Black Zen, a meditation group in the Twin Cities, seeks to make meditation accessible and relevant to everyone.
Jasmine Johnson, one of the founders of and session facilitator at Black Zen, has been meditating for years, as has her sister and co-founder, Stacey Johnson. Jasmine Johnson told MinnPost that she and her sister noticed their own Black community “didn’t talk about (meditation) very much” as a way to deal with stress. Later, the Johnsons realized stress was directly linked to many of the health disparities facing communities of color.
“When you look at the numbers themselves (for conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease and various mental and emotional health concerns) there’s a very real difference between how those health numbers or those health indicators show up for women and people of color specifically,” said Jasmine Johnson. “The more you go into it, the more you look at the research, you’re like, ‘Oh, this clearly links to stress, that clearly links to stress, that clearly links to stress.’”
Black Zen began in 2016 as a means to introduce meditation as a way for communities of color to “decompress and healthfully process” stress, including the stress of dealing with racial discrimination. In addition to a podcast and meditation guidebook, they offer virtual and in-person meditation sessions to groups and individuals alike, along with wellness retreats and leadership training.
While meditation apps are widely available, Jasmine Johnson said the way meditation is presented in these apps can often be unrelatable. Those pictured meditating, for example, she said, often look nothing like her or her loved ones. The locations featured in meditation apps, additionally, aren’t locations that reflect an average day-to-day life.
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“The space that’s happening (on apps) is often in front of an ocean somewhere or in the middle of the woods,” said Jasmine Johnson, “Yes, we go to the ocean and we go to the woods. But on a regular day, how do I incorporate that practice? Because that’s not a regular day. A regular day is (when) I get up, I go to work, I take care of my responsibilities, (and) my family.”
In order to bring meditation to communities who do not typically practice it, Black Zen has had to confront and dispel myths surrounding meditation.
“We don’t talk about meditation, and when it’s talked about, it seems like this very woo-hooey thing and oftentimes it’s attached to Buddhism,” said Jasmine Johnson. “And so people are like, ‘Oh, well, that’s a religious thing. I’m a Christian (or) I’m Muslim (or) I’m agnostic, so all of it feels like it’s not for me.’ The truth is, meditation as a practice is simply learning how to intentionally quiet the mind. That can be done in conjunction with a religious practice. But truthfully, the act of meditation is just learning how to sit still and hush up and to give yourself some space to breathe – to pause and to take yourself off that fight or flight treadmill.”
Another common myth, said Jasmine Johnson, is that meditation requires “large swaths of free time” that people don’t have.
“If you are living a busy full life and you have a community or people in your life to take care of or work to do, the first thing that people will say is, ‘Oh, I don’t have the time to meditate,’” said Jasmine Johnson.
“What I offer is that actually meditation isn’t about how long you sit for, it’s about the quality of stillness that you find when you do sit. Two minutes of true stillness makes such a difference in how your body, your mind, and your emotions can reset. But if you think that you need an hour to do it, you’ll never do it,” said Johnson. “Start with a minute or two of stillness, start there and then build on that as you get more comfortable with that silence.”
Black Zen works with various organizations, including the Innocence Project and the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, which focus on issues of social justice. Working with these organizations, Jasmine Johnson said, is a way for Black Zen to offer support and help prevent employees from burning out.
“How do you sustain that effort? There’s no quick fix,” said Jasmine Johnson of social justice work. “There isn’t just one day (where) we all wake up, oh, great, and now it’s all good.”
The longevity social justice work requires, Jasmine Johnson added, is “a different kind of lift,” especially when those working towards social justice are impacted by the issues they seek to address on a daily basis.
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“(Social justice work) requires you to show up. And when you’re a part of the community that a lot of the stuff happens to, there’s no way to not take it personally,” said Jasmine Johnson. “Maybe because I’m a person of color, I feel it differently than other people. I don’t know. I just know that I cannot do social justice work and (have) it not be personal … If we don’t have a way of carrying that lift that is sustainable, that’s when we start to feel broken down. That’s when we start to see the true impacts of those health disparities showing up, because that stress has not been managed in a way that is reasonable, in a way that is healthy, in a way that allows us to still live full, joyful lives in the midst of doing work that we care about.”
Rowan Hathaway, a quality assurance specialist for climate solutions provider 3Degrees, said working with Black Zen has improved employee wellbeing and, in one case, addressed a specific stress faced by those working at 3Degrees – climate anxiety. During Mental Health Awareness Month this year, said Hathaway, 3Degrees invited Black Zen to do a lunch and learn session about climate anxiety and mental health.
“I’ve learned a lot from Black Zen,” said Hathaway. “I know that other people in the company have learned a lot, not just from the meditation sessions, but also the nature of the work they’re doing and the reason that they started the company to begin with.”
By showing individuals and groups how to care for themselves via meditation, Jasmine Johnson believes the effects will ripple out into their wider communities.
“When you (care for yourself), it sets a standard of how we care for the community,” said Jasmine Johnson. “Because if you can’t even care for yourself in a deep way, how can you care for any community outside of yourself in a really deep way?”
Deanna Pistono
Deanna Pistono is MinnPost’s Race & Health Equity fellow. Follow her on Twitter @deannapistono or email her at dpistono@minnpost.com.
