Psychology's colonial roots of disconnection and domination obstruct collective well-being through individualism, disembodiment, and secularization. The antidote is love as a decolonial praxis of reconnection to each other, to bodies, and to Spirit. This praxis is illustrated through the creation of a community intervention called critical contemplative dialogues (CCD), tailored for Black, Indigenous, and peoples of color and piloted with seven contemplatives. The intervention is grounded in critical, contemplative, and dialogic frameworks and manifests love through themes of witnessing, dialogue, embodied practice, emergence, and ceremony. Eight emergent guiding values center radical healing and liberation, pointing toward broader applications in psychology.
Mindfulness programs that ignore cultural context and fail to address liberation may not fully support communities affected by social injustices. Two Black women psychologists describe how their own experiences led them to create mindfulness-based, emancipatory contemplative programs for Black and other racially minoritized groups who have faced colonial-cultural trauma and ongoing oppression. Using collaborative autoethnography and guided by the African wisdom of Sankofa, they identified four pathways: returning home; sacredness of culture, spirituality, and nature; movement and flow; and release, resistance, and reimagining. One program uses soulfulness as an entry to mindful awareness; the other uses water-based contemplative healing. The authors suggest that centering cultural resonance and these pathways can enhance well-being and advance a justice-oriented approach.