Why LifeBliss Centers Black Women’s Wellness

What is wellness? The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness as the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health. Ayurveda was one of he oldest concepts of wellness, and was designed to create harmony between mind, body and spirit. Traditional Chinese and Greek health systems approached health from a holistic emphasis that also focuses on life harmony.

Disillusionment with the state of healthcare in the West drove people towards a more holistic philosophy of preventative health with a mind-body connection. Initially, it was seen as esoteric and strange, but in the 1960s and 1970s the idea of relying on self care rather than conventional, reactionary health care began to take hold.

Then, wellness glommed on to the weight loss obsession and bingo, a multi trillion dollar industry was born. Skinny, wealthy white women were narrowly regarded as the face of wellness, while black women were ignored. The industry was built around expensive luxury products that contribute nothing to the actual barriers to holistic health, particularly for black women. Mainstream wellness had become an exclusive aesthetic that exploded with the rise of social media.

So of course this modern version of wellness does not address any of the issues that affect black women’s holistic health.

Black women in particular deal with a variety of stressors from higher maternal mortality rates to racist microaggressions and police violence, and also receive less mental health care than their white counterparts. All of this chronic stress can lead to physical problems like hypertension and diabetes.

~Vidya Rao, Today

What it means to center black women

Centering black women means that black women’s cultures, wisdom, truths, traditions, beauty and hair are both recognized as the norm and celebrated. Everything we talk about is communicated directly to black women, considering our perspectives and ignoring all distractions from the white gaze, the male gaze, or any other unaffected observers.

For black women, centering our needs requires a focus on self care, stress management and preventative health care rather than fancy yoga pants and anti-wrinkle creams. When we approach wellness from a standpoint of not needing to appease or seek approval from others, or maximize profits, it becomes meaningful and positively changes lives.

It is also important when centering black women to reverse the harms created by racism, sexism, classism, and otherism. Time and effort should not be wasted on asking permission to focus on what we need to do to improve our lives. Black joy and rest take priority over the mainstream depictions of wellness.

Centering black women requires the marginalization of the dominant narrative.

LifeBliss Wellness is not in the business of explaining, justifying, teaching or arguing with the intellectually lazy about our unique perspectives or solutions regarding race and gender and our health and happiness. We are not tiptoeing around our issue to avoid hurting feelings. Arguing with random white people or men on the internet about our lived experiences as black women has got to be the biggest lost cause of all time. Stereotypes, except when provided for historical context, don’t matter here. Stupid and hateful remarks against us are insignificant, pushed aside, ignored and rendered completely powerless.

Seriously, a white person who lived their entire life in a place where black people are .00000001% of the population will claim the absolute authority to profess that our lived realities are all wrong, even though they probably have known less than 6 black people in their entire lifetime, none of which were close enough to visit each other’s homes, let alone share intimate experiences regarding race and gender with. Some people believe that if something didn’t happen to THEM, it couldn’t have happened. It’s logically flawed, disingenuous and will hijack the entire conversation and stifle advancement. Just don’t.

Here’s what centering black women and our wellness looks like.

We have a narrow focus, and it is 100% about us, and 0% about anything that doesn’t advance our health and happiness. Black women can relax and just be free, knowing that our safety, comfort, and well being are always top priorities.

There is no need for us to imitate mainstream wellness experiences and paint them brown and pretend they address our issues. We must explore and examine modalities that work for us specifically. Wellness may or may not look like face creams and bubble baths for all of us. Our immediate concerns are different from what the mainstream anti-fat, anti-aging expensive products and treatments have to offer and that is okay. We don’t need to concern ourselves with the billion dollar extremely exclusive wellness industry and the likes of cringeworthy influencer brands (we know who they are). Ignore all of that and focus on liberation and making our own lives healthier and happier. 

Wellness does not need to be segregated, but black wellness spaces can function to both fill in the gaps left by mainstream wellness programs and also be a more meaningful, culturally relevant holistic experience for those of us who want and need that. It’s not an all or nothing situation. We have choices and we should be mindful not to judge one another for making theirs. We are taking responsibility for our own health and wellness by being true to who we are and what we value because in the end, we are all we’ve got. 

LifeBliss Wellness helps black women design healthier lifestyles that focus on creating joy and allowing food freedom and are sustainable long term. If you want to be a part of this movement, sign up for our (sorta) weekly newsletter below to stay in the loop.