All right, hello, whoa. Am I getting I feel like I'm getting a little bit of feedback. Anybody else hearing feedback? No. Okay, hello and welcome. This is Rasheem of the counter narrative. Tonight's topic, we are going to be talking about healing the black family, or healing black families, I should say, because there is no monolithic black family, but healing black families from the inside out. And I have four fantastic or three fantastic guests on to help us really talk about and explore that topic. Those guests are, I'm going to run through their names, and then I'm going to give them an opportunity to introduce themselves to you. Are Donna Godfrey, Dr Sharonda Davis, Chasity Chandler and Carl Laurie. I'm going to go ahead and start it off with you. Dr Davis, tell us who you are and what is your interest in this topic, and also tell us something about you that we can't find out from your bio.
Hi, I'm Dr Sharonda Davis. I'm a licensed therapist, and my research interest is total wellness, specifically African American women being healthy from the inside out. And I'm passionate about women just living totally healthy in every area of their lives, so that they can have abundant relationships, so they can have abundant connections, and they could be truthful, authentic and transparent. One of the things that I don't share on social media is that I have an eight year old son, and we kind of have, like, dance off competitions. We like download videos and stuff, and we like have dance offs
that is, that is beautiful. I'm going to be asking you later, where can I find the YouTube? And I feel like that's always related to the topic in that healing and health, you
know, movement and happiness and being plugged into the moment. So he loves a lot of watch videos, and I embarrass him, but you know, we're bonding, so
that's right. All right. So Donna, you next. Tell us who you are. What is your special interest in this or relationship to the topic, and what is something about you that we can't find out about you from a bio?
Okay? My name is Doctor Donna Godfrey. My interest in this topic is, I have, I will say I have a strong interest in survivors, and especially survivors and black families related to specifically, I would say, homicides. Something that you can't find out about me through my bio is I am the mother of a 19 year old, so that kind of drives me towards one of my interests, and that would be men and men as survivors and grief and how they deal with you know their grief and how it impacts family violence.
Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. And then, of course, chastity, tell us something. Tell us who you are, as well as what is your interest or relationship to the topic, and what is something about you that we cannot find out from your bio? Hmm, so
my name is chastity Chandler. I'm a licensed mental health counselor, a master's level, certified addictions professional and a certified sex therapist in the state of Florida. My interest in this topic is to stop the overall stigma with African Americans and mental illness. That pretty much sums that up. I also specialize in LGBTQ plus issues. So also the homophobic and transphobia that exists in our culture and how it affects our people is also one thing that I'm really working on stopping, one thing that you don't know about me on my Well, I'm a mother as well, but I won't use that one because they already use that. I am the secretary of black therapist rock, which is a not for profit organization for professionals.
So that's one thing you don't I guess you can't read in my bio, so you don't know that about me. Awesome.
That's a good one. All right, now you're up, Carl, tell us what is your name? What is your special interest to this topic, and what is something about you that we wouldn't be able to find out from your bio? Okay,
I'm Reverend, Carl Lowry, basically, I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, but. I'm living now in Mobile, Alabama. My interest in this is optimal health. I did an internship at healing Community Center in Atlanta during my ministry in context training. And what you would find out about me something that's that you wouldn't know from my bio. I have a very passionate love for her biology and naturopathic medicine.
Fantastic. Thank you all for that. So with this topic around healing black families from the inside out, and thank you to all of our viewers who are watching now, if you're watching the replay again, this is the counter narrative. This topic is healing black families from the inside out. One of the things that made me really interest, interested in doing this topic is because we do sometimes talk about external health. We talk about, you know, there's high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high all of these things, and diabetes and the and these different things. But we don't always talk about what are those contribute, contributed, contributors to that, and we also don't have the conversation around that internal like healing exactly from the inside out. So as we delve into this topic. I really want to first start with the inside. And Dr Davis, I'd like to start with you in discussing the inside. And I want to talk about what are some of the trends that you are seeing, particularly as it Wait, as it relates to African American women in black communities, related to health, and what does that healing would you say in terms of like, look like, what is, what are some of the trends that you're saying seeing is some of the issues, and what is some of the healing that you see that it might look like for them to come full circle and heal?
Well, um, first of all, what my dissertation topic was on multiple roles, and how that impacted subjective well being, specifically how women 18 to 44 define their happiness, and because it was because of our unique socio cultural history, our slavery history, our history up, you know, from slavery and beyond that point that impacts our ability to set limits, To set boundaries, that we have to be super women, that we have to be super powerful, that we have to suck it up, that we have we take it, we take it, we take it, and we put everybody's needs ahead of our own needs. And somehow that makes us well, that makes us a martyr. So we do that over and over and over and so we just and how we medicate that is that we eat, we suck it up. We eat, we suck it up. We're presented in the media as being angry and resentful, and all those things kind of go into that because we don't. We never have an opportunity to own our stories, to say that we're angry, to say that we're overwhelmed, to say that we need help. Because when we say that we need help, oh gosh, like you're a strong black woman, like you need help, you don't need their help. We've been raising everybody else's kids for generations and generations. You know, Big Mama is 70, and she's raising, you know, grandkids under eight. So all those things create an environment of of stress when stress is in the body, stress releases a hormone called cortisol, and when we get too much of it, it creates inflammation in our body, and it creates a gateway for for all the other types of diseases that we have the highest numbers of of cancer, of obesity, of stroke, of heart disease, Just all of those things, create an environment for us to be at the top of the list in all of those areas, and a way for us to to get to get healing, to get relief, to get healthy from the inside out, is to have what we're doing now tapping a frank, open dialog about it, and destigmatizing what what therapy means, going seeing a therapist. I mean, I'm a therapist. I see a therapist. I believe in what I preach, so I eat what I cook. So it's really important to have open, Honest dialog about that, and also owning our stories, like owning not just our stories in our in our culture, but our own personal stories that was part of my healing, to talk about my story, to talk about being the oldest of six, to talk about the abuse that I suffered, and to have a space to say those things so that we can feel more integrated. Talk about what it means to be a black woman, what it means to be, you know, growing up in poverty, whatever that story is, it's got to be an opportunity to talk about it openly, and for us as African American women, to accept and own every part of it, every part of our story. Because when you compartmentalize and you cut it off, then that part of you is not able to heal. So I think it's a total, total approach. And. Whatever, and talking about it and getting honest with yourself, like you gotta look in the mirror every day and say you know, like, know what your shortcomings are, and not, not be in denial about that, because it is an epidemic,
right? You talked a little bit about the strong black woman, and I know a lot of women wear that as a bad Can you talk more about this? This the strong black woman archetype, and what are some of the dangers? Because you highlighted some of them. What are some of the stress related dangers in taking on the archetype of the strong black woman?
You lose your voice. Depression is a depression is a slow, sometimes slow killer. You start eating your words, you start eating your thoughts. You start taking in everybody's everybody's stuff, and you don't even know what your stuff is. It's so deeply buried, and taking on that archetype creates anxiety. It creates self doubt. It impacts your self esteem. You're having these dialogs in your head about, Am I good enough? Am I Am I not enough? And what is somebody thinking about me? We internalize, instead of having these projective and outward like conversations with people, we internalize all that dialog. We don't we don't talk about it. And then what happens as in our relationships, as as women and sisters, we just, we kind of come together in this inauthentic way. We are part of organizations and part of things that attempt to create some transparency, that attempt to create some community, but we're all holding our stuff behind our titles behind our positions, and it creates inauthenticity. It creates no self compassion. It's like, okay, well, you should, you should, you should be able to handle this like, you know, do you know what you've been through? Like, you know, 300 plus years of slavery. We kind of play those tapes in our head to make ourselves live up to this. Like you said the archetype, and it's, it makes us sick. Like, when you say somebody's like, I'm sick and tired, you literally get sick and tired, like, internally and just, just with life,
right? Donna, you talked a lot about, when you were mentioning the impact. When you were talking, you mentioned violence, and I want to get a bit to the impact of violence. Where do the different violences come from? Those physical violence as well as those not seeing violences that are done, you know, whether it's microaggressions or what have you. And what are some of those impacts? How do they show up?
Well, I can say, from working in law enforcement as a crisis responder for almost 13 years, a lot of what you see is, you know, you see the impact of violence across generations. So a lot of times, what, what the black community will talk about in terms of generational curses is not actually a curse. It's a belief that they actually have, you know, embedded. But when we really look at the behaviors and address what's going on, it's actually just behaviors that have been carried across generation to generation. So another, another problem with that is, when you have these behaviors that are carried across generations, a lot of times, it is embedded in the individual as anger, anger, and so when that anger starts to come forth, of course, you know you're going to see what, according to proximity, you're going to see those violence more the violent acts more pronounced,
right? No, I could definitely see that. So if it so, what I'm hearing you saying is like people are experiencing things. And it's not that it's necessarily a generational curse. It's kind of like learned behavior, and they're passing along certain behaviors
that, yeah, yeah. It it learn behaviors, behaviors, you know, of course, grandmother, mothers, the fathers. And of course, it's just going down generation. And another part of the problem that we have in the black community is the secrecy. And of course, that's that's directly linked to slavery and the practices of slavery. But in order to kind of, you know, execute some of that healing, what's going to have to happen, as the previous the previous doctor, spoke about, we have to address what's really going on, because you can't really address a problem unless you get to the root of the problem and expand, especially when it comes down to any issues that are connected with mental illness. We know. So in the black community, that's almost like, you know, you just don't talk about it. But we have to start talking about those things, because that is what is creating a lot of the violence that we see across the board in our black families. We're not We're not teaching healthy behaviors, and so in in that regard, we don't know how to handle conflicts in our families. We're not teaching that to the younger children, and the only thing they know how to deal with conflict is what through aggression.
So tell me more about you mentioned not wanting to tell or keeping secrets. And you related it back to slavery. Can you unpack that?
Yeah, you know, during slave times, of course, the black, the black woman, was what we kept secrets. A lot of things that were going on in terms of, you know, violence towards our ancestors, you just didn't talk about those things. So it's just a practice that we've carried across generations, because it's almost like, you know, you keep that secret in your home, you know, you don't tell your business, you don't air dirty laundry. And that has really impacted us in terms of, you know, families, especially with sex crimes, it's a huge, a huge deal. And when I did my dissertation, one thing that I found across most of the people that I interviewed, things had happened in their families that impacted the family substantially, but they were never talked about. These are only things that these people had heard about through other sources. It was not something that they had actually sat down as a family and sort of work through.
So these things are coming up. There's these, there's this crisis that are coming up, but people aren't really dealing with it, and sometimes maybe not have necessarily the tools or the resources, whether it's a therapist at hand or like know how to process some of these things that are happening, they
don't have sometimes they may not have resources, but a lot of times, I think, they just don't access resources that Are there because of the stigma that's attached to, you know, accessing the resources, of course, you know, in the black family, we a lot of times, have a tendency to push that ideology that seeing a therapist makes you crazy, when, in fact, a lot of our counterparts, what are they doing? They access the services and they don't really care about the impact or how it makes them look
okay. So one of the things that chastity mentioned was around stigma. So let me go to chastity. Chastity, I'd like to hear more about mental health, mental health in communities of color, and the stigma associated with it, and why is that?
Well, a lot of what Dr Donna, I don't know your last name, I'm sorry, but a lot of what Dr Donna said was a lot of what I was going to touch on, but what I will say is, you know what she said is, is correct, and that is still happening in our community, but there are a lot of individuals who are reaching out for help, you know, so us doing more out in our communities, not just talking about how bad the communities are, but actually getting out there, getting involved with Boys And Girls Club Girls, Inc, you know, the different entities that are within our communities where a lot of our kids are getting out there in the schools, hosting events where we're actually talking to the parents and trying to make a difference to help break those generational curses of, you know, sexual abuse and physical abuse and things of that nature. I mean, we can't just talk about it. We got to kind of be about it, and that's what I love so much about BTR. I'm not trying to plug BTR, but we are here trying to make it prevalent, make it known, put resources out there to help our clinicians. That's a lot of people that go to school and they get these degrees and all of that, and they don't necessarily have that experience, or they did not have exposure, you know, to work with our population. You know, it's a lot of us who still don't understand how slavery impacted us. As the first doctor spoke about it's a lot of people that still don't understand how depression, anxiety and all those other things affect us, you know. So really getting the word out there about what is mental health? Yeah, it's not being crazy. Any one of us could be going through a negative or hard or tough situation in our lives, on our jobs, the kids stressing out, your man ain't doing you right, whatever it may. Be we to know that you can speak to someone professionally who can't, can't run and tell your business who is trained and is there to genuinely help you, is huge. You know, a lot of people don't know that we're out there. You know, I get found all the time, and they're like, I didn't know there was even black therapists in this area. I happen to live in an area that's predominantly white, and so a lot of it, again, is about education. It's about us continuing to further our education, and it's about being able to embrace, yeah, these things happen to us. A lot of this stuff is nothing we can do about, but what can we do and then making the strides towards fixing and improving in the areas in the lives of our people in a way that we can we're not going to fix everything. We can't change everything. Slavery happened. There's nothing we can do about that. But what can we do about today from a strengths based perspective? Because there are people out there doing positive things. There's clients who have positive attributes, so building upon that to help them in the negative situations, in the negative times.
Now, you also spoke a bit about people look you up and they're like, Oh, I didn't know they're black therapists. What do you think the impact of, you know, some of that resistance that we're finding for people of color to go to a therapist. How much of that do you think is based on I want somebody of my culture who understand my background, who not judging me, that sort of thing. What is the role that black therapists specifically
play? Well?
I mean, you gotta think about it like this. We got six we got 7.1 1000 people in our group, and we still have conflict because we can't have an intellectual conversation because we have a difference of opinion. I mean, we got to shut posts down. We got to delete posts. We got to kick people out the group. I mean, like we are professional individuals, and we still can't have an intellectual conversation about religion, politics or anything dealing with LGBTQ, plus issues about somebody going left. I mean, so when it comes to the community, first of all, we don't always go to US people that want us to go to us just because we are the same color. And I'm sorry it doesn't always work that way, but a lot of us won't go to us because we feel we don't know what we talking about. Are they gonna judge me? Are they gonna talk bad about me? So a lot of that, again, is breaking that stigma. You know, you don't have to be crazy to see a therapist, and you don't have to see a therapist, I believe, and this is just my professional opinion based solely on their color. I'm not gonna go to somebody just because they black. I need to go to the person that's most qualified for the problems and the issues that I have. If they happen to be black and they happen to be able to relate to that part of me, then that's great, but if they're not, then I gotta go wherever I gotta go to get the help that I have to give. So we can't sit here and just try to help the people in our community if we're not actually getting the latest information, research and interventions and techniques to be able to help our people. We can't expect them just to come to us and then we put ourselves in it. Nobody wants to hear your opinion if it's not based on some real research about what I'm going through. You know what I mean?
So with the so one more question for you, then we're going to go to actually two more probably for you. Do you think that how people view cultures differently could impact what they normalize in terms of so if you go to someone, and this is again, just a question, if you go to someone who is familiar with your culture, where your culture is not objectified or deviant. Do you think that that could support in a deeper understanding in providing assistance to a person?
Absolutely, for instance, I have a lot of individuals that come to me for various reasons, within the LGBTQ plus population, the majority of my practice is not African American. I don't know why that is. I do have African American clients. Like I said, I do live in a predominantly white area, but most of my clients are not black for whatever reason that is, people don't come to me because of my skin color. They come to me because they know that they're not going to be judged based on who they sleeping with or who they're attracted to, or what they've done in a past, whether they've done drugs, they've done this, they've done that. They know that they can come to me and they're going to be able to get the help that they need in a very therapeutic, non judgmental, non biased environment, people already know how bad their lives are. They already know how the things that they went through were. They don't need to come to a professional to be beat upside the head with the same name. They already know that right
around supporting LGBTQ, so they would probably want a person with that understands that and. Won't like. Let, for example, if, if a person is LGBTQ, and they have whatever issues that they're experiencing, whether it's like rejection from their community, or rejection from their spiritual community, or whatever the challenges are, and they go to, let's say a person, and that person has a very strong background that says that their life is wrong, then I'm thinking that that conversation is going to be different, as opposed to, like, if they go to you chastity, where you're an ally and you're not, you're coming from more of a strength based perspective. You're not telling them that you are wrong for who you sleep with and who you are, and see that sort of thing, yeah. Well,
I mean, it's no secret, I guess, my views on this one, um, as far as clinicians are concerned, and then I'll definitely address your your question, as far as clinicians are concerned, I don't understand why that's the only population we ask about who they sleep with. When I sit down and I talk to a client, who they what they do in their personal life, unless they come into me for sexual reasons. That's none of my business. That doesn't impact how I treat them for depression, anxiety or anything else. I wouldn't exclude somebody based on that. But with that being said, the LGBTQ plus population is one that has sometimes very complex trauma, and it's very layered issues. You don't necessarily treat a person with LGBTQ plus issues differently than cisgender heterosexual individual, but they're going through different things than the cisgender heterosexual person. So with that being said, I think as clinicians and as professional individuals, we must know our ethical limitations and boundaries and our skill level, we're going to do more harm than good. And if you really have an aversion to that population, and you really, really it's ignorance, you really don't understand what those things are. But let's say you do understand, and you come in from maybe like a spiritual place, and you say, you know, I just don't agree with the lifestyle, because that's what you know, most of the Christian people say, no, no shade there. But you don't agree with the lifestyle, then all I say is, then you need to refer that person to someone where they can get the help that they need. Because if that is truly your belief, you doing work with that person is going to do more harm than good. A person in the LGBTQ plus population is more likely to have suicidal ideations, they're more likely to have substance abuse issues, and they're more likely to be attacked in or killed. So these are people who are not just worried about whether you care about who they sleeping with or not. These are people who are worrying about 50% of LGBTQ person's mental state is spent on being safe. Who can I tell? How are they gonna respond if they know I'm gay? Am I gonna lose my job if they find out I'm trans? Am I gonna be attacked in the bathroom if they find out I'm this, you know. So another layer of problems that I'm hearing
from you too is like, what, what the therapist background is? Uh, does matter in terms of what they are able to help with, because, like you said, you can do more harm than good if you don't have that. Carl, I like to ask you about one of the things that you said that that you like to focus on is, how did you put it? What was the word? I don't want to say,
go ahead, optimal health, optimal
health. So unpack that a little bit for us and tell us what optimal health looks like. Dr
John T Cassell, from Maryland, he's dead now, wrote a book called The pyramids of power, and it has different aspects of our health and how there's a thread of wellness that goes through those different areas of health, those areas of health being intellectual health,
physical health, I
uh, spiritual health and socio economic health, and those areas of health are very intimately connected, and we kind of overlook sometimes the impact that these different that the connection has how one thing affects the other. If you don't have the money to be able to buy something that the doctor prescribes it's kind of clock, then you have some difficult then you may have some difficulties with getting to the place that the doctor is trying to get you to. Mm. Uh, there's a very intimate connection to all the areas of health that goes into making certain that people are in the place that they need to be. And one of the things that I did when I was at healing community center was I implemented a program called history as a healer. I remember Dr Sharonda, I believe it was,
yeah, that's correct. Thank you. Was talking
about the reflection, reflection on one's own background and and how things go on one's own life. And some of the stuff that I saw when I was asking questions, doing a little research with that program was that when people reflected on what was going on in their community, the health of their community, the health of their family and their own health from a historical perspective, that they began to understand how those things connected better, and they also began To appreciate the things that they don't look at all the time much better. So
powerful, especially when you take that, that historical approach to it. Dr Davis, I want to go back to something that you were saying when you were talking about, um, you were talking about playing several roles. And I want to, I want to get at so we talked about, you talked a little bit about playing several roles, and we also talked about the whole strong black woman archetype, yeah, it's not really a secret that a lot of the families within black communities are female led, and we know the impact that the Moynihan Report played on how we conceptualize and view black female led households. When you're in situations where it's not just only female led but where the feet were, it's it's like a single mother. Um, I know that that has some impact on the dual role, but I'm also hearing things where women who are married are still they are just as much nurturer as they are provider, and they're just as much in their community and just as much here and just as much over there, and getting to these, you know, and having all of these different stress levels. What are some things that, um, that you would that you would recommend in balancing that out? Because it's one of the things I found, is it's hard to tell them to stop. It's hard to tell me to stop, right? So what are some things to get to well being for us, that because we can't stop serving our family, we can't stop showing up at work, we you know, or or maybe we can, I don't know, you tell me. Dr Davis,
one of the things that I think it's along the same lines as I like what chastity said about being operating out of your as a therapist, operating out of your clinical expertise. And I think that translates to women too, that we have to operate out of our our what we what we can do and what we cannot do. There's we can do some awesome. We can do 20 things, really awesome, but we could probably do three things, superior in excellence. And I think it's about saying no, like chastity said when you're in your position. It's about saying no to things. No is a powerful a powerful statement, and saying no to those things, and knowing your self worth, knowing that your worth and your value is not tied into a position or role that you play, knowing that you alone are enough. If you never make another pan of brownies for for soccer, you're still awesome if you never you know do those, those those tasks that are associated with your with your own, with being good enough, and just saying no. I think it's about you knowing, knowing who you are, aside from, from those roles that you play for aside from those obligations, and also when we don't, when we don't say no to things, we also become that person's source, instead of a resource. And I think that ties into our spirituality, that we have to recognize that there's a higher power. And if we keep saying yes to everything, we abort someone else, else's freedom and their in their redemption and their healing too. So because if I keep saying yes, like, oh well, here's $20 $20 $20 here, then I become that person, source like they they need to learn how to pray. They need to learn how to fast. They need to connect to their power so that they can be empowered, to to to see themselves out of a situation. That's one thing. If I'm saying, you know, gosh, I know you can do that, but I have to say no to that, because if I give you this 50 Jordan, he's not going to be able to have a have shoes. You. And you have to develop your resources in a way that you can, like you said, develop those intellectual field, physical, spiritual resources that you need to be empowered. Not that we're cutting people off, but it's like, if you don't, you don't have nothing left for yourself at the end of the day, and you're sleeping, and you got 50 lifts running your head, you can't even sleep, and you need seven to nine hours of sleep for optimal functioning. You gotta check it. You gotta check yourself. Like it starts with me, like the more no's I say there's that opens up opportunities for people to have yeses and for them to become resilient, to interface with with their world. Because I can't, I can't rescue you. I'm not a savior, but I can point you into some directions, like, oh gosh, chastity, she's the excellent resource for this. Or the other doctor, she's an excellent resources. Or Mr. Carl, he's an excellent resource for this, because you are passionate about that, and you can help that person in a way that, hey, I can help you, because, you know, I'm a black woman, I can make some stuff happen, but am I put it I'm operating on on fumes over here. I gotta say no. You gotta preserve your awesomeness. It's like you gotta say no to stuff
I like that. Preserve your awesomeness. Look, I already done. Told you four times I gotta preserve my awesomeness.
Now, yeah, like, you want me to, you want me to be a cheerleader at football practice and every football or games and stuff. It's like, No, we're not going to do this. Like, we can't do this. Mommy's not going to help you with that. And that's some of the things that, you know, when I'm talking to my son, like he wants to do everything, but I'm like, Look, you know, I got to sleep, you know, I got to exercise, you know, and a big part of that is communicating, communicating what your needs are, saying that out loud, and saying, No, I can't do this. I'm sorry. I can't help with that, but it's like that doesn't got nothing to do with me, but I'm Hey, but also taking care of yourself first, for you to perform optimally. And I like also one of the things that I realized that I can be great at a I can, you know, people want to have it all. You can have it all, but you just can't have it all at the same time. And seasons in your life change. Like, when I was in the PhD program, there was things that I could, I could do, that I could not do. I was like, Look, I'm writing. No, I asked you for nothing. You gonna be in cereal. You gonna be eating sandwiches. I mean, it's only for a season. A full stomach is a full stomach, yeah? Like, it's you full I provided food, shelter and clothes, but it's like, I gotta write. I got Chapter Four to write. I can't I'm not gonna be able to do this. But that season changed now, like you got you get a hot meal, like after I defend so it's about communicating what your needs are and not being afraid of that.
Yeah, no, that's fantastic. So much of what you said, I really appreciate it. And I think some of what I heard, too is about when you said about saying no, in this hard time we have saying no, I think some of it is about people pleasing. We don't want to disappoint. We don't, you know, sometimes we feel like it's all on us. We got to do it. It's work to be done, and we got to be the one to do it. But, you know, we don't. And there's a few things that you said to Dr, dr Davis, for people who are listening again, this is the counter narrative. This episode is healing black families from the inside out. We are joined with Dr Donna Godfrey, Dr Sharonda Davis, Chasity Chandler and Carl Laurie, and I'm your host, Rasheem. So some of the things that you said, Dr Davis was about saying no, and I think that that is a really big thing. So if people are listening and you didn't take get a sheet of paper and write it down, I'm being studious for the both of us, but you have to write down your own stuff, because Dr Davis just told me I can't be doing all your stuff. But so one of the things I heard you say was say no. Another thing that I heard you say that I don't know if we do enough, is communicating what our needs are, because we don't want to be no burden. I don't want to bother nobody. I just, I got this by myself, that whole thing. So I think saying no, I find that the more that I say no, the more intact in integrity I could be with my yes and communicating my needs. And another thing that you said about basically like you could be a resource, but not the source. You know, give from your overflow. Don't, don't make yourself the the kind of man, yeah, no, I am all about that, and
I really, and I wanted to chime in about that. Also, one thing I always tell my son, and he thinks that it's so hilarious, you know, because a lot of times he'll say that I don't necessarily respond or react to certain situations the way that I guess he would have me to. But my, my idea of my response is, I have to compartmentalize. It's just like a dresser, you know, you have a certain draw for certain things. Maybe this is not the thing I want to, you know, respond to, or I want to put that much emotion into. Maybe it's something that, maybe it requires a little more emotion. But guess what? At the end of the day, I'm one human being, I have to compartmentalize every emotion and kind of deal with my own my own feelings, my own well being, because if you don't, you'll never be able to be good for anybody else.
Yes, I love that doctor godberry, because what that says to me is about being in choice, and it also is a good reminder that our I think our emotions are fantastic indicators, but terrible dictators. So we can't walk around with those emotions just popping off all the time. Although, you know you feel like some people need a good popping off every now and again, but you have to compartmentalize and say, This is how I choose to respond, because that, I mean, I think that that is self management. It's energy preservation. Is self preservation. One of the things too, that I know that you mentioned that you deal with in terms of helping people I don't know deal with their emotions, or helping them to get past and that is being a survivor of homicide. And I feel like being a survivor of a homicide is something that is different than being a survivor of someone who has died of cancer. In that sometimes with homicide, it's not resolved. You don't know who they did it, or you do know, and you see them all the time, but you can't tell. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because that's one of those real emotions, one of those real things that we experience, that we need to know how to heal from on top of all this other stuff.
Well, I think that that's a difficult area in itself, because, number one, I think what happens a lot of times in the community, or just in general, people don't let survivors grieve. They don't. They kind of rush the survivor, the families through their experience. And a lot of times you really don't have that opportunity to deal with, you know what you need to deal with, and what happens that that grief, that you know experience is internalized, and we kind of go about our normal days. But I mean, think about that. You know, if you're if you're a teenager, or your your husband or your wife has been been murdered, or a parent, how do you just necessarily grow go on about your day, and then, you know what happens? You're so busy trying to go about your day. So now we have additional life, you know, the daily life that we go through and have to kind of deal with, but we still aren't really addressing the victimization, or, you know, the survivor, the survivorship. And I just think, like a lot of times, what happens also, I think Dr saronda, or maybe chastity, had mentioned this, when they seek out the counseling, they seek out the resources. A lot of times, the people that they're seeking out. They don't have a specialty in survivorship. They don't really know how to address those particular issues. And I mean, outside of homicide survivors, survivors of sexual violence, that's another huge area, and I just don't feel like the resources that are there necessarily give, you know, the victims or the survivors that opportunity to the work through what they've gone through. It's sort of like, I'm going to kind of push you along through this process, but it doesn't give them that opportunity just to settle in. Number one, what has happened, and number two, how to go on after? You know, after we've dealt with this, we've tried to get the counseling. How do we live day to day? Because if that is not something that goes away, it's going to be with you the rest of your life.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, chastity, I want to ask you about this. We have talked about quite a bit. We have talked about the fact that we have people in our in our families who are wearing so many roles. We have talked about homicides. We have talked about survivors of victims of this or that we have talked about LGBT Q plus community dealing with an overlapping of issues usually leads to people when they don't go to therapists or getting some type of help, they usually ends up with themselves medicating you. With drugs and alcohol, what has been and have you had any, um, experiences around that? And can you tell it? Can you say more about how those stressors and not getting that healing could possibly lead to that?
Oh, absolutely. Um, I would probably say nine out of 10 clients I've ever seen in a substance abuse setting has been self medicating, whether that be self medicating from trauma, self medicating from mental health issues, or just self medicating from dysfunctional families. I mean, dysfunctional families seem to breed. There's a big correlation. It seems to breed individuals with substance abuse issues, co dependency issues, as she was speaking about violence and things of that nature. You know, I'm a firm believer, if you can learn how to effectively deal with your feelings and effectively deal with life on life's terms, you don't go back to necessarily substance abuse, but a lot of times for those individuals, it's easier to go get drunk and get high than to face the reality of what the situation so yeah, there's a huge, huge correlation with untreated mental health, untreated trauma or being ostracized, Even a lot of times, people's families just kind of throw them away and toss them away. They are lost cause at this point, you know. And so people feel like they have no one to turn to, you know, an ultimate sense of use just leads to institutional, institutionalization or death. I mean, it's no good ending out of continued use of substances.
And one of the things that you said, too, is about them, it's easier to go get high or to go drink something than it is for for them to actually get treatment. And I remember Doctor Davis mentioned about us dealing with our own issues, like dealing with our own stuff, because we're easy, we're we're it's easier to point out, in general when you've been victimized, when someone has done you wrong. But it's not always easy to own, like, I screwed up. What? Yeah,
well, you when you think about when you think about victims of sexual violence, which I do you
nothing. Our body physiological.
Oh, the audio is messing up for me. Are you? Is your audio clear? Which athlete?
No, we don't hear it at all. Now, I don't hear
I just see a screenshot, a screenshot. Oh,
can you hear me? Okay, go ahead, talk now. Can you Yeah, all
right. So what I was saying was, when you get someone who's been victimized sexually in their body, the physiological self has responded, you know, because they may, they may actually orgasm, they may actually do things like that. It's a very conflicting thing, you know. And then people say, Well, you dress that way, so you asked for it, or you went with him, so you asked for it. I mean, so this whole rape culture in our society, we normalize this way much. We victimize we revictimize the victim, and we treat them worse than we treat the perpetrator. You know what I mean? So that definitely has has to stop. So I've been raped, I went on trial, and then I gotta be re victimized by my family, and so I have to go through that all over again. I mean, what message are we sending to people who actually reach out and try to get help from us when things seem to, quote, unquote, get worse once I've told somebody and once I've reached out for help, you know,
absolutely. Carl, can you speak to? Oh, sorry, somebody else. No, I was just
gonna add to, like, you know, we add to what chastity was saying too about self medication. We kind of overlook the fact that the thing that we have most readily available in grocery stores. I mean, people self medicate through you can get cookies, cakes and sodas and cat all kind of stuff easily. I mean, you got $5 you could, like, 800 calories of sugar. And, you know, sugar does things to the body and makes, you know, placate some emotion and stuff too. So that is another kind of under stated. I think sometimes that food can can be used as as something to self medicate, and that's why we see the obesity and the over overeating and as women, when we are dealing with depression and things that we wake up five years later, and we find trying to figure out why, where did this five pounds come from? Well, you know, like when you got overwhelmed and you're stressed out, and you had those 50 lists that you're going you went through like, two pints of ice cream, sleep.
So, yeah, we that that too. That happens too with food, with whatever is readily available sometimes,
right? I mean, thank you for saying that. I've seen situations where people have also self medicated, these eggs, sex, chopping, gambling,
food, anything you think of, if it can be. I mean, addiction is an addiction, right, right?
Well, while we're speaking on this particular topic, can anyone speak to what are some coping what are some healthy coping strategies that we can give people who might be listening, whether they're listening right now. They're listening to the replay. Can we give them some healthy coping strategies when they are stressed, when they're dealing with something that is very real?
She gotta acknowledge that it is stressful. I mean, you gotta be truthful, like this is stressing me out, and be open to the possibility of having that shift, to say, you know, hey, like I used to do this, but like in this moment, this time, I'm not going to handle the stress this way. I'm going to acknowledge it, acknowledge my, my higher power. Or if you know, it's because that, that higher power is above and bigger than anything that's happening in my life, to reach out, to ask for ask for help. Say no. Ask for help. Keep asking for help. Ask for help again, just in case you didn't get the right answer that you needed. And journal, I mean journal, write your feelings out, or get your phone out, like if there's something that you want to say, you know you're recording stuff. You can record, speak into your phone, record it and and say how frustrated you are, you know, curse, whatever that is that you need to do to get to get that out in a healthy way. To do that, like write about it, sing about it, write poetry. Take a walk, you know, take a take a shower, take a bath. Be mindful, like, be aware of the good that is in your life. The flower is red. Like, take 15 minutes to look at how red a flower is and to think about what went into that. Just being attuned to your breathing, you know? Because when we get stressed out, like, we hold everything in and we don't breathe, we we suck it up and just being attentive to those things. So just to breathe, I'm telling you, like, if you just breathe when you stressed out, that makes a whole lot because you stop breathing because you're like, you shock yourself. You just, your body just goes into defense mode
exercise, you know, I find that exercise helps me a lot. You know, just walking, you know, go to the gym, whatever, you know, simple things like that, you know, help a lot. That person that is has a good ear for listening. Sometimes, you know, when you can't get to someone professional, having that, you know, that sacred friend, that really close friend that you can talk to and lean so do you can lean on. You know, from a spiritual perspective, having them to be able to listen to what it is that was troubling me will a lot of times ease up some of the difficulties in that situation, yeah.
And I was going to say, of course, having someone to talk to let it out, you know, and as we talked about earlier, learn how to compartmentalize what you're feeling and And to piggyback on that be more intentional about how you treat yourself, because a lot of times we treat other people much kinder than we treat ourselves. Be intentional about the way you you live. You know, if you're doing things that are stressing you out, learn how to take that step back. Learn how to kind of call yourself on, you know, behaviors that are counter productive to you know what you need at that time
that is good. Yeah, what I was
going to say as well, and something I do a lot, especially with my substance abuse clients, is we do behavior replacement. So if I have a set of negative behaviors or unhealthy behaviors that I typically engage in, and I know I have to change those behaviors. It's kind of like a kid. When you take something from a kid, you got to give them something else in return, right? So if we're asking them to change these unhealthy behaviors, we have to come up with healthy behaviors to do instead. So, you know, instead of going and hanging with the boys and smoking weed, I'm going to go to the gym and I'm exercise, you know, instead of beating myself up about how much weight I've gained, you know, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go to the gym, you know, like setting up those uh, healthy behavior replacements when I get angry. I'm gonna count to 10, I'm gonna do some intensive, deep breathing, my meditation, I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna read my Bible, whatever those things are, versus the unhealthy behaviors that. We've been engaging in. No,
this
is all good. So some of the things, oops, go ahead, I just say awesome. Oh, right, that is awesome. So again, you are watching the counter narrative. This episode is healing black families from the inside out. So some of those coping and healthy behaviors for people who are listening, who are not as studious as I am, I took a few notes, and if you have a moment right now, I would go ahead and write a few of these down. If you have a pen and a sheet of paper and you're watching or listening and watching or listening the replay, one of the things that Dr Davis talked about was acknowledging it. And I think also dr, dr Godfrey, you mentioned that something around that too, in terms of acknowledging it, asking for help.
What is it?
Yeah, the deep spiritual connection, breathing, exercise. Be intentional about the way you live and about how you treat yourself. Like how many people really being intentional about the way they treat themselves?
We don't, because we live if we we live in this individualistic culture. But oddly enough, we don't really cater to ourselves the way that we should. And I mean it just to add on to that, be true about who you are. Be true to yourself, because you know you can't please everybody you had life. Life is short, and shorter than we really know it. And guess what, if you can't be kind of you, I don't know how you can truly be good to someone else, absolutely without just going through the motions. I'll say that
right before we before I let everyone go, because we're almost at a full hour already, and I try my best to fit as much in this hour as I could, because I feel like I could have, like, a whole series with each one of y'all for like they but I tried to, I tried to fit a lot. So we did talk about abuse, substance abuse. We talked about violence, stigma, addiction. We talked about a lot of things in this in this short amount of time. But and for some of you, you got some good things, and you felt like people who are watching or listening, you felt like, Oh, that was good. This is, this is exactly what I needed. And some of you are probably out there, like, you know what I really need more. I want to stay in contact. I want to stay connected. So I want to give a chance for each one of you to let people know how they can reach out to you, whether that is email, text message, social media, however you like to connect. And I'm going to go ahead and start with you. Carl, um, I want your last remarks or anything that you want to make sure that you want to say and let people who want more know how they can get more.
Well, I'm on staff at St Paul AME Church in Mobile, Alabama. My phone number is 87233,
wait, wait, wait. Carl, you go you want to give your phone number now this is going on YouTube, oh,
well,
Facebook or Twitter or something.
Reader. Carl Lowry is the way that you can find me on Facebook. There you go, and my email is that same email. Email is alright, um, CW Lowry at proton mail for this kind of stuff.
Thank you. Alright, Taffy, any final thoughts? Look, I gotta help my brothers out.
Good, looking out. Pastors now.
All right, y'all
find final thoughts, chastity. And also, how can people reach out and let them know about the
group too? Oh, well, well, since
you mentioned it, the group is black therapists. That's with an S is plural rock. It's on Facebook. It is a private group, so you have to either have somebody invite you, or you have to find us and ask to be admitted. So you can definitely find me there, but you can also find me well, you can email me at Chandler, C, H, A n, d, L, E R, counseling, C O, U N, S, E L, I N, g@gmail.com or you can look me up on Psychology Today, that way you have access to call and or email me through there as well.
Fantastic. Dr Godfrey, any final thoughts on how can people get more
Well, anyone that's in the Broward County area, they can get in contact with me through the Broward domestic violence count. Council, or through the broad Victims Rights Coalition, or they are able to email me at Donna l godfrey@gmail.com thank you
and Dr Davis, any last I
am sure, any last things? Thank you for the opportunity. This has been an awesome dialog. I am on Instagram as empowered woman, on Twitter as empowered the number one woman, and I'm on Facebook, Sharonda S, H, A dash, capital R, H O, N, D, A M Davis, and if you need to email me, I'm at E, W, at empowered the number one woman.com.
Awesome. I want to thank everyone who is watching and everyone every one of you came on and shared your genius and your information and insight and wisdom with me and with everyone who is watching live. There's actually a few people who've been in and out watching live on YouTube right now, and everyone who is probably going to watch this replay, I especially want to thank you because a relative, relatively new undertaking of mine, and it's not always that people are available or ready to have certain conversations. And I want to thank each and every one of you for being willing, able, ready, and answering the call. I really do appreciate it again. This has been the counter narrative, and this is a this episode is healing the black families from the inside out. Thank you for watching and listening and have a good night.
Good night. Thank you. Good night you.