Rest, Creativity, Movement and the Breath: Choosing Tools to Curate a Self-Care Routine in The Time of COVID-19

by Marie Antoine, KDC's Public Voice

Since April we have been sharing wellness ideas and offerings for managing your mental and physical health during this pandemic. For the rest of 2020 we will be encouraging you to use some of the tools we have focused on including creativity, rest, movement and breath-work to curate a self-care routine. A self-care practice is a conscious and consistent effort to tend to our basic needs as well as our deeper mental, emotional, and spiritual drives.

Research and developing holistic healing modalities have proven that our thoughts and feelings have a direct impact on our physical health; and furthermore that, most if not all dis-ease manifesting in our physical body is a response to our mental and emotional state of being. With this knowledge we have come to understand the power of the mind to help heal and reverse physical ailments. This gives rise to the idea that most of the dis-ease that plague our society are not only curable but also preventable when we have the tools to care for our mental and emotional wellbeing. However much of this perspective and work seems to remain within an underground wellness space. Why is that the leaders of our mainstream health system do not invest in this empowering approach to our health and wellness? Rather than our wellness, mainstream health systems seem to be skewed for profit. Dr. Sebi, a notable healing leader pathologist, herbalist, biochemist, and naturalist in the Black community once said “A society that keeps cures a secret so they can continue to sell medications for huge profits is not a real society, but a huge mental asylum.” This quote regarded Dr. Sebi’s own struggles to share his work with the leaders of the Black community who had the power and resources to help elevate our health.

Taking back responsibility and accountability for the health of our people is very deep and leads to undoing the very fabric of our oppression. In my most recent blog posts, I’ve written about  over productivity and internalized capitalism as one of the detriments to our health. That is because these operating systems enable us to form habits which lead to chronic neglect of our health and wellbeing. And furthermore, we influence each other to adapt these health-abating lifestyles by co-creating cultural norms that champion our exhaustion and general disregard for our self care. In this way, investing in our health and wellness by devoting ourselves to self-care is a part of our personal activism, each of us make a contribution to the shifts in our communities to prioritize and reclaim our health. Intentional Self care is a purposeful step towards personal healing and liberation. 

How do I define self-care? A self-care practice is a conscious and consistent effort to tend to our basic needs as well as our deeper mental, emotional, and spiritual drives. It is a call for each of us to reconnect with and honor our humanity. 

Each month until January 2021 we will be creating practical content to help you curate a self care routine. The 

1. Support your efforts to create non-negotiable time for your self-care
2. Develop clear intentions for your self-care practice to help you commit to your goals
3. Engage with tools for specific outcomes

For September we will be discussing ways to safeguard our mental health. Many of my posts have focused on a lot of the social issues that affect us as individuals, but in addition; problems that come up within our close relationships and jobs/careers at this time can feel even greater under the circumstances of the pandemic.

​Download the mini journal to start working on protecting your mental health this week!