Intentional Living and Mindfulness During a Revolution
I hope everybody is safe and feeling supported, learning and reflecting. I wrote the first part of this little note about mindfulness a while back. Since then I’ve been thinking more about how mindfulness goes beyond the self and I wanted to share some books about mindfulness and racial justice.
For me, intentional living and mindfulness comes in the form of practicing gratitude, checking in with myself physically/mentally throughout the day, and doing things intentionally instead of passively. For example, growing up, my mum taught me to sit quietly before eating my dinner. She would tell me, “when we’re going about our day, we can feel excited or upset or angry and when we eat, we eat with that same energy. When that happens we end up eating too fast, we bite our tongues, or we might choke on our food.” I’ve always kept this reminder with me. She was the first person to teach me mindfulness.
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Something that is apparent in self help books by white authors specifically is how many of them fail to talk about politics or racism or discuss how mindfulness is not JUST about yourself. Mindfulness is a personal practice but you cannot be self aware without thinking about how your actions impact others. Mindfulness is also about how you move through this world. It’s also about bringing yourself to the present physically, emotionally, socially, and 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺. I use this platform a lot to talk about mental health & mindfulness so I wanted to recommend some books to read/listen to, to learn more about mindfulness and racial justice. Mainly, I urge my non-Black friends and followers to read these books by Black women about mindfulness and privilege & mindfulness and racism: The Inner Work of Racial Justice by Rhonda V. Magee, Me and White Supremacy by Layla F Saad, and Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out by Ruth King.