Projects & Transformation
Individual and communal transformation takes time. The following are a series of projects that apply the Design Thinking Process, a non-linear, feedback and iterative approach to transformation.
CUrrent Project
Manuel is one of five co-directors of RECLAIM, where he explores the contemplative and spiritual dimensions of movement. In just one year, RECLAIM has evolved from a dance party into a healing, liberatory space that centers BIPOC and queer voices. Each monthly gathering at Bandaloop Studios in West Oakland includes guided decompression and community dialogue, inviting reflection on play, justice, and compassion within a safe, inclusive environment.
Past Projects
2018-2025: Hybrid Community: The Online Cafe | Conscious Heart Connection | Eli’s Community Garden | Yoga with the Military
The Online Cafe
As Pacific School of Religion’s Community Life Assistant, Manuel engaged both in-person and online students through a student-led program he initiated to address isolation and loneliness in a hybrid learning environment. Over the course of three years, facilitating and coordinating the Online Café, he cultivated a supportive peer-to-peer learning community. He has since transitioned leadership of the program to other PSR students, ensuring its continued growth and sustainability.
Eli’s Community Garden
Manuel initiated and led the creation of a community garden as a community ritual to move with grief of losing a fellow seminarian to gun violence.
Key Take Aways:
Apply a Design Thinking Framework
Assess motivation & long-term commitment
Engage community members early
Assess readiness for change
Co-create group agreements and mission statement
Develop a conflict resolution protocol
Conscious Heart Connection
Intrigued by the Conscious Dance Community, Manuel facilitated this monthly gathering focused on cultivating collective wisdom through covenant-led communal listening and learning. Inspired by Quaker practice and Unitarian Universalist Chalice Circles, the group functioned as a ritualized container that fostered trust, rapport, and shared understanding of what healthy relationships can look like in practice.
Convening after Ecstatic Dance at Lake Merritt in Oakland, the circle also served as a qualitative, relational inquiry space, inviting reflection, meaning-making, and insight through embodied dialogue. The prompts centered the participants' questions for the group.
Yoga with the military
During his service in the U.S. Army and later the Air Force, Manuel offered yoga and meditation to fellow service members. By introducing mindfulness and somatic practices, he provided alternative ways to work with the mind and body, fostering healthier coping with anxiety, depression, and the loneliness of separation from family and loved ones. Grounded in the belief that shared humanity transcends profession, he honors the joys, sorrows, and complexities of human experience, creating spaces where people learn from one another how to be and do better in relationship.
About Me
I work with individuals and communities in transforming conflict through embodied awareness. Honoring the body as a site of spiritual knowing, I work as a consultant and bridge-builder, drawing on Design Thinking to foster dialogue, creativity, and relational wholeness.
Additionally, I draw on contemplative movement, Theatre of the Oppressed, the Art of Ensoulment, Reiki, Yoga, Hypnotherapy, Motivational Interviewing, Emotional Freedom Technique, and neuroscience to cultivate self-awareness and empower personal and collective transformation. I am a strong advocate of Vipassana meditation as a foundational practice for transforming intra- and interpersonal conflict and cultivating deep, ethical, and embodied practice.
I am a candidate for the Spring 2026 Master of Divinity, Master of Arts in Social Transformation, and Graduate Certificate in Sexuality and Religion. Read about the paths I am engaged in: Aligned Heart Path.