Workshops
Conflict & Uprooting Systems of Power Within
1 – 1.5 hours
We are living in a time of growing polarization where conflict within organizations can easily become harmful as it can deepen division and erode collaboration. Unresolved conflict fuels burnout, disengagement, and toxic workplace cultures. Since conflict is inevitable, our relationship with conflict impacts whether we perpetuate harm or open pathways for transformation. This workshop invites participants to recognize and unlearn our socially conditioned behaviours as it relates to conflict, so that we can begin to transform them. This workshop complements conflict trainings that focus on tools and conflict resolution strategies.
Attuning to the Body in Conflict
1 hour
We all have conditioned ways of showing up before, during, and after conflict. Even when we gain insight into our default ways of relating to conflict and how we want to show up differently, awareness alone isn’t enough to embody new ways of being. In this workshop, participants will explore how nervous system responses shape our relationship to conflict and engage in somatic practices that support attunement to the body during conflict. Through guided reflection and experiential activities, participants will learn how to cultivate greater awareness, choice, and capacity in engaging in conflict with more intention, care, and possibility.
Relationality to support Generative Conflict
1 hour
We can transform the ways we engage with one another during conflict by cultivating a relational culture. In this workshop participants will learn about relational culture, including the difference between active listening and somatic listening. Through story-telling, participants will engage in a relational somatic practice to help cultivate trust, safety and belonging within teams. Participants will receive prior instruction on sharing a 5-minute story during the workshop. Note: The workshop Attuning to the Body in Conflict is a prerequisite for this workshop.
Restoring relationships after harm from conflict
1 hour
While restorative justice is often associated with addressing harm within the justice system, its principles can be effectively applied in workplace settings to repair harm, rebuild trust, and foster a culture of care and accountability. In this workshop, participants will explore how restorative approaches provide alternatives to punitive or disciplinary responses to harm resulting from conflict. Through case scenarios relevant to an organization, participants will have the opportunity to practice applying a restorative justice lens, and learn how to support accountability, dialogue, and relationship repair in real-world workplace situations.
Embodying values against the current
1 hour (Coming in 2026)
Values don’t exist in a vacuum. There is a powerful undercurrent of dominant culture that incentivizes us to align with values rooted in systems of power and oppression. When organizations name the values staff are expected to embody but fail to support the unlearning of underlying, imposed dominant values, they risk creating conditions for performance over transformation. Within this culture, people may become more skilled at performing organizational values than embodying them—perpetuating the very harms those values aim to address. This workshop invites participants to unpack these underlying dynamics, discern where and how organizational values can be authentically embodied, and cultivate accountability to sustain those values—even under pressure.
Mythri Vijendran (she/her)
About
My name is Mythri Vijendran and I am a Tamil cis woman residing in Tkaronto, a Mohawk word meaning “where the trees stand in the water.” I have worked in the not-for-profit and social services sectors for over 15 years in project management and evaluation roles to lead and support initiatives that advance social change, using an equity and anti-oppression lens. My areas of work include addressing employment inequity, homelessness, mental health, and human trafficking. I currently work as a project manager in the homelessness sector and volunteer as a restorative justice practitioner.
A significant moment in my career came when I was fired without cause from a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) role after advocating for organizational changes to advance equity — a rupture that became a profound turning point for me. This experience led me to reflect deeply on what it takes to engage in equity work in ways that challenge power rather than maintain the structures that keep it intact, and to relate to one another in ways that don’t reproduce the very systems of oppression we seek to dismantle. These questions set me on a journey of unlearning and deepening my practice in anti-oppression, facilitation, conflict transformation, restorative justice and somatics. Over time I’ve come to learn that transformative change calls for embodied practice and a deep commitment to being in right relationship with ourselves and one another.
We are living in times when systems of power - namely colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy, continue to deepen polarization and fuel injustices, including precarious employment and housing, widening food insecurity, and climate change. As these systems disconnect us from one another, I believe our collective work is to return to values that honour our shared humanity, including our capacity for connection, care, and interdependence. While efforts to dismantle oppressive structures is essential, it is just as vital to cultivate embodied and relational ways of being that nurture care, accountability, and belonging in our relationships, organizations, and communities. I am grounded in a vision of collective liberation, a world where all beings can live with dignity, safety, and belonging.
In this spirit, the workshops offered through Cracks for Liberation place relationships at the heart of learning and practice, inviting participants to cultivate right relationship with themselves and one another. Organizations are invited to explore these offerings and connect to bring these practices to their teams.
Mythri holds an immense depth of knowledge yet makes sure the information is accessible. As a mixed person who is also trans and the leader of a restorative justice organization, I found myself walking away with many new insights.
Resources
My work is shaped by an ever-growing community of teachers and groups whose wisdom I carry with deep gratitude. The workshops I offer are my way of giving back to the collective—rooted in my lived experience and in the teachings I continue to learn from them. I encourage you to explore their offerings as well. You can find a list of those teachers and groups below whose work and spaces continue to guide and inspire me.
Teachers
Our world keeps breaking, over and over again. I have no choice but to believe a new one is being born.