2025
International Healing-Centered Education Conference
Fortitude & Discernment in Times of Disruption
December 6th–7th, 2025
This Year’s Program Will Help You:
- Navigate Disruption with Clarity — Develop discernment practices to guide meaningful action amidst instability.
- Recover and Renew — Build the nimbleness to be stretched, and practice renewal through joy and restoration.
- Balance Speed and Stillness — Recognize when to slow down and when to act quickly in service of what truly matters.
- Work with Complexity — Learn to discern between oversimplification and the need to deepen your capacity to hold what’s multifaceted.
- Deepen Interdependence — Turn toward collective wisdom, shared learning, and trust-building as anchors for transformative change.
What to Expect
Over the course of two days, participants will engage in:
- Keynote Conversations with leading voices in healing-centered practice, organizational change, education, and social innovation.
- Interactive Workshops rooted in somatic, relational, and reflective practices.
- Dialogue Spaces for exploring paradox, complexity, and the wisdom of multiple perspectives.
- Community Rituals that restore aliveness, joy, and imagination as essential leadership capacities.
You’ll leave this gathering with:
-
Practical tools to navigate disruption with grounded clarity.
-
Somatic and relational practices to sustain purpose, vitality, and connection.
-
A renewed sense of possibility for yourself, your work, and your community.
Together, we will create a space that balances reflection with action, honoring both the inner work of self-examination and the outer work of leading change in our organizations and communities.
Through dialogue, somatic practice, storytelling, and creative exploration, participants will engage directly with the principles of capacity building—discernment, aliveness, recovery, imagination, and more. This will be a living laboratory where ideas are tested, relationships are nurtured, and new ways of being emerge.
Speakers
Maria Tan
Maria Tan is a first-generation Filipino-American educator, facilitator, and program designer committed to fostering healing-centered learning environments. She is the founder of the House of Thriving, where she supports leaders and communities through restorative practices, somatic healing, and curriculum design. A former Bronx high school teacher, Maria draws on her lived experience of burnout and renewal to create transformative spaces that prioritize wellness, equity, and sustainable change
Drisana McDaniel
Drisana McDaniel is a healing-centered facilitator, writer, and transformation activist whose work explores embodiment, justice, and collective liberation. As co-founder of the Transformative Teaching Collective, she curates workshops and programs that integrate generative conflict, contemplative practice, and psychospiritual inquiry. Through her banner project, The Alchemy of Now, Drisana supports communities in aligning their inner and outer lives to create lasting change rooted in empathy, imagination, and interconnection.
Angel Acosta
Angel Acosta has worked for over a decade to bridge leadership, social justice, and contemplative practice. As the founder and Chair of the Acosta Institute, he designs learning experiences that integrate healing-centered education, organizational capacity-building, and contemplative approaches to leadership. A scholar, educator, and facilitator, Angel has supported schools, universities, nonprofits, and businesses in cultivating cultures of care, resilience, and innovation. His work helps leaders navigate disruption while remaining grounded in humanity, equity, and hope.
Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz
Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz is an award-winning associate professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a leading voice on racial literacy and equity in education. She is the creator of the Archaeology of Self™ framework, which guides educators and leaders through deep self-reflection as a path toward justice and transformation. A sought-after speaker, poet, and author, Dr. Sealey-Ruiz brings over two decades of scholarship and practice to her work of cultivating classrooms and communities rooted in love, critical inquiry, and healing.
Joshua Abiazar
Joshua Abiazar (he/they) is a facilitator and cultural organizer committed to building spaces of belonging for marginalized communities. With a background in community organizing and DEI training, Joshua has facilitated equity-focused workshops across the U.S., centering Spanish-speaking and immigrant families. At the Acosta Institute, he contributes to program design and facilitation, weaving together tools, lived experiences, and restorative practices to nurture solidarity and healing in diverse contexts.
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Dr. Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu is a psychologist, educator, and author whose work bridges mindfulness, compassion, and cross-cultural understanding. Drawing from Japanese and American traditions, he has taught at Stanford University and around the world, helping individuals and organizations cultivate presence, balance, and leadership rooted in heart and spirit. His books, including From Mindfulness to Heartfulness, invite readers to integrate Eastern and Western wisdom traditions to live with authenticity and connection.
Gina Breedlove
Gina Breedlove is a vocalist, composer, sound healer, and grief doula who uses the power of music and ritual to foster collective healing. Known for her transformative practice called Vocal Body, Gina guides communities in using sound to release trauma, reclaim voice, and restore vitality. She has toured internationally as a singer and performer, while also dedicating her artistry to creating spaces of care, remembrance, and liberation. Her work bridges performance and healing, inviting people into deeper connection with themselves and one another.
Maggie Jackson
Maggie Jackson is an award-winning journalist, speaker, and author recognized for her insights on uncertainty, technology, and human resilience. Her books, including Distracted and Uncertain, explore how societies adapt—and sometimes falter—amid rapid change. With work published in The New York Times, Boston Globe, and other leading outlets, Maggie brings a clear-eyed, deeply researched perspective on how to navigate disruption with curiosity, discernment, and hope.
Mariah Rankine-Landers
Mariah Rankine-Landers is an artist, educator, and creative facilitator whose work lies at the intersection of imagination, healing, and social transformation. Through her art and teaching, she invites individuals and communities to explore identity, ancestry, and collective memory as pathways to resilience and renewal. Mariah is dedicated to creating spaces that nurture creativity and empower participants to reimagine what is possible in times of disruption and change.
Makeda Gershenson
Makeda Gershenson is an Researcher & Apprentice at the Acosta Institute and the Founder of Good Better Best. Certified as an emotional intelligence educator, academic coach, and digital behavioral coach, she has supported schools in implementing restorative practices and has coached over 400 clients worldwide through the platform Coach.me. Her collaboration with Milwaukie High School earned the 2016 Changemakers Award from Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence. A professional performer as well as an educator, Makeda has appeared on stages from the Delacorte Theatre to Carnegie Hall, and she holds dual degrees from Stanford University along with a Master’s in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education.
