nonfiction

“On the Wings of Shekhinah” by Rabbi Leah Novick

May 20, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Rediscovering Judaism’s Divine Feminine

Recommended to me by: Orasimcha Batdina

Rabbi Leah Novick weaves the Shekhinah (divine feminine in Judaism) back in to Jewish history. Clearly, a lot of research and thought went into creating this book.

It contains a brief chapter on Kabbalah, which is what led me to read it, and further material on Jewish mysticism. If I wanted to create a feminist Jewish practice for myself, I would re-read this book. Right now, it’s not what I was looking for. I absorbed the information in a general way, but the specifics didn’t stay with me.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit

April 4, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: Patricia Anderson

Rebecca Solnit’s title essay is available here. While she didn’t invent the word “mansplaining”, she inspired it with this essay about the trend of men (not all men, she is quick to point out) explaining things to women that women already know. Men treating women as “empty vessels waiting to be filled with their wisdom.” Men deciding whether a woman’s speech is credible or not, even, or perhaps especially, when she says, “He’s trying to kill me.”

The other essays in this book are also about sexism, feminism, and gendered violence. Violence gendered because women are targets in a concerted, ongoing effort to control us and keep us small. Violence also gendered because men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators.

The book is depressing, illuminating, and, in the end, hopeful.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Wheels of Life” by Anodea Judith

April 1, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A User’s Guide to the Chakra System

Recommended to me by: Katherine Macomber Millman

This is a thorough, inclusive, grounded introduction to the chakra system. It includes Hindu history, symbolism, and interactions with yoga. It discusses both the “liberating” current, moving toward the upper chakras and universal energy, and the “manifesting” current, moving toward the lower chakras and individual energy. All the chakras are important, from the ones that ground us in our body to the ones that connect us with All That Is.

Each chakra has a long list of associations, from colors and sounds to Hindu divinities to ailments and body parts. The author includes specific yoga poses and movements to connect with the chakras. Each chapter also includes essays on related scientific ideas. While the connections between the science and the chakras might be debated, the science itself is carefully and accurately presented.

I noticed that I disagree with some of the associations the author proposes, like water and emotions for the second chakra, and air for the fourth chakra. They make sense if each chakra has an element, but that set of associations didn’t click for me. I was surprised to discover strong opinions on what the chakras do and don’t represent for me.

I looked at another book on the chakras which uses “he” and “man” everywhere. It was a relief to return to this book, which even-handedly mixes pronouns, and includes explicit anti-racism as well.

I also looked through The Sevenfold Journey: Reclaiming Mind, Body, and Spirit Through the Chakras by Anodea Judith and Selene Vega. This contains an abridged version of the material on each chakra from “Wheels of Life”, and adds stories, journal exercises, and rituals from the workshops they have held for people to work through each chakra in turn. The personal stories were a great addition, and this might be a better introduction for someone who wants to do personal work with the chakras.

Both books are accessible, interesting, and a great introduction to the New Age version of the chakra system.

This article contains a good summary of basic chakra information and associations: Asanas for the Chakra System

Anodea Judith’s website

Available at bookshop.org.

“Healing Developmental Trauma” by Laurence Heller, PhD and Aline LaPierre, PsyD

March 17, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship

The first section of this book is focused on analysis and categorization. It describes five adaptive survival styles in response to developmental ruptures in connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and love and sexuality. I found this part dry and off-putting, and skimmed through it.

The second section narrows the focus to the connection adaptive style in response to very early trauma, abuse, and neglect. It describes physiological responses to trauma and shares several transcripts of therapy sessions. This section was much more engaging and useful. The therapeutic style is named NeuroAffective Relational Model, abbreviated NARM throughout.

Therapists are recommended to be non-judgmental, present, authentic, gentle, and attuned with the client. Careful tracking of the client’s responses allows alternation between expansion and contraction, with emphasis on positive expansion. Anger and aggression are recognized as natural, necessary responses to trauma. Unresolved defensive-orienting responses to trauma linger in tension around the eyes and narrowed field of vision, so working with eyes and gaze is useful. Therapeutic touch is a resource to repair early neglect.

Recommended as an introduction to the differences between shock trauma and developmental trauma, with some body-centered and client-centered techniques to help.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Fierce Conversations” by Susan Scott

February 24, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time

Recommended to me by: Jessie Link

Susan Scott is a consultant to corporate CEOs, coaching them in fierce conversations. While the book does include some non-work examples, and carefully mixes or avoids pronouns, it also fails to address the power dynamics and mostly homogeneous demographics of CEOs. I found it difficult to see myself in some of the corporate examples, especially when the focus was on Susan Scott’s consulting business.

At the same time, there was a lot in the book that resonated for me.

“Successful relationships require that all parties view getting their core needs met as being legitimate.”

“There is something within us that responds deeply to people who level with us.”

Fierce conversations are defined as “robust, intense, strong, powerful, passionate, eager, unbridled.” They avoid blame and attack.

7 Principles:

Master the courage to interrogate reality. Reality keeps changing. What are you pretending not to know?
Come out from behind yourself into the conversation and make it real.
Be here, prepared to be nowhere else. Speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person.
Tackle your toughest challenge today.
Obey your instincts. Trust your perceptions, but don’t be attached to them.
Take responsibility for your emotional wake. The conversation is the relationship. Share appreciation and praise. Speak with clarity, conviction, and compassion.
Let silence do the heavy lifting.
I had the most trouble with Principle 4. While some people need encouragement to tackle challenges, others need encouragement to step back, or to take the smallest possible step forward at a time.

The book includes frameworks for difficult conversations, and exercises for becoming more honest and self-aware.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga” by David Emerson and Elizabeth Hopper

February 12, 2015 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: Reclaiming Your Body

Recommended to me by: a client

This book is divided into three parts: a general introduction to the history of trauma treatment and PTSD, a suggested yoga practice for traumatized people, illustrated with photographs, and suggestions for offering trauma-sensitive yoga for clinicians and yoga teachers.

Throughout the book, it is clear that these people get it. They emphasize choice, empowerment, and reconnecting with the body. From Stephen Cope’s foreword: “Sometimes we encounter experiences that so violate our sense of safety, order, predictability, and right, that we feel utterly overwhelmed […]. Unable to bear reality. We have come to call these shattering experiences trauma.”

Trauma involves being helpless to avoid pain. In trauma-sensitive yoga, students are repeatedly encouraged to change postures if they are painful, and instructions emphasize choice and control over their own bodies. Students are encouraged to attend to their own experience, rather than trying to get postures “right”.

There were two instructions in the book that seemed less well-attuned to traumatized yoga students. One is to “lift the crown of the head,” without explaining how to find a balanced upright posture for the head. The other is to “hug in and around the lower belly” to activate core muscles. Many traumatized people chronically clench their bellies already.

Trauma-sensitive yoga classes move slowly to give students time to connect with their physical experience. “Physical assists” (touching students) is done rarely, with permission, and with careful attention to possible triggering effects. Thought is given to the props available – many trauma survivors find straps triggering because of having been restrained, so the book suggests not having straps in the room.

“In teaching trauma-sensitive yoga, the job of the yoga teacher is not to create artificial challenges—many of our students have already challenged themselves more than we may ever know just by showing up. The work of the teacher is to cultivate enough safety so that students can challenge themselves as they are ready, and in ways they feel safe.”

Highly recommended for its compassionate approach to anyone dealing with trauma or traumatized people.

Available at bookshop.org.