Most wellness models were built without us in the room.
So we built one in the room. Between 2021 and 2022, a team at Rutgers' Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies sat with young Black adults, ages 18 to 39, who knew mental health and substance use systems from the inside.
They didn't just give feedback. They shaped it. Through structured rounds of review, every one of the nine domains earned at least 70% agreement as fitting, appropriate and accessible.
I served as a key informant on the model and a co-author of the paper in Psychiatric Services. Now I'm helping turn it into something you can hold in your hands.
Well-being is not one thing.
It is nine conversations.
Start with the one that made you pause.
Community + Connection
Creativity
Culture
Who holds you? And who do you hold?
Where do you make something that is yours?
What roots you? What are you carrying forward?
Health
Money
Purpose
What is your body asking you to tend to?
Does your money give you room to breathe?
What gets you up when no one is watching?
Self-Empowerment
Sexuality
Spirituality
Where are you choosing for yourself?
Can you be honest and whole about who and how you love?
What connects you to something larger than you?
We don't pretend the system isn't there. We just don't let it have the last word.
The model names what most wellness tools leave out. Racism, whether historical, structural, interpersonal or internalized, shapes how well we get to be.
It also insists on something just as true. You already carry strengths. This is a way to find them and build on them.
A model is a map.
A workbook is the walk.
COMING SOON
Black Brilliance: Navigating Well-Being with Purpose will turn the model into practice. I co-developed it with Dr. Crystal L. Brandow and the original key informants. It isn't out yet, but it's on the way.
Define it. What well-being means to you, in your words.
Take inventory. An honest look across all nine domains.
Make a plan. Small, real steps toward a fuller life.
Want to know when it's ready? Write to hello@hakimasadi.com.
Bring the model to your people.
Workshops and trainings built on the nine domains, for campuses, clinics, peer programs and community groups. Write to hello@hakimasadi.com.
The research.
Brandow, C., Asadi, H., Myrick, K., Brice, G., Pitts, S., Canuteson, M., Wilson, I., Swarbrick, M., & Warrick, J. (2022). The well-being model for young Black adults. Psychiatric Services, 73(3), 353-356.
Brandow, C. L., Asadi, H., Gamble, A., Brice, G. H., Pitts, S., Wilson, I., Myrick, K., Warrick, J., & Swarbrick, M. (2024). Black brilliance: Navigating well-being with purpose. Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies, Rutgers University. Forthcoming.
Led by Dr. Crystal L. Brandow with Dr. Margaret Swarbrick through the Rutgers CAS WinR Program. Model design by Jade Warrick.