My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts

by Resmaa Menakem

ANCHOR 2: SIMPLY NOTICE THE SENSATIONS, VIBRATIONS, AND EMOTIONS IN YOUR BODY INSTEAD OF REACTING TO THEM. This anchor is all about staying in the here and now. Here are some ways to do this: • Pay attention to your body’s experience of simply being in your clothes. Notice how and where your body touches your underwear, your shirt, your pants, your skirt, your socks or stockings, and your hat. • Notice any other body sensations: your back against the chair, your tongue against the roof of your mouth, the wind blowing against your face. Experience and name each sensation: heat, cold, constriction, relaxation, hollowness, looseness, weakness, trembling. • As thoughts and emotions and possible reactions arise, don’t run off with them. Bring yourself back to your body and its sensations. ANCHOR 3: ACCEPT THE DISCOMFORT—AND NOTICE WHEN IT CHANGES—INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FLEE FROM IT. At first this will be difficult, but with practice it will get easier. Here are some ways to practice this: • When you feel an urge to tamp down or push away the discomfort, don’t. Keep your attention focused directly on it. Stay with it and notice when it changes—because, if you don’t flee from it, at some point it will. • When you get the impulse to analyze or think about the discomfort, bring yourself back to the sensation of discomfort itself. Again, notice when it changes. • When your mind spits out strategies for what to do next, don’t grab onto them. Just sit with the discomfort. Notice w...