Some days, our social media feeds are absolutely doing too much. They can be overrun with unprecedented events, enviable lifestyle content, memes, highly curated dumps, misinformation, celebrity goings-on, vacation carousels, evidence of our friends linking without us—it can be all-consuming. Then, somewhere in the middle of the noise, it hits you, just a few simple words arranged against an aesthetically pleasing backdrop, that make your thumb pause.
Maybe it’s a reminder to breathe or to unclench something you didn’t even realize you were clutching, or to forgive yourself, or that you, despite anything you might have done, deserve joy.
They’re emotional wellness posts, for lack of a better term, and some of the internet’s most beloved Black writers, poets, and creators have been making an art form out of composing them.
We’ve all seen their posts. They’re reshared to our Stories or served up on our For You pages, and they come from the likes of Alex Elle, Willie Greene, the man behind We The Urban, or Morgan Harper Nichols. They’ve been in their own lanes, some for well over a decade, reminding us without overtasking us with self-care rituals and therapy speak to simply be human and love what makes us human. Some have taken their work beyond our feeds into books, podcasts, apps, and full lifestyle communities. Since so many of them have held so many of us through moments they may never truly understand, consider this our way of giving them their much-needed flowers for providing our feeds with the beauty of loving and living life as a human who feels, even when it’s unbelievably hard. Below, we gather a handful worth following.
Alex Elle
Practically synonymous with this style of post, the poet and writer Alex Elle has been gracing our feeds with her concisely worded, highly reassuring posts for at least a decade. The writer, who has also been open over the years about her journey of emotional healing and well-being, is clearly onto something, as she’s on her sixth book, “The Company We Keep.”
We The Urban
Launched by Willie Green, We The Urban has been filling our feeds with the kind of wisdom and one-liners composed against solid backdrops that an aunt or uncle who loves you would say. Things like “You deserve someone who sees you as a blessing rather than a burden,” and it’s been so effective, not only do they constantly end up reshared across our timelines but also landed him a book, “Not Sure Who Needs To Hear This,” you can flip through anytime you need that push.
Morgan Harper Nichols
Through her gorgeous, vivid watercolor art, artist and poet Morgan Harper Nichols has been helping us tell our stories and find the beauty in them through her platform, The Storyteller Co. What began as just the artist creating art and poetry inspired by the stories people shared with her has grown into books, prints, and an app filled with her signature artwork, daily encouragement and prompts to help us create and reflect for ourselves.
Lalah Delia
Sharing stylishly arranged messages about protecting your energy, setting boundaries, knowing your worth and what she calls “vibrating higher,” wellness educator and author Lalah Delia has been bringing a more spiritual approach to the feed. She has expanded that philosophy through her bestselling book “Vibrate Higher Daily: Live Your Power” and Vibrate Higher Daily, her larger wellness platform that offers classes and other resources to put those messages into practice.
Every N—a Deserves
Every N—a Deserves or E.N.D., makes it very clear from the name alone that its affirmations are speaking directly to us. Through posts about us deserving rest, healing, and vulnerability; making it home; growing old; and recognizing the toll stress can take on the body, the page creates space for us to consider parts of our emotional lives that may not always be encouraged to tend to. The platform has since grown beyond its signature posts into a hub for Black thought and conversation, launching a substack that gives us even more to sit with.
R.H. Sin
Poet R.H. Sin specializes in the relationship side of emotional wellness, writing short poems and posts about heartbreak, love, self-worth, disappointment, and knowing when it may be time to let someone go. The author has turned that same concise, highly relatable style into a prolific literary career that includes the bestselling “Whiskey Words & a Shovel” series and more than 20 books of poetry.
Cleo Wade
Probably one of the best things about the internet is the poets. The poet and activist Cleo Wade who has certainly made a career out of taking some of life’s biggest feelings and whittling them down into the kind of warm, handwritten notes that feel like they came from a very wise friend, has been blessing our feeds with her words about love, hope, fear, change and simply getting through in addition to the several bestselling books, including “Heart Talk,” “Remember Love,” and her latest, “In a World of Sunrises.”
Black Liturgies
Perhaps the most fitting place to end is with “Black Liturgies,” writer and poet Cole Arthur Riley’s stunning archive of the words many Black luminaries have left behind, launched in 2020. Alongside Riley’s own prayers and reflections are bits of wisdom from Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, Octavia Butler, Assata Shakur, and so many others, gathering generations of Black writers, thinkers, and radicals into one place to remind us that whatever we may be feeling or going through, somebody before us has probably been here too. There is something incredibly special about having that much Black wisdom gathered in one place in an archive we can return to again and again whenever we need reminding that we have never had to figure out this whole being human thing entirely on our own.