Would recommend this book to everyone who reposted that quote on insta about the trauma white people hold in a white supremacist society, therapists, and anyone who liked the body keeps the score (so therapists). Really I would recommend this book to everyone I know, if they were willing to read it. Menakem: So one of the things about the animal part of the body is that even though me and you are in this room — this nice place— there’s a part of the body that’s saying, “Yeah, but what else is gonna happen?” And the reason why — especially when I’m working with bodies of culture, one of the first things I have them do is orient; orient to the room, not orient in the mystical way but actually literally. Because many times the bodies of culture are waiting for danger. Even though you know nothing’s behind you, letting the body know it actually helps some pieces. Now, if you get reps in with that, not just do it one time or just when I tell you to, what you may notice is that you have a little bit more room for other — literally, for other things to happen that can’t happen when the constriction is like that. This adds such an important somatic lens for anti-racist conversations and work. I highly recommend this book for white people, as the exercises and suggestions helped me feel out the white supremacy my body holds and figure out regular practices that can help weaken or release it.

white-body supremacy lives in our BODIES; it's in our blood, dna, flesh, and the pre-cognitive parts of our brains (aka the lizard brain).It feels important to me right now, at this moment in our life together — there’s a lot of judging other people, or thinking, “Can’t they just get their act together?” or “Can’t they just see the truth?” “Can’t they just hear the facts?” And it happens on every side. And something that you know and that you articulate so well is that the vagus nerve also is about safety; that the core of us, the core of our bodies, is always asking, first, “Am I in danger; am I safe?” clean pain is when you know that a difficult thing needs to be done, you know what that thing is, and you do it because healing/growth are on the other side. dirty pain is all the subsequent pain when clean pain is avoided. Menakem: That’s right — “I’m gonna get rid of it. I’m gonna go do some yoga, I’m gonna eat a whole bunch of kale.” [ laughs] But “I’m gonna do this thing…” Menakem, Remaa (2017) My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies , Central Recovery Press. Offers a step-by-step healing process based on the latest neuroscience and somatic healing methods, in addition to incisive social commentary.

Tippett: That makes sense too, in terms of how trauma is in the eternal present — you’re not remembering it, it’s reliving itself. And you’re getting — just for that minute, you’re actually settling in the real present. Kalliopeia Foundation, dedicated to reconnecting ecology, culture, and spirituality; supporting organizations and initiatives that uphold a sacred relationship with life on Earth. Learn more at kalliopeia.org. Tippett: And it’s about your identity. It’s not even necessarily about actions you’re gonna perpetrate against other people. It’s about how you feel inside your body.I was so excited to read this book and really wanted to like it. Unfortunately, it really missed the mark for me. While the author has a clear writing style, I felt that so many points were repeated over and over again in an unnecessary way. Almost like the author didn’t trust his readers so understand the points. I really liked that this book attempted to take a deep look at trauma and how important it is for us all to work through it. I completely agree with it. I think that was the saving grace of this book as it is what he spends a majority of the book on. Beyond that, I have many complaints.

Menakem: I think what it means to be human is to realize that we’re ever-emerging and that that — that we are not machines. We are not flesh machines. We are not robots. We come from and are part of Creation, and that that cannot just be something we talk about when we go to a yoga retreat — that it has to be a lived, emergent ethos and that — one of my ancestors, Dr. King, talked about how when people who love peace have to organize as well as people who love war. And for me, what that means is that it’s about work. It’s about action. It’s about doing. It’s about pausing. It’s about allowing — the reason why we want to heal the trauma of racialization is that it thwarts the emergence. So let’s not do that. Let’s condition and create cultures that will allow that emergence to reign supreme so that the intrinsic value can supersede the structural value. Sounds of SAND is a podcast from Science and Nonduality which contemplates and reveres the beauty, complexity, pain, and great mystery that weave the infinite cycles of existence. This conversation is from the Wisdom of Trauma Talks on Trauma Series (2021).

Menakem: “I don’t have rage.” Watch. Notice that one of your ancestors may show up, not as an image, but as a sense. I also noticed stereotypical ideas about weight and overweight people. I did not appreciate that and I do not think it was necessary at all. Menakem: That’s the piece that I think gets missed — and I’m so glad you read that — that gets missed in that book is that when it comes to race, specifically white people not understanding and not getting in and doing the cultural work that needs to be done, actually makes you more immature. So that’s a lot of times why, when a white person comes to a person of color and tries to whitesplain about race and what should be happening, that’s why people of color go … Like, “Are you out of your mind?” People of culture like, “How do you even get the temerity to try and explain that to me?” And so that’s the piece that there’s a level of immaturity. It’s like having my 14-year-old son try and tell me something about life. I’m like … [ laughs] Tippett: So some of the ways we’re trying to work forward, we’re actually making ourselves unsafe again? A powerful section is geared to law enforcement, asking them to make an inventory and explore sensations at the end of a workday.