Community Lifestyle Wellness Initiative
Inspired by our work with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine's HEAL Initiative and our Collective Trauma studies, the Community Lifestyle Wellness Initiative is designed to support ACLM's 6 Pillars of Health through a community-engaged, trauma-informed lens: predominantly whole plant-based eating; exercise; stress management; healthy relationships; sleep; risky substance cessation.
The program is also designed in acknowledgement of factors affecting the health of our communities:
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decolonizing our diets and food systems
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health disparity and inequity
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environmental racism
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racialized violence
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systemic / institutional racism
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personal / ancestral / interpersonal / transgenerational trauma
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centering the #landback movement
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evolving from repatriation to rematriation of the land
The Community Lifestyle Wellness Initiative is adaptable — it is a collection of offerings, a sharing of resources toward collective goals. We believe that by working as one tribe, we can make profound shifts within the consciousness of our communities that will affect generations to come.
Explore components of the program below and contact us to explore bringing the Community Lifestyle Wellness Initiative to your community.
Trauma-Informed Healing
Support & Resources for Individual, Collective & Intergenerational Trauma
Featured Workshop: Unmasking Purposefully Induced Trauma. Facilitated by Abigail Sassano.
It can be helpful to think of trauma as an unprocessed experience. This is a helpful concept because it 1) removes the emotional charge, and 2) points to resolution. Our bodies and minds are masters of digesting information, by differentiating material based on usefulness, expelling what is not useful, and integrating what is.
It is also helpful to understand (without becoming frightened and overwhelmed by this awareness) that trauma is highly transmissible from one person to another. This transmission often occurs inadvertently, as with intergenerational trauma.
Trauma can also be induced to people purposely and strategically. The reason for this is because when people are highly traumatized, they can be coerced into actions that benefit another person’s agenda. The good news is that it does not take additional force to neutralize these dynamics. It only requires us to see them clearly. This workshop is one of deep seeing, so that we may be able to be of maximum benefit to our brothers and sisters who have been systematically traumatized.
Food For Life
4 - 6 Weekly Sessions on Food as Medicine
Nutrition education, cooking demos, and Q&A, developed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and facilitated by Tammy Robertson, Registered Nurse (RN) and Certified Food For Life Instructor.
Subject-specific programs to prevent and reverse our most deadly diseases:
Cooking to Combat COVID-19
Food for Weight Management
Diabetes Prevention and Treatment
Food for Cancer Prevention and Survival
Nutrition Essentials (Kickstart)
Kids Health — Food for a Healthy Start
Healthy Basics — Limited Budget
Hormones — Your Body in Balance
Employee Wellness Program
Native Food For Life (developed with the Dine Nation)
African American Culinary Heritage (new)
Each program includes 4 or 6 weekly sessions that are 1.5 - 2 hours long and include nutrition information, cooking demonstrations, recipes, and time for Q&A.
Being Unapologetically ME!
Talking My Walk and Walking My Talk
Theme: How to empower children to say when they are uncomfortable — Do I know when I feel comfortable in my body and the situation? Do I know what makes me feel uncomfortable? Do I know how to tell my environment that what makes me uncomfortable isn’t working for me? Help develop language emerging from emotional intelligence — how to recognize, monitor, and moderate our emotions.
This series of free interactive workshops for families includes fun and engaging assignments to fortify the learning experience, including a commitment to one weekly family dinner to discuss the knowledge shared that week.
Facilitator Kathleen Dameron explores the intersection between race, collective healing, mindfulness, and culture to facilitate individual and societal generative change.
Seva Jumpstart
10-day Health Intervention with Whole Plant-Based Foods
Seva Jumpstart is intended to aid individuals and families in reaching their personal health goals; bringing resources and support to help facilitate major behavioral shifts to regain health on all dimensions and to inspire shifts in their respective communities. We promote and support the concept of Food as Medicine for the individual and entire communities.
"Seva" is a Sanskrit word for “service” and is indicative of our desire to serve the greater whole. The "Jumpstart" part of the project is a 10-day program with whole-food plant-based meals and biometric testing at the beginning and end of the 10 days (LDL, HDL, triglycerides). Previous participants have seen incredible results, documented in PlantPure Nation — free to watch here.
Parenting Doesn’t Have To Hurt
with Laura Nwokocha, Conscious Parenting Method Certified Coach
This free interactive workshop is designed to help reorient caregivers to their own inner knowing that already exists and is there. It explores the importance of noticing and engaging with your child's inner world, and it explores disconnection and what generations of disconnection can look like, along with how to start healing the disconnect.