This workshop will describe the use of cultural, ancestral, and collective wisdom in contemplative practices with a particular focus on the wisdom of the African diaspora. Wisdom can generally be conceptualized as deep insight, experiential knowing, clarity, and understandings of life that inform discernment, choice, and action. Wisdom is frequently associated with ancient Greece or traditions from the Asian diaspora, with African wisdom being largely ignored. This workshop lifts up African diasporic wisdom as a healing resource for humanity.

The workshop features descriptions of practices within the facilitator’s “soulfulness” approach including (1) the use of cultural expressions of Black wisdom (e.g., quotes, music, poetry, art, symbols) as pathways to experiential resonance and profound insight, and (2) practices that are grounded in specific aspects of an African-centered worldview (e.g., ubuntu). Selected practices will be offered for participants to experience during the workshop.

Takeaways: 

1. To gain a greater understanding of ancestral and collective wisdom as a healing resource.
2. To learn two strategies for centering wisdom of the African diaspora within a soulfulness orientation.
3. To experience practices that center wisdom of the African diaspora

Born and raised in Detroit, Dr. Shelly Harrell is a Professor at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology, a licensed psychologist, a certified meditation teacher, and a member of the faculty of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. She has been helping, healing, mentoring, teaching, and training for over 30 years. Her soulfulness approach represents an integration of her extensive professional experience and is informed by cultural, African-centered, and liberation psychologies, contemplative practices, and stress science. She has published, presented, and consulted widely in the areas of culture and psychotherapy, mindfulness in sociocultural and sociopolitical context, racism-related stress and mental health, resilience and psychological well-being among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and intergroup relations. Among her passions are music, dance, inspirational quotes, and the color purple.