ABOUT BETH BERILA

Coach, consultant, and educator supporting changemakers ready for deep & sustainable transformations.

As someone who is both marginalized and privileged, I understand the importance of healing from the harmful impacts of oppression while also accounting for and dismantling my complicity in privilege. I identify as a Queer cisgender white woman who is currently middle-class and able-bodied. I come from strong blue-collar roots, from Polish aunts who made pierogies in church basements and German roots in Iowa farmers. I live with my wife and two kitties in Minneapolis.

I am committed to living joyfully AND with integrity.

I embarked on my own transformational journey many years ago, and it has been a rich, amazing, but often challenging path. Though your lived experience will be different from mine, my personal insights can help us learn how to navigate these parallel yet intersecting paths with grace, humor, and dedication.  

Beth Berila, Ph.D.,
Embodied Leadership
Coach, DEIBJ/SOcial Justice COnsultant, & Inclusive Facilitator

Director, Gender & Women’s Studies Program 

Full Professor, Ethnic, Gender, & Women’s Studies Department

Organization Development Consulting and Change Leadership certification, Georgetown University

ICF ACC-Accredited Coach

500-hour Yoga Teacher Training certification

Somatics, mindfulness, and yoga practitioner

Published author & speaker

I’m a director and full professor at St. Cloud University, leading change through courses such as Feminist Leadership and Applied Feminisms. I’ve facilitated anti-racism and equity training and workshops and served as a consultant in transforming organizations toward anti-racism vision and practice. I provide group and individual coaching in embodied leadership and equity.

I have the experience, knowledge, and expertise to support you in your journey toward living more fully and leading more equitably.

What brings me joy . . .

Beauty in nature and the world around me

Oceans – the beauty of light shining on the water

Spending time with my friends and kitties

Supporting leaders to live the life they want to live

The creativity and insight of other social justice leaders

Trainings and/or certifications: 

  • Somatics: Generative Somatics T1 & T2, Somatic Experiencing (Beginning & Intermediate levels), Power of Embodied Transformation (Coaches Rising),  Strozzi somatic bodywork, and other courses.

  • Coaching: Deep Coaching Intensive (The Center for Transformational Coaching); Coacharya’s Coaching Foundation course (Ontology); Coacharya’s Group Coaching Training, Center for Holding Space Holding Space Foundation Program; Leadership Challenge Coach & Facilitator who can administer the 360 Assessment tool; Certificate in Organization Development Consulting and Change Leadership with Georgetown University

  • Yoga: Accessible Yoga Teacher Training, Adaptive Yoga Teacher Training I & II (Mind Body Solutions); Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher Training (Firefly Yoga International); Restorative Yoga, 340-hour Yoga, and Ayurveda Specialist Training with Devanadi Yoga, 200-hour yoga teacher training with Kirk Yoga, Curvy Yoga training

Writing & Speaking:

  • Radiating Feminism: Resilience Practices to Transform Our Inner & Outer Lives (Routledge 2020) is designed to support change-makers to more skillfully navigate the complex journey of living their political values 

  • Integrating Mindfulness into Anti-Oppression Pedagogy: Social Justice in Higher Education, was published by Routledge in 2016; 2nd edition in 2023.

  • Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change: An Intersectional Feminist Analysis, with Melanie Klein and Chelsea Jackson Roberts, Ph.D. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) 

  • TedxStCloud speaker: Check out my talk, The Unexpected Bridge to Connection

My current projects merge somatics, mindfulness, social justice leadership, and transformational coaching to create a form of socially engaged embodied leadership.

More about Beth

  • Are you ready to create more equity and justice in your world?

    What you do in the world isn’t just a job, it’s a part of you. You care about others and want to live with purpose. You’re working hard to unlearn all the limiting beliefs that society has taught you, and are ready to lead the change toward a fairer world.

    Whether you are seeking personal coaching, coaching & consulting help as a leader on an organizational level, or want to promote awareness and understanding of social justice issues, I can help.

    I use my deep expertise and years of experience combined with mindfulness and somatics to help with unlearning and healing from oppression in order to co-create individual and collective liberation.

    I’m ready to commit to change