Testimonials

I participated in the energy healing workshop to gain insight, tools and support in dealing with the stresses of work as well as difficult personal issues. I appreciated feeling connected to others going through the same challenges in a safe space, and I gained tools that I can apply to working with clients and partners within the Non-Profit sector. Setting healthy boundaries with co-workers and using these techniques to manage work stress hugely helps maintain my overall health and effectiveness in the field.

Vanissar’s energy healing workshops have provided me with practices which help me cultivate depth and intuitive wisdom in my work with trauma survivors. Vanissar invites participants to voice what learnings would be relevant and useful, and skillfully encompasses each person’s needs and goals into her workshops. I walk away with practices that I can immediately apply in my work with clients and for my personal healing/growth. These practices keep me grounded while bearing witness to difficult stories and emotions, and help me to facilitate a client’s healing from trauma.

At the Sustainable Self-care Practices for Activists and Community Workers workshop in Toronto, Vanissar offered her direct personal experience, grace, understanding, and a commitment to challenge and be challenged. She has a unique ability to create safer spaces in which learners are able to deeply explore their histories and motivations, to contextualize within larger social frames, and move toward new healing and integration. Her skill in holding space for individuals and groups allows profound healing and learning to take place.

Vanissar is like Batman without the show. You might not notice her until a moment arises that needs intervention; at that moment she is ready, producing just the right tool to re-frame the discussion or connect what was disconnected. The tool she brings out might be humor, mirroring, inquiry, or self-healing practices from her arsenal of personal care modalities. Vanissar’s workshop design and volunteer training has served a critical role at DiversityWorks.

At the Oppression and the Body workshop, I appreciated how you talked about oppression as a trauma, and asked us to stop and think about how oppression impacts mind and body. Thinking about oppression coping mechanisms in a non-judgmental way was very helpful; it's hard not to feel guilty about your--or your forbearers’ responses, but it seems crucial to acknowledge and move past them to find more constructive reactions. As advocates of marginalized communities, we need to be aware of our own relationships with oppression and try not to perpetuate it.

I've taken several of Vanissar's healing oppression workshops. My work brings me into daily conversations about racism and oppression with people of color and other white people. After working with Vanissar, I notice earlier on when I'm slipping into defensiveness, denial, over-intellectualizing, or jumping to solutions to avoid feelings of hopelessness and despair, or wanting to distance from other white people. I can notice these behaviors, take a break, do some somatic work, and come back to the conversation more able to be present. Conversations are much more productive as a result!

In the work we do, particularly the work in schools dealing with crises and conflictual situations, learning and practicing specific techniques for soothing and re-centering ourselves when we or others are triggered is of invaluable assistance. We got a lot out of your Organizational Sustainability and Self-care workshop and hope to have you back to continue!