With mental health awareness more important than ever, here are the best mental wellness apps that take minority groups into consideration.

Reju

Reju is another meditation and self-care app, launched to respond to the rapid growth in mental health challenges in African American communities. Reju offers a wealth of motivational content to reduce stress, improve mental health, and lead users towards better living. Best of all is the welcoming Reju community for free, where you can connect with peers and get support with issues they’re also facing.

Spoke

Spoke is a meditation (冥想) app designed to deliver mental health support for music lovers. Created by a group of musical artists working with scientific advisers in London, it cleverly combines mental health tools like mindfulness, CBT, and positive psychology with binaural and hip-hop beats, nature sounds, ambient music, and guided lyricism.

Liberate.cx

Liberate.cx is a daily meditation app specifically for the BIPOC community (黑人社区), with mindfulness resources that address topics such as race, microaggressions, anxiety, and self-worth. It draws on expert teachers from diverse cultures to offer wisdom everyone can benefit from.

Headspace

Renowned mental health app, which is only for women. Headspace has launched the Headspace Women’s Collection to provide welcome meditation resources for women. These cover a wide range of issues, including sex and relationships, self-worth, and solidarity. A series of body-supportive sessions are aimed at helping women healing after a miscarriage or struggling with fertility.

Once upon a time a little leaf was heard to sigh and cry, as leaves often do when a gentle wind is about.

And the twig (细枝) said, “What is the matter, little leaf?”

And the leaf said, “The wind just told me that one day it would pull me off and throw me down to lie on the ground!”

The twig told it to the branch on which it grew, and the branch told it to the tree. And when the tree heard it, it rustled all over, and sent back word to the leaf, “Do not be afraid; hold on tightly, and you shall not go till you want to.”

And so the leaf stopped sighing, but went on nestling and singing. Every time the tree shook itself and stirred up all its leaves, the branches shook themselves, and the little twig shook itself, and the little leaf danced up and down merrily, as if nothing could ever pull it off.

And so it grew all summer long until October.

And when the bright days of autumn came, the little leaf saw all the leaves around becoming very beautiful. Some were yellow, and some scarlet, and some mixed with both colors.

Then it asked the tree what it meant. And the tree said, “All these leaves are getting ready to fly away, and they have put on these beautiful colors because of joy.”

Then the little leaf began to want to go, and grew very beautiful in thinking of it, and when it was very bright, it saw that the branches of the tree had no color in them, and so the leaf said, “Oh branches, why are you lead color and we golden?”

“We must keep on our work clothes, for our life is not done; but your clothes are for holiday...”

Just then a little puff of wind came, and the leaf let go without thinking of it, and the wind took it up, and turned it over and over, and whirled it like a spark of fire in the air, and then it fell gently down under the fence among hundreds of other leaves, and began to dream — a dream so beautiful that perhaps it will last forever.

Professionals use the word “amateur” as a disapproving term for those who lack formal training and qualifications. I think such prejudice is a mistake. One day that amateur might just create a new industry.

Typical amateurs are free to invent as they please, try new ideas, fail, and get up and do it all again—but better. As Marshall McLuhan, the media theorist, said: “Amateurs can afford to lose.” They are self-improvers, chasing a dream rather than a laborious, life-long career within a group. Amateurs can do it part-time, for charity or for fun.

Thanks to the Internet, we can all be competent amateurs at almost everything. Now everyone can DIY and experiment—from blogging to film-making to online advice shops. The mysteries, terms and exclusiveness of the self-satisfied old crafts are revealed online for all to see. Besides, the world is vastly more complex now, but that means even the most respected professional needs expert help. The end of the age of authority means we no longer hold elites (精英) such as judges and bankers in such awe. For centuries the club-like professional bodies have taken society in their control, a form of freemasonry (互助协会) for the well-educated and connected.

Charles Leadbeater has written persuasively about the importance of serious amateurs, or “professional amateurs”, who have helped introduce innovations to the mainstream. These passionate amateurs cooperate to give disruptive ideas (颠覆性的观点) possibility. Their constructive ideas contribute to the improvement of mountain bikes. Social enterprises are dominated by enthusiastic amateurs whose priority is to improve the world rather than bill clients. Among the greatest cooperative achievements of the Internet Age have been Wikipedia and Linux. It is surprising there haven’t been more crowded-sourced successes. Perhaps business projects have been too chaotic and lacked the leadership necessary for any complicated project to come to fruition.

Nevertheless, I show my admirations for the armies of gifted amateurs. I don’t deny the importance of education, but I place greater emphasis on results and originality, which are the highlights of amateurism.