By Kumari Fabio, MA and Daktari S. Hicks, PsyD

Where would our community be without the aid, guidance, and support of our treatment providers, practitioners, and restorers of wellness?

Clinicians, counselors, doulas, midwives, medical doctors, nurses, nutritionists, therapists, and psychologists, among other restorers of wellness, have the capacity and potential to offer individuals, families, and communities from all walks of life medical, emotional, spiritual, and ancestral healing and restoration.

We would truly be at a loss without our dedicated wellness warriors who remedy our visible and invisible wounds and restore us to sound health, well-being, and optimal functioning. We offer appreciation, supreme gratitude, and the utmost respect, particularly to our African American and Afro-Diasporic restorers of wellness, who continue to dress our wounds despite enduring day-to-day battle scars themselves from ongoing oppression, insidious discrimination, everyday racism, and race-based traumatic stress.

What happens when our healing practitioners need nursing, mending, and healing of their own? Who is healing the healers? How do restorers of wellness care for themselves?

We call for enhanced and increased “self-care” for our restorers of wellness. Self-care essentially means activities we can engage in to attend to the needs of our mind, body, and spirit. Self-care is ultimately concerned with engaging in emotional, personal, physical, social, spiritual, and ancestral endeavors to evoke acceptance, awareness, bliss, calmness, forgiveness, love, relaxation, tranquility, inner divine presence, self-healing power/potential, peace, and pleasure.

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Restorers of wellness must practice self-care regularly.

Taking time for self-care is vital for restorers to ensure proper health and well-being physically, mentally, energetically, and spiritually. Providers offer services to those in need, and at times, at a cost to themselves. For example, ‘burnout’ can occur when providers provide support to clients in an unbalanced way and fail to separate themselves from the adversity/stress of work and stressors in their clients’ lives. Routine self-care can serve as a guard and buffer against career burnout; rejuvenate/reset our health, our life, and our priorities; and lead to a balanced, sustainable, satisfying, and less stressful life.

There are many ways practitioners can take advantage of self-care skills and practices by setting aside time to focus on personal needs and eliminating unnecessary distractions. For instance, engaging in introspection, quiet self-reflection, and meditation is essential in maximizing your emotional and psychological well-being.

The disciplined practice of self-care encourages providers to listen deeply, practice self-love/loving-kindness, and discover ways to nurture/nourish themselves.

Some suggestions for self-care include acknowledging feelings, accepting what you can’t control, being honest with yourself, connecting with nature, communicating with your ancestors/community, creating art, creating a wellness plan, cuddling with a loved one, disconnecting from your cell phone/email/social media, dancing down the street, going for a spontaneous day/weekend trip, making a gratitude list, making a vision board, playing at a playground, spending time in the sunshine, sitting in a drum circle, slowing down from rushing, sound bathing, sleeping in, taking a power nap, taking breaks from the news, reading a book/journal article, and tuning into moments of bliss/freedom/joy.

The ABPsi-Bay Area Chapter is committed to providing the Post Newspaper readership with monthly discussions about critical issues in Black Mental Health. The ABPsi-Bay Area Chapter is a healing resource. Readers are welcome to join us at our monthly chapter meetings every 3rd Saturday via Zoom. We can be contacted at bayareaabpsi@gmail.com.

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