Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes occupies an unusual position among teachers of mindfulness. She is a clinical psychologist, a theologian, and an ecumenical minister, and she holds a professorship in practical theology and pastoral care at Columbia Theological Seminary. Her work centers on a demanding question: how do people heal from the legacies of racial and gender oppression, and what does it take to sustain themselves while doing that work for others?
Her answer draws on several disciplines at once. It does not come from a single meditation school. The result is a body of writing and teaching that treats racism and sexism as forces that damage mental health and spiritual well-being together, and that offers mindfulness and self-care as practical means of survival.
The public record says little about her childhood or hometown, and this profile will not guess at them. What is documented begins with her education. She earned degrees from Emory University, then completed a master's and a doctorate in clinical child and family psychology at the University of Miami. She started her career as a clinical research psychologist, a path grounded in empirical study and clinical practice.
That scientific formation matters to everything that followed. When she later writes about the effects of oppression on the mind and body, she does so as someone trained to look closely at how distress actually takes shape in people and families.
The decisive moment in her biography is a vocational one. Called to ministry, she left a tenure-track faculty position, a post many academics spend years pursuing, to attend seminary. She earned her Master of Divinity at Duke.
The bio does not describe the circumstances of that decision, and it would be a mistake to embroider them. What the record does show is the shape of the choice: she set aside a secure academic path in order to follow a calling. The combination of clinical psychology and theological education is what makes her voice distinctive. She can speak to how racism and oppression affect mental health and spiritual life without treating either as an afterthought to the other.
Her own faith has been shaped by Methodist, Baptist, and evangelical social justice communities, as well as by Buddhism and Islam. She does not name a formal meditation lineage or a teacher-to-student transmission, and her work should not be read as belonging to one. It is better understood as a social-justice-minded Christian theology that draws on contemplative practices from more than one tradition.
Walker-Barnes is known for bringing psychological insight and theological reflection into one conversation, which is the work of practical theology. Within that frame, mindfulness is less a retreat-based devotional path than a self-care and survival practice for people carrying racial and gender trauma.
Three themes recur in her teaching. The first is healing the legacies of racial and gender oppression. The second is self-care as a practical discipline, something necessary for people doing justice work under strain. The third is pastoral care, reflected in her ongoing ministry to clergy and faith-based activists, with particular care for women of color engaged in Christian social justice work. Across all three, she connects individual practice to systemic harm rather than treating stress as a purely private problem.
She is the author of three books: Sacred Self-Care, I Bring the Voices of My People, and Too Heavy a Yoke.
Sacred Self-Care is the title most closely aligned with her central subject, mindfulness and self-care for people living under racial and gender oppression, and it is the natural starting point for newcomers. I Bring the Voices of My People, as its title suggests, turns toward testimony and communal voice, and suits readers who already grasp her basic frame. Too Heavy a Yoke is also a book-length work, best approached after the first. Publication years and publisher details are not part of the record available here, so readers should check those against the books themselves.
Beyond the books, she hosts a show on Spotify, categorized under mindfulness, and maintains a presence on Insight Timer. The Spotify audience is modest, with 329 followers, which suggests that her primary reach lies in her writing, teaching, and ministry rather than in streaming.
Today she teaches at Columbia Theological Seminary, and much of her professional energy goes to writing and to ministering to clergy and faith-based activists. She teaches mindfulness and self-care strategies to religious leaders, faith-based activists, seminary students, and therapists.
On Insight Timer she describes herself as a two-time breast cancer survivor who credits mindfulness with helping her live with chronic illness and cultural trauma while maintaining a demanding career and her activism. That personal account gives her teaching its particular weight. It frames practice as something sustained under pressure, not as an escape from it.
The record does not list upcoming events, retreat dates, or live appearances. Her website, drchanequa.com, is the primary channel for her own announcements.
Walker-Barnes reaches people who carry the work of care professionally: pastors, activists, seminarians, and therapists. Many of them give continuously to others, often within institutions that were not built with their well-being in mind. Her attention to women of color in Christian social justice work names a group whose labor is frequently essential and frequently under-supported.
Her work matters because it refuses a common separation. Mental health is often discussed apart from faith, and both are often discussed apart from structures of racial and gender injustice. She holds them together, and she does so with the credibility of someone trained in clinical research, formed in pastoral practice, and willing to speak about her own experience of illness.
It is fair to say what her work is not. It is not a library of guided sessions or a technique-first program, and readers seeking quick relaxation may find it slow, reflective, and text-heavy. Those who expect a strictly secular or Buddhist framework will find Christian theology and pastoral care at its center. Her books assume some comfort with the vocabulary of practical theology and with direct discussion of race and gender.
For readers who want analysis and practice held together, that is the point. Her contribution is a serious account of what it means to heal, and to keep going, when the weight being carried is both personal and historical.