Mi Gente: Cheryl Aguilar, raises awareness of mental health for journalists
The singing of a metal bell blares across the room as a sustained tone flows. Journalists lying on their backs on rubber mats take deep inhales and pause. A long, slow exhale follows, and another ring sounds.
A soft voice, just above a whisper, guides them as they breathe deeply, instructing them to focus on the present moment.
Cheryl Aguilar guides journalists through a meditation in the early morning before starting another day of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ annual conference. As someone who worked in the industry for about 10 years, she understands the stress that the vicious news cycle builds up.
In leading the guided meditation and sound bath, she creates a space to give people the opportunity to pause and decompress.
Aguilar’s wants to raise awareness of conversations surrounding mental health by making spaces like these accessible. She said that despite the improved climate surrounding this topic, more work is needed.
“Journalists go out there, and they hold people’s most important moments, moments of despair, moments of hope,” she said. “Something that journalists can experience is called secondary or vicarious trauma. And there’s more recognition now that journalists need a different space to be able to process what they have experienced.”
She began her career as a public relations and advocacy consultant in Maryland, sharing the mental health stories of young individuals with elected officials.
However, one story stuck with her and inspired a career change.
“There was one particular youth who told me that he no longer wanted to live,” Aguilar said, remembering the sadness on his face. In that moment, she said she wasn’t equipped with the skills to help him, so she took him to a counselor.
She said she cared about working with her community because it kept calling to her. At the time, she felt she didn’t have the knowledge to help.
Aguilar went back to school to pursue a master’s degree in social work to provide therapy.
“Especially in the world that we’re in today, where we’re being pulled in so many different directions, I think mindfulness meditation is a way to come back to the present moment, and to be more aware of who we are,” she said. “Within the community, we have to change, we have to break the stigma.”
She said that in communities of color, mental health and its resources are often stigmatized, and those messages can be internalized. Aguilar suggests that meditation is one strategy of self-regulation that anyone can practice, whether it’s an hour-long sound bath or just a few minutes of downtime.
Lizbeth Solorzano is a recent graduate from the University of Southern California’s master’s program and works as an investigative intern for L.A. TACO. As a bilingual multimedia journalist, her interests include arts, culture and community news. You can reach her via Instagram @llizbeth.so.
