​The Living Room: An intentional community of healing 

Our origin story 

The Living Room arose out of many years of dialogue among social justice committed therapists in Seattle, Washington. Some of us were part of the group Therapeutic Justice Project, a coalition of social justice healers that ran from 2008-2011. We wanted to nurture a supportive space where humans have room to breathe and to heal. We talked about what our ideal practice setting would look and feel like, and decided it would feel like a living room - a place where gatherings could happen, both spontaneously and formally, for learning, dialogue, support and liberation. The Living Room is the incubator project for that space. Since our inception in 2016, humans, practices and learnings have moved through and shaped us. Our ethos is both enduring and emergent. 

The work we are called to do

We are a group of politicized healers who offer psychotherapy to individuals, relationships, families and groups, 
We also offer consultation and supervision to support other practitioners particularly around somatic and liberatory practice. 
We host a speaker series where practitioners come together to learn from each other and connect around a range of anti-oppression, liberatory topics. 
We participate in and facilitate race based caucusing to do the work of healing from and dismantling internalized and external white body supremacy and late stage capitalism. 
We hold space for meetings, groups, community organizing, workshops, brunches, pot lucks and dance parties. 

What we are moving towards

We envision a future where liberation is not fought for but enjoyed by all. Where dignity, joy and abundance are birthrights. A world our ancestors would be proud of and our descendants will want to inherit. A world where solidarity replaces supremacy. We dream of a tomorrow where communities have capacity for rupture and repair, accountability, reparations and rematriation. Where individualism and competition are alchemized into collective mutual care and right relationship. We envision the healing work we do today as essential to this transformation. 

Values we hold

Right relationship: presence, authenticity, transparency, accountability, capacity, compassion, positive regard, playfulness, love. 
Liberation: freedom from external oppressive systems and internal limiting beliefs, ease, creativity, access, choice. 
Solidarity: being with the truth that all systems of oppression are inextricably linked, and disrupting the conditions that divide us. Resonance and co-conspiring. 
Embodied: recognizing that trauma lives in the body and is healed through the body; (re)connecting with our bodies; engaging in somatic practices of collective liberation. 
Complexity: emergence, adaptation and creativity; sitting with contradiction; multiplicity of tactics. 
Enduring commitment: to our own healing, to each other, to this work and to liberation. 

Lineage

Resmaa Menakem, Leticia Nieto, Sage Hayes, Bayo Akomolafe, Tada Hozumi, Dare Sohei, Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Duwamish Solidarity Group, Isabel Wilkerson, Nkem Ndefo, Rae Johnson, White Awake, Holistic Resistance, Wake Up Seattle, Somatic Experiencing, Ritual as Justice School, Rachel Martin, adrienne maree brown, Ibram X. Kendi, Eric Ward, Lyla June Johnston, Natalie Wynn, S. Bear Bergman, Wendy Elisheva Somerson, Leslie Feinberg, Emma Goldman, T. Thorn Coyle, Prentis Hemphill, Janis Bohan & Glenda Russell, Laura Brown, Susan Raffo, Char Sundust, Heather Cole Gatto, Dariusz Rawa. 

Tu B'shevat  
Wendy Elisheva Somerson
https://wendysomerson.net/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/CorvidCrossingStudio

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Land Acknowledgment 

We would like to acknowledge that we are practicing on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish People past and present, and honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish Tribe.
 
In this acknowledgement, we name our positionality. Many of us are white settlers on unceded territory after the breaking of the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855. And all of us are visitors on this land. We are actively working towards rematriation, including paying monthly Real Rent Duwamish. We state this land acknowledgement, in part, to make visible the ongoing project of settler colonialism on this land and around the world. 
 
May the land and the Duwamish people thrive into the future. May our work be in service to our capacity to be in right relationship with each other, with the land, and for the healing of us all.