Michelle Tsutsumi (she / her)
I love collectively tending to safer spaces that can hold the tension of curiosity and care.
About Michelle
I love collectively tending to safer spaces that can hold the tension of curiosity and care. Grace Lee Boggs’ teaching that we can “transform ourselves to transform the world” informs my practice.
I am of Norwegian, Swedish, English, French, and Japanese ancestry and currently live rurally in Secwepemcúl’ecw, close to what is colonially known as the Village of Chase.
Growing up as a ‘City Kid,’ my past work life was focused on body-centred trauma counselling in Alberta. After burning out, then living, working, and regenerating in Tokyo (sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it?), I returned to Syilx territory where my father grew up. This is where I fell in love with connecting with the land through growing food and where I got more deeply involved in community organizing.
Experience and practices
In February 2022, I embarked on a six-month learning and healing journey through communal somatic abolition work with Resmaa Menakem, Jennifer-Lee Koble, Jayoung Ahn, and Education for Racial Equity. This is based on teachings about white body supremacy, the many ways it shows up, an ongoing embodied practice of pausing, slowing down, and checking in with what’s surfacing. We were grouped in triads with similar bodies of culture to meet monthly and share in this process together, in community, which has been incredibly powerful.
Although the formal part of the program is complete, our triad continues to meet. This has helped me to move through layers of intergenerational and personal grief. This triad, and a couple more that I am in, support how I am able to show up in various contexts as a facilitator. I weave together sensorimotor psychotherapy theory, Cultivating Safe Spaces (Elaine Alec and Naqsmist), Liberating Structures, and sociocracy (distributed, consent-based governance and decision-making) in my facilitation work.
My services
I am endlessly curious about organizational culture, shared/collective leadership, and facilitating processes that support belonging, creativity, care, and poised patience (slowing down, yet ready to pounce when needed). Here are some of the services I offer:
Community-centred facilitation
Transforming systems with Cultivating Safe Spaces (Elaine Alec & Naqsmist)
Supporting inclusive and effective decision-making with sociocracy / consent decision-making
Co-designing participatory meetings, workshops, events, and communities of practice
Contexts in which I work
Co-operatives
Food systems
Non-profits
Learning and Credentials
Introduction to Visual Thinking and Graphic Facilitation, Michelle Buchholz and Adriana Contreras-Correal
Academy 2, Sociocracy for All. Consultant and Trainer tracks, in progress
Academy 1, Sociocracy for All – Certified Sociocracy Facilitator
Cultivating Safe Spaces, Elaine Alec & Naqsmist – Certified Cultivating Safe Spaces Facilitator
Foundations in Somatic Abolitionism for Bodies of Culture, Education for Racial Equity
M.A. in Professional Communication, Royal Roads University. Focused on decolonization through communities of practice, shared leadership, and equitable organizational design
Trauma Treatment Level I & II, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute
M.Ed. in Counselling Psychology, University of Alberta. Focused on body-centred trauma therapy
Interested in working with us?
We look forward to meeting other counsellors and facilitators whose values align with our own. If you are interested in learning more about our workers’ co-operative please get in touch!