- Melania Zilo
How to Protect Your Peace + a Few Black Mental Health Resources to Follow Right Now
Updated: Jun 7, 2020
Black lives matter. Black mental health matters. Take a moment to rest and heal.
How to protect your peace when it matters the most:
Take a break from social media if you need to.
Instead, maybe engage in one of your favorite activities. Paint, sing, watch your favorite movie, channel your energy into things that bring you pure joy. Find the line between staying informed and being overwhelmed.
Express your feelings honestly to someone you trust and feel safe with
Everything you are feeling is valid and necessary. Lean into your family, close friends, therapist, whoever you feel safe with, and talk about how you really feel.
Remind yourself that healing is a process
After validating your emotions, allow yourself as much time as you need to process them.
Remember that you do not owe anyone anything right now (or ever)
You do not owe anyone a history lesson, an explanation. It is not your job to carry the burden of holding white people's hands to educate them. This is the time to put your emotional needs above all else and let everyone else figure it out for themselves.
Mental Health Resources follow
Ethel's Club
A social and wellness club designed to celebrate people of color, online and IRL. Founded by Naj Austin, this online community has created working, gathering, and performance spaces specifically with people of color in mind. During this time, Ethel's Club is offering free online gatherings, performances, and healing sessions.
Rest for Resistance
Rest for Resistance strives to uplift marginalized communities, those who rarely get access to adequate health care or social support. This includes Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Asian, Middle Eastern, and multiracial persons.
They also seek to create healing space for LGBTQIA+ individuals, namely trans & queer people of color, as well as other stigmatized groups such as sex workers, immigrants, persons with physical and/or mental disabilities, and those living at the intersections of all of the above. Their team seeks to honor each contributor's vision and individual perspective in order to create space for raw experiences that are too often silenced.
The Loveland Foundation
The Loveland Foundation was established in 2018 by Rachel Cargle in response to her widely successful birthday wish fundraiser, Therapy for Black Women and Girls. Her enthusiastic social media community raised over $250,000, which made it possible for Black women and girls nationally to receive therapy support. Black women and girls deserve access to healing, and that healing will impact generations. The Loveland Foundation is the official continuation of this effort to bring opportunity and healing to communities of color, and especially to Black women and girls, through fellowships, residency programs, listening tours, and more.
HealHaus
HealHaus, has combined diverse healing modalities and practitioners under one roof to provide people with an inclusive space focused on holistic health and wellness. They are committed to building a community that is dedicated to changing the stigma attached to healing.
Therapy for Black Girls
Founded by psychologist Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, Therapy for Black Girls is an online space dedicated to encouraging the mental wellness of Black women and girls, through in-office and virtual therapy, Q&A sessions with experts, and deep dives on relevant topics, more accessible for black women.
During this time of restlessness, working through grief and frustration, be kind to yourself and remember you are a fighter, but you need to take care of yourself first. always.
Love always,
Melania
