Human Flourishing amidst Uneven Social Conditions: A Mixed-Methods Feasibility and Pilot Testing of Mindfulness-Based Eudaimonic Wellbeing Delivered In a Community-Based Setting with Disadvantaged Adults

Background and Purpose: As the intersectional complexities of the challenges we are facing in society today proliferate across social-ecological levels, radical change is tracking along the fault lines of power and oppression accelerating inequities across all aspects of human and more-than-human life. Collective imaginaries are needed to reworld endogenous participatory ontologies capable of disentangling from hierarchal introjections, liberating the unique beauty and genius within each of us to become manifest in a new social order.

Prolonged activation of the stress-response systems in our minds and bodies, however, are suppressing the imaginal capacities necessary for a salutary response, particularly among disadvantaged populations whose disproportionate exposure to acute and chronic stress events is producing stress-related health disparities costing upwards of $1 trillion annually. What then are we to do? Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are proven to support development of effective coping and appraisal skills, yet their focus has largely been calibrated to decrease negative functioning alongside gaps in the research literature implementing MBIs with disadvantaged populations.

This paper addresses the need for MBIs designed to promote human flourishing among disadvantaged populations as a strategy to ameliorate stress-related health disparities and empower self-determined community responses to structural social inequities.

Methods: A transdisciplinary developmental framework guided by the mindfulness to meaning theory and Taoist philosophies of dialectics was applied to create a new 8-week MBI: Mindfulness-Based Eudaimonic Wellbeing (MBEW). Salutogenic activities operationalizing elements of eudaimonic wellbeing (grounded in Aristotelian philosophies of eudaimonia), second-wave positive psychology, and the hero/ heroine archetype of comparative mythology, were integrated into mindfulness meditation practices to produce liminal cogno-affective-interoceptive ecologies animating endogenous paradigms of personal and collective selfhood as an approach to upend systemic barriers (e.g., social, psychological, material) to self-determined flourishing.

A mixed-methods feasibility and pilot testing of MBEW delivered in a community-based setting was conducted using a pre-test/post-test within groups study design. Twenty participants across three mindfulness groups completed semi-structured interviews. The sample is heterogenous across multiple sociodemographic markers: sex (55% female, 40% male), race (White 50%, Black/African American 35%, More than one race 10%, American Indian/ Alaska Native 5%), education (high school/ GED or less 20%, some college 25%, bachelor’s degree 25%, master’s degree 30%), and yearly personal income (<$9,999 35%, $10,000 - $19,999 30%, $20,000 - $34,999 15%, $35,000 - $49,999 5%). Participants in aggregate reported 21 health conditions in total with 85% (n=17) of participants reporting 2 or more.

Results: Data analysis demonstrates significant changes in stress (decrease, perceived stress scale), mindfulness (increase, 5 facets of mindfulness scale), and psychological wellbeing (increase, Ryff’s scales of psychological wellbeing). Additionally, to my knowledge, this is the first MBI study to demonstrate significant changes in the ‘total score’ of Ryff’s scales of psychological wellbeing (eudaimonic wellbeing). Inductive coding of qualitative data revealed themes regarding benefits, home practice, access to MBIs, and suggestions for improving MBEW.

Conclusions and Implications: MBEW was found to be feasible and effective. Greater access to MBIs are needed in disadvantaged communities that can support human flourishing and empower salutary community responses to structural social inequities.