3:30pm - 4:30pm PT
Meeting 4 of 5 (view main book club page)
Every third Tuesday of the month from February 15th through June 21st, 2022
Note that while it’s not mandatory to attend all sessions, we strongly ask that you commit to minimally attending the first session and do not miss more than one so that community and learning is stable and strong.
Peace from Anxiety: Get Grounded, Build Resilience, and Stay Connected Amidst the Chaos is Hala Khouri’s latest book which combines somatic experiencing with social justice through an intersectional lens of privilege and power-dynamics.
Join the Pacific Southwest MHTTC’s “Peace from Anxiety Book Club” led by the author, Hala, to discuss anxiety and using somatic experiences to explore critical consciousness as awareness of our mental and school mental health leadership.
Each meeting will start with a Q&A session with Hala and a group discussion based on a chapter of the book. Then we'll move into optional breakout groups for more intimate conversations, and then we'll end with a debrief. Sharing is always optional and the breakout groups are never recorded.
"I can say positively, and with the authority of someone who has been extremely candid in the public eye about her experience with anxiety, that this is THE BOOK we’ve all been waiting for. Whether you yourself deal with anxiety isn’t a prerequisite for reading because you know someone who does. We all do. This beautiful book is a guide on how to be human. Filled with grace and practical lessons and guidance, Hala Khouri has offered us a life-saving gift"
— Jennifer Pastiloff, (author of National Bestseller On Being Human)
Peace from Anxiety is available at: Amazon, Bookshop (supports local bookstores), Indiebound (supports local bookstores), & Penguin Random House
Hala Khouri, M.A., trains direct service providers and educators on how to be trauma-informed with their students and clients. Believing that oppressive systems harm all of us, even those who benefit, Hala has a private practice for individuals and couples. She also works with A Thousand Joys training direct service providers and educators to be trauma-informed and culturally responsive. The focus of both her clinical and group work has been trauma- personal, interpersonal, and systemic. She brings her decade of clinical experience combined with her experience as a facilitator of group processes for over 15 years. As a Lebanese immigrant in a multi-racial marriage who also gets white skin privilege, Hala is able to be a bridge in the work of equity and inclusion with diverse groups. Hala is known for her compassionate yet straightforward style of facilitation which invites people to grapple with the often charged topics of diversity, inclusivity, justice, and oppression. She knows that none of us individually created these harmful systems, but it’s up to all of us to shift them and create a new paradigm that embraces and celebrates everyone.
Hala earned her B.A. in Psychology from Columbia University and an M.A. in Counseling Psychology and an M.A. in Community Psychology with an emphasis in Liberation Studies and Social Justice from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Hala is trained in Somatic Experiencing, a body-based psychotherapy that helps resolve trauma and its symptoms. She lives in Venice, California with her husband and two sons and teaches yoga classes weekly.
