Good Life Project - Mental Health | Leading Voices

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

This past year and a half has pushed many of us to the brink, in a lot of ways. Relationships. Work. Physical and mental health. It’s tested nearly every system, thought, belief, tool, practice and resource we rely on to find peace, ease, solace, hope, resilience, and grace. Over the years, we’ve had the great fortune to be able to sit down with many leading voices and innovators in the world of mental health, to learn from their lives, their stories, their experience and expertise. And, today, we’re sharing insight from four of those visionaries: Dr. Nzinga Harrison, Terri Cole, Lori Gottlieb, & Dr. Joy Harden Bradford.I hope you'll enjoy this exploration of mental health from different lenses valuable and maybe it’ll plant a seed that opens you to exploring and being more intentional and proactive in your own pursuit of wellbeing.You can find Dr. Nzinga Harrison at: Website | In Recovery PodcastYou can find Terri Cole at: Website | The Terri Cole ShowYou can find Lori Gottlieb at: Website | Dear Therapist PodcastYou can find Dr. Joy Harden Bradford at: Website | Therapy for Black Girls PodcastIf you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the full-length conversations we had with Dr. Nzinga Harrison, Terri Cole, Lori Gottlieb, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Okay, so can we get real here for maybe a hot minute? This past year and a half has pushed so many of us to the brink in a lot of different ways, relationships, work, physical and mental health. It has tested nearly every system, every thought, belief, tool, practice, and resource that we rely on to find peace and ease and solace, hope, resilience, and maybe even a little bit of grace. And over the years, we have had the great fortune to be able to sit down with many leading voices and innovators in the world of mental health to learn from their lives, from their stories, their experience and expertise. And today we are sharing insight from four of those visionaries with you.

So we start off with Dr. Nzinga Harrison, a physician with specialties in addiction medicine and psychiatry, chief medical officer and co-founder of Eleanor Health. She has spent her career really focusing on stigma reduction and health equity. Dr. Harrison is super uniquely positioned to help folks navigate the stress of current events from the opioid crisis and COVID to racial violence and systemic injustice and begin to move from thinking to action with the goal of truly improving health and society. And she also happens to host the In Recovery podcast, such an eye-opening and powerful set of insights. Here is Dr. Harrison. It's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. The expertise that I've developed that I feel like comes naturally to me now is like the not quantifiable part, right? Like I tell people all the time as a psychiatrist, the concept is that as a psychiatrist, you talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. But in reality, you listen, listen, listen, listen. I'm listening as much for the things that people are not saying as I'm listening for the things that people are saying. I value the voices of my patients equally, if not more, than I value my medical expertise. Like I recognize to make magic, we need my medical expertise. I also recognize there is no magic without that other person sharing themselves and their experiences with me. And I always say psychiatry is the redheaded stepchild of medicine and addiction medicine is the redheaded stepchild of the redheaded stepchild of medicine. And addiction medicine is the redheaded stepchild of the redheaded

stepchild. Right. And so when I found addiction medicine, I was like, biology, psychology, life, relationships, activism, marginalized, denigrated, undervalued people. I was like, activism, doctoring, teaching, literally there is no dress that fits better than this dress. And I feel like psychiatrists got marginalized. One of the most offensive things that I hear all day, every day is when I say I'm a psychiatrist and people don't know that's a physician. So I usually say I'm a physician, my specialties are psychiatry. And they say, oh, so you can write prescriptions, right? And I'm like, the practice of psychiatry is so much more, the practice of medicine is so much more than writing prescriptions or the new language in health care systems is like we have our nurses, we have our clinicians, we have our prescribers.

Do not call me a prescriber. so much more on a relationship and a dynamic, regardless of the specialty, than it does on a prescription, that you can't just narrow it to prescribing. And somehow though, like by the time I finished in 2002, which was a year later, that panic had come down. Like I feel like people maybe thought we were getting our arms around it. I moved down to Atlanta. And despite so many people having been traumatized by that, there was still this idea that just like prescribing SSRI, like prescribing antidepressant, just prescribing antidepressant. And I was like, I will never practice medicine like that. And the first question when I would be recruiting new psychiatrists, new psychiatric nurse practitioners was how much time do I get to spend with a patient

for the first visit? Because there's so the entire system has just been like, you get 30 minutes for that first visit and you get 10 minutes for each follow-up visit. And I was like, I will never, I will not do it. I will not do it. And so I've crafted, crafted my own way. So I'm like, one, you can't figure it out in one visit. That's what I tell all of my patients. There's no way we can figure this out in one visit. I always believe that we should try for every health condition that's mild or moderate, non-medication options. For any health condition that is moderately severe to severe, we should be doing everything at once, medications plus non-medications. That will always include your support system. But more importantly, our relationship has to be that you can come back to me because we can't figure it all out today, period. Yeah. Well, let's talk a bit about addiction because this has been your devotion for pretty much your entire professional life so far.

And I'm kind of fascinated because I feel like there's so much confusion. I'm raising my hand in terms of like the confusion around it. And we overlay this word now into such a wide array of behaviors that range or domains of life that range from substances to sex to technology to relationships. So when, I guess maybe what I'm curious about is when we talk about addiction, what are we really talking about? No, it's a great question. And so I think it's important here to make the distinction between when we use a term clinically and when we use a term kind of just like in general, we're talking about a concept or we're using it. So for example, in regular conversation, we'll say, oh, I'm so depressed. And we're really just talking about a feeling in that moment that

is a feeling of depression. But in psychiatry, one, it wouldn't even be appropriate for me to say that person has depression because depression is not a diagnosis. Like there's a bucket that is depression and a lot of things fall under it. And so under that, there are clinical diagnoses that may be like a major depressive episode or a bipolar disorder, currently depressed, or a dysthymic disorder or a depression secondary to another medical condition. And so, but we just use this broad term, which is depression to represent low mood, even though the input to that may be very different. And we talk about that specifically in medicine. The same is true for addiction. So my podcast is In Recovery.

And on that podcast, the thesis that we use for addiction is this big bucket type of thesis, which is anything we keep doing, although the negative consequences outweigh the benefits. That's the thesis of addiction on the show. And so we talk about drugs, of course, alcohol, cigarettes, other drugs, sex, gambling, food, technology, relationships, like you really can nest anything under continuing to do that despite negative consequences. And so part of my strategy on the show, although when we talk about addiction clinically or from the perspective of medicine, then I always make sure on the show, I will say, today we're talking about work addiction, which we recently

did. Today we're talking about work addiction. This is not a clinical diagnosis. This is the concept of when we continue working, even when it's bringing us negative consequences. And the reason I use that as a thesis, because so much of what we've done with addiction in this country is to stigmatize it by making it those people who are addicted to things and the rest of us who are not. And the rest of us who are not are somehow innately better at being human beings than those people who are addicted to something. And so when I take this very broad view of addiction, I know for sure there is something you are doing that's causing you negative consequences. I know for something, there are things that I'm doing that are causing me negative consequences. Maybe it's not drugs,

but we're still doing it. And brain chemistry is driving that. And so then I developed that empathy because, oh yeah, I can relate to trying to change a behavior and changing it and relapsing and changing it and relapsing and changing it and relapsing. I can relate to that. So then if I take a person who has the illness of drug addiction, a clinical diagnosis of a substance use disorder, and I add in the additional neurochemical pressure that comes from that medical diagnosis, then I can understand if it's this hard for me to put my cell phone down and it's not even altering my brain chemistry the way cocaine is altering my brain chemistry. Now I can have more empathy for how difficult it must be to have a cocaine addiction.

You made a really interesting linguistic distinction too, which I'm curious about. When you're talking about both depression and addiction, which was that you didn't say, I am depressed or I am an addict. What you said was, I have depression or I have the illness of addiction, which seems like it's very intentional, your way of doing it. Because it almost seems like you're trying to strip it away from an identity level experience to something which maybe is more behavioral or in some way malleable? I mean, I'm curious about that. You put your finger exactly on it.

So I am militant in a lot of ways. And one of the ways I'm like out loud militant is every opportunity I get, I say, I am language militant. And I put that identity out there because I'm always trying to not send connotations with my words that I don't mean. And also because it is an open invitation to every person I'm talking to to call me out when I unintentionally do that because I'm human. And so, yes, I always say, would we say that person is cancerous because they have cancer? No, because cancer is not the identity of that person. That person has the illness, which is cancer and so I started this this kind of language militants for myself very very very early on because I used to hear the disdain that people had in their tone when they said that person is schizophrenic and it was an accusation and it was

denigrating and it basically the message that was being sent was there's nothing you can do for that person. So don't waste your time trying because they're schizophrenic. And I refused. I refused to send that message from my own words. And so I started saying that person has schizophrenia. And then I said, same thing with diabetic. That person is not diabetic. That's not their identity. They're a person with diabetes. And I was like, you're not an addict. That's not your identity. You're a person with addiction. And so I just always try to lead with the human to remind ourselves, this is a human human and that illness is separate from that human. I think the other part of that that is so important is like cancer is an awful disease. We hate it.

It ravishes our loved ones. It steals people from us. It ruins lives. We hate it. But we don't hate the people who have cancer. And I think where we've gone wrong with addiction, although I can say all the exact same things, it is awful. We hate it. It steals our loved ones. It ravishes people. It destroys families. But the mistake we've made is that we hate the people who have the illness instead of hating the illness. And so I intentionally try to separate those two so that the work that I'm doing with the support system and even the person with the addiction, because they hate themselves because they think the addiction is who they are.

And it's like, no, we have to create that space. We hate the addiction. We don't hate you. I think such an important distinction to make because it brings, it inserts hope into the conversation, right? Because if it's an identity level thing, then we're effectively saying there's no hope of ever experiencing life differently. But if we say, you know, like, no, you're a person who has this thing, then maybe we can't guarantee that you're ever going to be rid of it. But at least maybe we open the door to hope that there may be something that we can live differently in some way, shape or form, you know, with different things. And I feel like that's part of where the stigma comes from to a certain extent also right is there's this

public perception and i'm so curious about your your lens on this that so many approaches to addiction just they don't really do anything they don't work so and which makes it easier again to go down that road of well this is just the person like and it's that's the person for life whereas and it sounds like you you've actually sort of what you're doing, your approach to it is designed to really, A, change the way that people are actually treated, but also, again, reverse that whole set of assumptions that start this negative spiral. Yeah, that's exactly right. So it unfortunately is true. A lot of the things that we traditionally do for addiction are not effective. They do not work.

But that is not an indictment on the people who have addiction. That's not even an indictment on the illness of addiction itself. That's an indictment on the systems that we have built that are not evidence-based that we then wonder why they don't work. And so I talk about this from a couple of different ways. One, the research studies show us one of these is my favorite that compares asthma, type two diabetes, and type one or essential hypertension, which is just like the general high blood pressure that people know about. And it had people that came into the hospital for of those are chronic medical illnesses, at one year, what percentage of those people had had a relapse in their illness? And it was the same across all four. The other thing it said was what percentage of people were following the medication recommendations and the lifestyle recommendations

one year later. So the relapse rate for all four of those illnesses was right at 60% at one year. And so relapse for high blood pressure meant your blood pressure was controlled and then the symptoms came back. That's how we define relapse in medicine. Asthma, your symptoms were controlled and your asthma attacks came back. Diabetes, your blood sugar was controlled and then your blood sugar went up. Addiction, you were not using and then you started using. That's how relapse was defined. 60% are across the board, all of them. The percent following medication recommendations. Forty percent. Thirty percent. Right.

Across all of them. Across all of them. Right. The percent. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. The percent following medication recommendations was 50 to 60 percent. The percent following lifestyle recommendations was 30%. Across the board, it was equal for all of them. But if I asked the crowd of 100 people right now, does treatment for asthma work? They would say yes. Does treatment for diabetes work? They would say yes. Does treatment for high blood pressure work? They would say yes. Does treatment for high blood pressure work?

They would say yes. Does treatment for addiction work? Even though it's performing exactly the same way as other chronic medical conditions perform. And so part of that is just our stigma, our beliefs that treatment doesn't work or that somehow addiction is different from other chronic medical illnesses. The other part of that is because part of the reason we believe treatment for asthma works is because when you have an asthma attack so bad that you have to go to the ER and get hospitalized, they don't send you out with no inhaler and say, good luck keeping your asthma in control. They send you out with a daily inhaler and as needed inhaler. They give you resources to stop smoking. They talk to you about exercising. They link you with the primary care doctor who makes sure you check in

every one to two months even if you're not having symptoms diabetes if you go in your blood sugar is so high you have to go to the er and get admitted to the hospital they don't send you out without insulin and give you a donut and say good luck? They give you insulin. They give you an oral medication. They give you nutrition education while you're in the hospital. They link you with the nutritionist. They link you with a primary care doctor. You have ongoing care forever for your diabetes. Addiction. You go in, you get detoxed, which is the equivalent of needing an ER in hospital for substance use disorder. You finish your five-day detox, even though we have FDA-approved medications, you get sent out with no medication. You don't get connected to ongoing

care. You get connected to a 30-day rehab for a lifetime chronic medical condition. And so, of course, addiction outcomes look terrible. It's not because treatment doesn't work. It's because we haven't held the industry to the standard of care that we know can work for addictions. I mean, I would have to imagine also that you send people back out into the world and there's also got to be a huge social construct to all of this, to what both on the one side leads to addiction and then also what leads somebody to then engage in all the things that would allow for effective treatment. So it's not just happening in a vacuum.

And I mean, I guess we see this across a population of like all the people that are living with addiction and the prevalences across all different groups. And so you're nodding your head. I'm like, there's got to be a much bigger part of this conversation too. Yeah, it's a huge part. And so I always say humans are pack animals. And what happens when an animal gets kicked out of the pack? It slinks off and it dies, right? Like it literally withers and dies. And so especially an animal that is already hurt or injured, they're definitely slinking off to die. And so our people with addiction are hurt and injured and suffering. And what do we do? We

kick them out of the pack. And we kick them out of the pack. And when they're at their most vulnerable and their most hurting, we present them with a disjointed, judgmental medical health system and say, good luck navigating your way around to trying to get better. Like, can you imagine? I always say, think about if we treated people with cancer the way we treat people with addiction. A hard intervention to make you go away to some program where none of your support system is. We don't let you talk to anybody for the first 10 days. And then we barrage you with all of the negative parts of your character and the terrible decisions you made that led you to having cancer. And then we ask you, are you really ready for treatment? Like we wouldn't stand for it. We would not stand for it. What we do instead is,

oh my God, you have cancer. We will bend over backwards and do absolutely everything we can do to try to help you beat this. And if we could take that same stance as a society for addiction, we would have much better outcomes. We would have a lot more people alive. We would have a lot more people whose illness could get in remission. Thank you. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die.

Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-nest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. So I love having my mind not just equipped with better tools, but really opened to a lot of realities that I don't often think about. Next up is Terry Cole. So before earning a master's in

clinical psychotherapy, Terry ran a talent agency for actors and supermodels. She was kind of your typical type A overachiever with zero balance and no internal peace. And she began to realize that every part of work and life was bleeding into every other part of work and life. And the net effect was that everything was bleeding out. Something really had to change. And I know that that is something a lot of people have been feeling over the last year and a half or so. So she went back to school and has now been practicing as a psychotherapist for more than two decades. Her recent focus is something that so

many of us have been struggling with, especially now, boundaries. And in fact, it's the focus of her recent book, Boundary Boss. So let's hear what she has to say about them. You make a statement sort of early on in your book that effectively says, without great boundaries, you cannot live a great life. That is a bold statement. Tell me more about that. Well, it's true. I mean, two and a half decades in the trenches with my therapy clients, I can see what disordered boundaries, and I think we should establish what that means, right? What are boundaries? not okay with you. My definition is a little bit, you know, let's take it a little further to say that it is you knowing, prioritizing, and communicating your preferences, your desires, your limits, and your deal breakers in your life to all the people. That's in a professional setting. And of course, they'll be different. The way you would do it with a boss is different than a lover. It's different than a subordinate. But it is the act of being able to

succinctly and effectively communicate who you are, what you stand for, what you want, what you won't stand for, what your limits are. To me, that is what being fluent in the language of boundaries requires. I was raised like so many women, to be a good girl. I was raised to be nice and to have niceness be like the top virtue that you could ever aspire to,

is for people to think that you're nice. And so what does this lead to? This leads to us saying yes when we want to say no, over-giving over feeling, over committing, over functioning, all under the umbrella, the hope of being kind and being nice. And yet, let's really break it down. Is it actually nice to say yes when you want to say no? It's not. It's dishonest. It isn't nice. And then what happens is we are literally giving corrupted intel, bad data to the people in our lives. We feel empty. We feel unseen. We feel unknown because we are unseen and unknown. If we're not talking true, and here's what stops most people from doing this. They don't have the words. They fear.

They have all of these myths around what does it mean to be a woman in particular with healthy boundaries? People equate healthy with harsh, like healthy boundaries with having harshness, being bitchy, rejecting, going out and confronting everyone. I'm going to punch everyone in the face with my boundaries. You're not. And that's not what it means, right? So I don't look at boundaries like weak and strong because that's not how they are. It's are they functional or dysfunctional, right? Do they accomplish the thing that we want them to accomplish, which might be deepening intimacy in our relationships, might be protecting ourselves, right? So really getting it out of the right boundaries and wrong

boundaries or weak and strong boundaries. I don't look at them that way because literally that isn't the way they are because dysfunctional boundaries come in. I actually have a thing, a boundary quiz that's out. It's just called boundaryquiz.com where you could learn like what is your primary boundary type? And there are six, really seven if you include like healthy boundaries, where disordered boundaries, you could be the ice queen, which is someone whose boundaries are too rigid where people don't agree with you. You're kind of like, F you, and I'm going to do it myself, or I'll do it my, you know, if it's not my way, then get out. Right? Those are too rigid.

Or you could be the chameleon where you're very impacted by what others want. And so when I'm with you, Jonathan, if you like that, then I'm like that too. And if I'm with someone else, then I can go with that. That's a disordered boundary style. If you are the peacekeeper, you're very dialed into not wanting there to be conflict. And not just in your relationships. You don't want there to be conflict anywhere around you. You're always sort of looking to be like, hmm, where can I de-escalate what?

All of those disordered boundary styles. And it doesn't mean you have to be like that all the time to have that still be primary when you're out of balance, right? When we're stressed, because it's kind of easy-ish to have okay boundaries when life is easy. It really gets revealed when we're under a lot of pressure. But you can, of course, I wrote a whole book about how to learn how to do it and stay balanced in it. This is modeled behavior that we learn. And so we're impacted by that, right? Let's just say you had a parent who was, you know, a pushover, like that was their primary boundary style, saying yes when they really want to say no, always like bitching and complaining about how entitled

neighbor Betty is. How about just saying no to Betty, but that wasn't a possibility, right? But Betty, what a jerk she is, you know, which can also happen when we're not doing our own boundary thing. We just cannot believe how entitled people are. And you're like, why are you surprised? People are going to ask you to do the most ridiculous things and you can get really mad or you can learn to say no. And it's so much easier just to learn to say no. But anyway, your family of origin, just like my family of origin, there was a particular way that you interacted.

It might've been in an enmeshed way where like everyone knew what was going on with everyone else and everyone was talking about everyone else's business, or it might've been more separate, right? Those are boundary things. How close, how far away, how your family interacted with the rest of the world. Some families are open systems. That was my family where friends can come and go. The door is open. Friends can sleep over. There's movement. Some families are closed systems. Nobody comes in and out, just the family. There is more of a distrust for the outside world.

And that impacts what we think is appropriate to share with other people. The way that we share that information and all that is an emotional boundary issue. You see how it's all sort of connected? Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. You know, the idea of a bit of a boundary blueprint using your language makes a lot

of sense too, right? Because I think we all have, whether it's our family of origin, whether it's our chosen family, whether it's the circumstances of our lives when we're coming up, you know, it leaves this imprint on us, which eventually becomes this blueprint as you describe it. But what's fascinating to me is also the notion that the things that go into that blueprint, like the choices that you make about where the boundaries are and how you draw them when you're young, when these are being formed based on that circumstance, maybe they're actually healthy then. Maybe they actually kept you alive. Maybe you had a family

that was homeless or struggling or there was abuse. And these were the things that actually seemed aggressive, but yet they were appropriate for that moment in time. And yet it seems like, you know, what becomes this blueprint never gets revisited as life circumstances evolve. Yes. And you make such a good point there, Jonathan, that, you know, and I always say this to clients, like this adaptive behavior in your childhood that did keep you, if you had a parent who was unstable or a parent who had an addiction issue, let's say, you would learn, they would not have to tell you anything for you to know that the focus should be on them, what they need, and what they want. So you become a people pleaser instantaneously because kids are so intuitive and you don't

want to be on the receiving end of any rage. So you're working either as fast as you can to keep them entertained, to get them what they need, to make dinner, to, you know, these are all these kids who are parentified at a young age. Now, when we get to adulthood, those things that were adaptive become maladaptive, and then they dictate disordered boundaries. And we're not aware of the fact that they even exist, let alone that they're now maladaptive. So if you look at with my clients, I was seeing this behavior with them, codependency. But anytime I would say the word codependent, they'd be like, what? Crazy. Hello, everyone's dependent on me.

I'm the one who's getting shit done. What are you talking about? Like, what do you mean? Like the Melody Beatty, codependent no more idea that codependency is only you being involved with an addict and covering for them when their boss calls, right? Like it's, no, that is not the codependency that I've seen. And so I actually came up with a new terminology called the high functioning codependency, because your boundaries are still disordered and it's still dysfunctional, but it's very hard to see the same way that you were like, oh, we look at success and people are like, you must be crushing it and super happy. This is very much the same. So think of highly capable human beings who it's almost like, you know, Ginger Rogers was doing everything Fred

Astaire was doing, except she was doing it backwards and in heels. That's like these women in my practice are so high functioning that they actually are getting it all done. But they are getting it all done at the expense of themselves and their mental health and their wellness. And from my perspective, high functioning codependency and codependency itself is being overly invested in the feeling states, the decisions, the outcomes of the people in your life to the detriment of your own internal peace or your own life experience. So, you know, because I know, you know, you've got

to be very careful with your words because I've had so many people say, what's wrong with caring about the people that I love? I'm like, hello, I'm not saying don't care. I'm saying to the detriment that when something happens to someone you love, and if they're not a minor child, but I'm obviously not talking about minor children, if it feels like it's happening to you, and I know that's what it feels like because I am a recovering high-functioning codependent where the urgency to do something, to fix, to come up with a solution for that person, my sister, my cousin, the person I love is so great that everything else is going away until I can figure that out. That's codependency because when you think about what codependency really is, it is overt and covert

bids for control. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And control very often to the demise of you, your lifestyle, your happiness, your health, let alone the fact that it is one of those words, which is a proxy for security, which is a proxy for certainty, which can never be had. So it's like the ultimate form of suffering. It is. And it also isn't, it doesn't end up doing what we want it to do because there's always more things. And I think that there was this incredibly pivotal moment in my early thirties where I was in therapy with the same brilliant therapist, Ruth.

And I was talking about one of my sisters and I was crying and she was in a terrible situation. And as you know, I'd stopped drinking in my early 20s. And so I was dealing with there still being quite a bit of addiction within the family system. And this particular sister, she was kind of the scapegoat of the family where she was acting out the veiled feelings, the frustration of the group. Like poor scapegoats, they get chosen. People in the family system think that, no, they're the problem. You're like, oh yeah, no, they were chosen to be the problem. Trust me. It's like the system has its own energy. But anyway, she was in a terrible situation, living in the woods without running water with a crackhead who

was physically abusive to her. I mean, I'm not exaggerating. Those were the facts of the situation. So I was crying to my therapist and screaming to Vic. I don't think we were married. No, we were married, I think. And just being like, I'm going to get her an apartment and I'm going to do the thing and I'm going to call the person and I'm going to do an intervention and whatever I was going to do. And finally, Ruth said, you know, Tara, let me ask you something. What makes you think that you know what Jenna needs to learn in this life? Like, hmm. Well, Ruth, I think we can both agree. She doesn't need to learn it in a place in the

woods without running water with some a-hole who beats her. Can we agree to that? She was like, nope. Can't agree to that because I'm not God and neither are you. But what you really want, Tara, what you really want is you've worked for 20 years to create internal peace and her dumpster fire of a life is really interrupting that peace. And her, you want her pain to end so that your pain can end. And I was like, wow, that makes me feel way less cool than when I thought I was just being Mother Teresa. But it's true. But what I learned in that moment, because I actually said to her, so you mean I don't have to do this? And she was like, Tara, not only do you not have to, it's impossible. You cannot do it because alleviated her pain.

And her pain is what's going to drive her to find her solution. I was like, oh my God. So I even might have impeded the process of her getting better. Holy crap. But it let me off the hook and it also made me realize where else was I doing a less extreme version of that desire to save and how codependent and dysfunctional and what disordered boundaries I was exhibiting in that relationship. I mean, that also really feels like it ties in with this concept that you share around, I guess it's almost at the blueprint level too, of the notion of secondary gain. You know, that part of the blueprint is this is how we behave in order to get X. But there's always this sort of like other thing.

There's this other thing that you're trying to accomplish that you're not even aware of that these behaviors are serving this other secondary gain which for you i mean yeah that becomes apparent in the example that you were just sharing with your sister on a bunch of different levels but deconstruct a little bit more this notion of secondary gain though because i think it's really fascinating yeah i do too uh this is notion. A lot of times I teach about it and say how to get unstuck, right? That we don't understand why we're stuck in certain behaviors, our own behavior, or we're in repeated situations in relationships, or we say we really want to do this thing, but then somehow we just can't manage to do this thing. And if I go to the example of the one that I just gave you, secondary gain is the unobvious gain from staying stuck somewhere, right? So it's not primary gain. It is the hidden benefit or relief or something that you don't even know you're getting from it, because obviously none of us consciously wants to stay stuck in a frustrating cycle of whatever.

So in this situation with my sister, the questions that we ask to reveal secondary gain. So this is like, you could just put this in your hip pocket and you can just have it with you. And I'll make sure that I'm giving you guys a free gift. I'll make sure that it's in that download that you say, what do I get to not feel, not face or not experience by staying stuck here? So if I'd had that insight at that age and I said, Terry, what do you get to not face, not feel, not experience by staying stuck thinking you can save Jenna, I would get to not face the excruciating pain that I couldn't, the reality of her situation that was out of my control. I didn't have to face, feel, experience the feeling of being guilty that I wasn't in that kind of pain, that I wasn't in an abusive relationship. Like why not me when I was the youngest of the siblings? Like there was a

whole bunch of psychological guilt that I would have had to face or feel if I slowed down. And I did face and feel once Ruth pointed out what was going on, once I stopped trying to problem solve and fix as fast as I could. So Yume, I had a client who claimed all she wanted was to be in a relationship. She really wanted a good relationship. And then she put this stipulation on. She was going to get back in the dating pool when she lost 10 pounds. I kept being like, I don't see why that needs to be there. You're great, and why?

But as a therapist, you think that. You go, OK, well, something's happening here. Let's just let this thing play out. And then finally, and she couldn't do it. Every week then, what we would focus on is how she fell off the wagon and then she ate carbs, even though she wasn't going to, and she did this thing and that thing and how she's failing, failing, failing with the losing the 10 pounds. And so finally, I was like, why don't we go at this from a secondary gain point of view? What do you get to not face, not feel, not experience by not losing the 10 pounds. And now you don't need to

be a therapist to know what those things were. I don't have to be rejected. I don't have to be vulnerable in a real way. I don't have to get into a relationship, even though I want to, and feel like I don't have the skills to maintain health. There was a whole myriad of things. And of course, you know, miraculously or not, once we unpacked all of those things, seriously, she didn't need to lose. She lost two pounds and was like, I'm going back on the apps right now. I was like, exactly. Because you didn't even need to lose any weight to begin with. So there's something valuable about going, huh, there is something in this for me without blaming, right? Without being like,

why am I like that? Or what's wrong with me? It's just having a deeper understanding of the way that our minds work. And that's a lot of what my goal was with this book was to make these concepts accessible because people are smart. And here's the thing. This is when you use it. Like, this is when it makes sense. When you are trying to get unstuck. When you can't seem to shift something in your life. I would venture to say that 99.9% of the time, if you can reveal,

and there's a few other questions that I have you ask yourself around that. I feel like that one is the most powerful. What do I get to not feel, not face, not experience by staying stuck? But then there's, who am I if I'm not? Right? So like with my client- That's got to be terrifying for a lot of people. That one question. Right. Who am I if I'm not fixing my sister's life? And at that point in my life, I would be like, I literally didn't actually know because being

that fixer was such, it was such an important part of my identity until it got, until that mean therapist told me I actually wasn't fixing anything. And I had to really look and go, all right, so what in my own life needs my fixing since that's the only life I can actually do anything about? We don't just have boundaries with others. And boundaries aren't just to keep others out, right? It's not just about limits. It's also about having your yes be an authentic yes that resonates with people. Because if you're saying yes when you really want to say no, you know what they can't believe either is your yes, because you're not being truthful.

So there's a lot in this book that has to do with our relationship to ourselves, because it is without a doubt the most important relationship that you will ever invest in in your life, because everything else stems from how you treat yourself. That is the bar that every other relationship in your life looks at to be like, oh, that's how this person should be treated, you know? Thank you. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him.

We need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Such powerful reframes around the idea of boundaries. So now we're handing the mental health baton to Lori Gottlieb, a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author who writes the weekly Dear Therapist advice column for The

Atlantic. She has written hundreds of articles related to psychology and culture, many of which have become these viral sensations all over the world. A contributing editor to The Atlantic, she also writes for the New York Times Magazine and appears as a frequent expert on relationships, parenting, and hot button mental health topics in the media. Everywhere from the Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, all the different places. Her book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, it's a revealing look at the inner thoughts, struggles, and revelations of a therapist who finds herself on the needing help side

of the conversation and all the unexpected things that this shift in dynamics brings up. You have to know what to listen for. And you have to know sort of, you know, what pieces of the story you're missing. A lot of times people won't tell you something right away because they're embarrassed, because if they tell you, then they'll have to deal with it because they don't even see it as a problem. They're so stuck in the content of something else. They're always sort of giving you the play-by-play of something. And you really have to look for the story too. Everybody comes in and there's sort of like different puzzle pieces that you're not sure how they fit together. They'll tell you little snippets of something and little

snippets of something else. And you kind of have to figure out, well, how does this all fit together? I think if being a therapist is hard work, I think being a patient is doubly so because you really have to work hard if you want to see change. It's not like you go there every week, you're going to say a few things and then boom, your life is going to be better. You have to work really hard. And I think some people don't expect that. Yeah. So as you start to process this and move through, at the same time, you're also running your own therapy practice. So you're, you know, like kind of falling apart and picking up the pieces and

reorienting your own personal life and rediscovering all of these things and dealing and processing and evolving. But you've got to show up every day and put on your therapist hat when you're with your people. So what's that like for you? At first, I thought it would be really hard, but actually it held up a mirror to me in the sense that the very questions that these people were bringing to me were the same questions that I was bringing to Wendell, to my therapist, because they're the questions that I think are at the core of all of our lives. You know, who am I and how do I connect and how do I love and be loved and how do I deal with uncertainty? You know, what can I control and what must I let go of? They're the

questions everybody asks. And I know you write about also, so when you're sitting with your patient, you know, one of the things I thought was really interesting was your frame on not judging, you know, that one person's pain or problem against another. So if you have one person with a serious medical trauma versus another person who's got something which is perceived to be so much more mundane or almost like pedantic, it could be easy to sort of like take this outside looking in lens and being like, seriously?

Like I just had this one person who's struggling for their life and you're here telling me about this little thing. Right. But as a therapist, that's not your job. In fact, it's the exact opposite of what you're there to do. Right, right. I mean, I think it's, you know, there's this idea that there's no hierarchy of pain, that pain is pain.

And, you know, I was working with this woman who she wanted me, she was dying. She was a young newlywed in her 30s and she was dying of cancer. She had a breast cancer that had metastasized. And I'd go from like CAT scans and tumors and how she wanted to handle her death and really, really intense existential life questions to, I think the babysitter is stealing from me, or why do I always have to initiate sex? And, you know, what I came to see, it actually gave me more compassion for those people, not less, because what I came to see was that their problems did matter on a deeper level. You know, when you have to initiate sex, it's like, why am I being rejected? What, how am I having trouble connecting? It's a horrible feeling. And I think also the person whose babysitter might be stealing from them, you trusted this person with your child and this person has betrayed you. And it's very,

it causes a lot of anxiety. And so I think pain is pain. And I think that a lot of people don't feel like their pain is worth talking about. That a lot of people walk around with a lot of pain because they worry that their problems will sound trivial or irrelevant. And I think that not talking about them makes them so much bigger. So when you're sort of taking this pain is pain is pain lens, sort of looking amongst your different patients, when you're also personally in pain and going through your own therapy at the same time, were you able to make

that same recognition acceptance for yourself? No, not at all. You know, I would apologize for my pain to Wendell in therapy. And he, you know, there are scenes in the book where he's trying to make it clear to me that I don't need to apologize for the pain that I'm going through. Did that finally land with you? Like, are you there now? It did, but it took a while. I mean, you know, again, I think that's what I mean by therapy is hard work. I think that it's really hard to change your patterns. It's really hard to change your default ways of being. And it takes time and it takes the relationship of therapy

that you're having with your therapist to really, you have to go through a lot of repetition before you finally start to move and change. Yeah. So as you're resolving your own stuff, which we all have, and then working with all of your patients, one of the things that i'm really

curious about too i'm going to kind of ask you all the questions that i want to ask therapists that i think probably is on you know like our listeners minds too is is when you're in this situation all day when you're seeing patient after patient after patient you know like three four or five days a week sometimes more for different people you know as you described yes your patient is doing work but you as a professional in the room are doing work too. I mean, at a bare minimum, it takes a certain amount of energy to just hold the space, to hold your energy, to hold your attention and to really be present with that person. And when you add on to that, the introduction of deep wounding and pains that are sort of part of this conversation that are coming out and it's not yours, but you're witness to them and you're involved in them. You're helping

people process them. At the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of months or years of this, does that potentially take a toll on you as a therapist or on therapists in general? And if so, what do you do to be okay? Yeah, it's really important because burnout is a big issue. And yet at the same time, on the other end of that, most therapists don't retire because it is such a fulfilling, it is really fulfilling work to do. But I think it makes us richer as people to kind of hear about, you know, what people have been through. It's hard. You take it home sometimes and we learn how to not take it home.

But we do have to really monitor it because some people can get really overwhelmed by it. Yeah, I could imagine. The book, you write very personally about yourself. In your mind, why is it important? I mean, I'm making an assumption, actually. Is it important? And the assumption I was making, tell me this is wrong or not, is that in writing this book and being so transparent and sharing that, yes, we are people too, that there is some important reason for patients to know that. Yeah. There's some value. What is that?

Yeah. I think that it's important because I think that it bridges the gap where people, I think, feel really alone in their struggles. And it's one thing to read about other patients, but I think it's important to know that the person that you're seeing knows what it's like to struggle. Whatever that means, the struggles will be different. The history will be different. The vulnerabilities and insecurities will be different. But that it's a real person. And I think that the I-thou relationship is really what is so much a part of the cure, right? You know, as if there were a cure, but I mean, it is part of the treatment. And statistically, you know, it if there were a cure, but I mean, it is part of the treatment.

And statistically, you know, it's true that your relationship with your therapist is more important than their training, what they specialize in. All of those things are important, but the most important factor in whether people will view their therapy as successful is whether they felt that they had a good relationship with their therapist. So interesting. I had heard years ago that there was data supporting that, that it kind of didn't matter the modality of the training. It was really about the nature of your relationship. So it's interesting that here that's actually valid. And it makes sense, right? Because unless you feel safe, unless you feel like you have confidence in this person that they're genuinely there and participating in this with

you and offer something that's wise of counsel. But like, I think if you feel that, you really couldn't care less, like where they went to school or what the background is. It's like, am I getting what I need from this? Right. And I think mostly people want to feel understood. Yeah. And they want to feel like they matter. And what's funny is they think that their stories are too boring or like something is, you know is not going to be interesting to talk about or it's too small. But the boring patients are the ones who want to keep you at bay. The boring patients are the ones who go off on a million tangents. And when you try to connect with them or redirect them, they're off on something else or they repeat the same story over and over. Those are the boring patients because they won't let you in. Not because the content is so boring, but because you can't connect with them in any way. You can't reach them. And so you're sort of trying to find a way in and they're putting up a wall. That's really boring. Yeah. And isn't that the same thing in life, right?

Right. There are people like that that you'll encounter out in the world. Yeah, when you just can't get through and it's just sound bites or it's just, you know, they won't let you through. There's no there there. But I think there is a there there. Yeah. They just won't let me see it. Right.

And so it takes a lot of trial and error to get through it. And sometimes I will bring up in the room that I feel bored. I will bring it up in a way that isn't hurtful. Would you actually use that word? Or kind of phrase it differently? I would probably phrase it differently. I've used the word. It depends on how long I've known the person or what my relationship is like. Is there a general response to that? Or are people generally startled if that comes up? Or is it just completely different depending on who it is? It usually changes things immediately. Really? It's like, you know, I want to make sure the person doesn't feel any shame or embarrassment. You know, sometimes I'll say something like, you know, I wonder why I seem more curious about your life than you do.

And the person's sort of shocked by that question. Whoa, is that, is she more curious about my life than I am? And it starts a new conversation and it brings us, it diffuses the facade and brings us to a deeper level. Yeah. And I guess a lot of that facade, maybe not a lot, but you have to imagine the more somebody has been wounded through their experience of life, a lot of the facade that a lot of people probably bring to you as they do to the world is it's armor, it's coping mechanism. Like this is how they've gotten to the point in their life where they're still alive and they're still like able to function on a day-to-day basis until they can't. Right. And when we go back to this idea we were talking about earlier about story, that the stories we tell ourselves shape our behavior. They shape what we believe

about ourselves. I'm lovable. I can't trust. I'm lovable or I'm not lovable. I can trust people. I can't trust people. You know, whatever they believe. It's a story that they have, but it needs updating.

So those people have used whatever coping mechanism they've used to keep people out. And through, you know, we say insight is the booby prize of therapy, right? Which is that, you know, if you don't, if you're just learning something about yourself, but you don't put it into practice out in the world, the insight is useless. And I think that we'll talk about it in therapy, but then they have to really take a risk out there and say, this thing that I'm doing, these risks that I'm taking here in the therapy room, I need to take out there in the world. Yeah. And I think the story that most of us come into therapy with is like, it's almost like we're French existentialists. Our story is hell is other people, right? Most people come in with, you know, hell is my boss, my spouse, my child, my parent, whatever it is. And I think what, you know, what sometimes and

often is, you know, is the realization that sometimes hell is us, meaning maybe we didn't create the circumstance, but our response to it is keeping us stuck. And if we can just get out of our own way and see what we're doing to contribute to whatever the hell is, then that's when we can start to make changes. We can't make changes when we think everything is external or situational or out there. When we start to say, what am I doing? How do I contribute to this? And it's not to blame the person. It's to say, it's great that you have all this control over certain things that you thought you didn't, that you actually have choices. You actually can make different decisions. So you don't keep ending

up in the same place. Yeah. It's like you, you, you cannot change the quality of your experience in the world until you reclaim a sense of agency and step out of victimhood. Yes. Yes. And then you get to tell a different story. Right. And that's what I was talking about earlier when we say like, who, who are the heroes in the story and who are the victims? And is that really accurate? Yeah. So fascinating.

Well, I feel like this is a good place for us to come full circle as well. Kind of started with story, went the full gamut and came back to it. So as we sit here today, this is called The Good Life Project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? I think to live a good life is to think about what matters, to think about that our time is limited. I think people are really worried about thinking about death. And one of the themes in the book that comes up a lot is the fact that we don't get forever and that if we keep waiting and waiting for something else to happen, it will be too late. And so I really want people to not be afraid of their

feelings, not be afraid of kind of getting to know themselves, not be afraid of taking risks. There's this idea that a lot of people have that, you know, feeling less is feeling better. Like if you don't feel, that's good, you know, because then you feel better. If you don't feel like sadness or anxiety or whatever it is. But feelings are like a compass, right? They tell us what we need to pay attention to. And so I would say to live a good life, it's to let yourself experience the whole gamut of being human. Thank you.

Thank you. This is really fun. So what a powerful reminder that everyone, even those in the helping professions, they have their own struggles, their own needs, thoughts, and stories. And finally, bringing us home is Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist, speaker, and the host of the wildly popular mental health podcast, Therapy for Black Girls. Her work focuses really on making mental health topics more relevant and accessible for black women. And she delights in using pop culture to really illustrate psychological concepts. Her work is this powerful reminder of the need to continue to support systems

that create access to mental health services for all and to de-stigmatize seeking help. She's also been featured in, oh, Forbes, Bustle, MTV, Black Enterprise, Refinery29, Teen Vogue, Essence, and so many others. So here is Dr. Joy. Did you find that people of color reached out for counseling, for help, were both proactively looking for it and open to it on the same level of other people,

or was it a completely different experience? After I graduated and started working in college counseling centers, that definitely was my experience, that the students of color and primarily Black students would not reach out for services at the same rates as like other students would on campus. What do you feel is behind that? So there's, of course, a lot of stigma related to mental health, you know, in Black community. So people not really understanding like what it is. A lot of us grew up with this idea of what goes on in your house stays in your house.

And so the idea of talking to a stranger about like very personal information is like completely unheard of. You just don't do it. And I think there's also, and there continues to be like this tension between therapy and religion and faith. So, you know, a lot of people feel like, okay, maybe you just don't have a strong enough relationship with God and that's why you're struggling with mental health. So go pray about it as opposed to like, okay, can I strengthen my faith relationship and also go and talk to a therapist? So historically, there has been some tension there that I think has kept Black people out of seeking therapy services. So is it more like there's a pecking order of things that you go to to help out with? Like first, you just don't talk about anything. Right. Then, you know, like you turn to either faith or whatever is really the tradition within your household or your community.

And then is, I'm wondering, I guess, would it then be potentially even seen as a sign of having failed at the things that are supposed to work and even like weakness, if you now have to go to a quote therapist or psychologist? Absolutely, especially for Black women. I mean, there's this whole stereotype of like the strong Black woman, right? That nothing can penetrate you, that you have everything together. You can manage your house and faith and all of those kinds of things. So if you have to reach out to somebody, then you have failed in your, you know, strong Black woman-ness. Yeah. Were you, I mean, so you're seeing this as when you're actually afterwards

on the counseling side, did that surprise you at all? I don't think I was surprised by it, but it was concerning to me because a lot of the places where I worked, I was also either the only like Black psychologist or one of few. So it made me wonder like, oh, did people know this before? Like, is anybody else paying attention to the fact that like the Black students are not coming in at the same rates? And I had been incredibly supported like on every campus that I went, like to go and do a group and, you know, in the Multicultural Student Center or somewhere else, because students, in my experience, the Black students felt more comfortable like meeting where they already were

congregating. Of course, they struggle with the same kinds of things that everybody else is struggling with on campus. But for these kinds of reasons, we're not necessarily going over to the counseling center. So, I mean, there's so many things I'm curious about. Part of it, I mean, it's interesting you shared like, okay, so yes, I think we're all most comfortable sort of like in the place that we feel comfortable. And especially if we're going to be vulnerable, we want to do it in a place that we feel comfortable and especially if we're going to be vulnerable right um we want to do it in a place that is safe you know and and whatever the structure is whatever the things that need to be and sometimes that is the literally the physical place that we feel safe but also part of part of safety is is the person who's leading this conversation or the person who are relying on the person we quote, surrendering to and trusting,

are they safe? Right. And if then part of what you're sharing is most of the counselors at the center were white, how does that play into the feeling of safety and the feeling of willingness to actually seek help from somebody who is of a different race? Yeah. So I think for a lot of people, it felt very comfortable to have these conversations outside of the counseling center. Because, you know, like if you ran in the counseling center, like there was paperwork that needed to happen, like you were a part of the system, so to speak. But when we did groups

outside, it was more like a support kind of discussion group. So there is no paperwork attached to it. So I think in some ways people felt like it was not pathologizing. It felt like, okay, we can just get together with these people who are trained professionals and we can have these kinds of conversations that are important to us. Now, of course, I am also helping them to understand like what kinds of things happen when you come over to the counseling center. So I think having a face for it and realizing like, oh, these are not like weird people over in the counseling center.

Like she's cool to talk to. She can probably, you know, help me kind of get adjusted to talking with someone else. I mean, because the thing is, even if all of like the Black students on campus wanted to see the Black therapists, there would not be enough of us to go around. So a part of, I think my job also is one, helping my non-Black colleagues to understand, like, these are some of the concerns that students are facing. Are you doing your own work so that when they come here, they are not further traumatized by having a racist experience in therapy? And also explaining to the students like, yeah, I know it would be great maybe to talk with me, but one, I don't have experience in all

of the things that you may be struggling with. And actually one of my colleagues may be a better fit for you. So helping to kind of dispel some of those fears they have about talking with someone I think is also a part of like the outreach that was really important to me. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I guess you going there outside of the clinical setting first, it kind of normalizes it first. It's like, I'm actually a regular person too. And we can have a good conversation, but it's just supportive. And it almost, it takes away the sort of like, well, this is quote official therapy.

It's like, oh, well, this is just like, this is kind of part of what it's about, but just a different setting. What makes you go from there then to say, okay, I'm gonna move out into clinical practice and I am going to focus my energy on introducing psychology and therapy to Black women. So the whole origin story for Therapy for Black Girls is that I heard, I watched the Black Girls Rock award show on BET and just, it was such an

incredible experience. And I thought, is there a way I could create something like this for Black women related to mental health? And it feels like it has kind of in a lot of ways become that. So my whole goal was to like make it kind of cool. Like, how can I talk with people about these, you know, very like 10 syllable words and all of these diagnoses and stuff like that? How can I talk with people about this in a way that feels very relevant and accessible to them? Because you mentioned earlier, like, oh, the idea of having to go to therapy, but I also want therapy to be something people want to do. Because I think it's a very unique experience to like go somewhere by yourself for an hour a week and just talk about yourself. I don't think we often get those kinds of things. And so I also wanted people to understand that

therapy is not something that you want to just think about, like when it's a crisis situation or if it's mandated, but how could you actually be improving your life by going to therapy for lots of different reasons? Yeah. And it's not even that it's, there's no shame associated with it, but actually it is effectively the way you're presenting it. It's a form of self-care. Yes. And also self-care is okay. Right. Right. And necessary. We only have one us. How do you feel about that phrase self-care? Because it's, you know, it's so much a part of the conversation right now. It's on Instagram, on like a million different posts. It's hashtag left and right. What's your take on, on just the phrase? I feel like I need to like

find some history of how it has blown up in the way that it has. And of course, we were already talking about self-care because it's my training, right? But it feels like somewhere in the last five years or so, it has become very much a buzzword. And so I'm glad that people are paying more attention to it, but I think sometimes people get confused about like what kinds of things need to be classified as self-care. So you see lots about like manicures and pedicures and massages and, you know, all those kinds of things.

And all of that is great. But I don't want people to miss the like free things that self-care actually is, which is kind of just making sure that you're nourishing your mind, body and spirit so that you can kind of continue to be functional. Like all of those small decisions you can be making to really be taking good care of yourself. Yeah. The little things.

Right. I know. And also I think the idea of it not being a luxury, however you define it, you know, is no, this is actually, this is the way that most of us just are okay every day. Right. You know, in a world that's increasingly fraught and challenging and anxiety provoking. Yes, yes. It feels like it's much more needed for sure.

Yeah. How has the last few years in this sort of like cultural moment changed what you do and changed what you're seeing when people come to you and ask you questions and look for advice? Yeah, there's a lot more anxiety. And you know, anxiety is already like a top two, you know, it kind of goes back and forth between anxiety and depression in

terms of like what's diagnosed most. But there definitely is a lot more anxiety. Some that would meet like diagnoses criteria and some just kind of like, you know, normal everyday anxiety. I think that lots of people are walking around with. I think, you know, the rise of like social media and stuff has made it much more difficult to kind of avoid the things that were already happening in the world that maybe we just didn't know about. But as much as it also promotes awareness, it also makes it very difficult to kind of manage your mental health. Because at any moment you can open Twitter and find like that there's been another shooting somewhere or, you know, some other tragedy. And so I think people are just like really being overexposed, I think, in a lot of ways and are not kind of developing the skills to manage that in the ways that we need to.

So what do you, I mean, when people come to you and they share this with you, like, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm anxious. I don't know what to do about it. I'm getting paralyzed. What are some of the things that you share with them to be okay? Yeah. So one, helping them to develop some limits around like their engagement with technology. You know, I know it's easy because we all have these phones in our pockets or, you know, they're readily accessible, but making sure they're putting things in place so that they are setting healthy boundaries with it. So that may mean kind of cutting it off, you know, several hours before bed or like turning notifications off, like all the things you need to do to protect your psyche from, you know, some of

the traumas that you might see when you open up Facebook. So I think having conversations about that has become much more a part of my work than it was like five years ago. Yeah. You, so the way I became aware of you and your work is actually your podcast. And I started listening. This is awesome. And you guys have to listen, by the way, Therapy for Black Girls podcast. I know the podcast is sort of focused on Black women as listeners. It feels to me as like a middle-aged white dude in New York listening, I'm like taking notes listening to you. But on two levels, like one is you could just get great wisdom for anybody who's moving

through stuff and we all are. But also for me as somebody who is really just trying to better understand my role as a middle-aged white guy in modern society and see and understand the things that people of color are moving through that I've probably been pretty blind to for most of my life. It's been interesting because when I listen to your podcast, I hear not only great advice, but I also hear cultural experiences that I just, I don't, I'm not in that conversation. I don't have that same conversation in my head. It's really, it's been fascinating for me being who I am to listen to it on a regular basis. Okay. Yeah. I think I was very shocked

by how many like non-Black women were listening to the podcast. Cause of course, again, it is very much for them. Like that is who I'm making the podcast for. But lots of like non-Black therapists will tell me they listen to and like get great information. And I'm glad, like I feel like that's like a happy byproduct of the podcast that other people can also get really good information that may help them to have less traumatizing, again, experiences with people of color and Black women in particular in their therapy offices. So if it can help in that way, I'm glad to hear that too. Yeah. One of the things that you've spoken about in various different ways also is, we've touched on a little bit, is the idea of depression and depression in the context of sort of the cultural perception of a strong Black woman and how those two things sometimes

don't play well together. Talk to me more about this. Yeah. So I think, you know, for people who are, have either invested consciously or subconsciously in holding this idea of a strong Black woman, sometimes they miss the signs of depression. So they're so busy trying to take care of other people. They don't realize like how low their own motivation is, or they're not interested in doing things that they used to do. Or some of those signs of depression are very easily missed because you're so outward focused. And so if you're not paying attention to kind of what's going on in your body and your mind, then you miss some of those signs that could indicate like, hey, I'm in trouble here.

I probably need to go and talk with somebody about this. Yeah. You have a very specific offering. You have your podcast, you're speaking to a particular person. And at the same time, you decided at some point, I need to put together a directory. What was the genesis of that and what's it about? Yeah. So it's funny because it didn't come up because I needed to. It's just something felt like I had to. So again, because I spent lots of time like in social media, kind of engaging with people, I kept seeing this commentary around like, oh, I really like to find like a great therapist, like who has a good therapist, that kind of thing.

And so in December of 2017, I believe, or 2016, I put out a call that said, hey, if you are a Black woman who's had a great therapist, send me their information. I will compile it all into like a little database and like, we'll just put it up on the website for people to find people. And so by the end of December, I had like 90 therapists already. Most of them were nominated and some people were like, oh, this looks really cool. Let me add my practice to it. And so it kind of felt like something that happened organically just because I kept seeing conversations around it. Right. And have you found that most of the therapists are also either black women or women of color or people of color? Yeah, by and large. So now there are over 1,200 therapists in the directory.

So what started as 90 is now 1,200. And most of them are overwhelmingly black women right of of the ones that aren't um is that i i'm i'm curious you know like it's sort of a tiny tiny percentage of them are not um how do they end up there is it just because women of color black women um are saying like this person i'm i guess maybe the other question is if everybody's nominating do you you get people saying like, this is my therapist, they're fantastic. They really understand me, my story, like where I come from, my unique concerns, especially as a woman of color. And they're white. Yeah. So actually it's not a nomination thing anymore. So now you can just list your practice as a therapist.

But a lot of therapists who were originally nominated were not Black women. So a lot of, you know, I mean, again, like there are just not enough Black therapists to go around for everybody who would want one. And so that means lots of people are working with non-Black therapists and people were having fantastic experiences with people who were not other Black women and they wanted to nominate their therapist. And they would even say that like, hey, this is not a Black woman, but this person has been amazing and I love them. So of course I would add that. So anybody has the option to join the directory. It just has so happened that most of the people who are listed are Black women. Yeah. So when you sort of look at what you've created now, you've got a media brand, you've got a service brand, you've got a directory,

you've got a community, which you mentioned, which happens online. When you look to the future about what you want to create and where you want to go with this, do you have a clearer sense of what that looks like? Or are you just kind of more open to what it needs to be? I feel like I'm very open, but my community has been very clear in that they want more in real life events. They want an opportunity to come together. They've been asking for some kind of retreat or something. So I feel like that will be a part of what happens like in the very near future. Is that something you want to do just on a personal fulfillment level? Yeah. I feel like I want to like see these people in real life who have been like so incredibly supportive.

So we're sitting here in the context of this container good life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To be connected. To be connected to others who you love. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this exploration of mental health from different lenses and found it valuable. And maybe it'll plant the seeds that open you to exploring and being more intentional and proactive in your own pursuit

of well-being. And if you love this episode, be sure to share it around. Listen to the full-length conversations with all of our guests today also. All episodes are linked in the show notes below. And even if you don't listen now, be sure to click and download so they're ready to play when you're on the go. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share the Good Life Project love with friends

because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that is when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

Flight Risk.