We Begin Here - by Jassy Denison (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A warm, direct, and non-performative guide rooted in broad historical context to support white readers in moving from defensiveness and shame toward embodied racial healing

Designed for shared exploration, this practice-based resource includes guided meditations, somatic exercises, mindfulness practices, and reflection prompts for book clubs, organizations, classrooms, and spiritual communities

Somewhere between silence and saying the wrong thing, many white readers find themselves frozen. Reckoning with whiteness is not just an intellectual exercise. It is lived, embodied, and practiced. Applying the embodied mindfulness teachings of peace activist and Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh to racism, Jassy Denison invites readers into a grounded exploration of racial harm and healing. Through personal story, somatic support, and guided meditations, readers are invited to unearth inherited patterns, work with shame and reactivity, and meet racism--in themselves and their relationships--with more steadiness and honesty.

Readers will find:

• Invitations into joy and interconnection: Reclaim the capacity for presence, wonder, and shared humanity amid difficult conversations

• Somatic guidance: Reconnect with the body as a source of clarity and grounding
• Guided meditations and contemplative exercises: Learn to stay present with discomfort, fear, and reactivity without shutting down
• Illuminating reflections: Gently uncover inherited patterns and conditioned responses to open possibilities for greater understanding, compassion, and choice
• Honest storytelling: Explore vulnerability, accountability, and movement toward more authentic, connected relationships

This is not a book about having the right answers, but a body-based offering to shift how we live and relate, from the inside out. What if the place you feel most uncertain is also the place you can begin?

Review Quotes

"As White people, many of us wish to be more inclusive. But how can we succeed if we have not first met our own deeply embedded racism? Jassy Denison uses her long experience of mindfulness practice to turn toward this shadow part of our history, which is still alive in each one of us and our society today. Through sharing her own courageous journey, Denison skilfully encourages each reader to 'do our own work.' When inevitably feelings of pain, guilt, or shame come up, she shares concrete embodied mindfulness practices to recognize, embrace, and transform those feelings, with kindness and compassion, into a determination to end discrimination. These pages show how each of us can contribute to healing the past and how we can act: not alone, from anger and despair, but together, with love."
--Sister Tam Muoi, teacher in the Plum Village community of Engaged Buddhism

"A gentle and invitational approach stimulates a personal investigation into how external systems and internalised paradigms are at work when our interactions and ways of thinking cause suffering.... Like all spiritual endeavours, the journey is organic, changing with the times and in a sense, never ending."
--Brother Pháp Lai, teacher in the Plum Village community of Engaged Buddhism

About the Author

Jassy Denison is an accredited workplace mediator, trainer, and supervisor who supports teams in prison, educational, and faith settings to develop new responses to conflict. She is a practitioner in Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh's lineage of Engaged Buddhism focused on bringing mindfulness into the work of dismantling race and racism and understanding our past in order to create a new future. Over the past ten years, Denison has developed "white awareness" networks within the UK and Europe, coming together with other white people to see, understand, and transform the legacy of colonialism.