A Call for a New Revolution

As a business owner it is important to define a mission and a purpose for selling a particular product and service. As a holistic health practitioner, my mission is to offer holistic nutrition counseling, lifestyle coaching and wellness strategies to individuals and business owners who aspire to optimal health in their lives and in the workplace. This is accomplished by educating people about their bodies and the processes we go through to maintain balance and well-being, without the use of will-power and deprivation. As a woman of color, and as a black woman, there is an obligation to offer these services to people of color specifically, as they are the ones most in need of my services. What I’ve learned early on in my practice is to seek out and work with only those individuals who truly want to be helped. I am okay with that, because I understand that it is a waste of my time and resources to get people to do something they don’t want to do, even if it means improving their quality of life.

I believe that changing the way we think about food will change the way we see our relationship to our world. I am a believer in traditions that involve coming together around food. I am against traditions that involve food which does not nourish our whole selves. If food is optimal to the maintaining of health, to keeping our bones strong, our organs working, and our blood flowing, then food has a direct relationship to our thoughts and our actions. We know what happens to our bodies and our moods when we eat certain foods. We know that certain foods can make us feel good, bloat our bellies, or make us irritable. We know that some foods fill us with energy while others make us lethargic. We know that there are foods which cause allergies in some and no reactions in others. Learning which foods keep you in balance and feeling good all the time can have a tremendous impact on your life. I’ve seen it happen. I am the result of such learning.

I love what I do. I make a commitment to myself to treat myself well, and live one day at a time in that purpose. It feels good to wake up everyday without pain, to feel good on every level, and to know what my body really needs in order to be healthy and function properly. I like to think that I live by example, and that is why my clients choose me to help them with their food and lifestyle issues. I haven’t always been able successful with my clients, because people really have to want to change within themselves in order for what I do with them to work. And I’m okay with that too, because everyone has to be willing to change in their own time.

What I’m not okay with, and what is becoming increasingly painful to witness, is the lack of care which black people as a whole give to themselves on a daily basis. There is so much talk about disenfranchisement, the need for control of the black dollar, political and economic independence, and access to adequate healthcare, affordable housing, and self-determination, but there is little mention of accountability for the things we can control. Like our bodies. The problems in the black community that are growing daily-asthma, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, cancer, teen pregnancy, STI and AIDS infections-are all afflictions that are directly related to how we take care of ourselves, or choose not to, but before we are willing to take personal responsibility for what we allow into our bodies-food, thoughts, sex, drugs-we look to blame outside sources for our problems.

Yes, it is a known fact that people who live in close proximity to municipal waste dumps, power plants, and mass transportation depots are at a higher risk of asthma and cancer than people not living in those areas. Yes, it is a known fact that people of color are disproportionately more likely to not have access to efficient healthcare and/or health education that could prevent or provide early detection of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Yes, it is a fact that people of color are more likely to live in areas without access to high-quality supermarkets and healthy dining options.

But it is also a known fact that the environmental factors that bring about these diseases are largely attributed to lifestyle choices that can be prevented with proper nutrition, exercise, and hygiene.

So why does there continue to be an increase in these specific diseases that affect the black community? Surely everyone has access to the information they need to make the necessary changes. All one has to do is enter a query on a search engine and a number of sites will pop up, waiting to be browsed. In metropolitan areas, the excuse can no longer be made as to the lack of internet access with more and more families buying computers, and jobs and libraries offering free internet access. Even those in rural areas have libraries that provide internet resources.

What I see as a holistic health practitioner, is reluctance on the part of all us to take responsibility for what is going on in and with our bodies. In our struggle for equal rights, economic power, and self-determination we did not see the importance of fighting for the one most important aspect of ourselves that was taken away from us during slavery: the right to learn, understand, and control our bodily functions. How, in all the in-depth studies of slavery and oppression, did we miss the most fundamental of human growth and development? In our continued struggle to be seen as equals, we model ourselves not upon our own standards of excellence and achievement, but upon the standards that our oppressors hold themselves to, standards neither designed for us nor will ever be recognized on our parts.

In the history of our ancestors, we have always had methods in which to take care of the body, during times of illness and in good health. We have always known what to eat and how to eat it, what season to eat which foods, and what herbal medicines to maintain our strength and well-being. Illness was always treated as a dis-ease within the body, the loudest message our spirit was sending to us because we had ignored the earlier, quieter warnings, the disconnect one part of the body was having with the other (the mind with the body, the body with the spirit and so on).

Because of our desire to fit in, to assimilate into the dominant culture, we take on values and belief systems that do not really fit in with who we are as a people. We throw away the beliefs that have sustained us for centuries. We have kept very little of what we used to know, but struggle and force our way into holding on to what we think we should know, even if it continues to fail us.

It is impossible to think that we can achieve any of the goals we are aiming for without first controlling our minds and our bodies. How can one fight for civil rights when they are sick? How can one fight for economic independence when they do not know how to feed themselves or their children properly? How can one fight for any freedom when they are a slave to a system of ways that no longer work? We are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It simply will not work.

It is much easier to blame outside forces then to look at the role we play in what does not go well in our lives. Our unwillingness to focus on the true issue of our loss of self will continue to manifest in our inability to change our communities.

It is a time for a revolution of the self. One that involves not only self-determination, but accountability and responsibility for all that we can control in our daily lives.

Free your mind and the rest will follow.