Wellness for Black Women
What does wellness actually mean, for us?
From comprehensive morning routines and breathwork to sound baths and therapy; the wellness space can feel incredibly overwhelming to navigate.
Especially when we question where Black women can find a safe place to rest and be well within it whilst navigating a world that can be hostile to our existence.
Maybe you’ve been to a yoga class and didn’t see anyone who looked like you, or read articles about healing your relationship with money that didn’t mention the wealth gap between white and Black communities. We hear you.
It doesn’t feel like a space that centres us, yet we need to be more wellness aware and that begins by creating our own inclusive and expansive definition of what wellness actually means for us.
THE FOUR PILLAR APPROACH
To feel more balanced in our lives and create an individual wellness practice, it needs to address the whole person, as we are more than just our physical bodies. You might notice that if you’re in a season of poor mental health, it might have an impact on you physically, which in turn might affect your ability to work and create financial difficulties, which can cause stress emotionally. If you don’t feel safe or at peace in your environment this can also throw us out of balance too.
If you’re looking to incorporate more wellness into your daily life; aim to create a holistic practice across the four pillars you’re about to read. You might write in your journal each Sunday night, “How do I support my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual parts this week?” and write a few practices for each one. Here’s some tips to get you started:
Physical Wellness
Let’s begin with the pillar that we’re probably the most familiar with, which is our physicality. It makes up our skin, skeletal system, organs and everything in our physiology. This usually falls under the umbrella of ‘health’, but there’s more than one way to define what it means to be healthy. Physical wellness not only includes moving our bodies, nourishing ourselves with foods that support our individual needs, skincare routines and massages but also advocating for ourselves in healthcare. 65% of Black people who responded to a survey by the Black Equity Organisation said that they had experienced prejudice from doctors and other staff in healthcare settings. When we consider these stats, it makes it even more important for us to be in constant conversation with our bodies.
BSD Tips:
Add in more walks, which can start with walking to the train station rather than catching a bus, or a short walk after dinner with the family.
At the end of the day, lie in bed and do a mental scan of your body, checking to see if any areas are feeling tense, sore or at ease.
Read how to advocate for yourself in a health setting.
Mental Wellness
Our thinking space, creativity, ability to solve problems, beliefs, intellect, what we think about ourselves and the world around us can all exist in this pillar. It can also include mental health conditions which may or may not be diagnosed, such as depression and anxiety. It is important to note that we can have good mental health and poor mental health throughout our lives.
As Black people in the UK are far more likely to experience police involvement in their first contact with mental health services (Bignall et al., 2019), as well as the stigma in Black communities to access support, we must work personally and collectively to break these barriers.
Our mental wellbeing can be an enriching space to explore, cope with life’s complexities and find supportive ways to thrive in our lives. Taking care of yourself in this pillar can include journaling, meditation and mindfulness practices, talk therapy and community-led sharing circles.
BSD Tips:
Write a heading in your journal called “Mind Dump” and write down everything that’s on your mind. It might be your to-do list that’s stressing you out, a tricky situation with family or friends, naming what you need or just venting. Give what you’re carrying to the page.
A mini meditation if you’re in need of a moment to calm, is to sit down and place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach. You can close your eyes if that feels comfortable for you. Then, as you breathe in through your nose, repeat the word “in” in your mind and as you breathe out through your nose, repeat the word “out”. Keep doing this cycle for a minute or as long as you need to.
Remember: Wellness can’t happen in isolation. We need people, so reach out to loved ones and people you can trust. If you need more support for your mental health, please visit organisations such as Mind or Samaritans. The NHS is also a good information source.
Emotional Wellness
Our emotions include how we feel about ourselves, others, how we relate, and our own resilience. Just one look at the emotional wheel below shows the spectrum of emotions that we can experience.
Finding balance in this pillar can look like checking in with how you’re feeling, interacting with others in personal relationships, the workplace, educational settings or even on social media. This can also look like saying no, having boundaries and connecting to everyday moments of joy. It can be easy to fall into the cycle of normalising our encounters of racism and microaggressions as “it is what it is”, but as they take a toll on each of these pillars, our emotional wellness can give us the opportunity to explore and share what we’re feeling.
Emotion and Feeling Wheel | David Hodder
BSD Tips:
Have mini celebrations for yourself, it could be a dance party or a slice of cake to remember who you are and everything you do.
Creatively express your emotions with writing, poetry, painting, cooking or more.
Self-soothe and regulate by spending time in nature, listening to some relaxing music or giving yourself a hug.
Spiritual Wellness
The pillar of spirituality, includes our deeper sense of awareness around what it means to be human, feeling in purpose, finding meaning and our faith. Whether you are religious or non-religious, spiritual wellness encourages us to ask deeper questions about our human experience and to connect back to our intuition. Then we can step out of what we think we should do and step into what feels true for us. There is an emphasis here on growth, being in community and being on a journey of exploration.
BSD Tips:
When you wake up in the morning, set an intention for how you want to feel that day.
Take yourself on a solo date and commit to discovering something new about yourself.
Find your people to sit and grow with, it could be in faith groups, church, online communities, or in spiritual circles.
With so much noise in the wellness space and new trends, trust yourself and your body, and when in doubt keep asking yourself what you need as a Black woman each day and see which ways you can begin to answer those needs.