop Goals
The goal for workshop participants is to honestly face themselves without fear of judgment. The cultivation of community, and the acceptance & care of the self and others shape this experience. With the guidance of writing prompts and an understanding of somatic cues, participants develop an awareness of deeply held beliefs. This approach does away with an over-intellectualized experience of DEIB issues and looks to re-humanize identity within an empathetic and contemplative intersectional experience.
Participant Takeaways
Awareness of a unique identity within the organization
Contemplative and invitational practices for the workspace & everyday life
Awareness of somatic cues
Strategies to recognize and shift low personal and community energy
“To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps.”
― Elie Wiesel
About the Facilitators
Daniel Dissinger is an Associate Professor in the Writing Program at the University of Southern California, host of the award-winning podcast Writing Remix, a poet, Kerouac scholar, and writing coach. Dan earned his PhD and MA from Saint John’s University as well as an MFA from The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. Dan’s poetry has been published in a variety of journals, and Shadow Mountain Press published his first chapbook, tracing the shape. In 2021, he co-created an international network of academic podcasters called The Humanities Podcast Network.
Stephanie Renée Payne is an Associate Professor in the Writing Program at the University of Southern California, a Board Certified Coach (BCC), and a mindfulness instructor at Mindful USC. In her over 10 years as a meditation and mindfulness practitioner and teacher, Payne has engaged in numerous trainings, including at the Upaya Zen Center, and The Omega Institute, among others. Payne holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a doctoral candidate for Sustainable and Equitable Education at the University of Wisconsin. Payne is the author of ESP: Extreme Self-Pampering for the Soul, along with publications in numerous journals, including The Los Angeles Review, Hunger Mountain, and For Harriet, among others.