Wellness for Woke Folk: Maintaining Sanity & Self Care While Advocating for Community

I wrote this some time ago, but I personally needed to revisit it in light of the Pandemic, ensuing social unrest, and, lately, the seemingly unending cases of police brutality and racist violence I am witnessing on my tv screen, news feeds, and social media pages. I said it then, and I’ll say it now…

It’s hard out here for woke folks.

The constant stream of police brutality, blatant racism, injustice, climate change, and overall bad news from around the nation and globe is enough to make us numb as protection from all of the heartbreaks they render.

As “woke” folks, folks who hold other folks accountable for their actions, we surround ourselves with information, we are the first to volunteer, the first to extend ourselves, to engage in dialogue. We vote. We go to the neighborhood cleanups. We feed the hungry, we go to church, we host the events. We donate. We give and give and give…

And we burn ourselves the hell out.

All of that can and does leave us drained (speaking from personal experience).

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can still be the woke and working folks our community needs and the times demand without self-destructing. We don’t have to destroy ourselves…