Embedded Files
Being anti-racist is a lifestyle. As you go about the world, one important way to sustain your work is by having self-awareness. Having self-awareness in antiracism work means:
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Activating Your Five Senses
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Activating Your Five Senses
Think of a smell that brings you back to childhood. What feelings do you get when you think about that smell?
Think of a taste that brings you back to childhood. What memories are attached to that taste?
Think of the voice of a family member. What does that evoke?
Envision the face of someone who has wronged you. What emotions are coming up?
Hug yourself and tighten your grip. Then loosen your grip. Do you note a difference in how you feel?
Our brains retain all of our experiences as well as those of our ancestors like a vault. We may not know that these associations are present at all times, but a little input can unlock them in an instant. Just like sensory input can be strongly connected to memories and emotions, our brain draws on previous experiences (both good and bad) to trigger how we respond in tough conversations, like interactions around race.
For this week, we ask for you to be intentional in drawing awareness to the responses that come up during these tough conversations. As we continue the path of readying ourselves for cross-cultural dialogue, we will recognize, name, and process (metabolize) our triggers when they occur.
What are Triggers?
What are Triggers?
A trigger is an event or experience that causes and emotional or bodily response to either fight, flight, or freeze
Would you add anything to this list?
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Think about a Time
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Think about a Time
So, let’s start exploring the topic of triggers by thinking about a recent experience in which you were triggered. This can be related to anti-racism work or in general.
Where were you?
What happened?
Were there other people around?
How did you respond in that situation?
If you experienced that same moment again, would you respond differently?
The body is prone to either fight, flight or freeze when encountering stimuli that impact your lizard brain. Your lizard brain can sense the rightness and wrongness of things, events, and people that you come across. You may have been taught to disassociate from your body when stressed or uncomfortable. Perhaps you’ve never had the desire or awareness to sense how your body responds in various moments of love, compassion, dread, loneliness, empathy, care, and other experience, however, it is worthy to note that our body gives us information first, not our intellectual (or thinking) brain. Here are some of the ways your body might respond when triggered:
Reflect—
Reflect—
In a journal or in conversation with another person doing this work, ask yourself:
Returning to the triggering experience you reflected on, did you notice anything that happened with your body as you were writing what occurred?
If so, keep those bodily reactions in mind for our next section.
Being proactive in understanding what your triggers are is an important task in your anti-racism work. It gives you time to plan, strategize, and develop mechanisms to help you settle your mind and body. To get an idea of what your triggers are and how you respond, read the inventory below.
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Trigger Response Inventory
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Trigger Response Inventory
Think about how you react when you are triggered. Go through the list and put a check in the white box for any reactions that you characteristically do. At the end, you’ll add up your checks in each column to learn more about your response style to triggers. At the end you can see which response type correlates to each of your reactions.
For a printable version, click here.
See the graphics below to understand your trigger response.
Being triggered is often a trauma response, and it can set off a survival cue in our brains. The reactions we have to triggers can indicate which trauma response our brains tend toward.
Fight responses are when our brain responds to what it perceives as a threat by wanting to destroy the threat. This is our brain telling us to attack the “predator” before it can hurt us more.
Flight responses are when our brain responds to what it perceives as a threat by running away (physically or mentally) from the danger. This is our brain telling us to put distance between ourselves and the “predator."
Freeze responses are when our brain responds to what it perceives as a threat by shutting down physically, emotionally, or mentally. This is our brain telling us to play dead and dissociate to trick the “predator” into leaving us alone.
Metabolize responses are when our brain is able to process our physical and emotional responses to what it perceives as a threat so that we are able to actively and productively respond. Menakem (2017) uses this term to mean our brain and body are processing the response to a “predator” so we can act from our best selves.
Reflect—
Reflect—
In a journal or in conversation with another person doing this work, ask yourself:
Based on the above explanation, what does this inventory tell you about how you respond when triggered? Do you believe what it says? Why or why not?
What actions have you taken in the past to find ways in addressing your triggers?
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Mindfulness Practice
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Mindfulness Practice
Many mindfulness circles have spoken of the power of humming. Humming is a great way to create calmness and reduce stress and anxiety. In My Grandmother’s Hands, Menakem shares that by engaging in the practice of humming, you are activating your vagus nerve, which helps slow the body down, creating safety and security. Try this humming activity from Menakem below.
Find a quiet, private, comfortable place. Sit down. Put one hand on your knee or in your lap. Place the other hand on your belly.
Now hum. Not from your throat or chest, but from the bottom of your belly. Hum strong and steady. Push the air out of your belly firmly, not gently.
Stop to breathe in but return to the hum with each new breath. Experience the hum in your belly. Then sense it in the rest of your body. Continue humming for two minutes.
When you’re done, reach your arms upward. Then, slowly and gently, feel your body with your hands, starting from the top of your head. Move slowly down your neck and along your chest, then below your waist, then past your knees, until your arms are fully extended downward. What do you notice?
Journey Work: Preparing for Cross-Cultural Dialogue
Journey Work: Preparing for Cross-Cultural Dialogue
The goal of this workbook is both personal development and preparation for conversations in cross-racial settings. We will end each week with exercises in applying your learnings in diversified spaces.
What topics, events, experiences, or words can you think of that might trigger you in a cross-cultural dialogue? In what ways can you prepare for that in advance?
Feed Your Soul: Referenced and Additional Resources
Feed Your Soul: Referenced and Additional Resources
The following are good supplements to the work you did above, if you are looking to dig deeper into this topic.
Referenced
Referenced
My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem
Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook edited by Maurianne Adams and Lee Anne Bell
Additional
Additional
Let’s Talk! from Teaching for Justice
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Joy DeGruy
Coping with Racial Trauma from University of Georgia Department of Psychology
Interested in Doing More of This Work?
Interested in Doing More of This Work?
The activities and materials on this page were created for the Anti-Racism Every Day BIPOC Activism Discussion Group. All are welcome to join us to continue this work and benefit from the power of collective reflection and discussion.
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