大象传媒

I started somatic experiencing鈥攁n alternative therapy that remediates trauma through bodywork鈥攁t the recommendation of a friend who, like me, is a Black woman. Meds and talk therapy effectively treated my depression but did little to ease my increasingly frequent and severe anxiety symptoms of chest tightness, dissociation, and panic attacks.

My new therapist guided me in embodying trauma and anxiety by helping me ascertain where I felt it in my body, expand the sensation in a controlled manner, and then, using visualization and movement, to release it. 

A year later, I can down-regulate my emotions before I spiral into panic through tapping, self-massage, and grounding through my feet. We are still working on embodying positive emotions to access them later. Evolution gave humans a negativity bias to keep us from danger, and mine is exceptionally strong.

Based on my experience of somatics, I was intrigued by psychotherapist and author Resmaa Menakem鈥檚 new book, The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation鈥檚 Upheaval and Racial Reckoning. The project is a manifesto and manual for 鈥淪omatic Abolitionism,鈥� which the author defines as 鈥渁n individual and communal effort to free our bodies鈥攁nd our country鈥攆rom their long enslavement to white body supremacy and racialized trauma.鈥� Menakem, who authored 2017鈥檚 My Grandmother鈥檚 Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, intersperses political commentary and predictions about American democracy with explanations of how racialized trauma presents in our bodies, and offers body-focused exercises to deal with it. 

I thought I鈥檇 be great at Somatic Abolitionism, given my familiarity and success with somatic therapy. Oh, how wrong I was. 

This is not a book to binge. There is a lot of new vocabulary. Each of the book鈥檚 50 chapters ends with at least one body practice to try. Body practices are one kind of 鈥渞ep,鈥� anti-racist actions and behaviors we need to repeat continually to 鈥渄evelop the essential grit of Somatic Abolitionism.鈥� Reps help reduce White fragility around race and condition 鈥渂odies of culture鈥濃�攁 term the author prefers to 鈥減eople of color鈥濃�攖o cope with 鈥渨hite body supremacy,鈥� or WBS. Menakem prescribes doing reps constantly and, ideally, following them with 鈥渟oul scribing,鈥� a sort of journaling practice to track your progress. 

Over time, these combined efforts will condition our bodies to remain 鈥渟ettled鈥� and respond calmly to emerging threats鈥攖he most immediate of which is the civil war Menakem predicts is going to pop off sometime between now and 2025. The Quaking of America is a lot to metabolize.

Still, there are moments of genius in the book. Menakem structured Quaking to resemble the 鈥渟ocial and political double helix鈥� of racial reckoning and potential civil war. Despite this complexity, he writes with real clarity of thought, always coming back to his initial thesis that Somatic Abolitionism is vital to dismantling White supremacy in America. 

While his visceral descriptions of predicted street-level warfare felt inflammatory to me when I started the book in April, they seem eerily prophetic in the wake of multiple mass shootings since then. The section on how bodies of culture can arm and protect themselves may fall flat amid the current conversation on gun control, but his recounting of gun control鈥檚 racist past is illuminating. 

I also found Menakem鈥檚 thoughts on how individual trauma can morph into collective experience and even national identity particularly revelatory. 

In an individual, decontextualized trauma can start to look like personality; in a family, like family traits; and in a people, like culture.鈥�

鈥� Resmaa Menakem, The Quaking of America

鈥淭he longer that trauma goes unacknowledged and its energies go unmetabolized, the more likely it is for its origins to be forgotten,鈥� he writes. 鈥淥ver months, years, or generations, trauma tends to become decontextualized from its precipitating event or events. In an individual, decontextualized trauma can start to look like personality; in a family, like family traits; and in a people, like culture.鈥� 

Menakem鈥檚 insights into Republican strategy are spot on鈥攊f they aren鈥檛, well, I truly hope no Republican ever reads this book and picks up ideas鈥攁nd he has the Democrats pegged. In fact, everything he writes about White progressives resonated to my core.

To Democrats: 鈥淪top your feckless handwringing. End your calls for cordiality and bipartisanship. They are no substitutes for justice and liberation.鈥� The way he admonishes White progressives for performing woke r茅sum茅s made me belly laugh. 鈥淚f you have a white body and say to a body of culture, 鈥楬i! I鈥檓 your ally and a Somatic Abolitionist,鈥� they will immediately know that you are neither. And they will be right.鈥� He also wisely tells them straight-up not to put 鈥淪omatic Abolitionist鈥� on sweatshirts or bumper stickers. 

I most appreciated later sections of the book that united body practices, such as grounding and orienting (the latter includes visiting public spaces and looking for exits), with applicable wartime tips. Buy a burner phone (and keep it charged!); memorize in-case-of-emergency numbers; bring bug spray; consider wearing a body cam that uploads to the cloud to prevent violence and document it when it occurs. 

Ironically, I didn鈥檛 get as much from the somatic experiencing parts of the book. The early chapters鈥� charged descriptions of the seemingly inevitable path from right-wing rhetoric to hyperlocal violence triggered a panic attack for me鈥攁nd I don鈥檛 even live in the U.S. anymore. I felt somewhat manipulated that Menakem whipped up my anxiety just so he could tell me to 鈥�pause鈥濃�攖hat word, italicized, peppers the book鈥攁nd then curl in and out of the fetal position to deal with the aftershock. (By the way, if you have a large body or mobility issues, many of the body practices may be hard to do.)

And there鈥檚 no way I鈥檓 opening myself up to the titular experience of 鈥渜uaking,鈥� which sounds like a glorified panic attack, without the presence of my therapist. Limiting my exposure to violent images, particularly of the WBS variety, is actually part of my own somatics practice, so I won鈥檛 be taking Menakem up on rewatching Jan. 6 footage either. When Menakem gave me permission to skip body practices that didn鈥檛 work for me, I basically skipped them all.

I don鈥檛 understand why Menakem waited until the second half of the book to explain the body as 鈥渞esource鈥濃�攚hich my therapist covered in our first session鈥攁nd offer practices to help readers more fully embody positive emotions. For me, Chapter 47鈥檚 body practice, recalling times when I was 鈥減articularly strong, resilient, or resourceful鈥攐r all three鈥� and reminding myself that 鈥渟trength, resilience, and/or resourcefulness鈥� remain in my body would have been a way better opener. By the time we finally got there, I had already moved from overwhelm to resentment to resignation that I will never be a Somatic Abolitionist. I鈥檓 OK with it. 

I also would have liked to see a bit more discussion of the cognitive role in anxiety, particularly what traditional and social media do to our brains. Menakem hardly mentions social media鈥檚 undue influence on Americans鈥� political identities, or how online communities and messaging platforms played prominent roles in the 2016 election, the Jan. 6 riot, and mass shootings. I鈥檓 not convinced that, even in the best of times, a critical mass of Americans would have the will, the time, and the emotional bandwidth to take on Somatic Abolitionism for the nine generations Menakem estimates it will take to truly dismantle racism in America. It seems all but impossible in the era of deep fakes, disinformation, and mainstreamed conspiracy thinking.

Ultimately, I ended my read with respect and admiration for the author, and agreement on the fundamental importance of using our bodies as a resource to deal with past trauma and future challenges. 鈥淐ultivating resource isn鈥檛 just an emergency measure鈥攕omething to turn to when life becomes stressful and painful,鈥� Menakem writes. 鈥淭he practice of cultivating resource can benefit you at all times鈥攏ot just when the chips are down. Whatever your situation, it can add meaning, wisdom, compassion, insight, and stability to your life.鈥�