Poster presentation at the 2018 American Psychological Association Conference

1. CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE,
MINDFULNESS & CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Contemplative practices are conceptualized here as encompassing culturally-
diverse strategies for deepening and expanding experiential and critical awareness
by bearing witness to personal, relational, collective, and transcendent experience.
While there are a broad range of practices such as prayer, journaling, labyrinth
walking, tai chi, deep dialogue, and art-making (see contemplativemind.org/
practices/tree), the prototypic practice is meditation. Meditation refers to
intentional efforts to regulate and/or enhance attention and awareness with most of
the literature focusing on five types of meditation: mindfulness, transcendental
meditation, visualization/imagery, passage meditation, and contemplative/centering
prayer (Plante, 2010). Mindfulness has, by far, accumulated the most research
evidence and the science supporting the multiple benefits of mindfulness is
compelling. The simple but powerful act of paying attention on purpose, without
judgment, to here-and-now experience has demonstrated positive effects on brain
activity, emotion regulation, memory, concentration, anxiety, stress reduction, pain
management, positive well-being, and more (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Davis & Hayes,
2011; Khoury et al., 2013; Van Dam et al., 2018). The practice has been embraced
widely and is integrated into many forms of treatment, most visibly in acceptance-
based, third-wave behavioral therapies (ACT, DBT, MBCT, etc).
Barriers to Mindfulness Among Culturally-Diverse Groups
Despite the “mindfulness revolution” in dominant culture (Pickert, 2014),
mindfulness has not been widely embraced outside of the predominantly white and
middle-class consumers of psychological and personal development services .
Mindfulness as a western cultural product is infused with “whiteness” (Angela Rose
Black, 2018, interview), with images and cultural expressions portraying young
white adults who are thin, socioeconomically comfortable, and appear quite
“blissful”. The typical delivery of mindfulness includes language, stories, and
metaphors that are likely to resonate most strongly with European-descended,
highly educated cultural sensibilities. Receptivity to mindfulness is variable among
those whose religious or cultural expressions are not particularly compatible with
the typical ways that mindfulness is presented, in addition to the low representation
of people of color in meditation-oriented settings (DeLuca, Kelman, & Waelde,
2017; Magee, 2016; Spears et al., 2017; Tenfelde & Saban, 2017; Watson et al.,
2016; Woods-Giscombe & Black, 2010; Yang, 2017). Research suggests that
barriers to mindfulness meditation include: expense and location of classes and
retreats, cliquish elitism, association with the occult or Buddhism, feeling
contradiction with Christian beliefs (e.g., worshiping a false god), silencing of
diverse experiences, and a perception that “this is just not for me”. More
specifically, mindfulness (as it is frequently taught) may be less resonant with
people of African, Latinx, and Indigenous/Native origins.
Cultural Adaptation of Mindfulness-Based Interventions
There is growing evidence of the importance of cultural adaptation of empirically-
supported and evidence-based practices (Nagayama Hall et al., 2016).
Frameworks for adaptation (Domenech Rodriguez & Bernal, 2012; Peterson,
Villarreal, & Castro, 2017) converge in attention to four categories: culture and
context, client engagement, equivalence, and therapist cultural competence
(Sorenson, 2018). Exploration of cultural adaptations of mindfulness-based
interventions, particularly teaching mindfulness meditation, is critical to improve
their utilization, effectiveness, and cultural-attunement with diverse populations.
SOULFULNESS AND SOUL-HEALING
Given the cultural, historical, and contextual considerations described, “soulfulness”
is offered as a construct for adapting mindfulness-based interventions to increase
resonance with a wider range of ethnocultural groups, particularly those at risk for
“soul wounds”. Soulfulness is defined as the quality of experiencing life in a deeply
connected and connecting way, an enlivened inner attunement that illuminates
authentic lived experience and radiates into outer expression such that it can be felt
by others. It is an interconnected, life-enhancing “soulful aliveness” that is often
experienced as spiritual. Soulfulness integrates the common characteristics of “soul”
from psychological and spiritual writings (including: depth, authenticity, emotional
experiencing, and a healing resource) with identified cultural and contextual
characteristics. The latter draws from the African American “philosophy of soul”,
African-centered cultural expressions common throughout the African diaspora, and
dynamics of oppression and liberation woven into the lived experience of many
groups with collective trauma histories. These cultural-contextual considerations
contribute expressiveness, interconnectedness, creativity, and resilience to the
conceptualization of soulfulness. It is suggested that mindfulness practice,
delivered in a manner infused with soulfulness, could be experienced as “soul-
healing” and liberating for people of color with histories of oppression-related
collective trauma.
THE “SOUL” OF MINDFULNESS:
PRINCIPLES FOR PRACTICE
Cultural adaptation often requires adjustment in language so that clients can
resonate with the words, tone, and delivery context. Foundational aspects of
mindfulness are framed as principles of soulfulness mediation. They are presented
via cultural idioms of expression that are designed to be more culturally-attuned in
African-American contexts. Selected examples are described below:
“Bearing Witness”: Connected and deep listening to one’s own testimony and
lived experience, as well as to that of others.
“Roll With It”: Honoring the inevitability of change, the seasons and natural cycles
of life, the ebb and flow of experiencing.
“Remember Who You Are”: Connecting to self as more than the visible
appearance of circumstance, connection to cultural-ancestral-spiritual roots.
“Free Your Mind”: Loosening the chains and disentangling from the web of
internalized oppression, waking up and opening one’s eyes to personal and
collective truths.
“I Feel You”: Willingness to be moved and touched by experience; feeling of
interconnectedness and resonance with other persons, as well as the natural world.
“The Struggle Is Real”: Compassion for the vulnerabilities and struggles of living in
the context of historical and ongoing oppression; validation and affirmation of our
shared humanness.
“And Still I Rise”: Contact with inner resources and strengths that promote
tolerance of distress in the service of thriving and rising above; experience and
expression with joy.
Soulfulness-oriented contemplative practice often involves culturally-congruent
music, singing, and/or dancing as transitional and communal experiences prior to
formal mindfulness practice. The “dance” between our inner and outer lives is
reflected in the co-existence of both stillness and movement in the practices.
Beyond Mindfulness: Soulfulness as a Culturally-Infused Approach to Contemplative Practice
Shelly P. Harrell, Ph.D.. Poster and References available upon request from
shelly.harrell@pepperdine.edu
“I GOT SOUL”
from “Superbad” by James Brown (with “Contemplative Translation”)
I got somethin’ that makes me wanna shout
(I am connected to an inner aliveness that is compelled into expression)
I got somethin’ that tells me what its all about.
(I am connected to an inner wisdom where I can find personal and collective truths)
I got soul.
(I am connected to the deepest essence of my being, an energy that stirs and moves me)
And I’m superbad.
(I feel my innate dignity and worth, that I am an amazing person of value with gifts to share)
AFRICAN-AMERICAN “SOUL” & AFRICAN
DIASPORIC CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS
The experience and expression of “soul” is deeply embedded in African American culture (e.g.,
soul music, soul food, soul power, soul sister/brother) as an attitude, style, and way of life
(Banfield, 2015; Jones & Jones, 2001; Rudinow, 2010). Hopson and Hopson (1998)
conceptualized soul as an organizing construct for understanding the psychology of African
Americans. Author and activist bell hooks (2004) has described a “philosophy of soulfulness”
which holds that historically-grounded cultural expressions of soul (e.g., resilience, grace,
compassion, integrity, pride, resistance, endurance, faith, hope, and the persistence of joy
despite racism) are what sustains African Americans and contributes to wholeness, self-
esteem, and a sense of one’s humanity that cannot be destroyed by the dehumanization of
racism. The literature on soul converges with dominant themes in the psychology of African
Americans, and African-centered psychology more broadly, that identify relationality and
communalism, emotional expressiveness, creativity and spontaneity, spirituality, and resilience
in the face of adversity as central (Jones, 2003; Myers, 1988; Nobles, 2006). Psychological
interventions that draw upon cultural resources that “restore the soul” are more likely to be
culturally-congruent with persons of African descent, as well as other groups who share these
sensibilities.
SOUL WOUNDS AND MENTAL SLAVERY:
HISTORICAL AND COLLECTIVE TRAUMA
“The most potent weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”.
–Steven Biko (1978, p. xix), South African Activist
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.”
-Bob Marley, “Redemption Song”
Duran, Firehammer, and Gonzalez (2008) described the cultural soul wound of Native
Americans in relationship to historical trauma. Comas-Díaz’s (2007) description of post-
colonization stress syndrome and deGruy’s (2017) discussion of post-traumatic slave
syndrome are consistent with soul wounds as manifestations of the damaging effects of
collective traumas such as genocide, enslavement, and colonialism. Comas-Díaz offers the
Spirita process to help women of color overcome “their oppressed mentality and develop a
critical knowledge of themselves” (p. 13). Cultural studies scholar Gloria Anzaldúa (2002)
discusses “breaking out of your mental and emotional prison” (p. 542) to link inner reflection
with sociopolitical action. Foundational to liberation psychology is the concept of critical
consciousness, from Freire’s conscientização process, which focuses on reflective observation
of one’s condition and processing through dialogue in “culture circles” (1993). These all point
to contemplative and mindful awareness processes as central to “soul-healing” through
liberation of the mind from entanglement with internalized oppression.