How will I dance today?
Among those who pay attention to how all the parts of our bodies are connected and how the human body is connected to the rest of the universe, there is an appreciation for the fact that our bodies constantly communicate our history. I call this our life dance. Our life dance reveals the pain and joy of that history. If I can approximate your life dance I can experience some of your history of pain and joy.
All of us have experienced trauma for many generations. We carry the history of that trauma in every cell of our bodies and, thus, in every movement of our bodies. Medical scientists are now identifying specific parts of the body which carry that trauma. It is carried, for example, in our vagal nerve and in the psosas muscle. The vagal nerve reaches down into our gut and may explain why we get a gut feeling when something is not right – even with someone who is 3000 miles distant from one and one is speaking over the phone. The psoas connects the top part of the body with the bottom. “—if you’re braced, it also manages whether or not you mobilize or immobilize. And if you’re born to people who are already braced, you pick up in your psoas this kind of locking down, this kind of bracing, decontextualized. And so what I have been taking to people about is how do we begin to get the reps in with those pieces?” (Resmaa Menakem in On Being podcast conversation with Krista Tippett ‘Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence’. (Broadcasted June 4, 2020 but recorder earlier in 2020)
Mr. Resmaa reminds himself and others of our long history of trauma; including the period known as the dark ages from 500 to 1500 A.D. The people who came to this country and claimed it for their own inflicted more trauma on the then Native people and on their slaves. In many ways the trauma was inflicted on all who were not white, male, heterosexual landowners.
If we are going to quit inflicting trauma as a response to the trauma we carry we are going to have to reclaim a dance which is focused on healing from that long history of trauma. The particular experience of trauma is different for each cultural group (what Mr. Resmaa calls bodies of culture). He maintains each group needs to heal/emerge with each other. He details specific physical exercises in his most recent book “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.
Often when working for/with people I explore with them how our life dance reflects our history of trauma. We all need a safe place to begin to open our bodies to releasing the pain or what some refer to as the pain body. Only then can be reclaim the strength and power of a dance which is affirming of our own sacredness’s. It is only when we claim our own sacredness that we can begin to honor the sacredness of others.
We have a long history as humans of “breaking” and inflicting the pain of our history of trauma on others. Thus, we have police officers mistreating and even killing individuals such as George Floyd We have anger and pain unleashed in the form of burning and looting. The life dance continues to be one of inflicting further trauma which results in more trauma which results in more trauma, which….
Trauma affects every part of our bodies. It disconnects parts of our bodies. It weighs down our bodies. We can barely move.
The police officer carries generations of traumatic pain. Every black person carries generations of trauma. Every time the force of the pain of that trauma is unleashed on another person the trauma of the entire community is exponentially multiplied.
The black person cannot heal the white man. The white man cannot heal the back man. The male cannot heal the female and the female cannot heal male. We are all human and all need to support the healing of the others , but it may be only the members of the sub groups (the social constructs divisions) who can create a safe place for healing. Only then can we truly approach being free enough to join our life dances. The problem is, of course, that we keep inflicting further trauma on each other and then punishing each other when we disassociate within ourselves and with each other.
At another level trauma is trauma is trauma. The triggers and the source of your pain is different than mine but the existential experience of pain is the same. If we want a life affirming dance we must acknowledge our history of trauma and accept that there is no peace -no real freedom – without a process of freeing our bodies from the constraints of the fear, pain and rage which are normal results of trauma. We must find safe ways to loosen the constraints while interrupting the cycle which dumps more trauma on each other.
Written June 6, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Among those who pay attention to how all the parts of our bodies are connected and how the human body is connected to the rest of the universe, there is an appreciation for the fact that our bodies constantly communicate our history. I call this our life dance. Our life dance reveals the pain and joy of that history. If I can approximate your life dance I can experience some of your history of pain and joy.
All of us have experienced trauma for many generations. We carry the history of that trauma in every cell of our bodies and, thus, in every movement of our bodies. Medical scientists are now identifying specific parts of the body which carry that trauma. It is carried, for example, in our vagal nerve and in the psosas muscle. The vagal nerve reaches down into our gut and may explain why we get a gut feeling when something is not right – even with someone who is 3000 miles distant from one and one is speaking over the phone. The psoas connects the top part of the body with the bottom. “—if you’re braced, it also manages whether or not you mobilize or immobilize. And if you’re born to people who are already braced, you pick up in your psoas this kind of locking down, this kind of bracing, decontextualized. And so what I have been taking to people about is how do we begin to get the reps in with those pieces?” (Resmaa Menakem in On Being podcast conversation with Krista Tippett ‘Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence’. (Broadcasted June 4, 2020 but recorder earlier in 2020)
Mr. Resmaa reminds himself and others of our long history of trauma; including the period known as the dark ages from 500 to 1500 A.D. The people who came to this country and claimed it for their own inflicted more trauma on the then Native people and on their slaves. In many ways the trauma was inflicted on all who were not white, male, heterosexual landowners.
If we are going to quit inflicting trauma as a response to the trauma we carry we are going to have to reclaim a dance which is focused on healing from that long history of trauma. The particular experience of trauma is different for each cultural group (what Mr. Resmaa calls bodies of culture). He maintains each group needs to heal/emerge with each other. He details specific physical exercises in his most recent book “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.
Often when working for/with people I explore with them how our life dance reflects our history of trauma. We all need a safe place to begin to open our bodies to releasing the pain or what some refer to as the pain body. Only then can be reclaim the strength and power of a dance which is affirming of our own sacredness’s. It is only when we claim our own sacredness that we can begin to honor the sacredness of others.
We have a long history as humans of “breaking” and inflicting the pain of our history of trauma on others. Thus, we have police officers mistreating and even killing individuals such as George Floyd We have anger and pain unleashed in the form of burning and looting. The life dance continues to be one of inflicting further trauma which results in more trauma which results in more trauma, which….
Trauma affects every part of our bodies. It disconnects parts of our bodies. It weighs down our bodies. We can barely move.
The police officer carries generations of traumatic pain. Every black person carries generations of trauma. Every time the force of the pain of that trauma is unleashed on another person the trauma of the entire community is exponentially multiplied.
The black person cannot heal the white man. The white man cannot heal the back man. The male cannot heal the female and the female cannot heal male. We are all human and all need to support the healing of the others , but it may be only the members of the sub groups (the social constructs divisions) who can create a safe place for healing. Only then can we truly approach being free enough to join our life dances. The problem is, of course, that we keep inflicting further trauma on each other and then punishing each other when we disassociate within ourselves and with each other.
At another level trauma is trauma is trauma. The triggers and the source of your pain is different than mine but the existential experience of pain is the same. If we want a life affirming dance we must acknowledge our history of trauma and accept that there is no peace -no real freedom – without a process of freeing our bodies from the constraints of the fear, pain and rage which are normal results of trauma. We must find safe ways to loosen the constraints while interrupting the cycle which dumps more trauma on each other.
Written June 6, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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