Serotonin:

the happy chemical you create that contributes to well being and happiness.

Retreat:

an act of moving back or withdrawing /

(of an army) withdraw from enemy forces as a result of their superior power or after a defeat.

What if the enemy lives within you? What if the enemy is the world? What do you do? Retreat.

On June 17, 2019, The SarahtoninHigh Self- Love and Healing Retreat: Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Awareness was birthed in Chicago, IL. This wellness event was inspired by Sarah Connor’s recent lost. Her mother, Theresa Chaney, committed suicide September 2018 followed by her grandmother’s passing a few months later. To honor her mother, she created a safe and intentional space for other’s to feel and heal their emotional ailments with hopes to deter others from making similar choices or suffer from similar repercussions.

Read MORE ABOUt the inspo here.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States. It is the second cause of death for people between the ages of 24-35 and the fourth leading cause of death for people between the ages of 35-54.

Although the attendees clearly haven’t committed suicide, some of us have thought about it while other’s have not. Nonetheless, we made space for our daily deaths: the one’s that make us forget who we are looking at in the mirror sometimes. For Sarah’s mother it was heartbreak, rape, a lack of self- love and acceptance, not having a father but a mentally ill mother, losing her son to gun violence, her brother and lifelong partner, and finally a mental illness to top it off. It was the death of a strong black woman who never felt safe in the world and eventually her body.

In Sarah’s humble opinion, suicide is not the issue at hand. Instead, it’s a result and a cumulation of unhealed and unprocessed issues. Eventually, the pain simply becomes too much to bear and some of us only see death as a means of escape. A problem for many people is feeling burdened and overwhelmed with a number of life issues including emotional turbulence, but not equipt with the proper skills, tools, or resources to handle them in a healthy manner.

In order to combat the plague of suicide and severe mental health illnesses, as black and brown bodies we chose to mourn our own pain, trials, and tribulations as people who are hurting.

Instead of using common vices such as drugs, alcohol, sex, or other common distractions to avoid pain within us, we fought our demons by allowing ourselves to be sad, angry, and disappointed. We drowned in our sorrows in order to be baptized be them and be reborn as the self- love babies we were destined to be! We can’t heal what we don’t feel.

We began our day with icebreakers: Who do you need to forgive? How did you get through your first heartbreak? What do you need to let go of? Our thoughts and emotions were flowing.

Sarah, the hostess and keynote speaker, shared her intimate details of growing up with a mother struggling with a mental illness and many suicide attempts. Sarah’s experiences truly catapulted her to become the self- love queen, model, inspirational speaker, and writer we know her to be. She gracefully shared how she used self-love, self-care, and self-healing as preventable tools to help her not suffer from the same issues as her mother.

Jessica Hudson, a mental health counselor, led a workshop about suicide prevention and mental health awareness. By informing the participants of a number of mental illnesses, suicide symptoms, and prevention tips, everyone grew a sense of compassion and gained knowledge about such issues that plague many people in our communities and families.

Sarah, the hostess, also led a group reiki and meditation session. Reiki is an alternative medicine, aka energy healing, that is known to promote relaxation and stress reduction. During the meditation, Sarah guided the attendees through a self-love and forgiving meditation to release negative energy/ ill feelings. It was a great sight of communal grieving and healing.

Kookies Dance Den led an energetic and vibrant twerk class. Dance is a form of body therapy, and we definitely healed by moving around some stagnant energy as we celebrated our bodies. We connected with parts of ourselves we are often times taught to disconnect from. Special shout out to the guys who participated!

After we danced our hearts out, we mellowed down with a yoga class. Yoga, another form of body therapy, was held by our instructor, Maya Adams. According to somatic psychology, emotional and traumatic events affect our central and nervous system. Yoga allows us to release tension, anger, frustration, and other stored emotions in our bodies from past experiences. Maya softly guided us in a series of heart and hip opening yoga poses.

After working so diligently on ourselves, we were gifted with the most beautiful live performances. Kwynn of Kwyntology, blessed our ears and our hearts with her poetic and inspiring spoken word pieces. She stopped our hearts in some moments. Afterwords, professional recording artist, Raury enchanted the crowd with his soul healing lullabies. We all drifted away into heaven, and we deserved it after a day of hard work.

In conclusion, everyone left the event feeling a sense of relief and equipped with every day tools, skills, resources, and gift bags they can use practice daily to assist them in their self-love and healing journeys to connect with their own Serotonin. Sarah would like to thank everyone for coming! By working to heal themselves, it makes Sarah’s loss easier knowing that others may not suffer the same fate. As much as everyone helped themselves, it truly helped Sarah too.