Episode 11 WIth Yvonne D. Hawkins

Yvonne D. Hawkins is a mental health professional and certified professional coach whose focus is on faith-based tools and strategies to help black people recover from racial trauma. Yvonne runs a life coaching business called Healing for Black Folx where she helps black creative folks and professionals reclaim their courage to work their purpose with authenticity and power. She also is a PhD student in pastoral theology, personality, and culture at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Her research areas include developing creative, faith-based interventions for racial trauma. Yvonne firmly believes that all Black people have internalized racial trauma, and she shares how she therapeutically works with her clients in the healing process through modalities such as narrative therapy and body centered work.  Yvonne states that a common coping strategy is for Black folks to minimize their racial trauma experiences in order to survive day to day living. As a result, Black folks are harming themselves, and healing is what is needed to move forward healthily. Yvonne says that there are three things she has learned:

1. The concept of white-body supremacy instead of white supremacy better        reveals how racialized trauma works;
2. Collective, body-centered healing practices are part of the black tradition. There are culturally competent strategies available beyond Western-based, individualistic tools for our well-being;

 3.   Managing stress well is not the same thing as healing.

Yvonne says,  “racial trauma is exhausting. It leaves many black folx drained and discouraged. It leaves people confused about their individual or collective purpose. It leaves them overworked but underutilized in their workplaces, organizations and black community at large.”

Nearly 20 years ago, Yvonne learned firsthand how few faith-based tools exist to help the ongoing healing and recovery for the Black community. There are a few tools that are practical, accessible and culturally competent. So she decided to create some. 

Yvonne shares, “while working as an award-winning, newspaper journalist where few black colleagues existed---within a whole state (at its peak, there were three of us)---I developed 5 essential mindset habits to protect my well-being and help me flourish within my purpose. Now, I combine my storytelling skills with coaching and counseling expertise, plus 20 years of ministry experience, to help black folx tell the truth to themselves about their own stories. I'm pretty good at helping black folx who are drained and exhausted to recover and flow in their God-given authenticity, purpose, and power.”  In January 2020, Yvonne announced the 2020 Radical Love Challenge. Registration is still open. Yvonne is a native of Omaha, Nebraska and currently lives in the Rogers Park Community in Chicago, Illinois. She enjoys

nature walks, jig-saw puzzles, and any beach anywhere.