Claire aka DocReads's Reviews > What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World

What It Takes To Heal by Prentis Hemphill

I’ve been following somatics practitioner and political organizer Prentis Hemphill for a few years, and have found so much of their work inspiring. Their quote “boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously” has been on a post it note stuck to my computer monitor for a long time, as a way to remind me that boundaries are necessary and important for me to stay well.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting their book, and then once I got the ARC I found that I was not yet mentally and emotionally prepared to dive in. I’m glad I waiting to read it for when I was ready, because this moment in time really feels like the time to read this book.

Hemphill is a somatics practionner with a long history of involvement in social justice movements. Their work is really situated within intense and challenging movement spaces, while being focused on healing and embodiment.

It was really helpful and validating to read their words in this moment of immense political turmoil, and to be reminded that in order to do this type of work, it is absolutely essential to make time and space to emotionally ground yourself. Numbing your emotions, shutting them down, hiding them in a neat little box in the back of your mind is actually destructive. Feeling these emotions can be scary, but it is necessary.

This book is recommended reading for anyone who cares about social justice (and hopefully is already engaged in movement work), and who would like to read about the importance of emotions and healing, particularly in our current political landscape.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC