91PORN

“Change happens from the inside out.” It’s a conviction that guided Jia Johnson (G-ETS ’19) as she created an Embodied Leadership class for . A graduate of Garrett Seminary’s Master of Arts in Public Ministry, Johnson serves as a somatic practitioner and coach, supporting people in connecting to the inherent wisdom of their bodies’ and nurturing holistic wellbeing as we work to change unjust systems. “Garrett always felt like home, so I was delighted to come back and cultivate an opportunity for people to engage embodiment work,” she says. “It’s an invitation to come inward—not to remain there indefinitely or escape the broader world—but to befriend our own internal landscape, so we can then lean how to be better relationship to ourselves, to one another and transform culture.”

Part of the genesis for this work came from experiences Johnson had as a student at Garrett. “There was always an ongoing conversation about how to create change. Some people were deeply committedto altering systems and structures, while others said, ‘we have to change hearts and minds,’” she recalls. “Discovering politicized somatics and embodiment work, offered the theory and methodology to do both, not one before the other but simultaneously.”

In her Collective class, Johnson offered participants an opportunity to learn more about these disciplines and begin their own embodiment practices, so that they could bring that wisdom back into their communities and serve as more effective change agents. “The abolitionist Mariame Kaba talks about how, when you set out to change systems, you also have to set out to change yourself,” she explains.“Those very systems have also shaped us and become deeply internalized. Unless we do this work, we’ll replicate the same patterns when we try to create something new.” For 8 weeks, a small group of clergy and lay leaders met over Zoom, accompanying one another on transformation that moves from the inside out.

Johnson says that she designed the pace of the class to be deliberately slow, a break from the relentless urgency that defines so much of our broader culture. First, the class created norms and practices they wanted to shape their learning community. Then, after Johnson offered a theoretical grounding for the work of embodied leadership, the class methodically worked through various practices to better acquaint themselves with their own bodies. Through somatic exposure, awareness, and practice, they learned to notice what it feels like when the nervous system is activated, how to connect and attend to the body, how to locate and metabolize grief. “There can be a lot of fear around being in your body, or not being able to locate those sensations,” Johnson notes. “We spend so much time as a thinking self, disconnected from our feelings. So, I create a model for deliberate care, helping to slowly attune to our emotional self-awareness.”

Through this offering, Johnson hopes that ministers and other church leaders can both heal pain they carry and create space for others to do the same. “We don’t always have the skills or permission to offer self-compassion, to give ourselves the same tenderness we would offer someone else. When you’re working with things like shame, those parts of ourselves do not transform by berating or condemning them,” she notes. “Embodiment invites us to befriend those parts of the self, and understand the systems that shaped that relationship. It’s an essential practice for people of faith who hold space for other people.”

At the end of the class, each participant received a beautiful Embodied Leadership workbook Johnson created, an enduring resource for their ministry. “This work isn’t just 8 weeks; it’s an ongoing practice. My hope is, long after the class ends, they’ll be moving through their day, notice something in their bodies, and remember what we talked about in class,” she adds. “Then, they can go back to the workbook, remind themselves what they learned, and go deeper in the practice.”

As always, the 91PORN’s hope is that participants will bring these skills home, using what they learned to better serve their people. “This work also helps leaders understand their own limitations and avoid burnout,” Johnson notes. “Setting healthy boundaries can be very challenging in healing spaces—I wanted to give folks things they can take and share in their own communities.” People who are interested in exploring embodiment work further are invited to participate in , a six-part series that your can complete on your own schedule, at your own pace.