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[0:03] Series Introduction
I’ll be doing a series, primarily shorts, but I want to lead off with a full video here for you. I’ll be doing a series on mindfulness meditation and how it can help with stress, anxiety—different things, different topics. Feel free to add your questions below this first video.
I’m starting off—it’ll probably be 28 days, not 30—and it’s going to run up until right before my Soulful Mindfulness program begins, which is October 5th. So do check that out. I thought this was a good segue into that. What I did was I asked ChatGPT what are the most common questions asked about meditation, mindfulness, stress, and anxiety, and how they relate together.
[1:03] Meditation and Racial Trauma
So, for Black folks, the first question that came up, according to ChatGPT, was: Can meditation help heal racial trauma? I thought I would start off there. Obviously, that needs more than a one-minute short; it doesn’t need just YouTube Shorts, it needs a longer video.
I’m going to share with you from my experience. When I began meditating, it was when I went to college—that’s really where I started in earnest. As a Black girl coming from the Bronx, South Bronx, I went to a predominantly white college that was very, very wealthy. First day, Jaguars (the car) went by, and I was like, “Oh my God, so beautiful!” Girls from the Middle East were wearing sapphire rings that looked like candy, they were so big.
So, I started meditating at that college. The thing is, I wouldn’t have said to you—this was back in the day, people—”Oh, I have racial trauma.” No, all I knew was that I was really, really stressed.
[1:57] Personal Journey with Meditation
I also want to go there in that, you know, I was a minority in that school—racially, but also economically. As I told you, I didn’t have a sapphire or an emerald the size of a rock. I came from a working-class background and scored very, very well on my SAT tests. So, I was part of an effort by the academy to diversify. This was before all the uproar and backlash—they knew they needed diversity because it wasn’t happening naturally. I did perfectly well there, against women who had private schooling and the best of everything.
Obviously, I would be under a lot of stress, and I was stressed before getting to college. I suffered from anxiety, depression, difficulties in the home. Suffice it to say, my parents didn’t, for instance, drive me to college. I was the first one to attend college in my entire family, ever. So, I was there in a difficult situation, but I went in with very much an immigrant mindset: “I’m going to do it, I’m going to go for it.”
I wasn’t thinking about racialized trauma, but I had tremendous stress growing up—alcoholism in the home, a lot of trauma and drama, even though I didn’t have a broken home. That’s when I began meditating, and that’s why I think I can speak about this.
[3:50] Healing Through Meditation
Meditation can absolutely help heal racial trauma. There are so many different ways, but the primary way is that, as you practice mindfulness-style meditation, it gives you the tools to deal with upsetting emotions, upsetting thoughts, even physical sensations that are disturbing. Through practice and proper guidance, you develop strength so that something that previously would have felt really upsetting becomes less so, and you’re able to withstand it with less effect on your persona, on yourself. It’s really a beautiful practice.
Meditation can absolutely be part of your toolkit. Now, it wouldn’t be the only thing, but I believe especially for Black and Brown folks, learning to meditate—specifically mindfulness practices—can help strengthen you, give you more inner strength, inner resilience, and the ability to cope.
[5:52] Building Inner Strength
The analogy I have is like being an athlete. Imagine someone who’s training for a marathon—they may be flabby, lacking strength or cardiovascular ability at first, but with training, they get stronger. In the same way, as you practice mindfulness, you develop inner strength that has a profound effect on your life. The outer systemic forces—racism, for example—are still there, but you become stronger, more resilient, and have more capacity. It also helps you think more clearly, seeing the thoughts behind your feelings. This will give you so much more strength to heal older traumas.
Let’s take it beyond racial trauma to any sort of trauma. I have many viewers from India and other countries where there may be colorism or gender issues, or perhaps more abuse of women. The one caveat is that meditation wouldn’t be good if you’re actively in acute stress or living with trauma.
[7:31] When Meditation May Not Help
If, for example, you have an abusive partner, it would be very hard for you to study meditation under those conditions. Meditation can help heal trauma when you’re a bit removed from it, or when you’re able to go about your day despite it, but not when you’re in a situation where the first step should be to leave. If you’re living with someone who might hit you at any time, it would be very hard to meditate.
Mindfulness meditation can help with trauma, given those limitations. I believe most of my viewers aren’t in that acute of a situation, so yes, meditation can help heal racial trauma. It helped me at that institution, even though nothing horrible happened to me there. I brought with me the baggage of trauma from childhood, as we all do—parental stresses, being poor, being an immigrant.
Meditation was very helpful for me, and that’s why I gravitated toward it.
[9:07] Program Invitation
I just want to invite you to my program, which is online so you can be anywhere in the world. It is for women, primarily Black and Brown women, but I’m leaving it open to any woman who wants to attend. I think we have more in common as women than not. If they’re taking the program, they like my content and would be comfortable in the group.
So, I invite you to check it out. We start on October 5th. If you have questions, put them below. Like I said, I’ll be doing quick one-minute videos for 28 days where I answer different questions, mostly what ChatGPT has told me are the most common questions. But, put your human questions below, and I will respond to them.
I look forward to seeing you inside Soulful Mindfulness, which is my multi-week program and community where you really learn these tools of how to meditate, how to work with the mind, feelings, thoughts—all of that.
Much love, talk to you soon. Bye-bye.