Restorative Practice – A Shift In Energy

By Sarah Heigel

This past weekend, Resolve contributed as presenters at the CURA summit in Ashland. This event aimed to cultivate healing, connection, and unity among those in attendance and the broader community. The summit began Saturday morning with a shared breakfast and a compelling keynote address by Teresa Cisneros, followed by a presentation from Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice. With a strong focus on the issues our local communities are facing, in particular within the unhoused population, there was a feeling of heaviness and emotional exhaustion in the room by the time Resolve was meant to present.

After an overview of what restorative justice is and how it can contribute toward individual and collective healing, we gathered all those in attendance (a diverse mix of event volunteers and community members, including many members of the unhoused population in Ashland) into a circle. We had created an agenda for our circle based around skill building in restorative communication practices. However, in the moment and based on the energy of those in the room, it was clear that we needed to pivot. We simplified our circle to focus solely on creating connection, restoring a lightness and feeling of hope, and giving everyone an opportunity to experience for themselves the benefit that a circle can bring.

The circle began with a deep, but deceptively simple question: if you were a sauce, what sauce would you be? This round brought laughter, levity, and awareness of commonality into the space. I then shifted our focus to identifying a feeling that all people are familiar with: the fuzzy, warm, glowing sensation you get in your chest, maybe when a baby smiles at you, the fog is sitting just right in the autumn colored hills, or you see strangers offering one another help.

I invited all participants to think of the last time they felt that warm, fuzzy, glowing feeling, then one at a time share their story of what inspired that feeling for them. For me, this was the most impactful moment of our circle. There was a shift in the energy in the room, a feeling of warmth, gratitude, openness, and connection. One participant shared that she hadn’t been able to think of a story initially, but listening to the stories others shared brought her that feeling I had described. She noticed that the sharing of these stories provided an opportunity for us all to share in the magic of that feeling.

I then closed our circle by expressing that when addressing issues our communities face, it can be easy to get caught up dissecting the problems and trying to find potential solutions. This intense focus on what is wrong can cause an inevitable heaviness and possibly even hopelessness. Instead, we can create opportunities like the one we had just experienced. Circling with the members of our communities, with the sole intention of connection, can be a powerful source of resilience, inspiration and motivation. We need this shift in focus to remain hopeful and continue to support and improve our communities.