Song of the Week

Listen to this song as you read to help open you up. Assata’s Code by Talib Kweli, Madlib, and Diani

Updates!

I finished taking a four day intensive Somatic Experiencing (SE) training and I’m reflecting on what we’re learning. We’re animals, we’re animals, we’re animals. We want to feel alive, alive, alive. Numbness is the opposite of feeling alive. I included this photo of me visiting Pele earlier this year in Hawai’i because I’ve never felt the land so exquisitely alive than when I was there. The land knows the way, and has so much to teach us.

We focused a lot on numbness and how to complete stuck trauma responses to find equilibrium on the other side. At the training someone cried who hadn’t cried in decades, despite trying often. It was a holy thing to witness. Together we wondered what the composition of those tears were. They said it felt ancestral. I think it’s a kind of ancestral and self mutual aid. One part of the body coming online saying, “I’m coming to help you” to the part that said “I don’t know who I am. I can’t do this.”

When you can’t fight, can’t flee, or appease, your body turns to the fourth response which is to freeze and numb out. When we don’t have enough time to prepare and orient to something big coming our way we have to override in order to survive it. The sense of choice in our body evaporates and within that state of rigidity we move on autopilot. It’s when we become stuck in this perpetual override that our bodies start to crackle and snap under the pressure of it. Chronic pain, feeling floaty, aimless, inexplicably angry, poor memory retainment, disassociation from high levels of endorphins, benign stimuli start to be perceived as big and overwhelming, addiction and using substances as releases/attempts at feeling alive increase, and environments that were once safe feel unsafe. Healing looks like slowly leaving this half-alive type state, and giving your body what it didn’t receive that it needed. I noticed myself reading the news recently, what I was reading was horrific, yet by the end of the update all I felt was a resigned “yup of course”. Hello, chronic overriding these days.

The ecology of mutual aid in the body looks like your hands heating up, tingling with movement and sending some of that sensation into your legs. If your legs weren’t able to run from bullies who chased you down the street when you were a child. If those legs still feel painful, distant or disgusting to you now, it’s an invitation to explore memories that come up around them via the language of sensation or lack of sensation. If you read the news and think you can’t do anything about it over and over again, boom, we’re starting into some kind of chronic override. Small doses over time add up and can have the same look the same in our nervous systems as one-time big events. Those of us who can find ways to directly address the threat in some way via taking action, will do better in the long-haul when it comes to being able to feel a wider range of sensations, thoughts, feelings, which is to say— we will have more options and possibilities in our lives in every single way. I want this for us so.

Tips for getting out of numbness: Find small senses of safety, move slow, stay attuned, slowly expand sensations of safety a little at time. If you move too fast you’ll lose it.

Next week I will write more about appease and what I learned. I’ve been thinking about appease states and how many people who are in non-unionized positions especially have to constantly appease to keep their jobs when their opinions differ from those who have more power than them, aka their bosses or co-workers who hold more sway in an organization. Add in things like race, gender, citizenship status, class, and you can see how many people, especially, women, trans folks, GNCers, BIPOC, under-resourced people are stuck in chronic states of appease. What makes appease really unique is that it appears much more socially engaged than fight, flight, and freeze. In the appease state people can come off as nurturing, loving, generous, compassionate and attentive but actually be in an exhausting form of autopilot. Stay tuned for more next week.

Myqueerium 2.0 Retreat Style! October 26th

MYQUEERIUM! Retreat style! OCTOBER 26th! 10a-8p. It’s a Sunday and we will be at Willow River State Park. Trillium hammocks, waterfalls, forests, writing, movement, art exercises, lunch, mushroom tea, and dinner included. Nell Pierce and I will be holding space as facilitators and we would LOVE to see you there. It was a smashing success last year and we want to do it again. We have space for 20 folks. Registration opens next week Wednesday, October 8th. We will release more details at that time.

Sliding scale: $75-$200 *includes lunch and dinner.

Location: Willow River State Park

Schedule With Me and Refer Your Beloveds!

OTR/L, BA, MHP, LMT,
she/they) Integrative Therapies

I offer trauma informed somatic therapy, craniosacral therapy, Swedish massage, Thai bodywork, myofascial release, group workshops, and healing through art, play, and connecting to nature. Free 15 minute consultations can be booked on my website if you’re intrigued or have questions.

Rest in Power Assata Shakur

Assata died on September 25th, 2025. I’m not an astrology expert, but I just googled her birthday. She was a cancer, born on July 16th which seems fitting from what little I know about cancers being extremely loyal to their loved ones. She was in love with liberation for everyone. She was vehemently in support of Palestinians and connecting the struggle in the U.S. with other oppressed people globally. I haven’t gotten to process the death of Assata Shakur really, but wanted to name it here anyways. She has taught me a lot about duty, and right-sizing fear to mobilize in our bodies. When I feel afraid, I often tell myself, “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win.” Please take some time and honor Assata, we would not be where we are today without her.

For Fun

Community Events

VAIVÉN Exhibit

This exhibit is up until December 6th in the Katherine Nash Gallery at the UMN. FREE and open Tuesday-Saturday 11a-5p. There is free parking on the side streets. Olivia Levins Holden and Moriviví’s mural panels at Vaivén with Terez lacovino

Becoming SotaRicans

October 8th, 4-6p at the Liberal Arts Engagement Hub at the UMN.

Thanks for READING! Share my newsletter with a beloved if you think they might like it!

xoxo Eiko