05/09/2020
"Black Men Are Not Your Enemy (Ahmaud Arbery)"
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Prioritizing a few tried-and-true wellness basics has helped to keep me grounded, keep my stress and anxiety relatively in check and, not-so-coincidentally, boost immunity!
Running isn’t my fave, but yesterday, I got out and ran to honor this young man on what would have been 26th birthday. Ahmaud Arbery was shot in cold blood on February 23 while jogging unarmed in his town, exercising the basic human right to take care of himself.
For anything to change, we have to speak up. As said so eloquently in her recent IGTV, “you are actively harming Black and Brown bodies when you do not use your platform to speak up for justice for Black and Brown bodies. By staying silent you’re perpetuating violence.”
There is still time to do your part. This effort is running throughout the whole weekend, and I encourage you to join. Sign the petition, make calls, and stay updated at runwithmaud.com
A note: I want to use this platform not only to encourage and educate others in their health journey, but as an opportunity to speak out about inequities, especially within wellness. Everyone should have the right to be well and live a life of happiness, but unfortunately this is not the case.
To use the words of “well-being, and wellness, is not available to all people, in large part because the Wellness Industry thrives on white supremacy, heterosexism, and racism.” As a white, cis, hetero, able-bodied person in wellness, I believe it’s my duty to leverage my platform (even if small) to advocate for justice and do my best to dismantle these oppressive systems.
There is much more I could say here but the intent of this post was not to center myself. If you’re interested in learning more, I encourage you to follow those within and outside of the wellness industry whom you can learn from: