The authors will join us on zoom to discuss their latest books. Sofer’s Your Heart Was Made for This is a practical roadmap to cultivating the heart’s capacity to face and transform our greatest challenges—like the climate crisis, oppression, anxiety, and burnout. Manning’s How to Have Antiracist Conversations uses Dr. Martin Luther King’s Beloved Community framework to empower activists to create change and equity through fierce yet compassionate dialogue against racism and white supremacy.

Meditation teacher Oren Jay Sofer shares a pragmatic guide to living a life of meaning and purpose in a time of great social, environmental, and spiritual upheaval. Through touching stories, insightful reflections, and concrete instructions, Sofer offers powerful tools to strengthen our hearts and nourish the qualities that can transform our world. Each chapter guides you to cultivate a quality essential to personal and social transformation like mindfulness, resolve, wonder, and empathy. You’ll learn ways to:

• Find more choice and freedom in life

• Strengthen focus, sustain energy, and accomplish goals

• Identify burnout and take steps to renew yourself

• Imbue your daily activities with clarity and vitality

• Respond more effectively to collective challenges

Oren Jay Sofer teaches Buddhist meditation, mindfulness, and communication internationally. He holds a degree in comparative religion from Columbia University and is a Certified Trainer of Nonviolent Communication and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner for the healing of trauma. Born and raised in New Jersey, he is the author of several books, including the bestselling title Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication. His teachings have reached people around the world through his online communication courses and guided meditations. Oren lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and son, where he enjoys cooking, spending time in nature, and home woodworking projects.

Can a person be both fierce and compassionate at once? Directly challenge racist speech or actions without seeking to humiliate the other person? Interrupt hateful or habitual forms of discrimination in new ways that foster deeper change? Dr. Roxy Manning believes it’s possible—and you can learn how. In this book, Dr. Manning provides a new way to conceive of antiracist conversations, along with the practical tools and frameworks that make them possible. Her work is grounded in the idea of Beloved Community, as articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a goal to aspire to and even experience now, in the present, when we refuse to give up on the possibility of human connection within ourselves, with potential allies, and with those whose words and actions create harm. This book fuels courage and provides tools to confront everyday forms of racism. It walks the reader through an effective, efficient model of dialogue that utilizes concepts of nonviolent communication and helps normalize talking about racism instead of treating it like a “third rail,” strictly avoided or touched at one’s peril.

Readers will:

• Be empowered to identify what kind of antiracist conversation they want to have—for example, do they only want to be heard, or do they want to negotiate a change in policy?

• Learn how to engage in antiracist conversations whether they are the Actor (person who says or does something racist), the Receiver (the target of racism), or the Bystander.

• Learn how to notice the underlying needs and values that motivate all human actions and how those values can open up pathways to transformation.

Examples of antiracist conversations highlight different ways to initiate dialogue, raise awareness, speak one’s truth, and make clear, doable requests or demands for change. Drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, a nonviolent communication practitioner, and an Afro-Caribbean immigrant, Dr. Manning provides a model of antiracist dialogue with practical applications for individuals and organizations.

Dr. Roxy Manning is a clinical psychologist and certified trainer and assessor for the Center for Nonviolent Communication. She regularly leads workshops centered on nonviolent communication and social change in the United States and internationally. Since 2004 she has operated a private consulting business, supporting organizations and corporations to address power differences and foster inclusion. As a psychologist, she works primarily with the homeless population of San Francisco.

Please Note: To attend, you’ll need to reserve a free ticket for this event on Eventbrite in order to receive the zoom link & password. Please note that the “Ticket With Book” option is for shipping or pickup within the United States only. We encourage you to purchase a book from Northshire Bookstore to support our event program.