Impacting Systemic Injustice & Collective Healing, with Karen Simms
Release Date: 09/16/2025
Reclaiming Agency After the Invasion of Ukraine, with Dasha Gaian
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Matthew Green Produced by J’aime Rothbard. When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, had just embarked on Thomas Hübl’s two-year Timeless Wisdom Training in the principles of collective trauma healing. Born and raised in Ukraine, and living in the United States, Dasha recognised that the surge of anxiety she was experiencing as she witnessed the devastation being visited on her homeland was shared by millions of fellow Ukrainians and people watching in horror from around the world. In this episode, Dasha shows how collective healing work can not only help...
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Kitbag Africa: The Decolonization of Trauma Healing in Action, with Wycliffe Ngoko Oloo
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. Wycliffe Ngoko Oloo is on a mission to support vulnerable young people to share what’s on their hearts. As team leader at the Kenyan organisation Kitbag Africa International, Wycliffe convenes sharing circles on soccer fields, in classrooms or under trees – anywhere he can find where people can gather. “I have seen young people drop their masks and speak their truth,” Wycliffe says. “I have seen widows laugh after years of silence, and this is always beautiful.” In this inspiring conversation with Sonita Mbah,...
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Grief as a Gateway to Resilience, with Luka Faradsch
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. How can learning to grieve cultivate resilience? And why are people reviving the ancient social technologies of collective grieving rituals today? Luka Faradsch shares how teachers such as Francis Weller, Sobonfu Somé, Malidoma Somé, and Joanna Macy helped her understand how working with sorrow and loss — far from being only heavy and painful — could become a “sacred practice of aliveness.” By honouring the universal truth that the old must die for the new to be born, Luka describes how grief work can awaken a profound form of...
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Metabolizing Climate Grief, with Brother Spirit and Brother Embrace
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. In the run-up to the , we ask: How can we live with the knowledge that humanity is rapidly destroying the foundations of the ecosystems that support all life on Earth? And how can we learn from suffering without falling into overwhelm or despair? In this inspiring dialogue, Kosha Joubert speaks with Brother Phap Dung (pronounced “Yung”), also known as Brother Embrace, and Brother Phap Linh, also known as Brother Spirit, who are both leading teachers in the monastic movement of Thich Nhat Hanh. Brother Embrace and Brother Spirit...
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Embodying Non-Violence as Combatants for Peace, with Rana Salman & Eszter Korányi
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J’aime Rothbard was founded in 2006 by Israelis and Palestinians committed to following a path of non-violence to push their leaders to stop perpetuating war, occupation, and the cycle of violence. In this episode, Kosha Joubert speaks with Rana Salman and Eszter Korányi, the organisation’s respective Palestinian and Israeli co-directors, about what it’s been like to continue jointly advocating for peace since the horrendous Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023 and subsequent mass killing of civilians caused by Israel’s subsequent bombardment...
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"How Can We Listen in a World That is on Fire?" with Joshua Konkankoh
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by J’aime Rothbard What does the wisdom encoded in West African Indigenous traditions have to teach about modern-day systems change? And how can the — a spiritual force honored by the people of Cameroon’s Bafut region — awaken a felt-sense of connection with the more-than-human world? Cameroonian elder will join Colombia’s Ati Quigua and Mamerto Tindongan of the Philippines to offer a Pocket Project on October 27, 29 and 30. The sessions will equip participants with practical knowledge on how to cultivate regenerative...
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Recursion or Ruin: AI and the Future of Collective Healing, with Nico Forest Heinimann
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. Can artificial intelligence (AI) support humanity to foster greater coherence and alignment with truth? Or does the headlong rush to exploit this new technology risk amplifying existing trauma loops – pointing to a more dystopian future? In this dialogue ahead of the , Matthew Green and Nico Forest Heinimann explore how AI could potentially aid both individual and collective healing by serving as a mirror revealing patterns previously hidden deep in the human psyche. At the same time, Forest emphasises the urgency of...
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Restoring Relationships with the More-than-human World, with J Dallas Gudgell
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Sonita Mbah. Produced by J'aime Rothbard What role can the more-than-human world play in collective healing? And what lessons does the enduring reciprocity between Native American communities and the buffalo have to teach? In this special episode previewing the , Sonita Mbah speaks with , a Yankton Dakota and a tribal member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of Montana, about his to restore buffalo herds and grassland ecosystems in Yellowstone National Park and tribal lands. Buffalo once roamed from Florida to Alaska in their tens of millions, but the U.S....
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Softening Into the watery layers of Self
What is Collective Healing?
A self attumement to meet the watery edges of the self, facilitated by Kosha Joubert. Kosha is the CEO of the Pocket Project. What is Collective Healing? Are you curious to find out for yourself? Every month, the Pocket Project hosts a range of different free events open to everyone. To find out what's on this month, visit https://pocketproject.org/pocket-events/
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Embodying the Feminine, with Stephanie Pizarro
What is Collective Healing?
Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J’aime Rothbard. What changes when the body is no longer a place of suffering but of joy and presence? How does collective healing shape individual transformation? And how would the world change if women reclaimed their bodies as home? Animated by these questions, Stephanie Pizarro joined María Troya and Karla Mejía to co-lead a exploring the theme “Embodying the Feminine" in 2024. Joined by more than 40 women from 15 countries across Latin America, the year-long exploration helped participants to renew their relationship with their...
info_outlineHosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard
How to bring collective healing practices to people affected by gun violence, poverty and systemic injustice? And how to build structures to support the leaders doing this work to thrive?
These burning questions have animated Karen Simms, founder and director of the Trauma & Resilience Initiative, a nonprofit organisation in Champaign, Illinois, throughout her 20 years of working with marginalised groups.
In this episode, Karen traces her early influences — from childhood summers in Maryland spent memorising the speeches of Dr Martin Luther King while her cousins performed migrant farm labour, to a “tropical soup” of Afro-Caribbean and Christian spiritual lineages.
From her past work with women affected by HIV/AIDS, to her subsequent service in neighbourhoods struggling with many forms of inequity, exclusion and harm, Karen has always placed a “love ethic” at the heart of her approach.
A regular contributor to Pocket Project trainings and summits, Karen explains that she is now working to help “democratise” the collective healing work pioneered by Thomas Hübl and other practitioners to make it more accessible. Karen also describes the importance of creating circles of resilience to “help heal the healers.”
This powerful episode opens a window into the transformational impact that collective healing practices can have in vulnerable communities — and the work that needs to be done to ensure this potential can be fully realised.
Further Resources:
Trauma & Resilience Initiative
About Karen Simms:
Karen Simms, MAMFT, LMHC, is a seasoned consultant, trainer, facilitator, and coach with over 30 years of experience in building trauma-informed, healing-centered, and equitable systems and communities. She is the founder of Trauma & Resilience Initiative, Inc. (TRI) a not for profit that trains, educates, advocates for, and promotes resilience and justice for individuals, families, organizations, and communities. TRI works to reduce the impact of adverse community experiences by healing and repairing those who have been impacted by trauma; and equipping organizations, communities, and providers to be trauma and justice informed.