nonfiction

“Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado Perez

November 28, 2020 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Recommended to me by: Dave C

This is an engagingly written, data-driven compilation of all the ways women are left out of important scientific and civic decisions, to our serious detriment. Often data isn’t even collected in a way that shows relevant differences between men and women. Men are considered the default, “typical,” “normal” person, while women (51% of the population) are the atypical awkward exceptions. It includes language (does “Man” mean everyone, or not?), budgeting decisions, bathrooms, safety equipment design and size, public transit, cleaning chemicals, medical treatments, political expectations and judgments, etc.

Despite its calm, matter-of-fact tone, it is infuriating to read.

I usually don’t add books here that I haven’t read in full, but I want to keep track of this one as a reference and highly recommend it even though I don’t have the emotional stamina to read it now.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Bodyfulness” by Christine Caldwell, PhD

November 17, 2020 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Somatic Practices for Presence, Empowerment, and Waking Up in This Life

Recommended to me by: Darryl C

“Bodyfulness” is the embodied version of mindfulness, presence without leaving the body behind. Caldwell brings in Tibetan Buddhism, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and her own experiences with movement and presence. The different modalities felt awkwardly pushed together in places, with superficial coverage of anatomy and neurology. Perhaps she came to the topic from an academic perspective and forgot to talk with bodyworkers and others who make a lifelong practice of body awareness.

There are practices to try out in each section to explore body awareness.

8 principles of bodyfulness:

oscillation – movement through a range, with a preference to stay mostly in the middle of the range. Our cells, our organs, our whole body, all have oscillations.
balance – pausing, like balancing on one leg, and also being centered, not getting stuck at the far end of an oscillation
feedback loops – sensing and moving, trading information back and forth. Also cross-connections between different systems.
energy conservation – habits conserve energy by not having to figure them out every time. Movement plans (such as reaching, or standing) do the same thing at a body level.
discipline – practice leads to grace. “Use it or lose it.” This was a brief section and felt grafted on.
change and challenge – our bodies change under the challenge of new needs or a new environment
contrast through novelty – when something is new, it gets our attention and perhaps elicits change.
associations and emotions – guide our actions, memories, experiences.

4 themes

breathing – this book, about awareness of the body, says that gravity does the work of the outbreath. Which moves up. No. The diaphragm relaxing up into a dome shape lets the outbreath move without additional effort. This error alone made me lose all confidence in this book.
sensing – add kinesthesia to the usual 5 senses. Balance the amount of sensory awareness, and the amount of attention inwardly or outwardly.
moving – motor plans and motor development, probably from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. Some basic exercises to address trauma held in the body.
relating – borders, boundaries, and coregulation.

Bodyful Applications included material on oppression, activism, and bodily authority. It also explores the contrast of bodylessness: ignoring the body, seeing the body as a problem or project, hating the body, and making one’s own or other people’s bodies wrong.

Unfortunately there is an ongoing theme of “curb your addictions” and “fix your eating habits” in the examples. It seems strange to have judgmental examples in a book about body awareness and acceptance. Also there is a non-ironic positive use of “trickle-down economics.”

This is such a great topic, addressed in an oddly skewed way, as if it’s trying to match up modalities that don’t quite fit. It has interesting information, but I can’t trust any of it when basic facts about breathing are simply wrong. It would be a good start for someone who hasn’t thought about body awareness at all and needs a step by step introduction to the idea.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Victory Over Verbal Abuse” by Patricia Evans

October 31, 2020 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: A Healing Guide to Renewing Your Spirit and Reclaiming Your Life

Recommended to me by: Reading Patricia Evans’ earlier books about verbal abuse many years ago

Patricia Evans named the severity and prevalence of verbal abuse and offers validation and healing for survivors. Her earlier books “The Verbally Abusive Relationship” and “Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out” focus on describing verbal abuse and coping with it. This book focuses on healing from the aftermath once the abuse is over. She recommends no contact with abusers.

She states clearly and repeatedly that verbal abuse is not the survivor’s fault. The abuser has projected their self into their victim and is not recognizing the victim as a separate person. Healing involves recognizing that and rebuilding one’s self.

The book includes a summary of what verbal abuse is, including survivor stories, brief descriptions of trauma healing modalities, and a set of 52 affirmations such as “I am confident even as I confront the unknown,” with a page or two of accompanying text.

The trauma healing modality called “Healing the Spirit” had some victim-blaming quotes, but the rest of the book is wonderfully free of that.

Recommended if you are in the process of healing from verbal abuse and would like an understanding guide.

Patricia Evans’ website.

Available at bookshop.org.

“My Grandmother’s Hands” by Resmaa Menakem

September 30, 2020 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Recommended to me by: Naomi Ardea

Resmaa Menakem is a Black psychotherapist and teacher. He addresses the ways white supremacy, which he calls white body supremacy, is perpetuated through trauma in Black, white, and police bodies. He says we each have to learn to settle our bodies, individually and collectively. He distinguishes the clean pain of addressing and healing trauma from the dirty pain of avoiding it.

I appreciate the insights and settling practices in this book. African-Americans have a history of trauma from slavery, as well as the day-to-day trauma and stress of racism. White people also had a history of trauma before colonizing the Americas. This trauma is passed down the generations through epigenetics and patterns of traumatizing behavior. He brings up the trauma of inflicting or witnessing violence, which afflicts police bodies.

He says white bodies and police bodies reflexively feel threatened by Black bodies. He talks about police saying they “couldn’t help it” and “feared for their lives” when talking about shooting and killing unarmed Black people, often in the back. He adds “annihilate” to “fight, flight, or freeze,” but never discusses it directly as a trauma or nervous system response.

He asserts that white bodies have generational trauma from historical conflicts in Europe. He does not address the trauma of immigration itself, abandoning all that is known for a wholly unfamiliar place, leaving behind family and social connections. In addition, his emphasis on generational trauma elides individual present-time trauma, letting individuals off the hook.

There are some metaphors and simplifications that don’t work for me. Calling the vagus nerve the “soul nerve.” Saying it causes or holds emotions that are held in the whole body. Saying that it is responsible for activation responses in the body, when those are caused by the sympathetic nervous system. Saying it makes us human. No, reptiles and mammals have vagus nerves.

Most of the suggested exercises in the book are intended to settle the body, or to mindfully and gently address an activating memory. And then, on page 199 of the hardcover edition, at the beginning of the chapter on Mending the White Heart and Body, a sickening, violent act is described with the specific invitation to put yourself in the scene. It is not even marked as an exercise in the same way as the other exercises, and there is no content warning.

I had a teacher in a massage class once who similarly ended a guided meditation in a shocking way. I think some people imagine that they need to show people what trauma feels like, when many of us have plenty of experience with it already. I am disappointed that the book was published with this mistaken assumption included.

The final chapters contain concrete advice for creating cohesive and resilient social justice groups and events.

Overall, this is an important book with important ideas. It takes a step forward into addressing the trauma of slavery, racism, policing, and white supremacy.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Inner Work of Racial Justice” by Rhonda V. Magee

August 28, 2020 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

Subtitle: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness

Rhonda V. Magee is a Black woman law professor at the University of San Francisco. She has studied mindfulness in depth, and uses it to get through difficult conversations about race with students as well as live with ever-present microaggressions. She teaches mindfulness to help people pause before reacting, increase inner tolerance for strong emotions, and to stay connected with themselves and others.

The first half of the book very gently and slowly encourages the reader to admit that racism exists and might be part of their lives. This is the opposite of Layla Saad’s direct approach in Me and White Supremacy. I can see that different approaches work well for different people.

The strongest message of the book is that we need to stay in mindful, non-violent conversation with each other (and ourselves) about race. Not until the last chapter does she add a caveat about retreating from people who threaten violence. I would add a second caveat about people who are simply not listening or engaging in good faith. Most of her examples include students or workshop participants who have chosen to learn from her, or community members who have an existing motivation to stay connected.

With the addition of those caveats, I agree that we are all in the racist soup together, each learning at our own pace, and we can do our best to be kind to people who are not as knowledgeable as we are, just as more knowledgeable people continue to be kind to us. I wanted to see more about reaching one’s limits and reacting with anger and frustration. There is a place for that, as well as a lot of good work to be done in the world with mindful listening.

Highly recommended for people who are new to anti-racist work, or new to meditation, but not both. I think it would be difficult to learn both from a book at the same time. I have some experience with both and the pace felt slow, but I still got a lot from the book.

Meditations and articles at Rhonda V. Magee’s website

Available at bookshop.org.

“Minor Feelings” by Cathy Park Hong

August 13, 2020 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: An Asian American Reckoning

Recommended to me by: Jesse-the-k

Cathy Park Hong describes minor feelings as “the racialized range of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one’s perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed.”

In this frank memoir, she describes growing up in LA’s Koreatown in a Korean immigrant family, complex friendships in college, and finding her voice as an artist in conversation with other artists, interwoven with Asian American experiences of racism.

Patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it’s more than a chat about race. It’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Except it’s even trickier than that. Because the person has all of Western history, politics, literature, and mass culture on their side, proving that you don’t exist.

Cathy Park Hong pulls off that tricky feat, asserting her own reality and showing us her life while also explaining what it’s like to be Korean in America for clueless white folks. Highly recommended!

Random House Books summary

Available at bookshop.org.