Earlier this week, we woke up to another morning of tragic news: Jacob Blake was shot and tasered several times by police on Sunday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leaving him in serious condition as of Tuesday. He was trying to break up a dispute. His father reported that his son is now paralyzed from the waist down but doctors do not know if it is permanent.

It’s been nearly three months since the deaths of George Floyd and Tony McDade; five months since the death of Breonna Taylor and six months since the death of Ahmaud Arbery. It’s disheartening that our conversations about racism and trauma continue to be relevant every single day. We know there are lifelong impacts to this trauma. And we continue to turn to the power of healing together.

This week we have asked Wise One, Resmaa Menakem, for help. He’s a healer, trauma specialist and author of the book “My Grandmother’s Hands.” In conversation, Menakem asked Tonya: “Have you noticed that since George Floyd got killed, all of the practices that used to give you relief, no longer do?” He continued, “That’s because we’re trying to do individual things to deal with communal grief.” The same could be said this week, and every time a Black person and their families’ lives are forever changed as a result of racism.

Trauma is a response to anything that’s overwhelming that happens too much, too fast, too soon or too long, Menakem says, coupled with a lack of protection or support. It lives in the body stored as sensation: pain or tension — or lack of sensation, like numbness.

Menakem says these lifelong effects also impact our psyche, our bodies and our DNA. How well do you listen to your body? How do we tune in to the alarm bells our bodies are ringing? Wise One Menakem helps people listen and act on the messages our bodies are giving us. And during the course of our conversation, we got into another related subject — inherited trauma.

Our question this week comes from Nia Ita Thomas. Thomas identifies as a proud Afro-latina/Afro-indigina woman by way of the Dominican Republic. She is a New York City-based educator, storyteller and mental health advocate. Thomas is a survivor of childhood sexual assault, the daughter of immigrants and grew up with a parent who was emotionally abusive and sometimes physically abusive. When Thomas read the book “The Body Keeps the Score,” she connected her clumsiness to trauma and said she had no idea she was disassociating from her body.

I’ve always been known as that kid that was clumsy, and I never thought to connect it to my trauma or to the ways that I was actually disassociating from my body. And so that’s a way that definitely shows up. I’m not the most graceful person. I’m dropping things a lot. I’m not the most observant person. I’m book smart,