our bodies are key

As we face the threat of increasing violence and the unraveling of a democratic United States, I pulled Resmaa Menakem's books My Grandmother's Hands and The Quaking of America back off my shelf. They offer practical guidance and real life exercises for my body, as it is increasingly dysregulated in the daily chaos, cruelty, and confusion.

"Whatever strategies, alliances, or activities you become involved with, they will require the same things from you: presence, discernment, and a settled, well-resourced body. As I wrote in My Grandmother's Hands, Few skills are more essential than the ability to settle your body. If you can settle your body, you are more likely to be calm, alert, and fully present, no matter what is going on around you. A settled body enables you to harmonize and connect with other bodies around you, while encouraging those bodies to settle as well. Gather together a large group of unsettled bodies- or assemble a group of bodies and then unsettle them- and you get a mob or a riot. But bring a large group of settled bodies together and you have a potential movement and a potential force for tremendous good in the world. A calm, settled body is the foundation for health, for healing, for helping others, and for changing the world."

-Resmaa Menakem, The Quaking of America pp36-37

Join me @thewholeheartedjourney (Facebook) and @the_wholehearted_journey (Instagram) as I work through some of Menakem's suggestions and body practices in weeks ahead.