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00:00How many of you have heard of the five stages of grief?
00:13Yeah.
00:15So by now we can probably recite them all, right?
00:19And then that's all fine and dandy until you actually start grieving and you realize that grief is not going in the same pattern that you thought.
00:30Grief is not going in the pattern that you read about, right?
00:34And so, so many times when there's a major loss, meaning it doesn't have to be just the death of a person that you loved.
00:44It could have been a loss of a job.
00:45It could have been a loss of a romantic relationship.
00:48It could be going through a divorce.
00:50It could be someone losing custody of their children.
00:53It could be grieving, you know, what you thought your future would look like or what you thought your present would look like and that's not how it looks.
01:03But grief doesn't go in any particular order.
01:06And so what happens when you start to grieve but then you feel overwhelmed or you don't get the support that's needed, you can kind of get stuck in it.
01:16Especially if you don't allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you're feeling at that moment.
01:23And grief can be pretty scary.
01:25How many of you have ever grieved anything before, right?
01:28It can feel pretty scary.
01:30It can be overwhelming, right?
01:32And so what typically happens is people get stuck because they're not quite sure, like, what is happening to me.
01:39And they can bottle those emotions in and never really move through it.
01:44The next one is rejection.
01:47That means rejection from, it could be from a person.
01:50It could be, you know, you applied for a job, didn't get the job.
01:55Whatever has, you know, occurred that may cause you to feel that you just were not good enough or you just did not measure up.
02:03So sometimes we get stuck in feelings of rejection.
02:06We take it personal.
02:08Then we have trauma or loss of identity.
02:11And again, trauma is not limited to serving in the military.
02:16Trauma is any time and you have an experience and you do not have the ability to cope with that experience in a healthy manner.
02:25And so it sticks with you and it starts to impact your daily life.
02:30I have a story.
02:31I have a friend who had a car accident.
02:34She was hit by someone who was driving while intoxicated.
02:37And one day we were talking and she shared with me that she was having some nightmares about the accident.
02:47She was also having some sporadic crying spells and some other symptoms.
02:53And after listening to her, I said, well, how long has this been going on?
02:57This was probably about a month out from the accident.
02:59And she said, well, it's really been going on for the last month.
03:03I'm just now kind of speaking out about it because I'm concerned I may need some help.
03:07And I said, well, it sounds like that experience was pretty traumatic for you, especially because you had a child in the car.
03:15And she said, well, no, I don't think it was that bad.
03:18I don't think it was traumatic because there were people who have gone through worse, right?
03:24And what I said to her was, well, the thing about trauma is that it's not traumatic.
03:31The definition of trauma is not based upon somebody else's experience with it.
03:36It's traumatic if it happened to you and the way that it affected you specifically.
03:42So don't compare your experience or how that experience affected you to someone else and say, oh, it wasn't that bad.
03:50I didn't die or anything or I didn't end up in the hospital in a coma.
03:54But still, you're having some residual effects, so it may have been traumatic for you, right?
04:00There's also regret.
04:02I see this a lot as well, like I said, in private practice.
04:05There's a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda thinking.
04:08That's my life would be further along if I had gone to college and gotten that degree, if I had gotten that job.
04:16You know, I should have taken this specific career path or what have you.
04:20So there's definitely a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda thinking, a lot of regret about if I had taken another path, my life would look differently or my life would be better, right?
04:31And then, of course, there's failure.
04:33So I have this funny story where as much as I talk about, you know, my career or how many states I'm licensed in or what have you or my experience, it wasn't an easy road, right?
04:48I had rejection and feelings of failure in that path.
04:53So when I was in undergrad, I decided I wanted to be a counselor, and so I was like, what would be the best way to be a therapist?
04:59And I was like, I need to be a psychologist, right?
05:02Like, I need to get a Ph.D. or a Psy.D. or what have you, so I'm going to have to apply to some program where I can become a psychologist, right?
05:12So I applied to five different programs.
05:14I researched the top five psychology programs for a master's degree.
05:19I sent off my applications with my essays and my letters of recommendation, and I was like, you know, I'm going to get into at least two, right?
05:28Because I got the GPA, you know, I worked, you girl worked hard, right?
05:34I was like, I'll get into at least two.
05:37And then they started replying back to me about my application.
05:42And the letters started to come in, and guess how many I got accepted to?
05:49Zero, not one.
05:52I was like, you mean to tell me nobody wants me?
05:55Nobody wants me at this school, really?
05:57So it was in that moment I remember saying, maybe counseling isn't for me.
06:03Maybe that's my sign from God or from the universe that, like, girl, maybe that was his tap on the shoulder, like, girl, just go do something else.
06:12Like, go to law school or just don't do anything.
06:18Just, you know, like, what are you doing with your life?
06:20But it was in that moment that I had to make a choice that either I knew that this was my career path or I didn't.
06:30And I had to be real.
06:31Am I going to allow this feeling of failure, these feelings of rejection to stop me?
06:36Or am I just going to find another way?
06:40And so I talked with a colleague who suggested, well, maybe you should get your master's in social work.
06:45Because if you want to do therapy, you can still get your master's in social work.
06:49You can still get licensed.
06:50You can still do all the things that you wanted to do.
06:52And so, long story short, that was exactly what I did.
06:57And that path was so easy.
06:59Like, God had a plan in all of that.
07:02But imagine if I had stopped.
07:04Imagine if I allowed, I mean, okay, it's bad enough that I felt rejected after I got rejected from one school.
07:12But come on, five, that was a bit much.
07:14They were doing the most, right?
07:16But I just found another way.
07:20And so that's the key to not getting stuck, is knowing that there is another way.
07:25That path may not be your path, but there is a path for you.
07:29Next slide.
07:32How does this relate to mental health?
07:34So what we know about mental health is that when a person starts to have symptoms of mental health, meaning depression, anxiety,
07:43you know, you start to be under a lot of stress, that may impact your self-esteem, right?
07:49Because whatever's going on that's causing that depression or that anxiety or that stress is impacting your self-esteem,
07:55and in turn, your self-esteem may be impacted by the fact that you are now, you know, struggling with anxiety or depression,
08:03or, you know, you have a lot of stress and you went through a traumatic situation.
08:07And so they work hand in hand.
08:09Mental health can affect your self-esteem, and your self-esteem can be affected by your mental health.
08:15Imagine the person who, you know, we talk a lot about the superwoman syndrome.
08:19Imagine the woman who is so used to having it all together, and now she can barely function because her anxiety is so high every day.
08:28She leaves home, she goes out in public, but she can barely concentrate at work, and her performance is starting to be affected, right?
08:36So all of these things are connected.
08:39Next slide, please.
08:41So how do we break the stigma and silence the shame?
08:46Number one, we have to understand that mental health does not mean damaged.
08:52So if you have a mental health diagnosis, that does not mean that you're damaged.
08:55That does not mean that you cannot live a fulfilling life.
09:00That does not mean that you can't still accomplish the dreams and the goals that you have.
09:05I have worked with individuals who are very high-functioning, who are top-level executives, who are taking medication for depression.
09:13And they are doing well.
09:15They're following their regimen.
09:17They're doing everything that their psychiatrist tells them to do, along with their primary care doctor.
09:22So having a mental health diagnosis does not mean damaged.
09:28And we have to understand, again, that you can have a routine life and still be caring for your mental health.
09:34So that doesn't mean that if you're struggling with depression now and you're struggling to find the energy every day just to get out of bed,
09:43understanding that it won't always be like that.
09:46If someone that you know discloses that they're struggling with their mental health, ask them how can you support them, right?
09:55Even if they say, you know, I just need you to check on me every day, text me.
10:01Even if I don't respond, I just need to know that someone is there.
10:05Be willing to listen and provide the support that they tell you that they need in the way that they tell you that they need support.
10:11Also, you can become an advocate for both your health, your mental health, as well as for those around you, their mental health as well.
10:21And I'm going to throw out some resources here in just a moment for how to do that.
10:25Next slide, please.
10:28How do we begin to let go of our own stuff?
10:31Because we know that caring for our health and our mental health starts at home, right?
10:35So, number one, we have to make a choice to begin the process of forgiving ourselves for past mistakes and past missteps.
10:45That's not getting stuck in regret and failure, feelings of failure.
10:50Make a choice to let go of the shoulda, woulda, coulda thinking, because, again, I see that a lot, especially in adults.
10:56And understand that you deserve the same grace that you give to other people, because you made the best decision that you could at that time, given the information that you had.
11:09Also, release the need to carry the shame and guilt for harm that was inflicted upon you.
11:16And so this could be, again, for anyone who has experienced childhood trauma, where we start to talk about abuse, we start to talk about neglect.
11:26I've seen people carry that shame and that guilt for a very long time.
11:31And so start working to be able to release that shame and that guilt.
11:35And then embrace the support of others and making a conscious effort not to fall into traps of jealousy and comparison.
11:42And I had to throw that in there because we are such a social media-driven society.
11:48We look online, we see everybody's highlight reels, and we don't know what they are going through behind the scenes.
11:55We don't know what steps or what missteps they may have gone through to get to where they are.
12:01And so in a world where, again, we're showing all of the good stuff on social media, let's not fall into the traps of jealousy or comparison and feeling like your life is bad compared to some information that someone chooses to share with you on social media.
12:20Next slide.
12:21So here are just some intentions that you can write down or you can take a picture of it.
12:27But these are also just some ways to be able to let go of those four things that I just talked about by saying today I choose to forgive myself for, and you can fill in those blanks, today I let go of the need to carry, I let go of the need to carry guilt, I let go of the need to carry shame, I let go of the need to carry other people's burdens or other people's stuff when I know that I'm struggling, right?
12:54Today I make the choice to stop beating myself up because I feel that I should have dot, dot, dot differently, or what have you.
13:04And today I make the choice to embrace support for my mental health by, and there are multiple ways that you can do that.
13:12You can go to psychologytoday.com to look for a therapist, and there you can actually search by zip code, you can actually see pictures and specialties and all of that.
13:22There's a therapy for black girls, there's also a blackfemaletherapist.com where you can actually, and there's also therapyforblackman.com where you can look for a therapist whose specialty is also black men for working with black men as well.
13:39And here's the key, the therapist doesn't have to be a psychologist, you can go to licensed clinical social workers, licensed marriage and family therapists, licensed professional counselors as well.
13:50And us black clinicians, we are out here fam, like you're going to see an array of professionals today.
13:58So we are out here, we're doing the work, so look for us, we're here.
14:02Next slide please.
14:05And also let's keep in touch.
14:07I am on social media, I have a website, I founded a non-profit for women called pearlinvestor.com.
14:13If you scan this barcode with your phone, you should be able to keep in touch as well.
14:18Follow my Instagram, and now we can open it up for questions and answers.
14:24I think we have just a couple minutes to do so.
14:26Two minutes for questions and answers.
14:28Does anybody have any questions?
14:36No?
14:39Okay.
14:40Awesome.
14:41Well, I'm going to turn it.
14:42Do you have a question?
14:44Where am I from?
14:45I am from Atlanta, Georgia.
14:50So.
14:52Very good.
14:54Yes.
14:56How do I take care of myself?
14:58That's a very good question.
15:01Some days I'm better at it than others, but I set good boundaries.
15:05I had to learn very early on to know when I am mentally and emotionally not in a good space.
15:12Because even as clinicians, we get there too.
15:15We've been going through a global pandemic and, you know, marching and protesting and all of the things over the last couple of years as well.
15:22And sitting with people in their stuff in therapy sessions too.
15:27So when I know that my cup is full, I don't allow anyone to call me and dump on me.
15:35So if someone texts me, hey girl, can you talk?
15:38I need to, I need to vent.
15:40I'm not available right now.
15:42And it took me a while to stop feeling guilty for that because I felt like, well, I'm a therapist.
15:47I work with people all day long with their, their stuff.
15:50Why can't I do this for my friends as well?
15:52But it was recognizing that I don't have to.
15:55And sometimes it's best for me to know when my cup is full because I can't serve other people when I'm empty.
16:01And when I'm feeling empty, that means I need to take a pause and work through my stuff.
16:07So boundaries has been the key.
16:09Yes.
16:11So.
16:13All right.
16:14Well, I'm going to turn it back over to the host.
16:20So thank you all.
16:22And I hope that you can stay and listen to all of the other clinicians who are here today.
16:27Please take advantage of all of the good information that's going to be shared here at the Health Hub.
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