Bay Area

A Call for Self-Care for Restorers of Wellness

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.

Published

9 months ago

July 20, 2023

Oakland Post

Daktari S. Hicks, PsyD & Kumari Fabio, MA

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.

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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Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

Published

2 days ago

April 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

DA Pamela Price Stands by Mom Who Lost Son to Gun Violence in Oakland

Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018.

Published

6 days ago

April 22, 2024

Oakland Post

District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones

Publisher’s note: Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018. The photo was too small for readers to see where the women were and what they were doing. Here we show Price and Jones as they complete a walk in memory of Scott. For more information and to contribute, please contact Carol Jones at 510-978-5517 at morefoundation.help@gmail.com. Courtesy photo.

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Bay Area

State Controller Malia Cohen Keynote Speaker at S.F. Wealth Conference

California State Controller Malia Cohen delivered the keynote speech to over 50 business women at the Black Wealth Brunch held on March 28 at the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center at 301 Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco. The Enterprising Women Networking SF Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association (ABWA) hosted the Green Room event to launch its platform designed to close the racial wealth gap in Black and Brown communities.

Published

1 week ago

April 20, 2024

Oakland Post

American Business Women’s Association Vice President Velma Landers, left, with California State Controller Malia Cohen (center), and ABWA President LaRonda Smith at the Enterprising Women Networking SF Chapter of the ABWA at the Black Wealth Brunch.

By Carla Thomas

The Enterprising Women Networking SF Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association (ABWA) hosted the Green Room event to launch its platform designed to close the racial wealth gap in Black and Brown communities.

“Our goal is to educate Black and Brown families in the masses about financial wellness, wealth building, and how to protect and preserve wealth,” said ABWA San Francisco Chapter President LaRonda Smith.

ABWA’s mission is to bring together businesswomen of diverse occupations and provide opportunities for them to help themselves and others grow personally and professionally through leadership, education, networking support, and national recognition.

“This day is about recognizing influential women, hearing from an accomplished woman as our keynote speaker and allowing women to come together as powerful people,” said ABWA SF Chapter Vice President Velma Landers.

More than 60 attendees dined on the culinary delights of Chef Sharon Lee of The Spot catering, which included a full soul food brunch of skewered shrimp, chicken, blackened salmon, and mac and cheese.

Cohen discussed the many economic disparities women and people of color face. From pay equity to financial literacy, Cohen shared not only statistics, but was excited about a new solution in motion which entailed partnering with Californians for Financial Education.

“I want everyone to reach their full potential,” she said. “Just a few weeks ago in Sacramento, I partnered with an organization, Californians for Financial Education.

“We gathered 990 signatures and submitted it to the [California] Secretary of State to get an initiative on the ballot that guarantees personal finance courses for every public school kid in the state of California.

“Every California student deserves an equal opportunity to learn about filing taxes, interest rates, budgets, and understanding the impact of credit scores. The way we begin to do that is to teach it,” Cohen said.

By equipping students with information, Cohen hopes to close the financial wealth gap, and give everyone an opportunity to reach their full financial potential. “They have to first be equipped with the information and education is the key. Then all we need are opportunities to step into spaces and places of power.”

Cohen went on to share that in her own upbringing, she was not guided on financial principles that could jump start her finances. “Communities of color don’t have the same information and I don’t know about you, but I did not grow up listening to my parents discussing their assets, their investments, and diversifying their portfolio. This is the kind of nomenclature and language we are trying to introduce to our future generations so we can pivot from a life of poverty so we can pivot away and never return to poverty.”

Cohen urged audience members to pass the initiative on the November 2024 ballot.

“When we come together as women, uplift women, and support women, we all win. By networking and learning together, we can continue to build generational wealth,” said Landers. “Passing a powerful initiative will ensure the next generation of California students will be empowered to make more informed financial decisions, decisions that will last them a lifetime.”