PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Many Black Americans have taken to Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms to express the high levels of stress and mental fatigue that they experience following traumatic current events.
While the Derek Chauvin trial resurfaced video replays of George Floyd’s last moments of life, more videos of recent fatal police encounters of people of color have also surfaced.
Jean-Jacques Gabriel, an artist, yoga teacher and trainer in West Philadelphia, is making a virtual space for healing from that collective trauma. But he says he’s also had to manage his own emotions over the past week.
"There’s so much that I have felt," he said.
Gabriel is a Haitian-American father of 2 girls, ages 11 and 17.
"Being the father of two beautiful daughters — seeing Ma’Khia Bryant — it had me sobbing. It had me in tears," Gabriel said.
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And although he was grieving, like other Black Americans, he still had to take care of his responsibilities and go about daily life. He says yoga helped him in that.
"I still had to get up and make sure my daughter was up for school, making sure she was fed. I know that taking the time to feel what my body is feeling, to connect with my breath, helps me to be in those emotions and be in fully. It’s what helps me to move and take care of those responsibilities that I have," he said.
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Gabriel is hoping to promote some healing from that racial trauma for himself and others in the Black community by offering a free Zoom yoga class Thursday.
"Those things live in our bodies, and the more we can create the opportunity to release some of those holdings, to find relief from stress, we gain back years that are being shaved off of Black lives by the traumatization that we see in the present and everyday."
His “Yoga for Liberation” class is in partnership with Black Lives Matter Philly and The Chi Collective. It starts at 6 p.m.