Oludara Adeeyo is a woman who wears many hats. She utilizes her skill-set as an author and therapist to help other Black women put themselves first, participate in self-care, and develop a healthy relationship ‘with self.’ Adeeyo’s “Meditations for Black Women” is a book of 75 reflections that Black women can use to find healing tools to navigate day-to-day life.
The Edison, N.J. native is also a social media content creator that has amassed a total of over 200,000 followers—respectively—with content that focuses on self-care and living her life to the fullest through dancing, cooking, and getting her hair braided.
She says that Black women experience specific types of micro- and macroaggressions that create a peculiar experience that others may not experience or understand, which inspires her work.
“I think that Black women need to speak up more. A lot of us are good at that, but sometimes we are conditioned to silence our voices. I think it is very important for us to speak up for ourselves, whether it’s by setting boundaries with people, expressing how you feel, expressing anger—because anger can be justified—and other emotions as well.”
The author had a smooth editing and writing process for the book as she utilized some of the wellness tools she shared in the book for readers.
Three reflections from the book that stand out to Adeeyo are Black women putting themselves first, asking for help by engaging in community care, and being the pioneers of their own lives.
“I really love encouraging Black women to live for themselves, to work on listening to their intuition more… so they can live carefree. It’s a new self-care renaissance right now that is encouraging Black women to rest. I am happy to be a part of that.”
Adeeyo utilized quotes from notable Black women across the fields of science, politics, art, mathematics, and literature to support the reflections. She pairs meditation, self-reflection methods, and other wellness tools such as prayer to maintain her own mental health. These same self-care tools within the book can assist other Black women on their journey of coping with the daily complexities of life.
She elaborated further on the tropes Black women face in society, such as being labeled as the “strong Black woman” and the “angry Black woman.”
We need to give ourselves permission to be angry, show emotion, reframe the way we think about strength, and reframe the narrative of ‘what it means’ to express anger.” She added, “Black women frankly should not care about how we are perceived because people will think that about us anyway. It is not our responsibility to care about how people perceive us.”
Adeeyo went on to further share the importance of vulnerability and how it can be used as a gateway to self-healing.
“It is also about being vulnerable. To me as a therapist, anger is an emotion, and emotions are just signals. It tells us things such as maybe you are feeling neglected… you are upset about something that happened, and you need to work through what is going on underneath the anger and other emotions.”
“Meditations for Black Women” is available now and can be found online at www.simonandschuster.com and other major bookseller websites such as www.Amazon.com.