Just as you might take ibuprofen to ease a fever, mindfulness can help settle awareness in the midst of challenging situations—whether at home, at work, or in any setting where people of color experience racism. That’s the premise of Black People Breathe: A Mindfulness Guide to Racial Healing. In the book, which is equal parts memoir and how-to guide, Zee Clarke (MBA 2008) shares her own experiences as a Black woman in corporate America and how discovering mindfulness techniques transformed her sense of well-being. As the founder of Reclaiming Flow, Clarke trains Black and brown employees to survive and thrive with the help of these techniques.

Talk about the physical toll of racism in the workplace and what that looked like for you.
Studies show that discrimination and racism are linked to higher rates of high blood pressure and heart disease in African Americans and that racism can cause chronic stress. Chronic stress can contribute to high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, diabetes, obesity, gastrointestinal problems, and accelerated aging. There was also a study by a Harvard professor [David Williams, at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health] that found the murder of an unarmed Black person at the hands of the police was linked to poor mental health in the Black population of the state where it occurred for three months.

I started my career in financial services and worked at Citigroup and American Express. After HBS, I worked in Silicon Valley, first consulting with tech companies while at Bain, then transitioned to the industry side at big companies like Yahoo as well as smaller companies and startups, and everything in between. Throughout that time, I was usually the only Black woman in the room. Sometimes I was the only Black person in the entire company, and that comes with a lot of microaggressions. I felt like I was banging my head against the concrete ceiling. (That’s the phrase for women of color, rather than glass ceiling, because it feels like the ceiling can’t be broken.) I felt like I needed to work twice as hard, so I was working nights and weekends, and that eventually led to burnout. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating, and my self-esteem was in the gutter. My doctors told me that something had to change. That’s when I decided to take my well-being into my own hands.

So you took a sabbatical and went to India. What did that experience do for you?
When I left on that journey, I felt broken. I desperately needed to feel better. So I did the Black-girl version of Eat Pray Love. I learned so much in India about the body, yoga, and how to heal with Ayurvedic medicine; I’d never felt so good in my life. When I came back to the States in 2020, the summer of George Floyd’s murder, I found that the breathing techniques I had learned in India were extremely helpful in keeping me calm in the midst of the riots that were happening. When I experienced more microaggressions in the workplace, where I was the only Black person in leadership, the breathing techniques were helpful there. I started sharing them with friends who were also the only Black people in their environments, to help them deal with triggering experiences. That’s when I thought, Wow, people need to know about this. Now I teach workshops with Black employee resource groups about how mindfulness and breath work can help with rejuvenation from fatigue, in asking for a raise, in overcoming the need to outperform, and in countering imposter syndrome.

What’s your call to action with this book?
While we can’t control the world around us, we can control how we feel inside. I want to encourage BIPOC communities to prioritize self-care. There’s a phrase, “Rest is resistance.” It’s critical to our survival. I encourage everyone, but especially Black and brown folks, to prioritize rest. In the book, I share a practice where you make a list of all the things that help you to feel restored. We are all different. For some it might be a walk outside; for others it might be a long bath with lavender Epsom salts. Make your list, and make sure you put at least one restorative thing in your calendar each week.

For allies, I hope this book will educate you on the realities of what happens to Black and brown people in this country. Think about what role you want to play in driving change. Because you can, even in small interactions on a daily basis, whether that is helping to amplify Black voices at your company, or encouraging your colleagues to hire more diverse teams. The tools shared in the book can be helpful to you, too. While the causes of your stress might be different, the tools are just as impactful.

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