What are the most effective wellbeing practices and supports for this time of upheaval and uncertainty? Community leaders and activists, especially those of us who have suffered othering and colonization, are reporting greater stress, grief, and mental health challenges. As current systems transform, collapse and shift, there is a great and growing need for radical artists, activators and healers to center collective wellbeing.

In this Q&A with Sonali Sangeeta Balajee, founder of Our Bodhi Project and the Spiritual Social Medicinal Apothecary (SSoMA), we learn about the significance of slowing down and it has impacted her life and career. Sign up for the the Slowing Down Bioneers Learning course to learn mindful and creative practices designed to help us slow down, heal and collectively receive our greatest wisdoms.

Bioneers: Why is Slowing Down so important for people to learn about right now?

Sonali Sangeeta Balajee: Every day, the lack of valuing, embodying, and really living into centering our collective wellbeing and spiritual health in our work for justice and liberation is having a tremendous negative impact on our lives, leading to greater stress, grief, and mental health challenges not just for ourselves, but for our families, communities, and our transformative efforts.

We are investing billions in market-based strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save the planet, while the communities on the frontlines of climate emergencies have wisdom and knowledge we need, even as they continue to bear the brunt of harm.

Reflecting on the following questions helps form the antidote necessary for inner and community transformation: How do we begin investing in communities, in ourselves, our health and well-being, How do we undo what we as a species have done through our capitalistic, oppressive systems and structures?

We must learn the skills, abilities, and practices, to stay present with each other, with the joy, the grief, and our noticings and realities around our health and wellbeing, here and now, and into the future. We must learn as whole psyche-mind-spirit-body-collective-political learning and engagement.

We are the earth, the earth is who we are, so we need to center the values and medicines we espouse and stand for to heal the Earth, activating and embodying principles of thriving life, wellbeing, and liberation, because the benefits of such are countless and vital. We can do so by both turning our gaze towards and embodying practices that are the antidotes to capitalism: consumption, anesthesizing, checking out, disembodying, and compartmentalizing.  

Bioneers: How did your career in Slowing Down begin?

SSB: At an early age, I became committed to our spiritual traditions in my family, Hinduism and Buddhism. These traditions emphasize the practice of reflection and contemplation, which I started to learn to embody at the tender age of seven. These practices also supported my early experiences of chronic illness. My study of these ways of reflecting, slowing down, and finding balance continued through yoga and meditation through my early life into college, when I began teaching yoga. I’ve been learning about and practicing these ways of knowing and being since my time in college, anywhere from ancient philosophies to current sciences on the benefits of such through two current projects that center the medicines for our time (Our Bodhi Project and SSoMA).

Bioneers: What is one book that you find particularly fascinating about Slowing Down? Why?

SSB: When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chodron. This book has supported so many I know who do deep activism and frontline work around how to be still, awaken to our most beautiful inner natures, and find ease (not perfection) in every moment. I find this fascinating and such a compelling book on Slowing Down because she shares not only the practices, but the philosophies grounding the practices that help support them becoming more ingrained and sustained.