Glossary

‍Accessible: In practical terms, accessible refers to being able to be reached, entered, or used by people who have disabilities. Broadly speaking, this also includes being able to access space financially and relationally.

‍Accountability Group: A small, trusted group that helps support and encourage commitments to goals, responsibility and feedback to its members.

‍Ceremonies: Collective, formal gatherings to mark a significant transition, celebrate or initiate a moment (e.g., grief, commitment, celebration) with and for a community.

‍Collective Liberation: The understanding that our freedoms are linked; no one is free until everyone is free. It requires dismantling all systems of oppression together.

‍Dharmic: Belonging to a family of religions and spiritual philosophies originating in the Indian subcontinent, primarily Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Dharmic is derived from "dharma," broadly defined as natural law, or a code of conduct, emphasizing a sense of sacred duty in order to live in harmony with the cosmic order, being in right relationship with all beings to achieve liberation from suffering.

‍Feminist: A political, social, and economic philosophy advocating for gender equality. Intersectional feminism specifically argues that the struggle for women's liberation must also address the overlapping systems of oppression faced by queer people, people of colour, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.

‍Holistic: An approach that sees everything as interconnected and addresses the whole system (personal, community, structural) rather than just isolated parts.

‍Intersectionality: Various social identities, such as race, gender, class, and sexual orientation, intersect to create unique and overlapping experiences of discrimination and privilege. Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality recognizes that individuals can face compounded disadvantages from systems of oppression that cannot be understood in isolation.

‍Marginalized: Marginalized groups are communities that have historically been excluded from access, opportunity, and representation due to systemic power imbalances. This includes, but isn’t limited to Women, Gender Non-conforming people, Trans- people, Immigrants, People with disabilities, Racialized people, Religious Minorities, Elders, and those marginalized by mental illness, disability, neurodivergence, poverty and size.

‍Non-Binary: An umbrella term for gender identities that fall outside the strict binary of exclusively man or woman. Non-binary identities are diverse and can include genders that are fluid, both, neither, or something else entirely. It is important to distinguish non-binary (a gender identity) from intersex (a variation in sex characteristics) and to recognize that specific cultural identities like Two-Spirit have their own distinct meanings.

‍Peer Supervision: Colleague, non-hierarchical consultation and support pertaining to private practice, clients and concerns in both caseload and administrative practice.

‍Process Group: A group focused on the "how" – exploring interpersonal dynamics and emotional patterns as they happen in the moment within the group itself.

‍Queer: Historically, a derogatory and pathologizing term, Queer is now an umbrella term for people who identify/exist outside of the heterosexual and/or cisgender categories. It is used by some to encompass a wide range of sexual and gender identities, and to express that identity can be fluid and not fit into traditional categories. Queerness also extends beyond human gender, sex and identity and can be a philosophy and orientation to life; expansive, diverse, fluid, wild and beyond the script.

‍Racialized: Racialization is the socio-historical process of creating racial categories and assigning power, social class, and value to them. The term racialized (e.g., racialized people, racialized groups) refers to people who have been categorized and marginalized by this process.

‍Rituals: Repeated personal or small-group practices which may include words, objects, gestures, objects, and sequences that build culture and resilience.

‍Skillshare: Collaborative, anti-capitalist and non-hierarchical sharing of knowledge, skills and practices within a community to build collective power and self-reliance.

‍Social Connection Games: Playful social engagement activities designed to interrupt social blockages, such as defensiveness, performativity and masking by building and practicing trust, empathy, curiosity, compassion, communication and authenticity.

‍Somatics: The practice of understanding the mind and body as one. It focuses on changing the patterns of trauma and oppression held in our bodies to create new ways of being.

‍Somatic Experiencing® (SE): A method developed by Peter Levine, to release trauma stored in the nervous system by completing the body's self-protective responses such as fight, flight and freeze.

‍Support Group: A space where people with shared experiences (e.g., grief, addiction) offer each other mutual emotional comfort and solidarity.

‍Systemic: Power structures that relate to a whole system, built into a society's institutions, language, policies, laws, education, and culture, impacting all life within that system. This includes socio-historial systems such as white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism.

‍Trauma: ​​A physiological response where the body remains stuck in a state of threat after an overwhelming and/or perceived life-threatening experience. Without enough resourcing, safety and support the body becomes unable to complete the natural cycle of fight, flight, or freeze and the resulting impact is trauma.

‍Trauma-Informed: An approach that recognizes and responds to the effects of trauma and understands traumatic bodily symptoms and responses as the nervous system's best effort at survival and management. It focuses on creating safety and addressing the root causes of trauma, including systemic oppression.