black women, stress,
and How to live Healthier
At the intersection of black and woman, a lot of magical shit takes place. Strength, resilience, undeniable beauty, intellect, and success are just a few of the adjectives you can use to describe black women. For so many years, black women have championed getting the job done; the job being taking care of home and everyone in it. By any means necessary is not just a catchy slogan, its a way of life for a lot of black women. We are mothers, sisters, friends, lovers, and with each title, a slice of our pie is taken and given to someone else. And most, if not all black women, wouldn’t have it any other way.
The idea of a black woman putting herself last at the benefit of someone else is not new and it’s not really even talked about in our communities. It’s more like an unspoken rule we are taught in childhood. In our early years, we learn that being born female means that you are meant to give and take care of others. Don’t complain about your birthright, just step into position when it’s time to. We bend over backward to make sure that those we are connected to, those who depend on us, are taken care of. We’re the last person on that list and ironically enough, we never have enough energy, time, or resources to make it to the bottom of the list.
This m.o. Is dangerous for us. The stress we incur from placing everyone’s burdens on our backs is killing us, literally. I don’t know if the caregiver trait is nature or nurture or a blend of both, but we don’t have to be eternally bound to something that instigates our own downfall.
I’m talking about being selfish. At least, that is how other people will see it when you put yourself first. The self-care and mindfulness trend that’s taken over social media has us on the right track. But it’s about way more than a nail appointment and spending your time drinking wine in your living room. It’s about placing yourself at the top of your list of priorities. All of that care and compassion that we selflessly give to others, has to be turned inward. The person that we most need to be concerned with taking care of is ourselves.
When’s the last time you got at least 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep? How many times in this past week have you extended yourself for the benefit of someone else? Now ask yourself this: how many of those people that you extended yourself to would turn around and do the same for you? I don’t have to guess at the number because I know. I’ve fallen victim to my own version of martyrdom, and it left much to be desired in life. The majority of my adolescence, all of my teenage years, and part of my adult years were spent caring for my father. He was chronically ill, and with most of my siblings missing in action, I put that burden on my back. I don’t regret it, but it did place stress on me that no young woman should ever have to bear.
At 22, I had my son. Motherhood is a different type of stress, but a stress nonetheless. It didn’t take me too long to realize that I could not afford to give more to others than I gave to myself, because that would set me and my son back. I am a few months away from 30, and in the last few months of this year specifically, I’ve done a complete audit on my life. I’ve gone over every relationship, situation, investment, activity, etc with a fine-toothed comb and asked myself three questions.
How does this serve me and my family?
How does this serve others?
What kind of stress does this give me?
I found that there were things and people in my life that were stressing me to a point of physical discomfort. For example, I’d lay awake at night, perplexed by the current state of the country because of a bunch of “hot takes” I’d read on social media that day. Or I’d run myself into exhaustion because I was trying to be present for everybody while also working full time, mothering full time, and going to school full time. I cut strings and left a lot of things behind this year, and although it was difficult, it has made all the difference. I already have hypertension, there is no need to exacerbate my health issues trying to fix everyone else’s problems. From now and moving forward, life is about stressing less.
I’m going to close with this note: I know our mothers, our grandmothers, and our great-grandmothers have carried entire families on their backs, and let us never be anything other than grateful for that. But our generation has to be the change. We have to decide that things don’t have to be this way and aspire to something different, for the sake of our happiness but most importantly, for the sake of our health.
