MENDING THE HEART

Building Emotional Resilience in Community:

Community Counseling Level 1

OCTOBER TO NOVEMBER 2024

We know that the last four years have been difficult for many of us in the world. In our society, many were already struggling with feeling lonely, anxious, or stressed, and the pandemic has made things worse.

For those of us in social change, the stress is heightened because we already deal with people’s pain in our work – whether it’s through fighting an eviction or deportation, helping work through a political campaign or people’s traumas, or being a first responder to a crisis. This was true even before the pandemic.

When we feel stressed, we use whatever tools are available to deal with and cope. But sometimes, many of us realize that we need more personal tools if we’re going to deal with so much pain, and that we also need tools in our groups or organizations.

Sometimes in that journey, we need a refresher, and other times we need a whole new set of tools and practices so we can be more resilient in the face of isolation, stress, anxiety, trauma, etc.

For some years now and alongside many others, we have been thinking about creating more tools for people to do just that. This is what our Mending the Heart Cohort is for. It is tailored for people who are doing social change work, whether you’re just starting or have many years of experience, so you can get a framework (an understanding or perspective) on emotional resiliency that is based on psychotherapy, neuroscience, Indigenous wisdom, and community work. That can honor all of these perspectives and address both individual and group resiliency. Where we can also learn simple, key practices that you can do regularly to build resiliency for yourself and a group. 

As someone who has often held space for others, it was powerful to feel fully held. I was given permission to be a participant, not a facilitator. Months later, I’m still in touch with cohort members and using the tools we learned. Initially, I joined Mending the Heart in search of a balm for heartbreak and grief after years in social justice movement work. Today, I am inspired and moved to play a part in Ayni’s vision for community counseling as a strategy towards collective healing.

Christina, New York

It is so easy to deprioritize emotional resiliency on a day-to-day basis, but for us to do the work we do in building and sustaining social movements, emotional resiliency needs to come first. I’m grateful that Ayni Institute recognizes this and equipped us with practical skills to do this. To this day, we still talk about Mending the Heart and how much it gave us the foundation to build our relationships in a meaningful way and grounded us in practices we needed.

Valinda, Massachusetts

The training gives fundamental tools for shaping a mindful work culture that holds space for people to have a sense of communal care amongst one another. This type of mindfulness is vital for the sustainability of the people who stand for social justice.






LaRae, California

Our Mending the Heart cohort is a 7-week group experience where we will

Learn frameworks that will help us understand our anxiety, stress, loneliness, and group tensions better.

Be together – sharing stories, doing rituals, and trying on practices to mend our hearts. We want this experience to give you some love and healing, where you will be tenderly supported and challenged to grow.

Reflect and do some self-inventory to face some of what you are struggling with, get support from others, and find ways to build emotional resiliency for yourself intentionally.

Come up with small things we can do to create better results for the group work we already do.

Frequently Asked Question


  • If you want to feel more connected, you need support in letting go, you want to strengthen your heart muscles, or you want to address some things that came up during the pandemic through a group process, please come! We hope this can be a balm of love to your heart where you’ll be able to connect with others doing social change work.

    If you want to learn some new tools or rethink how you think about individual and group resiliency, join us to hear our frameworks and try some things out.

    If you want to think about resiliency and how it affects your group or organization and some of the small things you can do to increase group resiliency, this is also for you!


  • This program operates according to the Gift Economy, which means the Ayni Institute will subsidize the cost of trainers, preparation, coordination, logistics, training location and food for all days of the training. We ask participants to cover their transportation/travel costs and lodging if you would prefer not to be housed communally (stay at a community member’s house). We are seeking to make this experience as financially accessible as possible. Because of this, there will be no entry cost or charge for any accepted applicants. At the end of training, if you have benefited from the experience, you are welcome to donate and gift the experience to the next Mending the Heart Cohort, according to your volition and your means.

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