Joy as Spirituality

Embodied Joy is a vulnerable and intimate practice of reflecting, thinking, and acting from a place of unconditional love for myself and others.

This 3-hour workshop invites us to pause and reflect on systemic and internalized oppression — both how they impact us and how we may be complicit within our sphere of influence. Through embodiment and joy, we’ll explore antidotes to oppression and paths to collective liberation.

This workshop aims to ground every being ready to bring liberatory practice and community building into their professional and personal realms and into embodied and conscious practices. The series will give participants the tools to engage in sustainable contemplative and radical work and offer an immersive learning experience taught via didactic, somatic, group, and individual activities. It will be transformative.

Frameworks Highlighted

• Neuroscience
• Stress Studies
• Mindfulness
• Spirituality
• Black Psychology
• Psychology of Liberation
• Anti-oppressive and Anti-Racist Praxis
• Collectivist and Afro-Centric
• Frameworks and Practices
• Intersectionality
• Activism
• Liberation and Consciousness
• Imagination and Futurism

Joy as Spirituality Learning Objectives:

• Participants will begin with self-attunement and regulation practices and articulate their feelings and emotions in specific moments through embodied and somatic experiences.
• Participants will define spirituality in their own words and its centrality in clinical practice and to the clinician.
• Participants will reflect and articulate a minimum of three ways embodiment is a spiritual practice.
• Participants will be introduced to the principles of Raja Yoga and the 8-Limbed Path as a form of somatic and contemplative practice.
• Participants will practice body-based interventions from Raja Yoga and discuss the experience of one of the 8 limbs in their bodies.
• Participants will reflect and articulate the connection between spirituality, being physically attuned to their body as they engage in professional practice, and where they are conscious and libratory in their work in their own words.

YACEP Continuing Education Hours Approved by Yoga Alliance

This program offers 3 continuing education hours (12 hours if all four workshops are completed).

Accredited by the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work

This workshop offers 3 continuing education hours through co-sponsorship with the University of Pittsburgh's School of Social Work. These credit hours satisfy requirements for LSW/LCSW, LMFT, and LPC biennial license renewal. For information on social work continuing education please visit socialwork.pitt.edu/continuing-ed.

Approved by the NASW-PA

This workshop offers 3 continuing education hours through the National Association of Social Workers Pennsylvania Chapter.

ACT 48 Professional Development / Continuing Education

This workshop offers 3 PDE-approved continuing professional development hours.

Series At A Glance

Collective Liberation Through Embodied Joy

This interactive 4-part workshop series stems from Felicia Savage Friedman’s 30 years of practicing, leading, and organizing anti-oppression Raja Yoga. In this historical and present-day analysis, we unpack systems of patriarchy, capitalism, and racism.

You’re invited to join us for the entire series or individual workshops.

March 6, 2025

Joy as Reconnection: Understanding Oppression and Dehumanization

March 20, 2025

Joy as Resistance: Antidotes to Oppression

April 3, 2025

Joy as Creativity: Imagining the World We Want

April 17, 2025

Joy as Spirituality: Our Divine Humanity