What Black Women Teach Us About The Power Of Feeling
We are all worthy of healing. Healing is liberation work. Healing is when we all have the space, safety, and faith to feel our emotions without shame. What would the world look like if we all allowed ourselves to feel deeply? Black women across the world continue to show us how.
Jeremiah 9:17 speaks of the wailing women who mourn publicly when tragedy strikes their communities. Their loud cries symbolize their taking on communal grief as a form of communal healing.
Who have been our wailing women?
In Akan culture, women are expected to wail loudly at funerals. Some women are even hired as professional wailers.
Their wailing honors the deceased, simultaneously encouraging their community to heal by mourning as they see fit.
Black mothers especially know what grief is.
Like the biblical wailing women, Black mothers have historically banded together to use their grief as a catalyst for healing. Sometimes this healing looks like collective wailing, and sometimes it looks like protest.
Black women across the globe remind us that “wailing” should be seen as an invitation not only to grieve together, but also to heal together.
What would the world look like if we all allowed ourselves to wail?
Liberation is when we all have the space, safety, and faith to wail freely.
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