Black People Breathe: A Mindfulness Guide to Racial Healing

A thoughtful, inclusive, and vividly illustrated guide to help Black people—and all people of color—heal from racial trauma using vital tools from an expert in mindfulness, meditation, and breathwork.

It is your right to survive. It is your right to thrive. Mindfulness and breathwork will help you do just that.

Racism is more than just an interpersonal experience. It is a systemic injustice that affects the lives of Black people, and all people of color, in countless ways. Doctors and psychologists have discovered the wide-ranging—and often devastating—effects of racism on one’s emotional, physical, and mental health, from high blood pressure and heart problems to anxiety and depression. Yet studies show that mindfulness, meditation, and breathwork can significantly reduce these issues. This is where Zee Clarke comes in.

In this powerful book, Clarke draws on her professional expertise and her lived experience as a Black woman to share mindfulness exercises, breathwork practices, and meditative tools centered on healing from and surviving racial trauma. Filled with deeply personal stories highlighting the many systemic challenges that people of color face, this mixture of guide and memoir offers thirty-three practical techniques based on the emotions elicited from these experiences. Whether you are coping with police brutality, racial profiling, microaggressions, or even imposter syndrome, Black People Breathe gives you the tools to process these complex feelings physically, mentally, and emotionally. Though this collection was created to facilitate healing for communities of color, it also offers allies insight into the discrimination and inequity that these communities face, creating a space for deeper empathy and the inspiration to drive change.

Beautifully designed with gorgeous, vibrant illustrations, Black People Breathe takes a radically inclusive approach to mindfulness, allowing communities of color the opportunity to embark on a journey towards racial healing.