Healing Black Professionals

I love meditation, but I need more practice

There are some fundamental studies that have been recently published that show the clear benefits of meditation in helping to reduce stress and battle morbid diseases such as high blood pressure. Specifically, two Black mental health professionals have recently released important discoveries on the Cultural Relevance of Mindfulness Meditation as a Health Intervention for African Americans (Woods-Giscombé & Gaylord, 2015).

The study points out how African Americans experience a disproportionate rate of stress-related health conditions as well as disproportionate rates of morbidity and mortality in response to stress-related health conditions including cardiovascular disease, adverse birth outcomes, obesity, and diabetes.

The study findings suggest that mindfulness meditation may be a healthy option for stress management for Black people, particularly in light of accumulating empirical evidence for the stress-reducing outcomes of mindfulness meditation in the general population.

This is great news for Black people seeking to maintain or improve their health outcomes. But with the stresses that accompany being a Black professional, meditation might seem like a far-fetched ideal reserved for the wealthy elite with enough time and money to sit idly and meditate without fear of falling behind or being seen as unproductive.

How I started

I adopted meditation as a practice somewhere around 2013. I found this Aramaic mantra online that helped me to destress on my bus ride home from work. During that time, I was in a supervisory role with more than 15 employees and contractors in multiple locations. My husband and I were also new parents in a city without any extended family. So, my stress levels were very high.

Meditation seemed like a pleasant relief from the stress at work and a tool to help me turn off my ruminations about tasks and switch into Mommy and Wife mode. And the meditation worked, until ...

And I could write my memoir on the until part because so many things happened to me and my family in those years following 2013, that I care not to take that trip down memory lane without my therapist sitting across from me with a box of tissues in hand.

Moving on up: Theophostic prayer

From my first experiences with guided meditation, I moved on to a more advanced practice: Theophostic prayer. Theophostic prayer is another contemplative practice, so I adopted it at the urging of my employers of the time, some of whom lived a monastic life.

On my first forays into Theophostic prayer, I fell asleep, which is not recommended. But after sticking with the practice daily, I was able to maintain the discipline of taking 20 minutes out of my lunch period to become completely still and clear my mind without mantras, chants, or any other assistance.

I'll never forget the day when one of my closest family members called me as I was finishing one of my meditative sessions. This person had just been diagnosed with cancer. I was devastated, but I maintained my composure and was able to speak calmly and reassuringly that everything would be okay. We even prayed together before hanging up. I'm not sure what I would've said that day, had I not been meditating before the call.

Trauma and how meditation helped

Shortly before the pandemic, five of my family members died of diseases that disproportionately impact Black people. And during the pandemic, eight of my friends died over the course of two short months. I was struggling, to say the least. And, guided meditation, especially at night, got me through those tragic times. At the urging of my employer, I downloaded a complimentary subscription to the Headspace App and I've been using it ever since. My experience with meditation using the app has been extremely beneficial in helping me to cope with extreme grief due to the sudden death of friends and family.

And while I've been practicing various forms of meditation for many years, I still don't feel like I've mastered the practice. I often feel rusty and sometimes I feel like using the guided meditations means I've lost some of my discipline. But, as soon as I get into a session to clear my head and give myself a brain break, those insecurities about my performance in the meditation practice melt away.

More work to do

Unless I decide to lead a monastic life, I think that I'll always need more practice with meditation. And honestly, that's the point. Life is so full of highs and lows. And I've come to realize that as a Black person, I've experienced more traumatic losses than many people who don't share my ethnic background.

So, for me, meditation is one of my tools to cope, destress, feel whole, and catch a break. Because after all the trauma that I have gone through, catching a break is the blessing that I need to heal the pain.