about me:

Hello, I’m Carla Beharry! (she/her).

Growing up as an intercultural, multi-ethnic, Guyanese-British-Canadian, I felt at school like I wasn’t brown enough for the brown kids and wasn’t white enough for the white kids. I constantly battled harmful colonial narratives that told me I was only “half-this” and “part-that”, a person on the borders of belonging. My deeply important connection with my identity comes from my family. I come from a family rooted in pride. My British Mother and West Indian Father instilled in us, a superpower - A capacity to embody the richness of wisdom from our ancestors. A capacity to “see” beyond borders.

I am a racial justice and somatic health equity educator. It is honour to work with individuals and organizations to facilitate trauma-responsive and culturally-intentional racial justice workshops, coaching and transformative mediation sessions.

I specialize in working with individuals to heal racial and oppression-based trauma and white-body supremacy, and to guide wellness professionals, educators, non-profits and healthcare agencies to move beyond cognitive learning to integrate actionable antiracism and restorative education + healing practices into their spaces.

The richness of growing up immersed in both West Indian-Caribbean and British-Canadian culture, of navigating the fullness of my identity has always been the foundation of my work and relationships.

Until my 20’s, my life was filled with exploration. I was blessed with travel and educational opportunities. I was immersed in deep seeking to know where my multi-ethnic identity felt rooted, to know my ancestral lineage, to be surrounded by “my people'“.

This freedom-filled seeking, was abruptly ended, however, in my early 30’s, when I was approached by a elder, South Asian homeopathic doctor to take over his homeopathic medicine practice. This man, whom I considered to be a mentor, quickly started pulling me into his life and homeopathic practice. He started telling me that he thought of me, like a granddaughter, that I would be the perfect person to take over his practice. In my longing to belong, to know my South Asian ancestors, I agreed. While on the surface, I was being told that this invitation was an honour, my body was filled with dread. I was gripped with anxiety and fear. I had never seen the amount of money that he was asking me to give him. Against all of my body’s sign of revolting against this decision, I moved forward. I accessed a loan, bigger than I could wrap my mind around, and I gave him my money. Within a few months, he left. He went to India, taking my money, and leaving me with nothing. He left me with a small handful of clients. The thousands of clients and hours of mentorship he promised me, vanished. I was gutted, devastated, hurt, anxious, fearful and left with a massive loan. I endured years of court and left my homeopathic medicine practice.

Determined to rebuild my life and career, I started practicing yoga and meditation. I, like many in our Western world, was introduced to a community at Moksha Yoga that centred and normalized yoga as being synonymous with white, slender, wealthy, cis-gender, heterosexual bodies. I didn’t see my light-brown, multi-ethnic self as represented in this space. In 2015, I endured a life-threatening and life-changing accident at a Moksha Yoga Teacher Training. Two Moksha studio owners / teachers were scheduled to pick me up at the airport to attend this training that I had paid thousands of dollars to attend. Distracted, they knocked me down, drove over my leg and completely shattered four of the metatarsals in my right foot. In their panic to avoid accountability, they picked me up, put me into the back of their and left me alone at the emergency department at an Edmonton hospital. I was thousands of miles from home when I experienced a medical emergency and stopped breathing. I woke up, surrounded by doctors and nurses. The women - white, wealthy, cis-gender, heterosexual women - supposedly dedicating their life to metta (loving-kindness) and compassion, were nowhere to be found. Through five years of court, I never-once heard from the driver to say sorry, to check-in, to embrace me with kindness. It was in these moments, that I realized the harm and violence of our sacred practices being co-opted by colonial bodies who do not embody empathy. To them, my body didn’t matter. To them, my body was something they could anonymously leave behind at a hospital.

In 2018, I founded the WOKE WO/MEN’S Movement Stories of Resilience + Challenge Speaking Events - now titled Infinite Oceans Events - to build a platform for racialized and oppressed individuals, who are excluded from dominant colonial culture, to have a space to share personal stories of overcoming adversity, of resistance against colonial systems that try so hard to bury us. Our stories so often go unheard, and the mental health impacts of this isolation can have extreme impacts on our Black, Brown, Indigenous People of Colour who live carrying the weight of trauma and anxiety alone.

My ongoing project, DOCUMENTING US is an audio and video series to document cultural stories and wisdom from our elders, ancestors and community members who carry the rich experience of integrating cultural expectations from “back home” with the layered complexities of “fitting in” to Canadian life. DOCUMENTING US captures the experiences of people and families navigating this divide.

As an intercultural, multi-ethnic, cis-gendered, able-bodied woman, I work alongside individuals, families and couples as a somatic life coach. In 2020 and 2021, I was awarded the Diamond Award for the best life coach in Waterloo Region, and specialize in guiding individuals to navigate intercultural relationships and to heal from racial and oppression-based trauma.

I proudly serve on the board of directors of the Caribbean Canadian Association of Waterloo Region and feel enriched by collectively working to bring Caribbean culture to our communities.



ANTI-RACISM + ANTI-OPPRESSION EDUCATION:

• MEd. MASTERS OF EDUCATION IN SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION. OISE. University of Toronto (In Progress). 2021

• CERTIFICATE IN EMBODIED SOCIAL JUSTICE. Rev. angel Kyoto Williams + Dr. Sara King. 2022

• EMBODIMENT BASICS. Prentis Hemphill. The Embodiment Institute

• SOMATIC ABOLITIONISM. NINE MONTH TRAINING. Resmaa Menakem + Karine Bell + Erin Trent Johnson + Carlin Quinn. 2021

• MENTAL HEALTH SENSITIVITY TRAINING. Blu Matter Project. Toronto. 2020.

• HEART EQUITY TRAINING. Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts. 2017

• B.A. HONOURS PSYCHOLOGY THESIS: Race + Facial Recognition. An Exploration of Bias in Black & White University Students. 2000

HEALTH EQUITY EDUCATION:

• DHOM. HOMEOPATHIC MEDICINE. 3 Year Degree. Canadian College of Homeopathic Medicine. Toronto, CANADA. 2010.

• B.A. HONOURS PSYCHOLOGY. The University of Guelph. Guelph, Ontario, CANADA. 2000.

TRAUMA-RESPONSIVE YOGA, SOMATIC BODYWORK + MEDITATION TRAINING:

• TCTSY (TRAUMA-CENTRE TRAUMA SENSITIVE YOGA). David Emerson. 20 hour foundational training. 2020.

• THAI MASSAGE / THAI YOGA THERAPY. Navina. Toronto, CANADA.

• THE POWER OF AWARENESS. 8 WEEK MEDITATION TRAINING. Tara Brach & Jack Kornfield.

• MOVING THROUGH THE LAYERS. Troy Hadeed. Castara, TRINIDAD + TOBAGO.

• ZEN BUDDHIST MEDITATION. The Waterloo Riverview Dharma Centre. Sue Child. Waterloo, CANADA.

• PRANAYAMA BREATHWORK. Michael Stone. Toronto, Ontario. CANADA.

• MOKSHA FLOW. 100 hours. CANADA.

• MOKSHA LEVEL ONE. 500 hours. NICARAGUA.

• MAYAN ABDOMINAL MASSAGE. Arvigo Therapy. Toronto, CANADA.

• MATERNAL & REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH. Patricia Hatherly. Toronto, CANADA.