Nourish with Nana Yaa

 CW: Mentions of Suicide, Violence, and Abuse 

Public Health scholar at American University and face of her own wellness brand, Grow with Nana Yaa (formerly known as Mending Wounds), Nana Yaa Boateng prioritizes being a voice for others and empowering Black women. She’s faced many personal challenges, but uses her tenacity and wisdom to support others in their own healing journey. As a part of our Nourish campaign, we sat down with Nana and talked about Mending Wounds, wellness, and reproductive justice. Read below to hear more from the up and coming wellness powerhouse herself.  

Sofia: Could you tell me about your journey with starting Mending Wounds? What was the inspiration behind it? 

Nana: It started with me once I published a journal, and that came from when I was looking at passive income streams on YouTube. So I learned about Amazon KDP, and I created that journal. And then I was like, okay, having a journal just isn't enough, I need a brand established with it too so that people want the book. Along with that, I've kind of always wanted to be known, like, even as a kid, for my words. I’ve always been super wise, I guess that’s one of my gifts from God, so I always wanted to be a speaker. But I never really saw that as a realistic goal for me, because I wasn’t sure how I could make money doing that. I remember just caring what people like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had to say. I also used to watch Aiyana all the time. She's so crazy. Oh my god, but I love her crazy. And I just wanted to be one of those people who could inspire so many with my words. It also allows me to have some monetary freedom. Money is only a part of it though. I know that having a brand allows me to just create my own audience where people can feel inspired and empowered by what I’m saying and creating. 

Sofia: How has Mending Wounds intersected or related to your studies and career interests in public health? 

Nana: Public health is really all about prevention. The type of prevention I'm really passionate about is trauma prevention or harm reduction. I want to go into family and community violence prevention. So with that, I believe the way trauma works a lot of times, is that it’s very generational. So for me, if we're talking about community violence prevention, we're talking about healing individuals and empowering individuals to take care of their own healing, so they don't spread that to their kids. Mending Wounds has been a way to do that and public health, because there's this emphasis on prevention, it also allows me to have that space. But my critique of public health as a field is that I don't really see trauma prevention really being discussed even though that impacts our health so much. For example, people have trauma with food because of the way they ate when they grew up. Nobody's talking about trauma, and nobody's talking about trauma and mental health. But we often talk about all these mental health problems and gun violence, nobody's specifically talking about trauma. And to me, that doesn’t make much sense, because trauma is the root of so much. It may not be the direct cause, like maybe it may not be the bacteria that's causing the illness, but it's the reason why somebody will seek care or won't get care and just all these different things. Mending Wounds allows me to kind of bring together my pattern with trauma while still having that public health background about prevention. 

Sofia: That makes sense, focusing on wellness is a form of prevention. 

Nana: Exactly. 

Sofia: This relates to my next question. As you know, our work with What We Water is focused on reproductive justice and wellness and how they relate. How do you see reproductive justice and wellness as relating, either in your own life, or just in general? 

Nana: I don’t think the two can exist without one another. But it's so unfortunate because in today's society, when most think about wellness, they don't think about reproductive health or vice versa. I have this book by Queen Afua, called Sacred Woman which has to do a lot with reproductive health, maternal health, and healing. And wellness is all about what you eat, what you say about yourself, all those things, and is specifically for Black people. So much of our right to give birth has been taken away from us, you know, our right to livelihood. Wellness really allows us to empower ourselves as individuals and as a community by giving us a space to finally focus on our health in a way that isn't based on an institution or system. Instead, it’s based on our own ability to build and foster communities. So for that, I think wellness is extremely important, especially when looking at Black reproductive health. 

Sofia: That’s definitely been part of our mission. We’ve noticed that in mainstream conversations, these two topics haven’t been connected as much as they should be. I feel like if you’re able to take your wellness into your own hands as a marginalized person, then you don’t have to rely as much on these racist and exclusionary institutions.  

Nana: Definitely. 

Sofia: How has running Mending Wounds helped you with your own wellness and healing journey? 

Nana: It’s helped me become more aligned in finding my purpose. Mending Wounds has become an outlet for me to heal. Just seeing the amount of people who relate to my message, telling me how my words have touched them, and that I made them feel seen, that's all I've ever wanted to do. Because what literally saved my life in high school was I had a teacher who saw me and I never experienced that before. She saw my pain, she saw everything. And that made me feel like oh, I actually matter in this world. A lot of people don't feel safe. They don't feel like nobody care. So if I can spread that, and I'm genuine, so when I say I care, I genuinely care. I'm not gonna bullshit, that's just not me. That;s enough for me to feel fulfilled. I'm healing on my own journey, but healing others makes me feel more healed too because it just confirms that yeah, I'm helping myself, but I'm also helping other people. 

Sofia: What is your vision for Mending Wounds in the future? 

Nana: I actually have a poetry book I’ve been working on. And I’ve always wanted to have a book that told my story. I would like to open up a little bit more about my story just because there's so many black girls who have been through what I've been through. And I am fortunate enough to be in a position that I'm even about to graduate college. That's such a blessing. And there's so many people who just don't get those blessings. You know, sometimes, I don't even understand why it's me, but I know it's me for a reason. So, like, I really am super excited to publish that. I think it's gonna touch a lot of young girls, and I'm sure men too, because men go through stuff too. Honestly, the book is for everybody. But most of my work, even though I don't explicitly say it, is for Black women. I'm a Black woman, so I speak to Black women and if you're not a Black woman and my words have touched you, that's great. But I speak to us because we go through so much, and it's so swept under the rug. 

Sofia: Right, and I also feel like there is so much wellness and self care content that’s for white women. That’s why what you do is so important and is also why Makenna and I focus our work on Black folks especially.  

Nana: Right, and it’s not to necessarily blame all non-Black folks, it’s just that there is so much pain and history for us, you know? But, as I was saying, I'm also working on being consistent with YouTube and getting more people talking. I want to talk about really deep stuff because I don't see that enough. I like to talk about pain. I like to talk about very hard stuff, because that's the real stuff. I would also love to coach people one on one. I don't have the time for that right now, but I would love to do healing sessions with people. And it's really all about the way my sessions work because I mentored clients last semester and it was great. My sessions are very much like I'm not higher than you, right? The power is already in you, I'm just helping you see it a bit more. To me, that's what really makes it different from  therapy or counseling, because I thought about becoming a therapist, but I;m not sure if that’s the industry for me. So much of my healing comes from my ancestral roots. So that's why I'm more into herbalism and holistic wellness. 

Sofia: That sounds amazing. I also want to ask you some questions related to our Nourish campaign. What does nourishment look like and mean to you? How does it relate to your healing journey and the kind of content you make for Mending Wounds? 

Nana: I really like how your Nourish campaign includes nourishing the soul. That’s been a huge part of my healing journey and a huge part of who I am now. I think nourishment has to do a lot with soul healing. It has to do a lot with inner work, with Shadow Work, and has to do a lot with the way you interact with the outside world. Nourishment, for me, means tying it back to community wellness and of doing what you can to just reach the highest version of yourself. So meditating, spending time with people who feed your soul, that's so important. Don't spend time with people just because you're bored. Right? I've gotten into that trap. Drinking water,making sure you're eating fruits, vegetables, making sure you're journaling, just looking at all the aspects of wellness, you know, to grow into the best version of yourself. 

Sofia: What has been your journey in terms of nurturing yourself? 

Nana: That’s a powerful question. I can't answer that without kind of going back a bit into my childhood. I had a very eventful childhood. I was raised by my grandmother in London, but I was born in America, and then I got deported. So when I came to America and lived with my parents, it was a really abusive household, between my mother and my dad. As a result of that, my mother felt a lot of anger, resentment towards me. I didn't grow up with love at all. I grew up with a lot of pain, and seen a lot of violence. So for me, nurturing myself became so personal to me, because I had to teach myself how to nurture myself which didn't happen until I grew out of that environment. That’s been very difficult because how can you know how to do something if you never really saw it?  I was fortunate enough to have had this person in high school who saw me for the first time. With my mother, I’ll send her I love you texts and not get it back. I don’t blame her, and I used to, but I just learned she's in pain. But it definitely still hurts because motherly love is so important. The point is, I had to learn how to nurture myself. That really came from spending time in nature.  

One of the most pivotal moments in my spiritual journey was when I was feeling very lonely and I went outside, and I just was like, for the first time, I didn’t feel alone. I felt the wind on me. I felt the trees. And I finally felt like I was a part of something, like I was a part of something bigger. I used to not really think my life was very important, I was very suicidal growing up. But from that one moment outside, I finally felt like I’m meant to be here. I have a purpose. These trees have been here for hundreds of years, and I'm here with them. That was the beginning of my nourishing journey. And from there, it became a lot of spending time outside, spending time alone, journaling, admitting my trauma, which is very painful. I’ve also been admitting my pain and have stopped belittling it. Because it's hard to admit  the magnitude of it. I try to eat right when I can and even when I can't, if all I can afford is a two for three, at least I'm eating. I still struggle with insecurities, but I I know that it’s a journey. I’m going to continue to nurture myself and teach myself what love is, and, and remind myself the type of love I deserve. 

Sofia: Thank you so much for sharing that. It has been so great speaking with you and hearing your journey.