A Book Review
Being shot in the abdomen left me with faulty digestion. Ever since the bullet hit I’ve struggled with stomach issues. With age, its worse. At 73 I suffered 3 episodes this winter. A friend suggested My Grandmother’s Hands, Radicalized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem for the body work.
I first learned about My Grandmother’s Hands on the radio show On Being. The author talked about how he discovered his grandmother’s hands when a child as they watched tv. His grandmother would ask her grandson to rub her hands and he noticed how tough they were. Resmaa asked why and she told her grandson as a small child she picked cotton. The sharp edges cut her hands and left calluses. Resmaa Menakem felt this past history in his grandmother’s hands.
Reading My Grandmother’s Hands I learned many ways to calm myself through body work. When the pain hits from the wound to my abdomen or stress makes me feel out of control, I use calming exercises such as
Slow Rocking. Move side to side or front to back. Rocking can be done just about anywhere from standing in line at the grocery store or sitting in a chair or while doing physical therapy exercises or waiting for a traffic light. Of course, this is settling. This is how we calm babies when they cry.
Belly Breathing. Take deep breaths feeling it all the way down to your belly from your nose, through your throat and into your lungs down to your belly(even though air doesn’t go to your belly). Do this for 4 or 5 minutes.
Humming. My favorite exercise is breath in 4 or 5 times feeling it deep in my belly. Then humming with random notes or songs I know. I like humming the Spirituals. I do this walking or sitting still.
Rotating Your Joints. Rotate your ankle 20 times in one direction and then reverse. Pause for 10 seconds between rotations. Do this with your Knees, Hips, Wrists, Elbows and Shoulders. Sometimes trauma gets stuck in the joints. This can help loosen it up.
Singing Aloud to Yourself. Sing a soothing or energizing song to yourself as you move through your day.
Rubbing your Belly. Take a few deep breaths and put hand on your belly. Hold for a bit. Rub your belly for 3 or 4 minutes. I usually push into my belly for a bit and then rub belly in circles going clockwise looking down at my belly.
Chanting. Pick a word or phrase and say it over and over and over.
Another exercise I learned from the book that helps to calm me down is– Think of a Special Person or Animal or Place that brings you comfort. Imagine that person or animal is with you or you are in that special place.
Dancing. When I am feeling angry and upset and fearful just turning on jazzy music and dancing helps to settle the emotions.
After each exercise do a body scan to be aware of what different parts of your body are feeling.
Resmaa Menakem is a psychotherapist with a specialty in Conflict and Trauma. He worked with domestic violence people, with the Minneapolis Public Schools and as a military consultant managing counseling services for 53 bases during war in Afghanistan. Resmaa Menakem has trained with Trauma Experts. These include Peter Levin’s Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, Dr David Schnarch, expert on conflict and violence and Bessell van der Kolk author of The Body Keeps the Score.
Resmaa Menakem now leads programs on healing from white supremacy for African American and European American audiences.
My Grandmother’s Hands talks about how in medieval times much violence occurred on white people in Europe. I think of the witch trials by the Church and I recoil. When Europeans moved to America they brought violence with them. Filled with violence these settlers ran their trauma through others if they weren’t settled in their own bodies. This violence passed on from generation to generation. In America this violence took on a new form—Racism. When black and white servants first came to work here they were treated unfairly and rebelled. Aristocratic landowners convinced white servants to side with them because they had the same skin color. This perpetrated racism and began white supremacy. White people of all income levels ran/run their violent racism against people of color.
My Grandmother’s Hands offers numerous techniques to settle our bodies from the trauma of violence. Then we can stop running our trauma through others by using ways to settle. That’s the reason the body work offered in this book is so crucial.
There is a section in the book on working the conflict through with other people. We can choose between Dirty Pain or Clean Pain. Dirty Pain propells through another person perpetuating racism and/or trauma AGAIN. It spirals the cycle. Clean pain is dealing with the conflict head on. The book talks about 5 Anchors or steps to deal with the feelings and finding a way through it.
Anchor 1 The first Anchor starts with shut up. I try to remember this when arguing with my husband! Soothe yourself. It’s helpful to remember that person or animal or place that brings you comfort
Anchor 2 Notice Reactions in your body
Anchor 3 Accept the Discomfort
Anchor 4 Stay present with Uncertainty of working through conflict
Anchor 5 Discharge Energy
My Grandmother’s Hands is many faceted
- From teaching us ways to calm ourselves
- To learning about our horrible history of trauma and how this affects our black and white relationships now
- To seeing how racism is stored in our bodies from this complicated history and how we can use the settling exercises to stop the trauma
There is lots of Hope in this book. We have come from a tragic past but with individual and group work we have a chance to change.
In many ways reading My Grandmother’s Hands is a work book doing exercises to experience the community we live in. It’s a tool to make sense of the ongoing challenge facing us in this country.
Healing from Gun Shots 