The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living

by Hillary L. McBride

Tada Hozumi, cultural-somatics practitioner and activist, has identified this as the effect of historical traumas from inter-European imperialism. Such historical trauma is passed down epigenetically and interpersonally through descendants of light-skinned Europeans and is revealed in the fabric of Western, largely white culture.6 In this culture, it seems we have started to recognize this unease and fragmentation. In our desire to experience wholeness again and remedy the poverty within our context, we have looked to other cultures and traditions, typically those of people of color, for their wisdom, embodiment practices, and insights (for example, yoga, Tai Chi, martial arts, and breath work). We must speak about embodiment while acknowledging that these are not new conversations or practices; otherwise, we rehearse the systemic wounds that divided us from ourselves and each other. Our individual healing can’t happen without addressing our need for collective healing, culturally and as a collective human body.