From work across humanitarian and cross-cultural settings, this session explores how mindfulness practices can be adapted to honour different lived realities, histories, and ways of knowing.
Rather than approaching mindfulness as a universal technique, we’ll reflect on how culture, identity, and personal experience shape the way mindfulness practices are received and embodied.
This session is suitable for anyone interested in deepening their relationship with mindfulness in a way that’s more inclusive, relational, and sensitive to trauma.
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
The session will include a combination of guided experiential practices, short reflections, and teaching input. There’ll be space for gentle interaction in pairs or small groups, as well as individual reflection.
Participants will be invited to engage at their own pace, with an emphasis on choice, agency, and respect for individual experience.
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
