In this memoir of upward mobility through the unexpected route of yoga, a young African American woman signs up for lessons in yoga and clean eating as a sign that she has now entered the middle class. The Healing is Saeeda Hafiz’s personal, painfully honest account of facing the inner demons fed by the domestic violence, addiction, and poverty she witnessed as a child.

Graduating, getting established in your career, and dating are things many middle-class women expect to do and take for granted. Yet when your parents don’t support you and you have siblings in prison, those milestones seem monumental. What does growing up poor do to your self-esteem? How do patterns of stress and family violence, poor diet and poor health continue to affect you even after you escape to a higher income bracket? And what can one woman do to turn around the cycle of intergenerational suffering? Hafiz gives a frank account of the anxiety and rewards of becoming middle class through a complete change of diet, both physical and mental, and adopting habits such as eating wholesome food and doing yoga. While her peers pursue one kind of African American dream by climbing the corporate ladder, Hafiz finds meaning in learning to cook macrobiotic food and practice meditation. By doing so, she recovers from chronic health conditions and heals from the family trauma she has inherited.