This reflection and practice come from therapist Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (Central Recovery Press: 2017), 137, 35:
My grandmother was a strong and loving woman. But her body was frequently nervous…
She would soothe that sense of impending disaster in a variety of ways. When she was in the kitchen, she would hum… Sometimes I would hum along with her, and my body would experience safety and settledness.
This humming practice is intended to soothe the nervous system and bring about calm, presence, and greater awareness in our bodies, as it did for Menakem and his grandmother. He instructs:
Find a quiet, private, comfortable place. Sit down. Put one hand on your knee or in your lap. Place the other on your belly.
Now hum. Not from your throat or chest, but from the bottom of your belly.
Hum strong and steady. Push the air out of your belly firmly, not gently.
Stop to breathe in, but return to the hum with each new breath.
Experience the hum in your belly. Then sense it in the rest of your body.
Continue humming for two minutes.
When you’re done, reach your arms upward. Then, slowly and gently, feel your body with your hands, starting from the top of your head. Move slowly down your neck and along your chest, then below your waist, then past your knees, until your arms are fully extended downward. What do you notice?