Moving beyond technique, we’ll explore the inner stance of the teacher: how our own conditioning, cultural lenses, and relationship to safety shape the spaces we facilitate.
Drawing from trauma-informed and somatic approaches, including interoceptive awareness, this session invites teachers to reflect on how to create environments where participants feel met in their bodies.
Examples from humanitarian and cross-cultural contexts will illustrate how mindfulness can be adapted in settings where trauma, displacement, and systemic inequality are present.
What to expect from this event
This will be an interactive session combining:
- Short teaching inputs
- Experiential practices grounded in the body
- Reflective inquiry (individual and small group)
- Case examples from real-world contexts
There’ll be space for dialogue and shared learning among participants.
What You’ll Gain from This Event
- A deeper understanding of trauma-sensitive principles in mindfulness teaching
- Greater awareness of your own positionality and cultural lens as a teacher
- Practical ways to adapt practices for diverse and trauma-impacted groups
- Tools to work with activation and regulation in participants
- Insight into the role of interoception and the body in creating safety
- Inspiration for integrating cultural responsiveness into your teaching
Meet the Teacher
Paula Ramírez Diazgranados is an anthropologist, peacebuilder, and trauma-informed practitioner working at the intersection of mental health, culture, and humanitarian response. She’s the founder of RESPIRA in Colombia and has over 15 years of experience supporting frontline teams across 23 countries in collaboration with organisations such as IOM, UNFPA, UNICEF and the Tibetan Government in Exile.
Her work integrates trauma-informed approaches, somatic experiencing, and interoceptive practices to support individuals and systems in contexts of adversity, displacement, and violence. Deeply shaped by her own lived experience growing up during the Colombian armed conflict, Paula brings a relational and culturally grounded perspective to mindfulness and care.
Paula is particularly interested in how safety emerges through listening, within the body, in relationships, and across cultures, and how this can transform ecosystems of care in humanitarian and professional settings.
Website: www.paularamirez.co
