Body Sovereignty: Building a Road to Body Autonomy, Healing and Self-Determination
Shilo George, MS (she/they) a Southern Cheyenne-Arapaho and Irish/Scottish international speaker and owner of Łush Kumtux Tumtum Consulting, which means “a great awakening of the heart and spirit” in the Chinuk Wawa trade language. Her consulting work covers both trauma informed practices and how those practices align with and support anti-racisit and anti-oppression work within organizations and communities. They are a community educator with more than twenty years of experience as a social worker with values rooted in Native cultural and spiritual practices. Shilo praises her communities as the sources of her inspiration, perseverance, and drive.
Shilo is committed to continued learning about the effects of trauma on children, adults, and communities of color and how organizations and government systems can and should be supporting the most marginalized and vulnerable in our communities. She has created a number of trainings and presentations that address systemic oppression, trauma informed care, white supremacy within professional culture and weight stigma in medical systems.
She received her Bachelor of Science in Art Practices in 2012 and a Masters of Science in Educational Leadership and Policy with a Specialization in Postsecondary and Adult Continuing Education in 2017, both from Portland State University.
Description of Keynote:
In this keynote address I'll be sharing the three areas of my Body Sovereignty Project and how it has helped me find body autonomy and deep healing in collaboration with my Cheyenne ancestors. I'll be focusing on two areas of this healing work and showing some of the ways I created this healing project for myself through the examples of learning to advocate for myself with medical providers in a fat-phobic, capitalistic, racist and ableist medical system and ways I've used cultural practices to change my experiences with body movement and embodiment. I'll be speaking to several trauma informed practices that I utilize and reflection questions others can use on their own journeys.