A Case for Radical Rest
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A movement for rest is picking up steam among Black women ✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
Personally, I am so grateful for the growing movement and support of rest. We see it in the Nap Ministry’s sermons. We see it in Amanda Miller Littlejohn’s excellent Washington Post piece, Black professional women are exhausted. They’re finally claiming the time to rest.
We’re getting to that next layer.
We’ve talked about self-care forever, but that’s not enough.
As Global Majority* Women, we hold the emotional labor and burden not only for our own survival and wellness, but for our families, communities, and our workplaces. This has been compounded during the pandemic, as we navigate COVID-19 still in 2021; the impacts of global warming with fire season on the West Coast, as well as hurricanes and flooding from the South to the East; plus, state-sponsored violence and the latest ban on abortions to add to the complexity.
*Instead of using #BIPOC to reference us Black, Brown & Indigenous folx, I am honoring that by the next #uscensus our country will be representative of what’s true around the world, Black, Brown & Indigenous folx are the Global Majority.
Then add into the mix…
Those of us who are parents, are navigating school for our young ones.
Those of us with aging parents, are navigating the circle of life.
Those of us working in institutions infused with White Supremacy Characteristics are navigating bias, oppression, and aggression.
In the panorama (the growing awareness of societal inequities during the pandemic), many of us got very clear about how much we were actually holding.
It was my dope Black therapist and holistic healer, Nia Ridgle, who lovingly guided me to rest before we truly dove into the deeper work of healing my complex truama. What’s clear now is that I need to be rested and at peace to truly honor what my heart is needing to heal.
The practice began on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, when Nia shared that, “it takes 64 days to build a new neural…
