In this workshop, we will focus on constructing your own wellness altar focused on your continuing wellbeing by tapping into past and present family and cultural strengths through the process of restorying with small group discussions. This can be both a process of personal growth and health and also learning how to implement this as a therapeutic intervention. Thus, this is applicable for community members and mental health professionals/educators. Although the origin of this activity is rooted in the religious/spiritual tradition of home altars common in many Chicana/o/x homes, this will also be presented as creating a meditative space or space of intention to focus on wellness and tap into personal, familial and cultural strengths.

A main aspect of the workshop will be restorying, in small groups, past personal and family stories to bring forth positive personal characteristics or strengths. We will call on the storying & re-storying of strengths along with identification of current concerns to create the intention for participants’ altars (or intentional space of wellness). In discussion together we explore how this process can facilitate healing wounds, solving current difficulties, and adding to our own practice of mental and/or spiritual wellbeing. We will borrow from a Chicana/o/x affirmative approach and ideas from Narrative Therapy and is part of our ongoing effort to “Brown Counseling.” #BrownItUp