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Ep. 6: Healing Through Authenticity and Connection · Wellness in Today's World

• 0:05
  Welcome to "Wellness in Today's World" with Debra Kawahara, a space where we discuss the latest insights in psychology, wellness, and everything in between.
• 0:17
  Hello, I'm Debra Kawahara, and thank you for joining us today.
• 0:22
  Today, I have Dr.
• 0:24
  Thema Bryant, renowned psychologist, author, professor, minister, and sacred artist,
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  weaving psychology, spirituality, and social justice in paths of healing, liberation, and social justice.
• 0:43
  She is the author of "Matters of the Heart," which infuses her brilliance and heart-centered wisdom.
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  Welcome, Dr.
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  Bryant.
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  I am so thrilled that you are here today.
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  Let's start off with just talking about "Matters of the Heart."
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  It's described as a book that gives the soul nourishment.
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  What made you write this book right now?
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  Yes.
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  Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
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  I have so much appreciation for you and the work that you do to serve all of our communities.
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  "Matters of the Heart" really came to me, the significance of it as a result of the research that shows the large impact that social support has on our lives.
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  A lot of my work is with trauma survivors.
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  And one of the big predictors in terms of people's healing and recovery is the amount of emotional social support they have, where it is reciprocal and mutual, where they can tell
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  the truth and become undone so that they can heal.
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  And on the other side of that, we know that unhealthy relationships really create a lot of distress,
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  whether we're talking about abuse or abandonment or just dysfunction.
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  And so if we want to consider ways that people can really alter their lives, relationships are a big part of that to be able to create healthy connections and to either transform or
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  release the unhealthy connections.
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  ah So I love the idea of creating mutually nourishing connections as uh a path of empowerment and healing.
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  The first part of the book is about nourishing ourselves and loving ourselves.
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  And so I think both are so important.
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  There's a sacred teaching
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  that you should love others as you love yourself.
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  And so I think it's a fundamental part of wellness and wholeness.
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  In the book and I know just in terms of your presentations and when you work with people...
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  Really, I guess I know that you talk about healing begins with reconnecting to our inherent self, you know and...
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  I know in your work and in your practice, you know, what would you say that would look like in real life
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  to someone?
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  Especially for those who are disconnected maybe from their authentic, genuine self.
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  Yes.
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  So I would start with the reverse, which is recognizing when we're performing, recognizing when we have been taught to be inauthentic.
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  And that starts very early.
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  As children, we notice, you know, who are the children who are attended to, who are the ones that are celebrated?
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  How do they talk?
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  How do they walk?
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  How do they interact?
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  And then children kind of take in that model
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  of if I'm more like them or if I look like them or act like them, then I will be praised as well.
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  So in that sense, we learn how to alter ourselves.
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  And then on a deeper level for people who have been in unsafe situations, it can become a matter of survival to kind of suppress what you are feeling, suppress what your needs are
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  and learning how to detect
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  what do other people want and let me give that to them and then I'll be safe or then I'll be chosen or then I'll be loved.
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  And so in order for us to get to the authentic self, you know, part of it is acknowledging what are the ways I've been making pretend?
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  What are the ways that I've been living like some other person?
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  And I don't want to play this role anymore.
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  So it is liberating.
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  And people often talk about this as like when people are in old age.
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  So the kind of joke is around like much older women who will say whatever.
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  And I love that freedom, right?
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  And I'm also like, I don't wanna have to wait till I'm 80 to speak my truth, right?
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  So can we do that now?
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  And can we raise children who can speak truth culturally?
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  One of the phrases I often heard growing up was "fix your face," right?
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  And that "fix your face" wasn't makeup.
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  It was like suppress your emotions.
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  That you shouldn't look upset.
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  You shouldn't look disappointed.
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  You should just look pleasant or grateful or neutral.
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  So we learned that very early that what you actually feel, think, or know or need is not the priority.
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  The priority is other people's comfort.
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  So then we shapeshift in order to make other people comfortable.
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  So, to live authentically is to get free enough within myself and secure enough that even if they don't like me, that's okay.
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  Right?
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  That my ultimate goal is to live from a place of truth.
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  For example, we're both spiritual people.
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  So in some spaces, if I say that, people think very negatively about that.
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  And that's okay, right?
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  Or I'm artsy.
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  So like when I'm with my creative people, they love it.
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  And you know, we're wearing our bright colors and other people are like, you know, you're doctors.
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  You should wear like navy blue and black, right?
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  So, but you know, we're right.
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  Exactly why is that?
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  Like, why?
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  So to get free is like, this is me and people can take it or leave it because I'm okay with me.
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  Yeah.
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  You know as you were talking what it reminds me of is all these messages that we get about how we're supposed to be and so we kind of build this public mask, right?
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  And what you're kind of saying is, if you can remove the mask so that people could really see who you are, that that is where
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  you are getting back to your real self.
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  Yes.
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  And the beautiful part about that, going back to relationships is then you can have authentic relationships.
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  'Cause if I'm being inauthentic, then someone is drawn to me based on my performance.
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  So they don't actually like me, right?
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  They're liking how I'm presenting.
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  When I give myself and other people the gift of my truth,
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  then we can determine like, are we actually friends or are we actually compatible or are we aligned?
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  And if not, it's okay.
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  And that's where it's like, if you're able to meet them on a real and genuine level, they really get to know who you are and you get to know who they are to see, is this a
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  relationship for the future?
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  Right?
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  yes, absolutely.
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  And that is also very healing because the reason we're like pretending is we believe parts of us are unacceptable.
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  So that's why it's the gift of therapy is when I share the thing I'm ashamed of or embarrassed about and my therapist doesn't change their mind about me, right?
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  That still has some positive regard for me.
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  That's very freeing.
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  And likewise in relationships, when I come out of hiding and actually, you know, say the thing, the hard thing, the frustrating thing that, you know, my mistakes, my hangups,
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  whatever that is, and I am still chosen and embraced.
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  Well, then now you have like a rich connection.
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  So let me ask you because you know, what if someone has been so wounded in the past because they have shared their real self, being authentic, being genuine,
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  and for whatever reason, whether it was their parent or whether it was someone they loved, rejected them or abandoned them?
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  And you kind of talk about, how do you heal from kind of wounds like that and still believe in love?
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  Yeah, that is such an important one because what we often do in order to be safe, to try to be safe, is we overgeneralize.
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  Right?
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  So it's like one person laughed at me for this.
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  So like, I'm never going to do that again because now everyone else won't laugh.
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  But people are so different.
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  You know?
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  I, one of the things we talk about coming home to yourself,
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  was reminding my daughter, she couldn't remember it, but she's now in college.
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  And in preschool, I had combed her hair out in this really cute Afro.
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  And she went to preschool, one of the few African-American kids at this preschool.
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  And one boy said one thing, he said her hair was too big.
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  She would not wear her hair out again until like the eighth grade.
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  So preschool to eighth grade, because one person, and nobody, either other people said it was cute or said nothing, right?
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  But that one voice became the anthem or the truth, right?
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  Internalizing that message.
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  So if I lay my hair down flat, then no one will tease me, right?
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  So it is, as you're describing, a risk to try again.
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  And so a part of that for us is recognizing the cost of the silencing, right?
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  So if I don't really tell the truth of myself, I end up feeling alone, even when I'm around people, 'cause they're not really relating to me.
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  Like, I know they don't really know me.
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  So, you know, then you think of what is the
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  cost of the loneliness and the isolation?
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  And I'm going say the emotional labor; it's labor to pretend to be somebody else.
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  So if, you know, when you get tired of doing that, then it becomes, maybe there are some people out there who will get me, right?
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  Who will appreciate me.
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  And you know, the American Psychological Association did a report on social media
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  for young people, and they talked about the pros and cons.
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  And on the list of pros was people being able to make these social connections, especially in either rural areas or if you're in an area where you just haven't found people who are
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  like you.
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  And then suddenly you go on social media and it's like, oh my goodness, it's so many people who are into what you're into.
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  The risk is worth it because I get to actually finally be seen
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  and known and heard and valued and accepted for the truth of me.
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  Power, power in that.
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  You know, you talk about costs; costs of being silent, costs of being lonely, costs of being isolated.
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  Talk about that like the cost that all of that is.
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  Yeah.
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  So it's a vicious cycle because the loneliness can create the sense that I am not knowable, that I am unlovable.
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  So we talk about that in terms of these core beliefs.
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  So then when I have like that core idea, that's going to shape the way I show up in the world.
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  Right?
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  It's like, you know, I was talking to a client who
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  had a job interview and she kind of already had the mindset of like, they're not gonna pick me, right?
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  So then she goes to the interview late with a bad attitude.
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  So like, yeah, yeah, they didn't pick you!
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  Right, that's that self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
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  And so similarly we can think socially, the way
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  we walk into a space.
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  If I'm assuming like I'm forgettable or I'm invisible or I'm, you know, no one's going to want to talk to me, there is a way in which I act that out.
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  The despair can unfortunately lead to further despair.
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  So like that vicious cycle just continues to compound the situation and exacerbate.
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  right?
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  Because then you're accumulating more evidence.
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  So you're like, it happened here, it happened there, it happened here.
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  But it's also like, I'm doing a similar thing here and there and here and there.
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  Yeah.
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  So almost in this self-fulfilling prophecy, your behaviors are then confirming the very thing that you didn't want to believe about yourself.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And it also, you know, I should name in some settings, it's hard for people to believe the new you.
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  You know, so I think about this in terms of like with kids, once the teachers or administrators have decided, like you're the problem kid, even let's say you , new school
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  year, I'm going to be different,
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  but they already have in their mind, this is the problem kid.
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  ah And so that also makes it difficult to break out and create a new narrative.
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  It is possible, but I do want to acknowledge it can be difficult when people are not willing to change their mind about you, who they've decided you are.
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  So let's move to sacred boundaries, because you talk about sacred boundaries.
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  Tell me a little bit more about the role that sacred boundaries play in healthy relationships.
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  Sacred boundaries, and the reason why they're sacred is for us to see ourselves as sacred.
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  And often we reverse that.
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  So people who are tuned into the sacred or spiritual or religious often get the teaching of self-sacrifice, right?
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  Of erase yourself for the greater good.
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  Deny you have any needs because you're going to carry everybody else's.
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  And that can be unsustainable and it can also be unhealthy.
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  Now let me say very clearly, I'm for volunteerism and community, all those things, but also with balance because some people run themselves in the hole where they have been of
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  service to everyone else and they're depleted emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually.
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  I'm doing all this for other people because I believe the giving is sacred or I believe they are sacred.
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  But what would it look like if I thought I was sacred, right?
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  That I don't need to be stretched in a million directions to try to prove my worthiness or to prove that I'm a good person.
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  And it also is a way of honoring the relationship by
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  telling people the truth.
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  Like a sacred boundary is how I really feel versus when I'm silent and then I have resentment, right?
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  If I say yes to everything, you know, if you keep saying yes, they're gonna keep asking for more, like it never ends, whether or not just personal relationships, but even at work
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  when they say, if you want something done, give it to a busy person.
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  So they keep piling things on.
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  And so now you're resentful, you're exhausted.
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  Even though you may be a great worker, even that's going to be depleted because you have less time and less energy.
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  And so not only are other people sacred, but I am sacred and I want the relationship to be sacred.
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  Then it has to be based in truth, which means sometimes I'm tired or sometimes, no, I can't do that.
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  And that lets us know
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  the realness of the relationship.
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  Because when a relationship is real, I can say no, right?
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  Judith Herman has that quote about, "Consent cannot be given if it cannot be denied," right?
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  So if I'm not allowed to ever say no, then what am I really?
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  It's not really that I'm agreeing to it.
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  You may be disappointed.
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  Let's say your friend says, you know, we were going to go somewhere Saturday, but I'm exhausted.
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  I'll be disappointed, but I'm not like, nah, you better come.
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  No, like, yeah, we all get tired and I probably need to go lay down too.
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  What it makes me think about, you know, and it's interesting, 'cause I just had a client, you know, is, it really being asked or is it being demanded or expected?
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  Right?
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  And that's where I.
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  as a question, but it's not.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  And so do you really have, you know, the choice to say yes or no, or like you were saying, no, it really is, I'm telling you that you're going to do this.
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  Right?
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  uh Yeah.
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  And we know all about that.
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  You are such a multifaceted person.
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  And that's one of the things that I think makes you so interesting, so engaging.
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  And so I want to talk a little bit about the intersection of psychology and ministry.
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  I know along the way you first were a clinical psychologist
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  and then you became an ordained minister, right?
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  Along the way, on top of all the other things that you do.
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  How do you integrate psychology, psychological science with your spirituality in your healing work and in the things that you do?
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  It is so important because often both groups are not equipped to address the whole person.
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  In religious spaces, often not only is mental health not talked about, but sometimes it is put in a negative light of like, you know, all you need is faith or all you need is
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  prayer.
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  If you have medication or if you have a therapist, then somehow that's like a lack of faith.
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  And, you know, it's just, ignorance, you know, when people have not been exposed and, that may be all the people who raised them had access to.
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  Right?
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  So then, you know, their mentors, their teachers, their parents would, say, like to pray or meditate or sing a song and stay busy, keep working.
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  It is not to negate those things, because sometimes it gets presented as an either/or.
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  Like, do you believe in therapy or do you believe in prayer?
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  And it's like, that's a false choice.
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  Right?
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  Helping to, you know, in faith-based spaces and spiritual spaces, to introduce the conversation about mental health and to see them as interwoven because here's the truth of
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  it:
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  People are integrated.
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  People are spiritual and intellectual and emotional and social.
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  And it is only our lack, our deficits as fields that silence parts of people.
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  They've done lots of studies of people who have come through mental health programs who say they got no teaching or training
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  about how to integrate spirituality and religiosity, which would still be problematic, but make more sense if it was like a rare thing in society, right?
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  If there were some fringe people, right?
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  Then it's like, yeah, we only have a certain number of semesters.
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  We're not gonna cover that, right?
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  But it's the majority of people, not only in the United States, but globally, the majority of people who endorse
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  some sense of spirituality or religiosity.
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  So for us to say like, that's just not my domain, you know, it doesn't make sense.
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  But it's again, us being trained by people who were trained to ignore it.
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  And so we directly or indirectly communicate to our clients, this is not a space to talk about that.
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  And then in our faith spaces, they directly or indirectly say, we don't want to hear about your depression.
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  We don't want to hear about your panic attacks.
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  And so we're forcing people to be selectively silent instead of allowing people to be whole and for us to work collaboratively.
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  I've heard, of course, ministers who have shamed people about going to therapy or being on medication and told them like, you just need to have faith and pray.
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  I've heard like horrible stories from both.
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  And then I have also heard mental health professionals say very pathologizing, derogatory things
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  about people who are religious or spiritual out of their own stuff, their own unhealed wounds or their own lack of exposure.
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  I remember, I think maybe my postdoc, the first time I heard the term "hyper-religiosity," I never heard that.
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  And I was like, what's that?
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  It's totally subjective; it's when you're more into your faith than I think is normal.
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  So it's like, if
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  I don't meditate at all or I don't pray at all and you pray three times a day, then I'm like, that's hyper-religious.
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  If I don't go to any services and you go twice a week, oh, hyper-religious.
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  So then it's a vicious cycle because you treat people in that way, they don't feel honored and respected in that space, so they leave, but those needs are not met because they go
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  back to their spiritual spaces
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  where a lot of times there's no room to really sit with your suffering or to acknowledge the psychological pain.
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  So we really have to do better.
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  It's a disservice to people.
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  What I'm hearing from you is that we as humans, and like I talked about you, we're multi-faceted, we're complex, our whole person involves a whole lot of interests and
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  strengths and we need to include all of that as we're trying to understand
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  people and their behaviors and things like that.
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  So given kind of your experience of trying to look at someone comprehensively or holistically, right?
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  Yeah.
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  have you found the most powerful in terms of...
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  in psychology, we call it intersectionality; it just means all of our identities, all of our interests coming together to understand someone.
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  How have you been able to do that in your clinical practice?
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  So for us to truly believe that every aspect of a person is welcome, I would say it starts with the intake.
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  We ask questions in the beginning, we meaning therapists, ask questions that we think are important for us to have an understanding of who a person is.
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  And then the intake shapes the case conceptualization.
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  So then how I think about the person is gonna shape the treatment goals.
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  So if, in my intake, I ask nothing about people's culture, including their spirituality or religion, then it's not even baked in to how I understand this person, even though that
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  might be a central way of how they see themselves and how they think about their mental illness.
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  I would say an important way to shift that
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  is in the beginning as we're gathering information to ask people about their various identities.
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  And I think sometimes people are so afraid to, but I think about it like this: It's like if you ask people about alcohol and drug use and someone says, "I don't drink," we don't
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  think like, "Oh, I've ruined the therapy," right?
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  We just move on to the next question!
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  We're so afraid of like, what if I ask that and they're, like, "I'm agnostic." Okay.
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  Moving on.
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  Right?
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  But also there could be a story there of, like, have you always been and what's that experience like?
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  I would say on the mental health side to ask those questions about what their beliefs are, they have any practices,
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  and any mixed feelings about it.
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  Sometimes our traditions can be both a benefit and a challenge, right?
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  They might come with shame and in some way strengthen you.
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  So to be a place where people could talk about the range of that.
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  And then I would say in spiritual spaces to be a voice that's willing to name and talk about mental health.
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  By putting it on people's radar, it can shift the whole atmosphere, right?
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  So I'll just give an example from being a part of Black churches.
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  Usually the worship experiences are usually very, like, lively and energetic and you know, it's high, high, high.
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  And then, you know, what I'll raise is sometimes people get mad at members
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  who are sitting quietly or who seem not to be participating.
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  And so what I'll say is, when someone is either grieving or depressed or has anything going on, it was a triumph for them to get there.
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  Like, it's hard to get out of the bed to make your way across town.
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  So then to finally get in the place that's supposed to be sanctuary and get shamed, 'cause you weren't like, you weren't going for it?
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  So, you know, people will say is like they had never thought about it of like, why are they just sitting there?
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  There's a lot of reasons why someone could not be feeling enthusiastic.
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  Giving them grace is what I'm hearing you say.
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  Giving them grace.
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  Part of what I know in terms of you is your artistry and creativity.
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  I know that is a big piece of you.
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  As a sacred artist,
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  talk to me or tell me more about the creativity, you know, through your dance, through your poetry, through your song.
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  How does that help in terms of healing and transformation?
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  Such a good and important question.
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  The arts can help us speak about the unspeakable.
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  So the things you're not supposed to talk about in good company or any company, you know, you could put them in a dance, camouflage them in a poem, you know, sing your heart out.
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  And in those ways, it then becomes acceptable to express it.
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  And I'm so glad one of the ways we've seen
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  progress in the mental health field is more attention to the body.
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  ah That the body is often the site of harm and violation.
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  And even if it's not a trauma, the body is where we hold our stress.
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  And so then to think that healing is just a matter of shifting your thoughts while ignoring the site is so incomplete.
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  Yes, thoughts are important, but there's more to us than that.
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  I'm grateful for, us being more intentional about paying attention to the body, paying attention to breath, people reclaiming their bodies and movements.
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  And that, you know, is a part of my personal journey as well.
• 28:11
  I'm a sexual assault survivor.
• 28:13
  The body is the place of the violation.
• 28:17
  And so it is so, you know, so empowering and meaningful for me to have that relationship with my body that was mine.
• 28:26
  And where I could express what I couldn't express in that moment.
• 28:31
  And so I know both firsthand and then also working with clients, the ways in which the arts can be
• 28:39
  vehicles and tools for expression, for healing, for liberation, for empowerment.
• 28:46
  I love uh using it uh in therapy, uh various formats with kids and adults.
• 28:53
  I think we often think about it for children to do like play and art therapy.
• 28:58
  But for adults, it can be very meaningful as well.
• 29:00
  And then I also want to say,
• 29:02
  it can be more culturally accessible and more economically accessible.
• 29:08
  In some places there's not a lot of access to affordable mental health.
• 29:13
  So when people can use their art as a part of their process, that really can be life-changing.
• 29:21
  You know, it makes me think that it took our field, you know, mental health field, a long time to connect mind and body together, right?
• 29:32
  That there's a connection there.
• 29:34
  In addition to what you were saying, there are many cultures where this talk therapy is foreign.
• 29:42
  It's like,
• 29:43
  Right.
• 29:45
  Yeah.
• 29:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:47
  oh
• 29:48
  And so the arts actually give you another pathway to get to those things that maybe you don't talk about or you can't access that right now.
• 30:02
  It's so true of what even feels aligned with people, you know, what, as you're saying, culturally feels acceptable.
• 30:10
  It's not such a big leap, you know, for us to sing together or dance together or, you know, whatever that may look like.
• 30:19
  And I know you do a lot of work with liberation psychology, which includes decolonization, and kind of going back to those healing practices that one has from their culture.
• 30:35
  is...
• 30:36
  it's, you know, people have ways of cleansing themselves, of renewal, of rejuvenation, right?
• 30:48
  And I think we are finally getting to the point where it's like, yeah, those are just as valuable and valid as, you know, what we have found, right?
• 30:59
  That we're actually starting to say, well, maybe these other ways of healing are really effective and really powerful.
• 31:09
  So true.
• 31:10
  I remember I went to this training that was offered on Chicano-affirmative psychotherapy and the instructor was saying that culture is medicine.
• 31:21
  That culture is healing.
• 31:22
  And someone in the audience was trying to argue the reverse and said, "Well, what if people didn't grow up
• 31:29
  knowing their culture?
• 31:30
  Isn't that like you imposing that on them?" And he said, "Most people didn't grow up knowing mindfulness; that doesn't stop us from teaching it as an intervention, right?" So
• 31:41
  like, when did that become a rule that they have to already be an expert on it?
• 31:46
  I'm like, yes, yeah, learning about it.
• 31:49
  So for some, it is utilizing what they grew up with and learning how to apply that
• 31:55
  in service of their mental health.
• 31:57
  And then for other people, it may be learning it brand new.
• 32:01
  And either way, it's still medicine.
• 32:03
  We're talking about psychology and kind of how we're seeing it progress.
• 32:09
  I guess I want to ask you, what do you envision the future of psychology, you know, given systemic trauma, cultural healing and liberation?
• 32:20
  I foresee more community-based and community-wide interventions.
• 32:26
  One of the things that remains on my heart is people talking about how we've never really had collective grief from the pandemic.
• 32:35
  And people are just walking around with that.
• 32:37
  And of course, so much has happened nationally and globally since then, we
• 32:42
  told people to just keep going, but we're bleeding, you know?
• 32:46
  We're bleeding and it shows up in all of these different ways.
• 32:49
  And so because the hurt and harm are so widespread...
• 32:54
  Don't get me wrong.
• 32:54
  I still, you know, love individual and I provide individual and I'm in individual.
• 33:00
  But I think more and more, there will be a pull and a need for the creation and dissemination of
• 33:09
  group work, of community-based uh interventions in schools, in faith-based settings, in social settings.
• 33:16
  They are even doing interventions at hairdressers and barber shops.
• 33:20
  I think it's wonderful of getting the message out there.
• 33:24
  And I know just like you were talking, we know that the pandemic was a collective trauma.
• 33:31
  And yet, once we kind of start opening the doors and people going back to, you know, work or what, it was not like we ever took the time to kind of say, wow, we just went through
• 33:45
  this extraordinary
• 33:47
  experience.
• 33:48
  We just were expected just to go back to what it was pre-pandemic.
• 33:55
  And of course it also became complicated because you had, based on misinformation, a whole segment of people walking around thinking the whole thing was fake.
• 34:02
  Who, you know, walk around saying like there were no deaths.
• 34:04
  That adds an additional layer, which is, I think, just a way of people trying to cope when it just becomes so enormous that your mind can't believe it.
• 34:15
  So it's easier to think, no, it couldn't be.
• 34:20
  Okay, so, you know, I want to ask you, because, you know, all your wisdom, all of your heart-centered practice, if you could offer one thing to the listeners today that they
• 34:36
  could just start on in moving towards their genuine, authentic, heart-centered place, what would that be?
• 34:45
  I would say to start with morning ritual.
• 34:49
  The way you start your day can shift your day.
• 34:53
  And so I like to tell people, wake up before you have to get up.
• 34:58
  'Cause if I wake up at the time I got to jump in the shower, I'm already starting the day anxious and late.
• 35:03
  I want to set the alarm early enough or wake myself up early enough where
• 35:08
  I have time to nourish myself.
• 35:10
  And for each of us that will look different.
• 35:13
  For some people it will be meditation or prayer.
• 35:15
  Some people like to get up early enough where they go for a walk before they go to work.
• 35:20
  For some people it may be sitting, drinking a cup of tea, looking out the window, watering your plants, journaling, listening to Dr.
• 35:27
  Debra's podcast.
• 35:30
  So, You know, create your morning ritual.
• 35:34
  You know, it could even be like,
• 35:35
  picking a theme song, an anthem.
• 35:37
  You know, certain songs you put on and they like, you know, put you in a good space.
• 35:41
  And so then when you go out into the world, the difficulties of the world, you're not already on empty.
• 35:49
  You're not depleted.
• 35:51
  And so, yeah, just invite everyone to experiment with the creation of your morning ritual.
• 35:57
  And it can change.
• 35:58
  Like I'm one of those people who I will do something for a while and then like I'm tired of that.
• 36:02
  And then I will pick something else.
• 36:04
  So, you know, be open to it changing, but to say, I'm going to nourish myself somehow before I start thinking about labor.
• 36:14
  Powerful words.
• 36:15
  What comes to my mind is that love and kindness to yourself first thing in the morning.
• 36:22
  So then you can go and face the world.
• 36:25
  That's right, yes!
• 36:26
  Because when we don't have that, that's when we're like irritable and somebody look at us wrong or cut us off in traffic and we're already like, ah!
• 36:33
  So, let me soothe myself.
• 36:35
  All right, last question before we end: Given everything that's going on in the world, the uncertainty, complexity of everything changing, what gives you hope in your life and in
• 36:50
  your work?
• 36:50
  So two things that are on opposite ends of the spectrum, I'm going to say young people and ancestors.
• 36:57
  Young people usually are not yet so frustrated with things that they've given up.
• 37:02
  They're usually not so cynical of thinking it won't work.
• 37:06
  And most major movements have been led by young people because they're open enough to believe that we could change things.
• 37:13
  'Cause everything is, "Why not?"
• 37:14
  Like you said about us wearing these colors, why not?
• 37:17
  So I think being in the presence of young people...
• 37:21
  because sometimes we start to censor ourselves.
• 37:24
  I'll say even within APA, the longer you're in it, the more you have an idea of what won't work, just because you've seen things.
• 37:33
  But young people are like, yeah, why not?
• 37:34
  Let's just change it.
• 37:37
  Yes, yes.
• 37:39
  as you get older, it's like, do I want to take that on?
• 37:42
  Yes.
• 37:43
  That's right.
• 37:44
  Said that the hope and the energy of young people, and then I'm going to say in terms of ancestors, to know, you know, the people who came before us went through some difficult
• 37:55
  times, you know?
• 37:57
  They were really difficult and made it through, you know?
• 38:01
  It wasn't easy, but we're able to make some progress.
• 38:04
  So that gives me hope and also
• 38:06
  keeps me humble.
• 38:07
  I remember when a lot of events were happening and there were all these Zooms and I was like, ooh, I'm tired, I'm tired.
• 38:16
  And I thought about my ancestors who were like, you tired of Zoom?
• 38:21
  You're tired of...
• 38:22
  that's what you're tired of?
• 38:24
  I'm like, you're right, you're right.
• 38:26
  So, yep, that's what keeps me going.
• 38:28
  Yes, yeah.
• 38:32
  is relative.
• 38:33
  Dr.
• 38:34
  Bryant, I just want to thank you so much for this time that we've had together to just connect, to talk, to hear your wisdom.
• 38:46
  I just feel so much gratitude to you.
• 38:49
  So thank you.
• 38:50
  Thank you so much.
• 38:52
  I so appreciate you as a friend, as a sister, as a leader in the field, and as a soul.
• 38:59
  So keep doing what you're doing and blessings on your podcast.
• 39:03
  Thank you.
• 39:04
  And for all of you that have joined us today, thank you for being here.
• 39:08
  Remember: Wellness is a journey, not a destination.
• 39:12
  Please take good care of yourself, and we'll see you next time.