Arts and Culture

Tips for Summertime Mind, Body, and Spirit Wellness

Published

6 years ago

June 21, 2019

Grand Rising Children of My Ancestors:

As the gray rainy days of winter make way for the warm sunny days of summer, it is an especially optimal time for African people to get outside in the sun and turn our attention to nourishing ourselves with activities that uplift the mind, body, and spirit.

What we pay attention to grows, so let’s make summer a time to pay loving attention to our minds, bodies, and spirits. Let’s feed ourselves with generous amounts of joy, bliss and laughter! This approach is consistent with the theory of Optimal Psychology, developed by Dr. Linda James Myers, a member of the Association of Black Psychologists. Dr. Myers teaches us that with deliberate attention we can reclaim our spiritual identity, build our internal strength to navigate life’s challenges, and holistically illuminate our minds, bodies, and spirits.

Here are a few recommendations for your summer:

Listen to your Spirit

Sit quietly for a few moments and take a scan of your body, thoughts, feelings, emotions, spirit, and see what arises…What is asking for your attention? What are your desires? What would bring you joy? What would be fun to do? Let your knowing and knowable spirit speak to you.

Know Thyself

Take a trip to Marcus Book Store, the historic independent bookshop opened in the 1960s, specializing in titles by and about Black people. In the bookshop, you will find an array of wonderful titles in every genre to expand your knowledge and understanding of Black people and our journey worldwide. Read the works of Asa Hilliard, Bobby Wright, Wade Nobles, Linda James Myers, Kobi Kambon, Frances Cress Welsing, Na’im Akbar, Cheryl Grills, Reginald Jones, Marcia Sutherland, Bruce Bynum and other Black mental health experts. Invite a friend or a young person in your life along for the journey to the Oakland store at 3900 Martin Luther King Way, just around the corner from the MacArthur BART station..

Dance

Dancing feeds our zest for life. Put on music and have a dance date with yourself and the people you live with. Drop into a Capoeira class, Congolese dance, or take on Orisha dance class with EMESE Sunday afternoons at Malonga Casquelord Center of the Arts at 1428 Alice Street, Oakland. Classes for youth and adults can be found on their website: www.mccatheater.com.

Go Outside

Walk the 3.4 miles of Lake Merritt with a friend or family member. It is surrounded by parkland, neighborhoods, eateries, and coffee shops. Stop for a smoothie or pack a blanket/lunch/music instruments (drum/guitar/shakers), and join your neighbors who are at the Lake relaxing. Take advantage of our many regional parks and let the earth and trees ground and settle you. Sit quietly in the greens and woods. Charge up your mind, body, and spirit by sitting in the sun. Breathe deeply, say a prayer, and release your stress.

Meditation and Prayer

Take time to be still and relax. Turn off the electronics and enjoy silence if just for a few minutes. Periods of deep relaxation lowers blood pressure, supports our rest, and metabolizes stress. Connecting to our Higher Power in prayer helps us to remember that we are spiritual beings and have divine assistance to make it through the trials of life.

Get a Check-Up

Summer is a good time to learn your numbers. Blood pressure, glucose, weight, body mass index. Know where you stand and what your body may be asking you to pay attention to.

Get Help

Feeling blue? Facing a difficult life challenge? Seek out the counsel of a Black mental health practitioner who can offer support with thoughts, feelings, needs, and lived experiences as a person of African descent. Contact us at Sankofa Holistic Counseling Services at: www.sankofatherapy.com and 510-433-0244, and find your local Association of Black Psychologists chapter at: www.abpsi.org.

Eat Good Food

Take a trip to a local Farmers Market and get a few fresh items directly from a farm. Take your children and enjoy the samples farmers share. Try a new vegetable or fruit. If you go right before the market closes, there are bound to be sales, bonus bags, and giveaways. EBT is widely accepted. If there is not a market near you, make it a family outing and hop on the bus.

Umoja (Unity)

Through Black Psychology, we know that our health and well-being is never just for ourselves. Use the summertime to support our collective health, especially mental health, and wellness. Practice seeing yourself as the “cause and consequence” of the whole family’s health and well-being. Meditate on the Ubuntu affirmation, “I am because we are” on your walk to Oakland’s annual Umoja (Unity) Festival (“through unity we make vital economic and social progress”) on Saturday, August 17th, at Lowell Park, 1098 12th St. in est Oakland!

Claudius Johnson, is a licensed clinical social worker and CEO of Sanfoka Holistic Counseling Services.

*These monthly articles on Black Mental Health issues are written by members of the Bay Area Chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi-Bay Area). ABPsi-Bay Area is a healing resource and is committed to providing the Post Newspaper readership with monthly discussions about critical issues in Black Mental Health. We can be contacted at (bayareaabpsi@gmail.com) and readers are welcome to join with us at our monthly chapter and board meeting, every third Saturday at the West Oakland Youth Center from 10:00 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Claudius Johnson

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New Oakland Moving Forward

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

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May 18, 2025

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Since the African American Sports and Entertainment Group purchased the City of Oakland’s share of the Alameda County Coliseum Complex, we have been documenting the positive outcomes that are starting to occur here in Oakland.

Some of the articles in the past have touched on actor Blair Underwood’s mission to breathe new energy into the social fabric of Oakland. He has joined the past efforts of Steph and Ayesha Curry, Mistah Fab, Green Day, Too Short, and the Oakland Ballers.

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-Elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

These visits represent a healthy exchange of ideas and plans to resuscitate Oakland’s image. All parties felt that the potential to impact Oakland is right in front of us. Most recently, on the back side of these visits, the Oakland Ballers and Blair Underwood committed to a 10-year lease agreement to support community programs and a community build-out.

So, upward and onward with the movement of New Oakland.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

4 weeks ago

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Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

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Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.