We are in a historic moment of trauma in the United States.
How do we face these things fully, let in the devastation, and then both heal and act? Can we navigate through this toward healing? Toward racial, economic, and gender justice? Can we use this moment to alter the trajectory of climate change toward sustainability?
Somatics and neuroscience reveal that we have inherent needs as humans—safety, belonging and dignity. We have essential material needs too, like healthy food and clean water, education, and housing. When these core needs are threatened, whether by more private experiences like child abuse or intimate partner violence, or by systemic oppression like racism or poverty and the abusive ways these are enforced, our automatic protective mechanisms engage. Our breath quickens, our muscles mobilize and contract, our heart rate increases, and our attention peaks, tracking for danger. This can last for moments, or years.
These are practices you can engage too.
First, in ways relevant to your community and culture, nourish resilience. What brings you more connection, life, and a sense of hope? Practice this on purpose. Together. This can be music, art, imagining just futures, nature, connection. What can you do daily? Feel your sensations as you practice. This lets resilience register deeply in the nervous system, supporting right action instead of reaction.
Second, notice and work with your own and other’s automatic survival reactions. To change them, we need to work through the body, using new practices and blending.
To read more of Staci K. Haines' article, please click here.
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