My Grandmother's Hands

Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

By: Resmaa Menakem MSW LICSW SEP

Narrated by: Cary Hite

Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

A National Best Seller

"My Grandmother's Hands will change the direction of the movement for racial justice." (Robin DiAngelo, New York Times best-selling author of White Fragility)

In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology.

The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. Menakem argues this destruction will continue until Americans learn to heal the generational anguish of white supremacy, which is deeply embedded in all our bodies. Our collective agony doesn't just affect African Americans. White Americans suffer their own secondary trauma as well. So do blue Americans - our police.

My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not only about the head but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.

Paves the way for a new body-centered understanding of white supremacy - how it is literally in our blood and our nervous system.

Offers a step-by-step healing process based on the latest neuroscience and somatic healing methods, in addition to incisive social commentary.

©2018 Central Recovery Press (P)2018 Central Recovery Press

An excellent step forward

I can't think of many people this book wouldn't be deeply helpful to. If you want a body-mindful therapy book that dives into the US's greatest trauma, white supremacy, this is surely it. The traumatic stress reduction exercises and practices are enough for me to highly recommend it. The narration is excellent too.

Every American human will make their world better by reading this important book, and getting in touch with their “soul nerve”

After hearing an interview with Resmaa Menakem on Krista Tippett’s On Being podcast, I felt compelled to read this book. It is clear from any reasonable standpoint that discussions of race — including racial tension or bias, history or race relations, equity and equality, or anything else in this country conditioned by skin color and culture — are all, without exception, experienced as strongly emotional and deeply impactful for everyone involved. It should be obvious to even casual observers that progress in such discussions is frequently, if not uniformly, beset by barriers that come from subconscious and visceral reactions to the issues at hand and the people involved. This reality is so pervasive that we almost miss it, like fish swimming in poisoned water that has simply come to be the norm.

Stepping outside oneself just long enough to perceive this situation — which the interview helped to foster for me — is the first step toward becoming aware of this uncomfortable situation, becoming more present in one’s own body with its limitations and potentialities, and working through the “clean pain” of resolving trauma before blowing it through others mindlessly or maliciously.

If you can see, even briefly or fleetingly, how this can improve your own life, the lives of those close to you, and the community and world you live in, no matter where you stand or sit in this scenario, then you will find this book as powerful and life-altering as I believe it will be for me.

Inspiring Read!

Inspiring book that creates a framework to understand the social dynamics of our time. Where they came from and a roadmap for recovery.

The best book for right now!!

healing yourself is how you make the biggest difference. this book is a great guide.

Super Informative!

I really needed this book, the concepts about healing the body and soul on the way to stronger mental health.

Centuries Old Internalized Trauma-Compelling Ideas

Chapter 8, "White-Body Supremacy and the Police Body," is disturbingly TRUTH! Our people need to heal our inherited and self developed racial trauma. This book offers a way.

Moving!!

Every human should read this book! It tells the truths about trauma and how to remedy it. It was a life changing read!

Intrigued

I enjoyed learning new coping skills. Highly recommend this book. I will definitely reread this book. We read this book as a family and had discussions about the chapters and we practiced the exercises as a unit

Think You Don't Need This? Think Again, Please!

A group of us (mostly white people) from our Quaker Meeting (Church) decided to pursue our troubled feelings about race through a Zoom Book Club, and "My Grandmother's Hands" was our first selection.

I had doubts - I'm not a real new-age, "touchy-feely", self-help kind of person. After reading the first few chapters and having our first gathering, however, I am truly a believer. There are lots of uncomfortable things in this book, and there are sections and even chapters that you may question scientifically and practically. There can be, however, no denying that experiencing this book and its self-reflections and exercises with an open mind is a very powerful emotional journey.

Doing it as a group has been particularly meaningful - sharing questions, different personal experiences and responses has been enlightening and very beneficial to, I believe, all of us involved.

Whether you read it alone or can share the experience as a family or a discussion group, prepare yourself for some reactions you may not have expected. Whatever your race or age or ethnicity, there will be difficult moments and personal discoveries.

This is not based entirely on the point of view of any one race, although the author is an African American Psychologist. He explains, of course, the everyday experience of being Black in America, and that is painful for all races to contemplate, but the book is nonjudgmental. He offers perspectives and exercises for three basic groups: Blacks, Whites, and what he terms Blues (police) with balance and compassion.

Each of us is a product of our history (and its collective and personal trauma), culture, experience, physical environment; often we think and act in ways so elemental as to be automatic and unconscious. This book helps us be aware of those biases and suggests ways to slow down and think of new ways of responding to what are often unthinking physical and mental reactions.

Read (or listen to) this book - or even better, do both at the same time. Genuinely put your body and mind into the experience. Do the exercises. I (and the group of which I am a part) have benefited greatly. I think you will too! I wish everyone could and would read and discuss "My Grandmother's Hands"!

Life changing...

I have been given hope and tools to change the deeply held trauma in America. This work must be read by all who care about the future of our country and our world.