Seven pillars for cultural wellness.

As you begin the path to recovery, it is most important that you are determined to make this a process of love for yourself and your community.  Cultural wellness is not about our pointing fingers at past or present perpetrators of oppression.  We really don't have any time for that.  We are on a life vs death mission to save ourselves, our community, and our future.  We must focus within, in love.

Do you know the facts about the Middle Passage?  Do you know the important things that happened between that time and this time?  If you don't make time to learn the truth, anyone will be able to tell you anything, and you will believe it.   Haven't we had enough of that?  We must educate ourselves and our community.

It is true:  the people we descended from lost many things since the beginning of this abominable process.  We needed those things!  We needed that sense of identity, country, and wholeness.   Today in our own rations and cities, things that we need have continued to be eroded.  Our sense of value and safety are among these things.

Now we need to move beyond the anger and grief, so that we can claim ourselves.  Make a point of acknowledging the sadness and the losses.  Connect with the rest of us who have lost the same things.  Together, we can find a way through the grief and back into the light.

We must release the hate we may be holding for ourselves, our past, the creators of the artificial construct of chattel slavery, those who perpetuate the injustices that cross our threshold today.  We must release it.  Refusal to do so means that we continue to pour poison down our throats every day, then wonder why we can't heal.  Need help to release it?  Contact us.

Healing is a matter of daily hygiene, just like brushing your teeth.  It begins inside of you, by taking stock of the many ways that you have turned oppression inside.

In the words of James Baldwin, " “You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.” 

Let's begin the healing.

You must admit there isn't a lot of dialogue out there from people who are encouraging you to take stock and know your true worth.  Your true and immeasurable worth has nothing to do with your bank account, your level of education, your physical appearance, or many other measures out there. Each of us has talent and brilliance that no one else has.  What is yours, and are you applying it to the needs of our community and our world?

Many people believe that they succeed or fail alone, and the problems of other people have nothing to do with it.  Who knows if that is true in some contexts?  One truth is that our ancestors landed in this soup together all those years ago, and we have been in this together ever since. Getting to healing from the effects of that Passage will never be the same priority for any other group as it is for people who look like you.  Our collective healing and your community's living to its potential helps elevate you to live yours. Maybe it's time to let go of an outdated belief that other people's journey is not connected to your own.