“Healing Racial Trauma in the Body, Not Just the Mind”
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Title: My Grandmother's Hands
Author: Resmaa Menakem
Category: Health, Food & Nutrition, Psychology & Human Behavior, Mindfulness & Wellbeing, Culture & Society
What if racism lives in your body, not just your thoughts? Sam and Sophie sit with that question as they unpack Resmaa Menakem's radical argument that racial trauma is stored in our nervous systems, passed down through generations.
They walk through Menakem's concept of 'racialized trauma' and how it affects Black and white bodies differently, the idea of 'somatic abolitionism' as a path to healing, and the reframing of white fragility as a nervous system response. The episode also covers the collision of traumatized nervous systems in police violence and the need for somatic training.
If you've ever felt your heart race in a conversation about race despite your best intentions, this episode names what's happening in your body and offers a way to settle. The takeaway: healing racial trauma is body work, not just head work.
My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem. If you want the full written summary, the whole library is on 7minutebooks.com/app — over 6,000+ fiction and nonfiction titles you can read or listen to in any language, plus infographics on many titles. Unlimited access from $2.99 a month, $9.99 a year, or $19.99 lifetime.
Chapters
00:00Racism Lives in the Body01:03Racialized Trauma and White Bodies02:05Police Violence as Trauma Collision02:48Somatic Abolitionism and Settledness03:19White Fragility as Nervous System Response04:19Healing Through Body and Community
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