People often ask me why I am so open about my emotions online, even as a coach and counsellor. Here is why – my vulnerability helps me heal.
Today I would like to share a project called “Black Bristol”. It is an online interactive timeline featuring the history of Black people in the Bristol area. The website launched yesterday so I strongly encourage you to check it out and get involved.
Activists are often consumed by how others feel — and can forfeit their own safety and/or wellbeing in the process. Learning how to reset, re-energise and maintain good mental health is a basic need for an activist to truly be able to make a change, especially in a noisy online world where causes and movements vie for attention.
Lewis Wedlock is a mental health activist and social psychologist from Bristol. He works for Project Zazi, a project by OTR Bristol that deals with young BAME people’s mental health experience through therapy and activism. He is also the creator of Pinpoint Academia, a university facing a personal development project that helps students locate and work towards their versions of success.
Mute everything, but YouTube, open the video on a large screen to face the people featured in it and take it all in.
2020 is challenging indeed, but if we all start reflecting, looking deeper under the surface of our individual experiences, biases and systems, I am sure we will find a way to move gently but steadily towards individual and collective change.
Here is a quick look at the reactions of leading brands to Black Lives Matter on Instagram.
As I am watching the events in the US unfold, I feel uneasy. I am white. I am privileged. I come from a racist culture. And so I am in pain. I feel ashamed. I feel angry.