Who We Are and What We Do

Sanctuary Embodied guides individuals, teams, and organizations in transformational practices to root their actions in their political principles and collective culture.

We support communities to develop resilient and compelling cultures that can sustain for the long haul. We do this through offering short to long term coaching, somatic workshops, embodied leadership trainings, and other politicized healing programs that center queer, trans, Jewish, and BIPOC movement workers.

  • Lead Teacher

    Eliana Rubin is a queer feminist, anti-imperialist organizer, and practitioner of politicized somatics who grew up in a deeply rooted, culturally Jewish community in the Bay Area on Ohlone land. Connecting with their own legacies of resistance fortified Eliana in their commitment to fight all forms of oppression, including both Zionism and antisemitism. For over 12 years, she has worked to support culture change in movement spaces through the use of embodied practice and facilitation. In 2015, Eliana began training in the lineages of generative somatics as a practitioner and teacher.

    They received their Graduate Degree in Embodiment Studies from Goddard College in 2020, writing a thesis based on their research in the intersections of somatic methodologies, polyvagal theory, Jewish inter-generational trauma, and internationalist anti-imperialist politics.

    Eliana is now rooted in Durham, North Carolina on Occoneechi, Saponi, & Eno land where she helped to found Makom, a queer and trans led Jewish anti-Zionist congregation.

    In 2024, Eliana published their first book with PM Press, Taking the State Out of the Body: A Guide to Embodied Resistance to Zionism.

  • Co-Facilitator and Collaborator

    Yashna Maya Padamsee is a first generation south asian immigrant queer femme raised in and by the US South. Yashna has spent 20+ years supporting social movements through creating innovative infrastructure and sharing liberatory healing practices. Yashna is a Project Management, Event Planning and Organizational + Leadership Development Consultant for nonprofit and movement building organizations and creative teams, an occasional yoga teacher and artist, and a full time dog-mama. 

    Learn More

  • Program Assistant

    Olivia is the Black, queer descendant of teachers, preachers, and farmers from southeastern North Carolina. Over the past ten years, her work has spanned K-12 education, higher education, arts organizations, reproductive justice movements, Afro-Indigenous healing farms, youth restorative justice groups, and gender-based violence advocacy. With training and experience in education, project management, operations, capacity-building support, research, evaluation, and assessment, Olivia is deeply committed to using her skills and experiences in the service of liberation.

    Learn More

Sanctuary Embodied collaborates with other facilitators, practitioners, and teachers. Learn about their work and check out upcoming courses to see who is on the team!

Becka Tilsen is an educator and trainer who has designed and facilitated workshops for a wide range of constituencies. Becka has more than two decades of experience with program development for social justice organizations.

Nazbah Tom supports BIPOC communities within social and climate justice movements. Nazbah offers somatic healing groups and skill building workshops to movement leaders, organizations, and alliances.

MawuLisa Thomas Adeyemo is a Queer Southern born, Black & Indigenous somatic awakener, healing midwife, bodyworker, ritualist, & song weaver. Her healing practice is inspired by the healing technologies of generative somatics, Strozzi Institute,  Ayurveda, and Earth-based Wisdom Traditions.

Marika Heinrichs is a writer, researcher, and practitioner of somatics, who deeply believes that reconnecting with our bodies is vital to ending systems of domination and supremacy. She is passionate about supporting people to find connection, belonging, and liberation through the wisdom of their bodies.

Kristin Waters and Bex Pattowitz are somatic experiencing practitioners based in Durham, NC.

Jules Pashall works at the intersections of creative expression and embodiment practice. Fat, queer, trans and disabled activists raised them and shapes their work.

adrienne maree brown is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Loving Correction as ideas and practices for transformation. 

Politicized Somatics teaches us to align our bodies and actions with our values…

Politicized somatics is a theory and methodology of embodied practice, healing, and change that grows our capacity to feel a wider range of sensations and align our actions with our values. The root of “somatics,” “soma,” means “the living organism or body in its wholeness.” Somatic practices are designed to support more choiceful, impactful, and resilient bodies and movements.

“Transformation means moving toward more fully inhabiting our bodies as agents of change and healing and thus is absolutely essential to our movements for justice."

—Eliana Rubin, Taking the State Out of the Body