Yukkuri Wellness is a somatic, politicized coaching & therapy practice rooted in slowness, care, & collective liberation.

about.

Yukkuri Wellness is a somatic, politicized coaching and therapy practice rooted in slowness, care, & collective liberation. Co-founded by two mixed-Japanese practitioners Shaena Lee Spoor and Karisa Morikawa, our name comes from the Japanese word yukkuri (ゆっくり), which invites us to slow down, take it easy, and move with intention. Like tending to a plant—offering it water, sunlight, and patient attention—healing unfolds over time. In a world that demands urgency, productivity, and constant self-optimization, yukkuri is a gentle refusal.

We regard yukkuri as an anti-capitalist framework that honors the impact of systems and the necessity of rest. Our shared approach is grounded in healing justice and is informed by years of experience in social service, movement spaces, survivor advocacy, reimagining community safety, and political education. We support people in reconnecting with their bodies as sources of wisdom, not as problems to fix, while holding the systemic and structural contexts that shape our struggles and possibilities. We carry a deep awareness of the harms that often occur in the name of “care” and are committed to practicing in ways that honor autonomy, accountability, consent, and relational integrity.

We see healing as nonlinear, full of complexity, and always in motion. We believe in making room for the whole of it: grief and giggles, contradictions and clarity, vulnerability and self-protection.

At Yukkuri Wellness, we support people in moving at a pace that feels sustainable and self-honoring, while gently expanding what’s possible in community, in relationship, and in the world.

  • Our approach is profoundly shaped by our shared cultural and personal experiences. While the particulars of our lives are different, we both came to internalize the belief that selflessness was a virtue; a quiet form of martyrdom, further reinforced in caregiving and justice-oriented spaces. We’ve been actively unlearning the idea that being committed to the work requires the denial of our needs and full humanity. Through the practice of slowing down and approaching ourselves with curiosity, including the parts unseen and previously unwanted, we’ve begun to find new ways of showing up with authenticity, boundaries, and a deeper alignment with our values. This ongoing evolution continues to shape how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the work we offer.

  • Anti-capitalism

    Many behaviors often pathologized (hyper vigilance, dissociation, depression, anxiety) are intelligent survival responses to life under racialized capitalism and other oppressive systems. Slowing down can also feel threatening to our nervous systems, bringing us into contact with what we’ve long had to suppress. It also threatens capitalism by interrupting extraction and obedience — creating room for curiosity, creativity and connection. We simultaneously hold that slowing down is a privilege not everyone is afforded under these systems and that it’s important to create spaciousness that allow us to imagine new ways of being.

    Ancestral Remembrance

    Yukkuri is more than a pace, it’s a remembering. Moving slowly and with intention can be a way of returning to ancestral rhythms that honor ritual and relationship.  We often hear that trauma is intergenerational. Healing is too. Healing can be a portal that carries us to the wisdom of our ancestors while creating possibilities for those who will come after.