Protecting Your Peace: Restorative Communication for the Holidays - The First of a Series of GCC Community Offerings, starting Nov 9

By Jo Barnes

Never before have so many topics become off-topic. A sudden, seemingly innocuous stimulus that triggers our nervous system. Everything from inane social media posts, celebrity cancellations, even food choices can become physiological responses as real as if we are facing a wild animal, cortisol racing through our bodies. 

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Mikhayla Smith, Georgia Conflict Center’s Programs Manager, suggests looking inward, first:

“Throughout my practice as a restorative practitioner, I have been on the constant and ever-necessary journey of self-reflection and self-regulation. This is important because, within our work, we focus on emotional regulation for the children that we are working with, as well as education. However, with this focus on developmental appropriate childhood emotional regulation, we must always remember that it begins with us…the adults. If we, as adults, are not doing the work to emotionally regulate ourselves, beyond the realm of caregiving, our 9 to 5’s, therapy sessions, etc., then we cannot expect and express the impact that it will have on our children.”

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Whether you have or work with children, the toll that digital and real life divisiveness takes on our bodies — yes, including our minds, hearts and spirits — can have major negative impacts, now and in the future.  

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This is why GCC has begun to develop community programming under the “umbrella” of How’s Your Nervous System? 

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Our first community offering entitled Protecting Your Peace: Restorative Communication for the Holidays, is on Sunday, Nov 9 from 3-5 pm at Athens Regional Library, Meeting Room B. We will literally make space for community members to experience how restorative justice practices can directly calm our nervous systems, especially within the upcoming context of this year’s Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season.  

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On Nov 9, we will practice both how to regulate ourselves and also whether and how to engage in difficult (or potentially difficult) conversations with family and friends, utilizing restorative communication techniques. Personally, I have benefitted greatly from these. While there is no lockstep method, we will rely on a four-step (from making observations to requests) non violent communication model, which focuses on realizing what we need within each potential or real upsetting situation.  

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Our second community offering will happen in early 2026 (be on the lookout per our emails and socials) and our third in the late winter/early spring. Content for both will be developed over the next few weeks, but we plan to include a partner or two who focuses on somatic healing and/or other forms of therapeutic health. 

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We truly hope you can join us for one or all three of these offerings. There is no charge but we’d love for you to RSVP for the first event here. 

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I’ll leave you with one of Mikhayla’s exercises that you can practice at any time or place:

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Begin by taking a nice, long inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Good.

Now as you continue to take deep breaths, I want you to empty your mind. Let all of the thoughts flow from your head, and out down to your toes as you exhale, releasing anything holding you back from emptiness. 

As you empty, take notice of your five senses. 

What do you see?

What do you smell?

Do you taste anything?

How about what you hear?

Feel?

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Use these questions to anchor you back to yourself. 

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