First, I want to recommend the book My Grandmother's Hands, by Resmaa Menakem.

Also - follow Resmaa, he is an incredible teacher.

It's about intergenerational racial trauma and it's very specifically geared towards the United States, but still had a lot of helpful insight for me in Canada. I actually did recommend this book in my blog post about how your dreams need anti-racism but today it's on my mind for a different reason.

I recommend it especially for white people who may not be aware of your intergenerational racial trauma and all the ways it manifests due to still living in the white supremacist systems that our ancestors created.

Europe was a very brutal place for a very, very long time.

It traumatized our ancestors, generation after generation, to the extent they were able to come to North America and commit mass genocide in order to "settle the land". And we in North America STILL think of ourselves as either settlers or immigrants but that's not even close to what we are here. We STILL fail to take part in any meaningful reconciliation.

That's not something a human can do if they are well.

I know humans have always had conflict but to kill an entire continent of other human civilizations, and to enslave other humans on another continent and bring them over to the "new" world in order to build a new country and create more wealth for yourself - that's not something any human is actually capable of if they are well.

Even if you know that no one in your family enslaved other humans - white people saw other white people enslaving Black people and just went on with their own lives. A human can't do that if they are well. These are all signs of deeply traumatized people. This is one thing I learned in this book.

What's really beautiful about this book is Resmaa's in-depth understanding of how trauma functions in the body, and continual support throughout the book to process some of that trauma.

I've been thinking for the last few days WHY we are all reacting as though the war in Ukraine is the only war that's happening, why we've been mostly ignoring the other wars.

It's complicated. And there's no question about the unconscious racial bias that decides who deserves to live in a peaceful country.

But I think one part is that war in Europe can trigger some of this intergenerational trauma that lives in our bodies.

I've been feeling it.

I'm a sensitive person. All war impacts me, but this one is impacting me more deeply, for multiple reasons.

A lot of my ancestors were killed by Russians. I can feel the terror and fear in my body.

I can see how, over the last 2 years, a huge part of our population had been indoctrinated into belief systems that will have them supporting this war, and supporting the escalation of this war.

So a huge thing that is stressing me out:

The new age influencers are starting to talk about how this war is a good thing.

Please. If you see any of this - don't support it.

This isn't a spiritual war. These are real people being invaded. There is no higher cause here.

We can't turn away.

Yes we can't stay glued to the news either.

We need to take good care of ourselves.

We need to recognize our own trauma responses to this traumatic situation and take care of them - not act out of them, or act out of a desire to avoid them.

Here's what I am doing, if you need some ideas:

lots of pets with Bear, and pressing my face into his belly while he purrs
breathing in to a count of 4 and breathing out to a count of 8
going outside for walks
getting extra sleep
drinking a lot of water
extra meditation
soothing binaural beats music in my headphones
extra journaling and art-making to process my feelings

Join me Monday LIVE on Instagram for Creative Genius Planning at noon Central (go to my Instagram account from your phone and you can tap the event notice to set a reminder in your own time zone) and we'll work on a plan for this week that includes the self care you need.

$Don\'t let the influencers fool you. This war is bad.$