Somaticist,
I’m a
Power-Informed
Coach & Facilitator
bringing softness to fighting oppression, to conflict, to our bodies & our senses.
What do acceptance, grief, and love all have in common?
They all open us up to more than we are right now. They all have softness.
And that’s the essential shape to bring to almost every situation in our lives whether it’s anxiety, familial conflict, organizational problems, chronic pain, creative blocks, mutual aid, or issues with sex. When we hold our limits with softness the world often relaxes around us, even just a little bit. And when we fight with softness, it often hurts us less than if we made ourselves hard. Softness is Liberation Fuel and Harm Reduction. It’s wildly versatile and highly contextual. And when it’s honest, softness is transformative.
In my work, I’ve found that softness is the essential ingredient to resilience and lasting change.
BIO & CONTACT
Hey! I’m Ripple!
I started this work in early 2020 as I found myself in extreme emotional dysregulation while negotiating polyamorous relationship structures and COVID exposure agreements with people in my pod. I realized that as “successful” as I was under capitalism (I was a business coach), I was doing more than I wanted to almost all the time, and, worse than that, it felt nearly impossible to relax.
So, I started training with Nancy Shanteau as a Skills for Change Coach, Mediator, Bodyworker, and Teacher and became very excited about all my new tools for understanding the power dynamics that underlie every single interaction we have in the world. I got better at lots of stuff and it started to become more clear what I wanted from my life.
But I couldn’t figure out how to get there.
And then I started practicing softness.
And everything started changing. I could communicate more clearly, I could handle more discomfort, I better understood what I wanted, made better relationships and work agreements, my friendships got much richer, I stopped spending energy on being hard, and I’m much more creative and passionate.
This took a ton of practice and discomfort and by no means did I reach any kind of perfection. And the discomfort never ended, I just learned how to soften around it.
I want this softness for you. I want to be your guide to softness in your relationships, in your creative practice, in your organization, and in your muscles and perceptions.
I think softness is the way to collective liberation.
Does that sound like something you want?
<3 ripple
workwithripple@gmail.com
(314) 809 - 9819
@workwithripple (instagram)
OFFERINGS
-
How do you think about your power? How do you tend to feel when you are powerless? What muscle tension do you tend to hold? What do you long for? How do you tend to get what you want? We’ll bring awareness to these questions, learn your strengths, and use them to bring more of what you want into your life and survive difficult times of change.
-
In Skills for Change we say “Cooperation is asking for 100% of what you want 100% of the time and negotiating to agreement.” Oppressive forces often make it unsafe for us to ask for 100% of what we want. We make up stories for other people that may or may not be accurate. In my mediations and organizational facilitation, we first identify how we want to be cooperating and then clear stories that are in the way and make new agreements.
I also run Cooperative Learning Groups, for folks dedicated to relating with each other or learning about a shared way of being.
-
I regularly facilitate cooperative workshops on somatic embodiment of softness in hard times. I also teach cooperative communication and self-bodywork courses. Join my Email List or follow me on Instagram to make sure you get these invites!
-
In this world full of multinational corporations and union-busting governmental agencies, it can often liberate us from material oppressive forces to start our own business where no one gets to tell us how much we make and when we have to show up. I’ve been coaching business owners for nearly a decade on how to achieve their business and life design goals. Whether you’re an independent artist, hairstylist, coach, or massage therapist, I can help you get what you want from your venture.
-
While hierarchy in our culture has historically been extremely harmful and oppressive, there have also existed many examples of cooperative hierarchies that functioned well to care and support for people. Drawing from my decade of business consulting and coaching as well as radical Skills for Change tools around Cooperation, I work with organizational clients to: design positions along with mechanisms to allow for dissent, identify power problems and find ways to resolve them, and to design decision making processes (among other things).
-
I’ll soon have a Patreon where you can support me in writing a monthly essay to teach foundational Skills for Change concepts and practices for making our lives more like we want them to be, while fighting oppressive forces and organizing for collective liberation.