This is a compilation of selected articles that I’ve written over the last four years, plus a free webinar, on the subjects of whiteness, trauma, and allyship.
Particularly, within these works, you will be introduced to what we call a ‘cultural somatic‘ framework, a constellation of ideas pivoted around the fundamental principle that groups of people i.e. cultures are in fact bodies. In this framework, oppressions such as white supremacy are understood as manifestations of traumas held in our collective nervous systems, which in turn become embodied in our cultural systems.
One of the reasons why we believe this frame is so valuable for building the future is because it naturally allows you to extend the individualistic vocabulary of Western/White psychotherapy to apply to cultural complexes such as white supremacy. If you have started to work on your own healing already, looking at your neurobiology and attachment behaviors, cultural somatics allows you to naturally transition all those learnings into a larger cultural healing that will also deepen your personal journey.
This is important to me because I have found that when folks become newly introduced to social justice discourse and its terminologies, as useful as it can be, they tend to become mentally overwhelmed and develop a dissonance between their healing and anti-oppression journeys. I believe that this framework of cultural somatics can provide you with an alternative/complementary frame that will help you digest some of those incongruences if there are any there.
Hope you enjoy the material and that it serves your journey of healing racial-cultural trauma!
SUPPORTING MY WORK: While I truly do not seek anything in return, if you identify as white and find that it is enlivening for you to support my work financially, please feel free to send me a contribution here.
On allyship
White supremacy is dying, and we are grieving
The reality of white anger and why we need healing spaces for white people
How do our allies deserve to be treated?
Whiteness as trauma
Whiteness as cultural complex trauma
What it means to heal white supremacy: restoring the cultural nervous system, cultivating Hara
The key to healing whiteness is understanding cultural somatic context
The cultural somatic paradox: why we struggle to understand each other
Free Webinar: Whiteness as Trauma in the Body
Extra readings on whiteness and relationships
Boundaries and the body: how our sense of space is shaped by our embodied state
The connection between Heart-centredness, burnout and colonization
Finally, a special thanks to Dare Sohei (https://bodyaltar.org/), who has been a big part of the development of this body of work. This work would not be the same without their collaboration over the last few years of my practice.
[…] between their homelands and leaving behind the trauma of Europe. You can look at the work of Tada Hozumi on the impact of this, Resmaa Menakem, and Eileen Enns to name a few. With such transformation came […]