According to Ronald Purser, mindfulness can be transformative when it helps people “connect the dots between their personal troubles and public issues.” Luke Wreford and Paula Haddock call for a “move beyond a focus on individual wellbeing towards more collective and systemic responses to the personal, social and ecological challenges we face.”
Their critiques of the individual focus of most popular mindfulness trends are on point. When placed within a social justice context, however, mindfulness practices can offer valuable ways to integrate both individual and collective change. Both are integral parts of social transformation. Mindfulness can, in the words of the great Grace Lee Boggs, help us “transform ourselves to transform the world.”
For that to happen, we need to practice mindfulness not just to ease stress and reactivity. We also need to reflect deeply on the ways we have been shaped by the broader world. We can then amplify those aspects that move us closer to liberation, while unlearning, dismantling, and disrupting those parts of the larger society that are harmful. We can reflect on how systems of power impact us in different ways so that we can heal from that harm and refrain from perpetuating it.
