How to Heal from Racial Trauma with Resmaa Menakem

How To Levitate

Episode notes:

Show host Ryan Nell interviews New York Times bestselling author, thinker and therapist, Resmaa Menakem, who wants to help us heal from racial trauma. Brilliant, furious and powerfully raw, Resmaa is on a mission to cure and then inoculate us against the virus of "white-body supremacy". His prescription is a living, embodied, anti-racist philosophy called Somatic Abolitionism — "a way of being in the world... a return to the age-old wisdom of human bodies respecting, honouring, and resonating with other human bodies".

In this heartfelt, funny and provocative conversation, we discuss what's happening in Minneapolis, the harm of "feral policing", and the recent tragic killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Resmaa talks about the collective grief that has ensued. The danger of ignorance, white silence, and the problem with white people saying "I didn't know". The whole problem of setting up the white body as the supreme standard (and by inference the black body as the deviant). The unlikelihood of overcoming white-body supremacy through intellect alone. The necessity of embodied work, getting uncomfortable with each other, and "doing the reps" to create a post-racist culture.

We discuss the idea that trauma could get passed down at first epigenetically, and later, decontextualised, as culture. And that this also happened to the European settlers of America, that they were fleeing violent, powerful people, and that this "fleeing energy", wasn't properly dealt with, but was instead played out on the colonists treatment of the black and indigenous people. We talk about the origins of the idea of race, the 400 to 500 year weight of the concept and its effects, and the naivety of many white people when it comes to race.

We talk about the relatively clean pain of the California wildfires (versus the dirty pain of avoiding discomfort when it comes to our relationship with race). We talk about the need for putting ourselves in areas so uncomfortable that the only way through is growth. We talk about the things in us that seem defective, actually being protective. We talk about the challenges of living on a US military base in Kandahar with open sewers, and how they illustrate the need we have to "embrace the suck". How we can best do this in groups. How when you're trying to contemplate how your life might look inside this huge marble block, thinking won't work, you need to get to the business of carving.

Most of all though, Resmaa's message shines through, that the necessarily hard work will take us to a better place.

Episode recorded 17th September 2020, and published 23rd October 2020.

Mature themes:

Please note, this episode contains discussion of trauma, sexual violence, racism, and can make for uncomfortable listening. However, please stick with it, because as Resmaa suggests, it is when we are uncomfortable that we grow. Please also do ensure an adult is present (if you're not yet one yourself).

About Resmaa:

Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, is a therapist with decades of experience currently in private practice in Minneapolis, MN, specializing in trauma, body-centered psychotherapy, and violence prevention. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil as an expert on conflict and violence. Menakem has studied with bestselling authors Dr. David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage) and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score). He also trained at Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.

Episode links:

• Resmaa's webpage: resmaa.com
• Resmaa's best-selling book: My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (Penguin UK / Amazon USA)
• Resmaa on Instagram: @resmaamenakem
• Resmaa on Twitter: @ResmaaMenakem
• You can also take Resmaa's free e-course on Somatic Abolitionism here

Also referenced in this episode: George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Bessel van der Kolk, Rachel Yehuda,

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Show notes:

On the podcast, Levitate founder Ryan Nell chats to people who are changing the world for good. Whether they’ve overcome personal hardship, launched a social enterprise, or changed the way we think about a subject, all of them are united by passion, purpose, and the desire to make the world a better place.

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Show sponsor:

At Levitate, we’ve been helping people to connect mind, body and soul since spring 2018. We tea...