Rose Eskafi, Mindfulness, Meditation, and Decolonizing the Wellness Space

Rose Eskafi, founder of Still Chill, talks to DECO about mindfulness and meditation practices and what it means to strengthen our awareness by facilitating and creating a safe space for deep self-inquiry. Through the decolonisation of the mental health and wellbeing space, Rose has a particular interest in working with BIPOC and children of immigrants.

Rose works to help us understand our thoughts, patterns, and behaviours, while softening around the judgement that often accompanies such inquiry to invite more conscious, loving kindness into our lives for a more harmonious mind, body & spirit connection.

DECO interviews | Rose Eskafi

Jasmine: Hey Rose! Thank you so much for being here, so excited to have you. Now, I would love to start out by exploring mindfulness. To talk a bit about what it is, what it isn’t, and maybe you could introduce yourself, what you do, and how that pertains to mindfulness practices.

Rose: Great! Yeah, I did an undergrad in psychology and my dissertation I did on EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique, so I was already starting to look outside of traditional psychology because I felt that there was something missing. So I took a year out.

One of the issues that I was having during my undergraduate was that people were constantly coming to me like hey, I'm struggling with this, I'm struggling with that. What would you advise? And I was like, I can't advise, I don't know yet, I'm still learning about that. So I took that year out to look at some self help material to try and figure out how I could actually help another person, and I just happened to stumble across a mindfulness book. And that was the first time I felt like, oh my god, this is it, this is the missing piece of the puzzle.

I started to practice MBSR which is an 8-week stress reduction course, went to other courses and retreats, and then a master's degree became available, literally 40 minutes away from my house. It was perfect. So I studied it. There was just so much contradiction to what I was actually learning in my master’s, but it was really interesting to see how both of those things integrate.

So more about mindfulness, essentially, mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment. So being in the now on purpose, and making the choice to be here doing that, without any judgment. So without being like, “this is terrible”, or “this is great”, right? It's a natural way of being. To give you an example, when you draw your curtains, first thing in the morning, and it's a beautiful day, that moment where you go “ahh”, or when you're walking into another room and you forgot why you walked into that room, but there's a part of you that thinks, wait, why did I come in here? In that moment where you're present, that's mindfulness.

Again, it’s a natural state of being. So it's something that we naturally do already, but in the age of information, advertising, consumption, and distraction, our attention has been pulled all over the place, and our brain does something where it goes into autopilot. It goes on autopilot to preserve energy, essentially.

So it kind of relies on things that you do over and over again, and that affects you not only in terms of behaviour, but also in terms of thought, what mindfulness does however, is it allows you to understand what those behaviours and thoughts are. Now, the problem is that mindfulness is being sold to us as a tool in this day and age. So it's like, hey, learn how to do this and it's gonna make you do things faster, you’ll be more productive, more focused, blah, blah, blah. And that's not really what mindfulness is. In reality it’s the purest form of being.

Jasmine: What you just highlighted there is so crucial, being that, mindfulness is the purest form of being but that’s not the version of mindfulness we are being sold is it? On your podcast you talk about the difference between mindfulness and meditation, which I think is an important distinction to make.

Could you explain the difference between the two and possibly some insight as to why you believe they are being lumped together? I feel like, once something becomes a buzzword it can get thrown around, often used in the wrong context. I’d love for you to kind of… set the record straight. (Laughs)

Rose: Yeah, absolutely, so the difference between mindfulness and meditation, it's important to note that they do go hand in hand, but they are essentially different things. So mindfulness is, like I said, being in the present moment, and you can be in the present moment whenever, so right now, I could tell you to focus your awareness on where your bum touches your seat and how your feet touch the floor, or to focus your awareness on my voice, or on the fabric of your clothes against your skin, you can do that right now. So sensing or tapping into the present moment, you can do that whilst you are showering, you can do that while you're cooking, walking or while doing any activity.

Then there’s meditation, I like to call it the intensive training of mindfulness. So you sit in practice, with your eyes closed for 10,15, 20 minutes and there are different forms of meditation, one of those even being mindfulness meditation. So mindfulness meditation is focusing on your sensations, your body parts, and everything that's happening for you right now. But you can also do things like transcendental meditation. But mindfulness essentially, is the practice of being present. And meditation is the formal practice.

So we need to define within the practice or the intensive training, of meditation, that the goal of meditation is not to empty the mind. That goes for both mindfulness and meditation practices. I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions, and why I think people get so frustrated so quickly, because it's like, oh my god, my mind is thinking things. I'm not doing this right. But it's really impossible to silence the mind. And that's not the goal anyway, we don't want to be these empty people walking around with no thoughts. Why would that even be useful?

Jasmine: It wouldn’t be, even just in regards to our fight or flight response. It wouldn’t be valuable or even safe to be thinking nothing at all, just walking around, empty. And like you said, there are so many different types of meditation. Just within the framework of my yoga teacher training I learned maybe 12 different types of meditation practices and I know that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Do you have any advice you can share about how you can learn to direct your thoughts or quiet the overactive mind? Especially due to the amount of distractions that we face in the technology age.

Rose: I think people approach a meditation practice thinking, if I can't sit here for five minutes and think nothing I'm not doing it right. And actually research shows that people tend to have a more adverse reaction to meditation if they're doing it by themselves, especially if they're doing it through an app. So my recommendation will always be to try and do it with a practitioner, because they can guide you through it properly. And if you have questions, which you're bound to have, you can direct them to someone, because you're right.

What most people say to me is that they get frustrated that they can't focus or that they can't quiet their mind, or that they get impatient, that they're scared that memories are going to come up that they don't want coming up. Working with a teacher would definitely account for those things.

So again, it’s all about the way in which we're learning things or how they have been popularised. We think, oh, as long as I have a mindfulness app I'm going to be absolutely fine. And that's just not the reality.

Jasmine: On this topic in particular, speaking of mindfulness or meditation apps, what do you think about them?

Rose: So I'm actually working with a brand right now on an app. And I've just made a framework of safety for them. And one of the things that kept coming up in the research is that these apps tend to provide a lot of false information.

You know, there are hundreds of wellness apps and using the right information is a massive thing. People are being told the wrong thing, people are not being followed up with, and I think about the people who don't have expertise in the wellness space, and they launch these kinds of apps but they don't really know what they're getting themselves into. I think most people that create these apps have the impression that users struggle with a bit of depression, a bit of sadness, a bit of anxiety, but in reality, they’d be shocked to know that, the people using these apps have complex needs and are looking for help that they're not getting from their health care.

So in terms of apps, I think meditation apps can be used as training wheels, that's what I always say. So get the bike, now riding the bike is your practice, but those apps can be your training wheels. However, it will always be better to meditate with a group or a teacher.

Jasmine: I think we're always looking for an easier way to do things. “Change your life from the comfort of your own home, it only takes 30 seconds”. We want it to be that easy, that convenient, but I think that by practicing with others, by creating community, by going to a yoga class, a meditation class or having a group to share your experiences with, to grow with, would be so much safer and more beneficial.

This is especially triggering when we see influencers on social media making videos of themselves getting up at 5am to meditate, feeding us this idea that, if we don’t get up to meditate at 5am (film it, add a filter, music, post it…. I digress) if we don’t do this, we are not living to our full potential. We feel guilty or shameful that we are not living in this alignment which is just not true.

I am missing the togetherness. This kind of practice is meant to be circulating between people, to be shared. There is such a massive drive online right now for self healing.

Rose: Yep! And it's bullshit. It's complete bullshit. When I was going through my teacher training, there was someone who I was helping overcome trauma. The trauma had been repressed and needed addressing, and we didn't really know how to deal with it. But through mindfulness they healed, they healed their panic attacks, they healed their intrusive thoughts. They didn't have the PTSD symptoms that they had before.

Now, for years, I was going around saying, “they self healed, they healed themselves”, but what I learned later was, the reason they were able to heal was because we were doing it together. There was a relationship, not a romantic relationship, but there was a safe space for them to be able to explore what was happening with them. In my personal experience and journey, there was so much that I've healed from over the years, and whenever I think back on it, I think, yeah well I had a really good teacher, I had really good family support. When I was in my darkest times, I had a group that I could talk to that I felt safe with, and I realised, I didn't do this myself, it was with the help of other people.

Jasmine: Selling this idea of self healing reminds me in ways of the Law of Attraction and how we want to give ourselves credit for the things that happen in our lives, and how manifestation is one of the biggest crazes let’s say, that I’ve ever seen hit the online space. And you talked about The Secret on your podcast, but how damaging is this idea? Is manifestation or is the Law of Attraction for everyone? How much of it is just privilege?

What do we say to the people who it doesn't work for? To the people with PTSD or anxiety, they are going to feel at fault for having such intrusive thoughts. Are manifestation and the Law of Attraction credible in your opinion?

Rose: It’s important to note that a lot of it is actually systemic. So with the Law of Attraction, I think there's this belief that if you consider yourself as oppressed, that's the mindset, that's the frequency that you're taking forward with you. And that's kind of your fault, you are going to stay stuck there, when actually, I don't know how true that is, and how much you can actually take blame for.

Then there are those of us with intrusive thoughts due to PTSD for example, thoughts that make no rational sense. I've had clients saying, sometimes, I'm standing on a train platform, and I'm envisioning throwing people onto the track. And that's not a conscious choice that I’m making, those images are just popping into my mind. And then they get really panicked about them, and they have panic attacks. If you really subscribe to the Law of Attraction, and you think that those thoughts are really going to come true, that's going to add so much more suffering to your life.

Now because mindfulness is rooted in Buddhism, that's where it comes from, there's the belief that there are four things that are guaranteed in life, those being; you're going to get sick, you're going to age, you're going to die, and that you are going to suffer, right? Those four things are guaranteed in life. And a lot of these wellness spaces, the Law of Attraction, mindfulness, meditation, are trying to sell you this idea that, hey, you'll never die, like you are immortal. (laughs) And it really puts so much pressure and stress onto people to try and manage their health.

Like, I'm sorry but how are you supposed to work 40 hours a week, stay hydrated, do your exercises, don't eat gluten, manage your gut, manage your mental health, look after your children, look after your pet, and so on. All so that you can be well. No, that's just pure stress, all of it, so it's the system that needs looking at. And what a lot of these spaces are doing is they're making you be okay with this broken system, and then they try to mould you into something that makes you more productive within it.

Jasmine: Capitalising on that reality.

Rose: Exactly!

Jasmine: So when we have the system telling us that we need to heal ourselves and we have to attract all of these good vibrations and energies otherwise we will never have the life that we want, how does this relate to toxic positivity?

Rose: So this is fake. For example, if you're someone who constantly finds themselves getting jealous of other people's success, sure, you can sit there and go “stop getting jealous”. You don't need to get jealous, you're amazing. You're amazing. You're amazing, but what would actually serve you is to find out why you get so jealous. What is that thing? Because once you know, once you have that awareness you can work on it and tend to yourself via self compassion and kindness and actually undo the issue as opposed to just covering it with a plaster which is just spiritual bypassing or the toxic positivity that you were talking about.

Jasmine: This makes me think about affirmations. Now I’m sure that there is a time and place for them and that maybe when done properly, they can be helpful. But I used to hear people saying this all the time, that you need to stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself nice things. I remember it being sold to me like this was going to be the solution to all of my problems and shortcomings.

So I tried it and wasn’t into it at all. I was saying nice things but I didn’t feel powerful, I didn’t feel unstoppable, or beautiful, it just felt ridiculous quite frankly.

For me, years ago, these positive affirmations felt like the toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing I am seeing now. This idea that you cannot have sad thoughts, that you cannot open up to others about that sadness because you are quickly met with the, “don’t kill my vibe” or “I don’t want to talk about negative things, just be happy” people, and then that sadness becomes a burden and it just boils and festers.

Rose: It's this very two dimensional way of being because we're here to experience life as humans and that comes with the whole spectrum of emotions. And that whole spectrum of experiences, if you're upset about something, there's probably a good reason why, right? And you're probably having a rational response to something that's happened in your life.

For example, grief, if someone has died in your family, of course, you're going to be upset and heartbroken. And you often hear people being like, “oh, they wouldn't have wanted this for you. They would want you to be laughing and smiling”, and I really found myself stuck in this mindset within the mindfulness space as well. What I found was, I was constantly trying to be this like, calm, centred, grounded person, when I've got ADHD, and I'm very chaotic in nature. And when I started to embrace that part of me, so much healing happened. And I was like, of course, sometimes I'm going to be calm, then sometimes I'm going to be a bit chaotic. I'm living in this world, and I'm fully trying to experience all of my emotions. You're doing yourself such a disservice when you're just trying to be one way all the time.

Jasmine: I see this in the wellness space a lot, and honestly, it’s so inappropriate, because, loving yourself and tending to YOUR personal and general well being is not something that you can hide behind when the world is on fire, you have to be able to call things like they are and it's not helpful for anyone to just hide behind this idea that it’s all just “one love”and that there is constant abundance in the world, because for many, dare I say most, this just isn’t the case.

Rose: We can quickly see people's internalised racism and internalised misogyny as well. And then you think, are these the same people thinking they can actually help vulnerable people?

Jasmine: Since we have arrived at the perfect opportunity to talk about this, how does internalised racism and racial trauma relate to new age spirituality?

Rose: So for white people to walk around in the world, they have very little safety concerns. And I don't mean just consciously, it's generally, whereas black and brown bodies, especially for black bodies, it's a constant threat to their safety. And that’s not just the threat of physical violence, but they have less leeway to make mistakes, micro-aggressions, and risk of exclusion. Like this, the nervous system is all the time or at least most of the time, on high alert. Now that is going to contribute to the way that you move through the world and what you are able to do and what you're not able to do.

For black and brown bodies, that's just not our reality, we are far more concerned with just making it work well in a world that is very geared towards oppressing us. This is a very blanket statement because I know that a lot of black and brown people don't subscribe to this feeling of oppression, but systematically that is what's happening, you know, whether you subscribe to it or not.

It’s heartbreaking to think that someone might feel that the result of their oppression is due to the fact that they haven’t manifested things properly, when in reality, manifestation as a practice actually comes from traditions passed down from black and brown generations and beliefs, we know about this stuff because we learned about it from our grandparents. So I think white people are really missing something there. I mean, why is it that it's mainly white people you see doing this and not black and brown bodies?

Jasmine: You spoke about the Law of Attraction and manifestation on your podcast, and before speaking about it, I did some research. When I looked it up on YouTube, the vast majority of the videos were made by white people with the exception of some famous black people like Steve Harvey and Oprah.

Many of the videos talk about making more money and attracting more material things into their lives with methods from the Law of Attraction. What needs to be looked at however is, how much of this person’s success or income is because of having an affluent family, better opportunities with few obstacles. Anyone can make a video these days, why are we so quick to believe? Who can we trust?

Rose: So I just got this book, it's called trauma sensitive mindfulness by David Treleaven. I was reading this book, and he talks a lot about how within the mindfulness space, real trauma isn't considered as much. That systemic trauma isn't talked about as much. So I'm reading it and reading it and he talks a lot about systemic oppression, and I'm just thinking, I don't know how I feel about a white author writing about this and selling copies of this book. But I open the first page and it says, this book proposes that trauma sensitive practices involve resourcing social justice movements, changing systemic conditions that create and perpetuate trauma. In this spirit, 60% of the author's proceeds from this book will be shared equally between three organisations. These organisations offer support for Black, Brown, and Native bodies. And I thought that was so brilliant, because that's what it should be like, redistributing that wealth. And I don't think a lot of white people understand that.

And that’s wealth hoarding, right. A lot of these practices like yoga, for example, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, all of these practices are being sold as courses or retreats for huge amounts of money. First of all, it is ridiculously expensive to train to teach and a lot of us can't afford that. I’ve always thought, wow, it's wild how much money it costs to learn how to help people. You know, and within our cultures as well, I think a lot of our parents came to these countries to make sure that we have a good, steady life. So many of us have the expectation of becoming a lawyer or a doctor, or whatever, right?

It's not really an option for us to want to become yoga teachers or meditation teachers. But if we did, it's very hard to get into these spaces to teach and to charge when you know what your white counterparts are charging. And this just perpetuates white supremacy, it just enables that, you're allowing it to continue. And it's appropriation because you're making a huge amount of money off of something that you have no ancestral connection to, that you only learned within a year or two years of your life, you know what I mean? So it's also about holding yourself accountable, to ask yourself, am I the person to teach this?

Jasmine: This topic has been coming up a lot lately. Speaking about how many people of colour are uncomfortable with money and how much they are charging for their skills and services, of course, this isn't the case for all, but about how triggering it is to see your white counterparts making huge amounts of money doing the same thing, knowing that, nobody questioned them for a moment.

Especially when existing in an online space, people give so much content away for free to build a following, and then when they ask people to sign up for a mailing list to promote a paid programme, people are like “Scam! You mean I have to pay for this now?!? Fuck you!” And my jaw is always on the floor because it’s like… um yeah. You DO have to pay for this. These are jobs we are talking about, this is a life’s work and your follow and half-assed support on instagram doesn’t pay rent.

Rose: And that's the other thing, everything is very transactional online now isn't it? But coming back to another point, something that really made me check myself was, about two years into my training I looked at my bookshelf and thought, I’ve only got one author of colour on there. But those were the people, the authors that were being taught through my course. And they are also the most famous people who talk about mindfulness and well- being, Buddhism and integrating both worlds. And I was like, wait, why are these the most famous people? How can that be?

So then I started reading more authors of colour and more black Buddhist authors. And when I tell you, it's a completely different and new experience, you wouldn't believe it. The intricacy, the detail that's involved in those books really spoke to my experience like no other book ever had. And I'm telling you, I was an avid reader at that time, I had tons of books and I thought, I can't believe that none of them had ever mentioned any of this stuff.

Also, I don't know if you know about the history of mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk, integrated it into the Western world, and one of his students was Jon Kabat-Zinn. Now, Jon Kabat-Zinn is probably the most famous mindfulness practitioner, because he started to scientifically study it. And they had a research centre in Massachusetts. And he asked, can all scientists start researching this? We need to know more about how this works. And essentially, in one of the books that I was reading, the foreword was by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and he said, “I was in my 70’s when I realised the impact of racial trauma on individuals”. And I'm like, brah, in your 70’s?? In your 70’s? You've been studying this, researching this, teaching this for how long? And you just know that would never happen for a black person or a brown person, because that is just part of our everyday life, you know?

My parents are Iranian, and they fled from a war and a revolution and they settled in Germany. That's where I was born. And I have very, very vivid memories of my mom coming home, she was a hairdresser with two kids under the age of three, literally. And I remember her coming home almost every day, hysterically crying saying, I can't do this, because people at her job refused to have their hair washed by her.

You know, when you see it from an outside perspective, I could see my mom coming home and crying. And I could see that she was obviously getting treated very differently from everyone else. But you don't actually know what that does to someone inside, how that alters the way they perceive the world and other people in it.

Jasmine: This reminds me of Kahlil Greene and a video he made explaining why black Americans are less likely to believe the word of the government, he argues, why would black people be eager to believe in a system that has fundamentally failed them for centuries?

We are talking about ideologies, systems, and organisations that are not only built upon white supremacy but that are fundamentally broken. A system that feeds on black and brown suffering, just to come back to your point about black and brown bodies not feeling safe.

Rose: Or you know, there's a massive aspect of dehumanisation, and that's where it comes in, the double standards. We know the reality of our circumstances, but in that same breath they are saying, “just think positively”, and it’s like, how am I supposed to do that when this is how I've been treated my whole life. How am I supposed to be an empowered, confident person, and let go of this idea that people are constantly judging me and thinking this way about me because that's been my experience my whole life.

Jasmine: And how do you feel in this space now? This is an entirely personal question. After these discoveries, growth, and acceptance you mentioned. From the outside looking in, I feel like since we met, Still Chill has shifted in a really beautiful direction with an evolved narrative, what do you think brought about that change?

Rose: Yes, it’s true. The start of that change came from reading other books and thinking like, what the heck, this is exactly what I want to say, but am too afraid to say it. I think I was just looking for the validation to be able to say things that I wanted to say, now of course these platforms are also enablers of the current system so they very quickly shadow ban you and they have in my experience over the last two or three years, anytime I post about anything like this, I get shadow banned. But I am trying to find a balance between giving people useful information, because I do still believe in some degree of self help, like I said, as training wheels, a little sprinkling on your cappuccino, like that's what that is.

So I'm still providing wellness content but also gearing it more towards social justice and raising awareness, but also to provide help for brown and black people. Because I'm really done with just sharing for the sake of sharing. I can't do that, I don't have the time to do that.

But again, this is all a learning process. So I'm trying to find a balance between providing wellness advice and tools for people to think about and reflect on, including talking more about social justice and then reconnecting to your culture, because that's been so ridiculously healing for me. And that was never mentioned within any of the healing spaces that I ever went to. And within that I found a community of people with similar ages to me, with similar interests, who also have immigrant parents, and grew up in the West. And there's so much cultural misunderstanding and confusion for us growing up, because we come from very conservative cultures, and we're living in a very liberal country now. So they all kind of feed into each other. But I would say those are my three main areas of focus at the moment.

Jasmine: I can imagine that your work is so much more rewarding when carried out in this way.

Rose: Oh, so much more! I started my page as a way to get my thoughts and reflections down so my business grew into that, luckily it was naturally, but the more I've settled into showing up as myself, as opposed to what I think people expect from me as a mindfulness teacher, the more healing I've felt happen, but also I've been able to provide more for other people. Like this, I've definitely found myself in the right place.

Jasmine: In the right place, coming back to what you said about posing the question, is this the right person to be teaching or talking about this?

Rose: Yeah, basically, I’m trying to be the person I've been looking for. You know, at the beginning of the year I was looking for a retreat that was inclusive, that I felt like, at least one of the teachers is of colour, and let me tell you, it took me two and a half months to find one. It took so long.

And not only was it hard to find, but the prices were so high, and I thought, people of colour, we wouldn't spend that kind of money on something like this, because that amount of money we would spend on something else, like family, we just think in a different way. But that’s how money should be, it moves and filters, it comes in and out, giving and receiving in continuance rather than just hoarding all that you have. And I think that's where this idea of abundance comes from.

Jasmine: To be the person you have always been looking for, I think that’s such a perfect way to transition to my last question. I think that we have spoken about some really important topics, but getting overwhelmed in the online sphere is a real problem with all of the information out there. Understanding who we need to be listening to, who we can trust.

I think it would be great if you could outline some of the qualities to look for in a mindfulness teacher and what to look out for as, let’s say, red flags to avoid on our quest to find the right teacher or mentor for us.

Rose: Great question! So I'd say first and foremost, look for someone who has a certification, right? That’s number one because anyone can call themselves a wellness practitioner nowadays. So look at their training, history, ask, what is their personal practice? Do they really embody their teachings, and I mean embody as in, does it come across that they really know what they're talking about, do they really live in line with that? Or are they just trying to sell you something because that is not what wellness, mindfulness, or meditation are about.

For example, one of the main components of mindfulness is non-striving, so you're not trying to get anywhere by doing it. And a lot of these courses, or these teachers are selling you the opposite. Mindfulness for more productivity. So I'd say, do your own reading and research to know exactly the thing that you're looking for in terms of learning, and then see if that teacher matches those values.

And for those who don’t fit your criteria, maybe use discernment to see whether their number one priority is being an influencer or whether they are a teacher first and an influencer second. Knowing where their priorities are.

The other thing that I think is really important, although I know not everyone does it, is ask, do they talk about the roots of the practice that they're teaching? That's really critical. Because when I found out about the Buddhist principles of mindfulness, that is when everything made sense and clicked into place for me. And it's what I constantly go back to. So the meditation and the mindfulness practice itself isn't enough. It's the knowledge around it as well.

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Jasmine Melrose

Director & Founder of DECO the Blog

Jasmine Melrose is a Toronto native living in Amsterdam. Once a professional dancer, her passions include movement, fitness, yoga, healing, and all things vegan. Jasmine is a 500-hour trained yoga teacher, who loves to get you deeper into your practice. She is also a certified barre teacher who loves making raw vegan, guilt-free and good-for-you treats. Check out her recipes and articles on everything from fitness to yoga, to notes on a journey towards healing.

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