"Carrying Our Fear" by Gracie Bialecki
“Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.”
— Bessel Van Derk Kolk
This summer, my partner Fred and I were visiting Cahors, a medieval village in French Occitanie. It was sunset and as we wandered the dark narrow streets, we came upon a place where a group of men were drinking. They were jostling outside the bar, loud and rowdy in their matching white T-shirts and black bow ties. It had to be a bachelor party given the costumes and raucous energy, and I instinctively turned down a side alley to avoid them. It was a dead end.
As I backtracked, the only option was to inevitably walk past them. I held Fred’s hand and tried to feel his calm. He couldn’t have cared less about the testosterone-charged air. Meanwhile, I was on edge, ready to deflect whatever comment might get hurled at me. My body was tense, stiffening, the same way it would during years of catcalls.
Since moving to Paris, I’ve been followed home on two separate occasions. And it wasn’t subtle. Both men were right next to me, talking the entire time. You’re so beautiful. What’s your name. I’ll take you for a drink.
Whenever I feel unsafe around strange men and prepare to yell, I think of the woman who owned the restaurant where I worked as a teenager. She was my first and only female boss, and once during closing, she’d told me a story from her au pair days in Paris. One night she was drinking with friends and found herself pulled into a car with some people she’d just met. As soon as the doors closed, she realized she was the only woman. Then the men started talking about where they’d go to rape her. She unleashed a French tirade and name dropped her semi-famous boss. This would be all over the news, she said. They’d end up in jail. Luckily, they started doubting their plan, and let her go.
My personal experiences could be multiplied by the stories I’ve heard, read, or seen to create the total of my fear. It’s passed down from generations and taught at study abroad orientations, where the concept of being followed was first introduced to me.
But these days, when I walk past the placid men smoking hookah by the park—isn’t it irrational that my body stiffens? They’ve never so much as looked up. They’re enjoying each other’s company, not waiting to harass me.
I’d noticed these instinctive reactions before I knew about Resmaa Menakem and his work. It was impossible to ignore my inner turmoil—the rational part of my mind insisting there was no danger, while my body prepared for flight. Menakem is a somatic therapist and trauma specialist who bases his work on the premise that our bodies carry years of inherited suffering. In his book, My Grandmother’s Hands, he writes:
This trauma has been passed down and compounded over many generations. Likely these were passed down epigenetically as expression of people’s DNA. They were also passed down as habits, actions, sensations, urges, images, narratives, beliefs, and ideas. Over generations, the original context was forgotten, and the trauma became cultural traits or norms.
Menakem argues that these inherited cultural narratives are at the core of our racial divide, and rather than offering an intellectual argument for unity, My Grandmother’s Hands is a practical guide to healing our bodies and souls. He includes numerous exercises, insisting, “If you’ve already skipped the previous activity, stop…Before you read further, you need to experience the activity with your body.“
In one of the first, I laid down a piece of rope in a circle around me, and imagined someone who was caring and supportive, in this case Fred, walking towards the circle and crossing its edge. What did I experience in my body? My stomach and hips relaxed, I could breathe to the bottom of my exhale, and my lips were already curling up towards a smile.
The next exercise was to imagine someone who is not caring, but not an outright enemy. I imagined one of my former bosses, an emotionally volatile fashion designer. As I did, I felt my shoulders tense across my back, my chest tightened, and I stiffened into myself—the sensation of falling backwards without having moved at all.
This exercise is the first step in identifying how you physically respond so that you can learn to “stay with your body” and react to situations with discernment. And according to Menakem, this is essential work in ending systemic racism:
The most important thing you can do to unravel white-body supremacy—and to heal your own historical and secondary trauma around race—is to notice what your body does in the presence of an unfamiliar Black body, and then learn to settle your body in the midst of that presence.
It took weeks to finish the book and diligently feel my way through its exercises. As I did, I found myself tensing in crowded places and in groups of loud teenagers, until Paris passed from curfew into our second confinement. Now my mind is over-packed with thoughts of isolation, injustice, and the upcoming election. Talking to my friends and therapist helps in the moment, but I’ve realized my anxiety only truly dissipates when I come back to my body and focus on dispelling that tense energy, be it from the exercises I’ve learned from Menakem’s book such as body scanning or massaging my hands, or my usual yoga, meditation, and running practice.
Menakem’s teachings are simple and effective, as instinctive as the reflexes he asks us to notice. Near the end of My Grandmother’s Hands, Menakem takes his work beyond the racial divide, and declares:
All adults need to learn how to soothe and anchor themselves rather than expect or demand that others soothe them. And all adults need to heal and grow up.
The day after the election, I flew from Paris to San Francisco to be with my family as my grandmother was put into hospice care. International COVID travel, loss, France’s second confinement, and the fate of our nation all loomed before me. I don’t drink coffee but my body felt like it was on a caffeine IV.
Two flights and five masks later, I arrived at my grandmother’s house in time to say goodbye. It was where I belonged and I felt my body settling, the existential stress alleviating. The house was peaceful, filled with love and family, when she passed the next evening.
The more I practice soothing and anchoring myself, the easier it becomes to return to the present moment and appreciate what I have rather than being overwhelmed by the dread of what I can’t control. And on Saturday, as the election results were called, I was filled with hope that our country will let go of its fear and finally begin to heal.
Gracie Bialecki is an author, performance poet, and co-founder of New York City's Thirst storytelling series. She lives and writes in Paris, France.
