TRAUMA-INFORMED COACHING AND MOVEMENT CLASSES IN ATLANTA
Resilient Communities Center offers Embodiment Coaching for ministry and nonprofit professionals carrying the weight of the work they do. It comes in two formats: one-on-one mental health coaching, and weekly group movement classes that combine gentle stretching and breathing with guided reflection.
Both are led by a credentialed trauma-informed coach in Atlanta, Georgia, and both are available to try before you commit. A first group class is $20. An introductory coaching call is free.
Embodiment Coaching at a Glance
Programs offered: 1-on-1 Embodiment Coaching, and Group Movement classes
Who it's for: Ministry workers, nonprofit and social impact staff, cross-cultural workers, and team leaders experiencing burnout, compassion fatigue, or secondary trauma
1-on-1 Coaching format: Five 50-minute sessions, virtual or in person in Atlanta, scheduled at your pace
1-on-1 Coaching cost: $500 for a five-session package. A free 15-minute introductory call comes first.
Group Movement format: 60-minute in-person class, held weekly on Tuesdays at 7:15 p.m.
Group Movement location: 3996 E Ponce de Leon Ave, Clarkston, GA 30021
Group Movement cost: $20 for a first class and $125 for five classes
Led by: Rachel Wintenburg Cheng, E-RYT 200 yoga instructor (YogaRenew) and trauma-informed mental health coach (American Association of Christian Counselors)
Is this therapy? No. Embodiment Coaching is coaching, not psychotherapy. See the FAQ below.
Next steps: Book a free 15-minute call, or drop in on a Tuesday class for $20
When
Signs You May Be Carrying Secondary Trauma
Do you notice tightness in your jaw, shoulders, or chest by the end of a workday? Do you feel anxious approaching people who used to bring you joy? Have you gone numb to local or global news that would once have moved you?
These are common signs of compassion fatigue and secondary trauma, meaning the strain that accumulates from sustained close contact with other people's suffering. It is an occupational condition, not a personal failure, and it is widespread in this field.
Research from the Center for Effective Philanthropy found that 95 percent of nonprofit leaders name burnout as a concern. A separate study of social impact workers from the University of the Pacific found that 56 percent lack an effective outlet for processing what they encounter at work, and 46 percent are uncomfortable telling a supervisor they are burned out.
Finding time to decompress, process, and renew is not a luxury in this line of work. It is what makes staying in it possible.
How
Two Ways to Work with Us
1-on-1 Embodiment Coaching
Embodiment Coaching is an action-oriented partnership between you and a credentialed coach, focused on building coping skills, improving emotional wellbeing, and moving toward goals you set yourself. Sessions attend to mental, emotional, and spiritual health together rather than treating them separately.
It starts with a free 15-minute call. Your coach walks you through what sessions look like, you get a sense of whether the fit is right, and you decide together whether to meet virtually or in person.
Each package is five sessions and begins with the goals you name for your own wellbeing. Your coach gathers history and context relevant to those goals, and you leave each session with specific next steps and the support to act on them.
Cost: $500 for five sessions. The introductory call is free.
Group Movement Classes
Group Movement combines gentle physical practice with guided reflection. You spend 60 minutes on a mat working through prompts about mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing, alongside stretching, balancing, breathing, and quiet contemplation.
This is sometimes called somatic practice, meaning exercises designed to help you notice and release where stress is sitting in your body. No prior yoga or fitness experience is needed, and the movement is low-impact throughout. Rachel adapts each class to the range of bodies in the room.
Classes meet every Tuesday at 7:15 p.m. at 3996 E Ponce de Leon Ave, Clarkston, GA 30021. The room is welcoming and judgment-free, and everyone there came for the same reason you did.
Cost: $20 for your first class, $125 for a five-class pack.
Your Instructor
Rachel Wintenburg Cheng leads both Embodiment Coaching and Group Movement at Resilient Communities Center, where she also serves as Director of Fieldwork and Residency. She is an E-RYT 200 registered yoga instructor certified through YogaRenew and a trauma-informed mental health coach credentialed by the American Association of Christian Counselors.
Rachel came to this work through her own treatment for trauma-related symptoms, where she began to understand how deeply trauma registers in the body as well as the mind. That led her to pursue formal training in trauma-informed approaches. She now combines mental health coaching, community development, and embodied practice, and trains others to do the same.
What Happens in a Session
Coaching and movement both work across four dimensions. In practice, a session moves between them rather than treating them as a checklist.
Intellectual:
Notice this prompt in your story
Change tends to take hold when a new idea meets your actual experience rather than sitting beside it. Your coach introduces a prompt and a few reflective questions, and you make room in your own story for it.
Physical:
Notice what you are sensing
Naming a sensation, a tightening jaw or a quickening breath, brings awareness to that part of yourself and begins to reconnect you to it.
Spiritual
Notice how God is orienting toward you
Part of healing a stressful moment is rediscovering that you were less alone in it than it felt. Your coach gently offers a suggestion of where you might find Jesus in the middle of that pain or pressure.
Emotional:
Notice what you are feeling
Experiences get stored in the body, and stressful ones can get stuck there. Acknowledging what you feel is part of letting that experience finish moving through you.
What
Who
Who Embodiment Coaching is for
Embodiment Coaching is built for people whose work is other people: ministry workers, nonprofit and social impact staff, cross-cultural and intercultural workers, program designers, and team leaders.
Trauma does not happen in a vacuum. It moves through networks of people and the relationships connected to them, including environments, systems, identities, and resources. Transforming communities come from transforming people, and that includes the professionals doing the work.
Your own care and formation sustains your investment in the communities you serve. It also builds specific capacities: listening more closely, telling your own emotional state apart from the states of those you serve, and adjusting priorities so your wellbeing is actually in the calculation.
Why This Matters in Discipleship
Jesus summarized the whole way of God as loving God with your body, soul, intellect, and emotions, and loving your neighbor as yourself. That is an invitation to integration, not compartmentalization.
Who you are gets passed on more reliably than what you intend to pass on. Inviting others to imitate you means taking honest inventory of where you are thriving relationally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and where you need repair. Embodiment Coaching is designed to give you enough experience of trauma-informed practice that you can begin creating it for the people you lead. Consider how that fits your existing organizational and professional goals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Start With a Free Call or a $20 Class
If you are not sure which format fits, start with the free 15-minute call and talk it through with Rachel. If you would rather just try something, come to a Tuesday class for $20.
Why