How I learned about the power of rest for Black women

– Rest up. At a yoga retreat for women of color I attended several years ago in the mountains of Georgia, one of the facilitators asked, “Who taught you how to rest?” I sat there for minutes racking my brain trying to come up with a list. Sure, my mother had weekly hair appointments, and my grandmother loved soap operas and the occasional romance novel. But rest? Black women didn’t have the luxury of rest.

That is until I came across Octavia Raheem, founder of the retreat, who introduced me to restorative yoga. Before Raheem, I’d approached yoga like I did all of my goals and ambitions: to be the best. There was no time or space for rest, only perfection. After all, Black women have notoriously had to work “twice as hard to get half as much.” Rest simply did not fit into that equation.

It’s a sentiment that Black People Breathe author and mindfulness teacher Zee Clarke shares, as does yoga nidra teacher Tracee Stanley. Clarke, Raheem, and Stanley are part of what inspired me to write about a trend I’ve been seeing in a new story for Fortune: the #SoftLife, as exhibited by the Soft Black Girl. She stands in opposition to the stereotype of the Strong Black Woman, an archetype that has prevented Black women from claiming the rest we deserve for generations.

“From the moment I was born, I felt like I had to be a strong Black woman,” Clarke told me. “Black women don’t have models for rest because our mothers didn’t rest. Our grandmothers didn’t rest. And when you go back to the times of slavery, we took care of white women’s children and then went home to take care of our own. That comes with a lot of fatigue and exhaustion, so the status quo becomes overworking and not taking care of yourself.”

I had the privilege of interviewing Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry back in 2019. Before learning about her work, I’d never considered naps to be revolutionary, but it made sense. In a world that constantly demands the most of Black women—demands that we be strong at all times and carry the weight of the world on our shoulders—rest is a form of resistance.

As author and activist Audre Lorde once said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.” For Black women, self-care isn’t a nice-to-have, it can literally be a matter of life or death.

Octavia Raheem, Tracee Stanley, Tricia Hersey—these women were teaching me a different way. They were living and preaching the #SoftLife before it became a trending hashtag on TikTok. Because rest is more than a trend for them, and it sure as hell is about more than aesthetics.

“I believe that self-care needs to start practical and once you start it practical, it begins to become instinctual and bleeds into other parts of your life,” Affirmations for Black Women author and psychotherapist Oludara Adeeyo told me. “It’s not just about buying stuff, it’s saying no at work. It’s saying no in your personal life. It’s saying no because you changed your mind, and you want to rest. It’s about building community with people that make you feel whole and healed.”

And, for me, it’s also about leaving a legacy of rest, so my daughter and her children (if she so chooses to have them) will have an example to learn from—a role model of rest, if you will.

To remix that one popular quote, “Here’s to soft women. May we know them, may we raise them. May we be them.” Because Black women—whether we identify with the #SoftLife or not—deserve rest, too.

Read my full story here.

L’Oreal Thompson Payton
loreal.payton@fortune.com
@LTinthecity

The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Kinsey Crowley. Subscribe here.

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