Liberate Meditation: The New Meditation App for People of Color
Meditation is a way of taking control of the mind so that it becomes peaceful and realigns yourself back to center. It is clear that our community experiences a disproportionate rate of stress-related events whether its through personal struggles, frequent social injustices and/or racism, and even health conditions just to name a few. Most often in our community, we were taught to be strong when undergoing high-stress situations and to keep moving forward whether it means to stay busy or just pray about it. Of course prayer is needed and is the source of everything that you do if you have religious beliefs however there are other practices and resources that can help sooth the trauma that we face on a daily basis.
The lack of meditation programs at hospitals and medical centers have proved to be an extreme issue within the medical industry. Although meditation practices proves to be beneficial for people dealing with high-stress and anxiety, it’s often difficult to find a platform that is easily accessible and meets specific needs. However, this is slowly changing through innovators like Julio Rivera who founded and created the Liberate Meditation App for people of color.
Prior to the creation of the Liberate Meditation App, Julio Rivera often found it difficult to find meditation spaces around New York during a period were he was experiencing high anxiety and stress. He noticed that the meditation spaces that he did find were predominantly white and lacked a connection to his experiences. Julio Rivera then decided to combine his software engineering background to create the Liberate Meditation App. In May 2019, he launched the Liberate Meditation App to provide meditation practices as well as empowerment and support for people of color.
This easily accessible app is made to focus on providing content specific to the black community such as; depression, microaggressions, internalized racism, interconnectedness, and other focus areas that are often relatable to each and every person of color. The Liberate Meditation App is composed of over 40 meditation teachers with sessions that range from 5 to 20 minutes. Rivera’s focus for this app is to create safer healing spaces for the black community as well as build deeper relationships with each other.
The Liberate Meditation App is the first of many platforms that will provide an everlasting impact on our community. If you are interested, please check out the the app from your app store as it is available on iOS and Android.
