Session 6:
Prompts

According to Resmaa Menakem, white people have a history and habit of “blowing their unresolved intergenerational trauma through Black bodies.” Think of a time you were in a racially charged situation (or witness to one). What happened in your body? What do you recognize for yourself as the signs of:

• Fight

• Flight

• Freeze

What came up for you reflecting on the history of violence in European cultures? How might your family/ancestors have been impacted? How did this (imaginative) re-membering feel in the body? What effect did this have on you?

Have you ever sought to be comforted or reassured by a person of color that you are a good white person? How can we help each other or ourselves as white people to soothe our activated states or racial anxieties?

Practice: Set an intention to move through your day (or just an hour of your day) maintaining whole body awareness, keeping a lower center of gravity in the body. (Ref. the hara in Tada Hozumi’s presentation). What do you notice? What is the impact?

You can also explore this in formal meditation.

Notice how often or how easily you get "up in your head." When does that happen?