Looking through this book, it is a bit harder to break it up by chapter like we have in the past as the book broken up into 6 long chapters. I don’t have a physical copy of the book, but online…

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We will have the suggested reading guide up by middle of next week. See you in the chat!

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If you haven’t yet would like to join us for this month’s read, you can do so by signing up below! We would love to have you add to our beautiful and growing community.

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Below is both the link to download the recording as well as the recording video and audio.

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If you have not yet joined our book club, there is time to jump in for our July pick and we would love to have you. Sign up below!

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We’re excited to begin Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall.

If you haven’t joined us yet and would like to read alongside us, sign up below. We would love to have you!

Every book we choose for this book club was selected with intention. Hood Feminism invites us to examine the ways misogynoir, anti-Blackness, and systemic oppression shape our understanding of feminism, justice, and whose experiences are centered. Through a historical and cultural lens, Kendall explores the intersections of race, gender, class, and power, challenging us to think more deeply about what true liberation requires.

We’re looking forward to diving into this book together and engaging in conversation throughout the month.

If you haven’t joined us yet, now is a great time. We have a beautiful community of readers who are actively sharing reflections, questions, insights, and lived experiences as we move through each book. The conversations have been rich, meaningful, and deeply supportive.

We’d love for you to be part of it.

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5/8 Page 1-50 (chapter 1-4)

5/15 Page 51-100 (chapter 5-8)

5/22 Page 101-150 (chapter 9-12)

5/29 Page 151-end (chapter 13-16)

the chapter breakdown is for those reading via audiobook.

The call for this book will be on Friday May 29th at 12 pm PST, 3pm EST. See you in the chat!

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Next we will be reading Communion by bell hooks. This will be the first of 2 bell books books we will be reading and the reason we chose this one is because it not only addresses domination in our intimate relationship but how the patriarchy impacts our relationships as well and how we can find true and authentic love within the current system of the patriarchy and what that looks like.

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The group chat has been filled with so many honest, vulnerable and important conversation and perspectives. We know that this book can come with a lot of body responses and sensations which is why we love that it includes the somatic practices. They truly are guideposts through the litera…

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The suggested reading schedule is below. With this book, make sure you carve out some extra time as it is interactive and there are somatic practices…

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This weekend in preparation for beginning on April 1st, I started rereading My Grandmother’s Hands. I was reminded immediately why we chose this as our first pick. From the beginning pages, he really roots you into the work and what to expect. Over the next year we will experience so many ranges of emotions and body sensations around the works we are going to read. This book will give us foundational somatic tools and practices to put into action so that we can actually integrate the work we are doing. And so we begin…

Dirty pain is the pain of avoidance, blame and denial. When people respond from their most wounded parts, become cruel or violent or physically or emotionally run away, they experience dirty pain. They also create more of it for themselves and others. -My Grandmother’s Hands by Resma Menakem

When you read this passage, we invite you to pause and notice what arises.
Does this feel true for you? Where does it land in your body?

Where in your life have you chosen, or participated in, dirty pain?

If whiteness is a wound of dirty pain, how does it show up for you? (if you live in a white body, how have you participated with dirty pain and caused dirty pain through whiteness? If you live in a body of culture, what has dirty pain shaped, or asked you to carry?)

In what ways do you contribute to dirty pain through your relationships? (bonus to go deeper, how do you contribute to dirty pain through your relationship with whiteness.)

For those of you who may not be familiar with the term whiteness. Whiteness is defined as a social structure, rather than just a skin color, that acts as a location of structural advantage and privilege in society. It acts as a normative standard, creating a hierarchy that disproportionately grants power and resources to white people while making their cultural practices appear as neutral or “unmarked”.

This is a little preview of some the work we will be doing in our book club. We have a group chat where we can share our thoughts, feelings, things that we are being challenged with or having a hard time with. This work can be really challenging and painful. It goes deep and having a community to discuss these things with not only makes us feel less alone in our journey, but humanizes it. A community where we can share joy, pain, pleasure and the nuances of being committed to a life of liberation. That is what our hope is for this.

Please remember to join the signal group chat if you haven’t already. This is the space that we will be building a more intimate community.

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As we mentioned before we picked My Grandmother’s Hands as it lays a foundation for this work. It takes dive into white body supremacy and the impact is has on us epigenetically and how it lives in and moved through our nervous systems (how it harms or benefits you depends on the intersections you live in). The book also provides somatic practices to help you integrate what you are learning and reading. Setting the stage for this to not just be a book club, but a somatic experience where we are learning and unlearning. This book is intended to be read while doing the practices so we suggest setting aside a little extra time to make sure you do the practices as they are integral to the process.

Please note that to participate in this book club, there is a small monthly subscription investment of $10 that is required.

Why A Paid Subscription?

This is a paid space with a small monthly investment of $10. This isn’t just a book club where you read and move on; this is a space for transformation. We’ve both taken intentional time to curate books that challenge, expand, and support your liberation, and beyond that, we’re guiding you through the process with thoughtfully crafted reflection questions, embodiment practices, and nervous system informed and liberation based insights. This is deep, intentional work that we are holding with care, presence, and expertise. While we love creating spaces like this, we also honor that this is our labor and energy. Your monthly investment helps sustain this space so we can continue to show up in the way this work deserves. If you’re here, we trust that something in you is ready ready to read differently, to feel more deeply, and to expand in community. We’re so excited to be in this with you.

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Welcome!

Last year Shenikka and I created the Embodied Liberation Collective, a group coaching program for therapists, healers and coaches looking to deepen their work and become more supportive and safer space for their clients of all different intersections. That course is now available for self-pace, but we wanted to do something else that helped to cultivate community (Buy our course here). A community of people open and willing to have conversations about the harder things. We are also both avid readers. We often share books with one another and have deep conversations about them. What our thoughts are, where we are finding ourselves to be resistant. Reading is one of the most liberators tools we have available. We have millions books that tell peoples stories, experiences, expertise, etc. It is through reading that we can find a path forward to our own liberation and that is why we started this book club.

Because as you know, every single day we are facing suffering, hardship and harm at our front door. We are seeing the results of white supremacy and the patriarchy and how deeply interwoven they are. We have the ability to divest and unsubscribe from it every single day and reading is a beautiful and effective way to do that. This book club isn’t just for us to open our minds and deconstruct from the harmful things we have been taught, but to lean into the path of liberation one page at a time and to create a community where we can have honest and vulnerable conversations about out the process.

What will we be reading?

The first book on our list is My Grandmother’s Hands by Resma Menakem. We picked this book as it was foundational for both of us in our own journeys. It provides a foundational understanding of whiteness and white body supremacy and how it is so deeply interwoven within us (how it impacts, benefits and harms us depends on what kind of body we live in). Providing somatic practices we can integrate into our work so that as we continue to read and gain new perspectives we are able to be curious and open to hearing things that may be uncomfortable for us. We both felt that it was important for this to be our first read.

Each month we will be reading a new book. The list of books includes:

• Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

• White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad

• Communion by bell hooks

• Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey

• Kindred by Octavia Butler

• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

• Radical Awakening by Dr. Shefali

• Becoming Kin by Patty Krawec

• Vibrate Higher Daily by Lalah Delia

• Sensual Faith by Lyvonne Briggs

• aint I a woman by bell hooks

We encourage reading or audiobooks, or a combination of both. Part of the path of liberation is taking off expectations for your journey to look a specific way. I love utilizing the Libby app which is connected to your local library card number.

At the end of each month we will meet virtually to discuss the book. During the month we will have a chat available where we will post prompts and questions for people can chat about their experiences as we go.

We would love for you to join us on this journey in liberation through reading. We begin April 1st and our first call will be on Friday May 1st at 12:00 pm pst/3:00 pm est.

Our book club is a paid membership. To gain access to our monthly calls and the group chat, you will need to enroll in a monthly or yearly membership. When you put your email address in the box below and click “subscribe,” it will take you to the payment page and you can select with option works for you. The free membership will only gain you access to this post, but not to the book club itself.

Once you sign up, you will be sent a link to join our signal chat. See you there!

P.S. Use code BOOKCLUB10 to receive 10% off as a book club member.