Latest / Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast / Balancing Ambition & Self Care: The Doctoral Student Journey with Jasalynne Northcross

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Balancing Ambition & Self Care: The Doctoral Student Journey with Jasalynne Northcross · Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast

• 0:15
  Good morning, Good morning and welcome to Rise and Thrive with
• 0:18
  Doctor J Nicole. I'm your host, Doctor J Nicole
• 0:22
  and today I am joined by my Howard sister, Jaslyn
• 0:27
  Northcross. And so today we're going to be
• 0:30
  focusing on burnout breakdown or breakthrough mental health
• 0:34
  wisdom for doctoral students. I have the honor and privilege
• 0:38
  of meeting Jazz at Howard University, and we've been able
• 0:44
  to keep in touch ever since. So I know that she's on her
• 0:47
  doctoral journey, and I just knew that she'd have some wisdom
• 0:50
  to share with you all today. So welcome Jazz, and tell the
• 0:54
  people a little bit about yourself.
• 0:57
  Well, first, thank you so much for the invitation.
• 0:59
  And yeah, we did. We met in 2015.
• 1:02
  I was an MSW student. Now I'm in my second year.
• 1:07
  I can't even believe I'm in the second year of this program.
• 1:09
  You're. Surviving, surviving and
• 1:12
  thriving. Come on now.
• 1:12
  Come. On.
• 1:14
  So I'm a second year PhD student in social work at Howard
• 1:17
  University. I am a licensed clinical social
• 1:20
  worker licensed in DCI practice. I don't have practice but I I
• 1:24
  work at a private practice. I see individuals, I see couples
• 1:28
  and my specialty is sex and relationships and I see I love
• 1:32
  my specialty because it really allows me to work with so many
• 1:36
  different types of people and whether they're polyamorous,
• 1:40
  monogamous, queer, transgender, I just, I get to meet so many
• 1:46
  different people and they're coming in to work with me.
• 1:50
  And then from there I was like, I need some more.
• 1:52
  We need, we need some stuff. So I'm in school again and I'm
• 1:56
  just really excited to be doing that work and then to be here to
• 1:58
  talk about Earn Out with you today.
• 2:00
  Yes, that in school, again, that resonates with me.
• 2:03
  My family was like, I thought you were done.
• 2:05
  Like you've been in school your whole life, right?
• 2:08
  No, I get that too. I told my friend the other day I
• 2:11
  was like, well this sent me my last degree and he was like, oh
• 2:13
  OK. I'm like, no, no, this is.
• 2:15
  You say that and then you're going to be in somebody's
• 2:17
  certificate program. And, you know, we got to keep
• 2:20
  doing our Cus anyway to stay current.
• 2:22
  So the education always continues.
• 2:25
  Today's episode is dedicated to Doctor Victor Kidd.
• 2:30
  He was a dear friend of mine. We met in the MSW program at
• 2:34
  Howard finished together in 2015, and unfortunately, he was
• 2:39
  involved in a pretty serious car accident a few months back.
• 2:44
  And just a few days ago, he passed away after being in a
• 2:48
  coma. And Victor went on to get his
• 2:52
  PhD after completing his master's at the Howard
• 2:55
  University School of Social Work.
• 2:57
  And his wife is also an alum of the Howard University School of
• 3:00
  Social Work. So I thought it would be
• 3:02
  appropriate to dedicate today's episode to Victor's legacy and
• 3:08
  the doctoral journey. And let's take a quick moment of
• 3:10
  silence. Thank you.
• 3:11
  All right, Jazz. Well, let's get into it.
• 3:14
  Your doctoral journey now, I remember, I think it had to be
• 3:19
  during homecoming and you were asking me about starting APHD
• 3:25
  program. You remember that conversation?
• 3:26
  Vaguely, and it's it's wild because I feel like a lot of
• 3:29
  people have a conversation, a memory of me asking them.
• 3:33
  I think I asked for years and years before I really committed.
• 3:38
  I'm so scared. Well, I told you I'm sure what
• 3:41
  I'll tell everyone else. Like what?
• 3:42
  Are you prepared to give up? Because this journey is no joke.
• 3:48
  It will require something things out of you that you've never had
• 3:53
  to do. You could be like super scholar
• 3:59
  and the doctoral journey can definitely challenge you and
• 4:02
  then still trying to balance like you're working, you're, you
• 4:05
  know, practicing and all of that.
• 4:08
  So, yeah. So how did you arrive at that?
• 4:12
  So you kind of got there, right? You said you asked for years and
• 4:15
  years. So what led you to pursue a
• 4:17
  doctorate at this stage of your life and career?
• 4:19
  OK, so yes, I asked for years. I don't think I told you this,
• 4:23
  but when I was an undergrad, I was actually a McNair scholar,
• 4:26
  OK, Before, right. So before I, when I got to
• 4:30
  undergrad, I didn't even know about grad school.
• 4:32
  I didn't know master's pH. I didn't know any of that.
• 4:34
  I learned a lot in school. I graduated undergrad 2010.
• 4:38
  So this, this was this seed was planted a long time ago when I
• 4:42
  got my master's degree, I thought I was done.
• 4:44
  I have my license. I was working.
• 4:46
  I was the thing, you know, especially with the like with
• 4:49
  your clinical license, you, you kind of can write your own check
• 4:51
  in some ways. So I was working federal
• 4:54
  government. I didn't like it at all.
• 4:57
  There was a lot of things, but you know, we don't keep it.
• 4:59
  We don't keep it cute. I'm grateful it wasn't for me.
• 5:02
  Very grateful for those opportunities, though, because I
• 5:05
  learned so much, whether I was a nonprofit or even like local
• 5:09
  government, federal government constantly were being pushed a
• 5:11
  social workers. So I did appreciate those
• 5:13
  experiences. But then I got to a point with I
• 5:16
  think COVID, when we were quarantining, I did a lot of
• 5:19
  reflection and just what do I want to do with my life?
• 5:21
  What do I want to do with my career?
• 5:23
  I do believe, you know, in this profession you become with
• 5:26
  gifts. And I always wanted to be a
• 5:28
  clinician. And I was, I was doing it, but
• 5:30
  it just didn't. I still just didn't feel like I
• 5:32
  was working on purpose. I didn't feel aligned.
• 5:35
  I got really into human sexuality, which was something I
• 5:38
  think that seed was planted a long time ago too, if I'm being
• 5:41
  honest. But I started just realizing
• 5:43
  social work, we can do so many things.
• 5:45
  Yeah, so many things, right. So when I was leaving my job, I
• 5:51
  was trying to figure out what's going to happen next.
• 5:52
  I started adjuncting. And when I was an adjunct
• 5:55
  lecturer, I was. You feel like you're a student
• 5:58
  in some ways because you know you're you're you have to
• 6:00
  prepare for lectures. Yeah.
• 6:02
  You're engaged me with literature when you I I used to
• 6:05
  tell my family I was like, when I give the students an
• 6:07
  assignment, they give it back to me.
• 6:09
  It's like getting homework. Now I have to read.
• 6:10
  I have to grade. And I was just, I love school.
• 6:14
  It just it, I was like, you know, I love school.
• 6:15
  I miss this. I want to do something with this
• 6:17
  schools of space where I feel like I get to be really
• 6:19
  creative. So I think the opportunity lined
• 6:22
  up and now that you talk, now that we're talking, I think it
• 6:25
  was that homecoming because someone I won't drop their name,
• 6:28
  but someone fooled me at that homecoming was like, so I think
• 6:31
  it might be time for you to come back.
• 6:32
  I guess it's. That's funny.
• 6:34
  That sounds like you're not dropping names, but it sounds
• 6:36
  like Dean Crew to me. Close A former Dean.
• 6:40
  Not crew. OK, not crew.
• 6:42
  OK OK, OK that's my Bluetooth yeah yeah cuz it's it's it's
• 6:47
  it's usually them or would have been like a Dean Whitaker that's
• 6:50
  like OK, So what are we doing Totally.
• 6:53
  You know, that's their job to pay attention and know who's who
• 6:58
  and to keep the pipeline going and to identify these talents,
• 7:01
  right? Like in keep the legacy going we
• 7:04
  have we have to keep it going. How did you know?
• 7:08
  So you did the reflecting in COVID, like was there a
• 7:10
  particular like moment or thing? But or it was just like, OK, I'm
• 7:14
  ready since you said the seed was planted well.
• 7:16
  I love that question. So I think it's the same
• 7:18
  homecoming. So I'm at homecoming.
• 7:20
  See how real we going? I'm gonna get real.
• 7:22
  Yeah, we're at homecoming. I had just I had left.
• 7:24
  So listening homecoming is October.
• 7:26
  I had left that job. I think June or July there was
• 7:29
  like a breakup somewhere in there.
• 7:30
  So that was already like, you know, you're transitioning for
• 7:33
  like full time. And now I'm at this practice
• 7:35
  where I have, you know, I'm not working 40 hours a week.
• 7:37
  I'm making my own schedule. Time is interesting because you
• 7:40
  have like all this like time and I'm not commuting.
• 7:43
  I'm not doing this. And then I get to homecoming.
• 7:45
  I see you. And I was like, oh, let me get a
• 7:47
  little, you know, let me see. And then, of course, Dr. Snell.
• 7:51
  And it was just, it was it was it really, it really was like
• 7:53
  timing. So when he said it to me, I was,
• 7:56
  I'm kidding. I was like, oh, no, like, no, I
• 7:58
  had already said no to this dream.
• 8:00
  I let it go. I didn't think it was for me
• 8:02
  anymore. And I was like, no.
• 8:03
  And then I got home and I was just a couple days after
• 8:06
  homecoming. I just was like, why not?
• 8:08
  I have time. Like when when else in my life
• 8:11
  will I have the time? There's opportunity.
• 8:14
  I know what program I want to go to.
• 8:15
  I'm already here where I had, I graduated in 2017.
• 8:19
  So I, you know, I'd already been work and I couldn't find a
• 8:22
  reason to not do it. And I mean, honest, it was a
• 8:26
  dream. It was a dream.
• 8:26
  Like I just, you get the opportunity.
• 8:28
  So I I went for it and yeah, no regrets.
• 8:32
  So why did you let it go or set it aside?
• 8:35
  Oh, that's a good question. Oh my God, Why did you set it
• 8:40
  aside? Yeah.
• 8:41
  Why I think it wasn't. I felt like parts of me felt
• 8:44
  like maybe it wasn't practical enough.
• 8:46
  I didn't really know what I wanted to do before, like my
• 8:49
  bachelor's with psychology or yeah, psychology.
• 8:52
  So I thought I wanted to do clinical psych, but I just
• 8:54
  didn't. There wasn't not a lot of
• 8:56
  representation, not a lot of in like higher education that I had
• 9:00
  relationships with that really pouring into me, encouraging me
• 9:03
  to feel like I could do it. And then I think I got
• 9:05
  comfortable like once I because I remember when I was in my
• 9:09
  second year. No, Yeah.
• 9:11
  When I was like second year of my MSW program, you know.
• 9:14
  Doctor Howard Teresa. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, OK.
• 9:19
  Because I talked to Tyrese. Yeah, before, because we were
• 9:24
  peers before she became Doctor Howard.
• 9:26
  Yeah. No, Doctor Howard never really
• 9:28
  peers because she was ATA for my research class.
• 9:31
  So she was she was Miss Howard and then she elevated to Doctor
• 9:34
  Howard. I Remember Me and her went to
• 9:37
  Potbelly once and I was asking her like, tell me about the PhD
• 9:41
  program, Should I do? I think I was just, I think I
• 9:44
  just made a little imposter. I, I don't know.
• 9:46
  But once I finished school, I convinced myself that I didn't
• 9:49
  want to do it. Like once I got my master's
• 9:51
  degree, I convinced myself somewhere along the way I
• 9:53
  convinced myself I didn't want to do it.
• 9:55
  I think I was ready to start making money.
• 9:56
  Of course. Come on now, I wanted to get my
• 10:00
  clinical license and I just felt like this is good until it
• 10:03
  wasn't. Until it wasn't.
• 10:05
  Until it wasn't. Until it wasn't.
• 10:07
  I just feel like those are those nudges because even though you
• 10:10
  said you had set it aside, there was this.
• 10:13
  It just kept circling back. You kept asking the questions of
• 10:17
  people. And like you said, the seed had
• 10:19
  already been planted. So the curiosity was there and
• 10:23
  just working through that because, you know, less than 2%
• 10:26
  of the population have doctorates.
• 10:29
  And so it's like, who do I think I am, right?
• 10:33
  And even I was in the program and I was like, why am I doing
• 10:36
  this? Like almost every week I was
• 10:38
  ready to quit. I had a letter signed because I
• 10:40
  was like, this is too much emotionally until I realized it
• 10:44
  was me. I was putting this ridiculous
• 10:47
  pressure on myself. And once I kind of did that and
• 10:51
  I shifted out of this like rigid perfectionist mode and learned
• 10:56
  to breathe and I guess got through my stats courses, then I
• 11:01
  was, I was able to be OK because me and Doctor Abu Bader.
• 11:06
  I know you're about to say that name.
• 11:07
  What does that mean? Cut the tape.
• 11:09
  Cut the tape. Girl, I just did that class I
• 11:13
  it's Yeah, I just. I made it.
• 11:15
  I survived. Yes.
• 11:16
  And you know what I realized later, once like it, there was
• 11:20
  enough distance between me and it because I have PTSDI feel
• 11:23
  like for a little minute that's after stats and then I was doing
• 11:27
  my dissertation. I said I actually know what I'm
• 11:29
  talking about. I know what I'm doing.
• 11:33
  He gets you were ready. His his method.
• 11:35
  We can talk about the method, but you're, you're, you're.
• 11:38
  Yeah, he gets you ready. By far the hardest courses.
• 11:42
  And you know, it wasn't even my dissertation.
• 11:43
  I was doing something else because it was so bad.
• 11:46
  I did qualitative and I did interviews.
• 11:51
  My average duration for an interview was 90 minutes, so
• 11:54
  that took a long time. But those transcripts and all of
• 11:57
  that and I was like, I should have done quantitative but.
• 12:01
  Really I'm I think I'm going to go qual, but you if you.
• 12:05
  Want to get out fast and still be thorough do quantitative, you
• 12:09
  know how to do the write ups, those 20 page write ups that we
• 12:12
  used to do all the time for homework that you just finished
• 12:15
  doing you're ready I'm. Going to think about it.
• 12:18
  Really, we can talk more about that We'll.
• 12:21
  Talk. Yeah, we're going to talk.
• 12:22
  We'll talk offline. My mentors push not, I don't say
• 12:25
  push, but he's definitely like look at quant.
• 12:27
  I think I still want to look at it, but I'm such a qual girly
• 12:30
  saying. But it's going to take you
• 12:32
  longer. Just know that.
• 12:33
  Like I love what I came out with, but I would have been out
• 12:37
  years sooner. Understood.
• 12:40
  But my journey is what it needed to be.
• 12:43
  So we kind of are talking about some of the things, right?
• 12:46
  Like the demands of it. But like, what would you say are
• 12:49
  the most emotionally demanding aspects of the doctoral journey?
• 12:53
  OK, I love this question. There's so many things.
• 12:56
  The first, it's so interesting because I had an idea of how I
• 13:00
  want to approach this, but I'm pivoting a bit because
• 13:03
  immediately I come up thinking my kind of immediate responses
• 13:06
  are on the demands and it's the pace, the pacing of things is so
• 13:11
  intense and it's I remember when I finished year one, it took me
• 13:16
  a few weeks to slow down a bit to get into the summer.
• 13:21
  It still wasn't like a break break, but it I felt like I was
• 13:23
  running and you know, you're like sprinting, sprinting,
• 13:26
  sprinting and then you get through the finish line, but you
• 13:27
  still have to like slow down a little bit.
• 13:30
  That is how I felt. I think just fatigue and then
• 13:37
  depending on what the financial situation is like, I work in
• 13:41
  private practice. So summertime folks are folks
• 13:44
  feel happy, they're in the sun, they're they have vacations
• 13:47
  slowed down. And then when you know that
• 13:49
  you're in school and I'm not able to earn as much as I was
• 13:52
  earning when I wasn't in school. So there's just we capitalism is
• 13:57
  real. So we have these financial
• 13:58
  pressures. And then for me, I can, if I'm
• 14:02
  not mindful of what's happening, just how I feel like sometimes
• 14:07
  myself talk can get more like pessimistic, more more critical
• 14:11
  or you know, so it's just sometimes for like for me, I
• 14:14
  need to slow down and look at the bigger picture.
• 14:16
  It's just like, OK, I'm doing this really huge task.
• 14:19
  Every step I'm taking is getting me closer and closer to
• 14:21
  dissertation, trying to celebrate the small wins and try
• 14:25
  to offset some of that, you know, because we're we're,
• 14:29
  you're just trucking along. There's like you're in this
• 14:31
  tunnel there. You hear there's light at the
• 14:34
  end of it, but I don't even know how to get out of this thing
• 14:35
  sometimes. Listen, because the way they no
• 14:40
  one's hyped about your dissertation proposal until you
• 14:43
  really have something for them to look at like it, and it's
• 14:49
  very different. Like, yeah, you just got to
• 14:51
  truck along. Yeah, you have to.
• 14:53
  Try just got a truck alone. I'll I'll drop this OK, I'll
• 14:57
  drop this. Hopefully it's OK if we go here.
• 14:59
  So my mom runs marathons and I grew up raised by a woman who
• 15:05
  just runs. So it's like I.
• 15:07
  As we were getting ready for school, a lot of marathon talk
• 15:11
  and analogies and things are coming up.
• 15:14
  If you know about like distance running, although I'm not a
• 15:17
  distance runner, I do feel like this is my.
• 15:21
  Marathon for sure, for sure. So yeah, you're right, that
• 15:29
  marathon, that's correct. But it's interesting though,
• 15:32
  because sometimes you have to Sprint within the marathon in
• 15:35
  the doctoral journey, like for real.
• 15:39
  And you're expected to pace yourself and speak up and say
• 15:45
  what you need and what you don't.
• 15:46
  And like, I know even for me, I was experiencing a lot of losses
• 15:51
  and so grief was happening while I was in my PhD program and I
• 15:58
  actually have to slow down my pace.
• 16:00
  That is nothing I ever had to do academically in my life because
• 16:04
  school. I did that right and I'm sorry.
• 16:09
  I can speak sorry I said you did.
• 16:11
  Sorry for cutting you. I'm so sorry for cutting in, but
• 16:12
  after this, like because my perspective of you is my like, I
• 16:17
  don't know how we met. I genuinely do not know.
• 16:19
  I feel like when you were in the program, you were around like
• 16:22
  you were just, you were always on it and you were just on it.
• 16:26
  So when I hear you say this, I'm like, yeah, I believe.
• 16:28
  And I never even had a class with you, but you're you're
• 16:31
  light in our program. And I remember you were the
• 16:33
  president. You were, you were on it.
• 16:36
  You had a way of like, I felt like we knew each other, but I'm
• 16:38
  like. Oh no, this lady.
• 16:40
  Just open homegrown energy, but to be able to balance that, to
• 16:44
  be approachable, have homegrown energy, to have the leadership
• 16:46
  position to be, to excel academically.
• 16:48
  So hearing you say like, you know, even for you, you need to
• 16:51
  slow down like that, really that's very humanizing.
• 16:54
  That really hits. It really hits.
• 16:55
  Yeah, like that was one of the things that I feel like is a
• 17:01
  gift that I have. I don't look like what I'm going
• 17:03
  through. And also it's, I would say
• 17:07
  confirmation that, you know, I was where I needed to be.
• 17:10
  Like I worked in higher Ed before.
• 17:13
  So I love doing like things involving people, organizations,
• 17:17
  all of those things. So those give me energy to like
• 17:22
  do more. But thank you for that.
• 17:24
  And I remember one of my Kylie's and my cohort and she was, she
• 17:30
  called me superwoman and I was like, please don't like I'm
• 17:35
  tired. You know what I mean?
• 17:36
  It's what it what it ended up being because she was like, I
• 17:38
  don't know how you do it all. I was like, I mean, I don't
• 17:41
  either, But some of it felt like I, I needed to because that gave
• 17:45
  me something to do to get up, put the battery in my back,
• 17:48
  because if I had nothing to do, I don't, I don't know.
• 17:52
  But, and at that point too, I was already in it.
• 17:54
  So I had to like, you know, get through it as best as I could.
• 17:58
  But so in the doc program, I had to have difficult conversations
• 18:01
  with. So Dean Crew was my advisor.
• 18:05
  That's enough pressure at that time.
• 18:07
  Doctor Patricia Ben Goodley was the program director.
• 18:11
  Also kind of a big deal. Totally a big deal.
• 18:16
  So I had to talk with them about what class I was going to drop
• 18:20
  because I, I didn't think I was, it was going to be sustainable
• 18:24
  to stay in the course that I was going.
• 18:27
  And I'm like, I have to drop something because I feel like I
• 18:29
  was falling apart. And I was so worried about
• 18:32
  disappointing them, right? I was like, these are the women
• 18:35
  you want to be, right? And do you know all?
• 18:39
  And I talked to Doctor Gordine. I think she was in this too.
• 18:42
  And that's another pillar right there.
• 18:46
  And that was that was a big loss for School of Social Work, too,
• 18:50
  when she transitioned. But I had to have these
• 18:53
  conversations with them and they were so supportive.
• 18:58
  Like I was in there ready to cry and just think they were going
• 19:00
  to think I was awful. Like, you know, that negative
• 19:03
  self talk that you're talking about.
• 19:06
  But it was, it was so supportive.
• 19:08
  And they were like, well, we got to do what we got to do.
• 19:10
  The point is that you finish and it was so affirming.
• 19:13
  And of course, it's a social work program, but I still had
• 19:17
  never had to have any type of conversation like that, like for
• 19:23
  real. So that that was just so hard
• 19:25
  for me. And then I think the way that I
• 19:27
  was perceived being a leader and I but I was the Mordecai Wyatt
• 19:33
  Johnson scholar one of the years as well.
• 19:36
  And so just, you know, that it was a thing and I had that that
• 19:40
  was good for me because it taught me it's about finishing.
• 19:43
  It's not timeline. It really helped challenge that
• 19:46
  comparison. And, you know, academically, you
• 19:49
  it's supposed the same people to your right and left the entire
• 19:52
  time is how it's supposed to be. But this journey, the doctoral
• 19:56
  journey is deeply intimate, deeply intimate.
• 20:01
  I could keep going on that. But right, listen, it's the
• 20:06
  thing. And what ways did you experience
• 20:09
  or did this experience challenge like you as a professional and a
• 20:14
  person? So you talked a little bit about
• 20:17
  balance, but yeah. So person you know, I'm not used
• 20:22
  to although in the MSW program our classes are pretty small,
• 20:26
  nowhere near as small as your doctor doctoral cohort.
• 20:30
  I am very much the kind of student that likes to kind of
• 20:33
  get in early, kind of get my seat in the front, kind of do my
• 20:37
  thing, head down, give it, I need to go give it any student,
• 20:39
  kind of go on the the collaboration part of things.
• 20:45
  And sometimes it's not even, we're not even collaborating on
• 20:47
  assignments, but it's just like the behind the scenes
• 20:49
  collaboration coordination. Sometimes that requires me to
• 20:52
  step out of my comfort zone a bit or sometimes when there's
• 20:56
  like interpersonal things, it's like what is my role in the
• 20:58
  situation? I don't think I could like bury
• 21:00
  my head in the sand like I did when I was one of 20.
• 21:03
  Now I'm one of four. So it's like there's no hiding
• 21:07
  something's going on, whether you're directly in it or not,
• 21:11
  you're in it. So just that that that is has
• 21:14
  been a personal challenge. I also didn't have the best
• 21:17
  sleep hygiene because I was really used to kind of just like
• 21:20
  I got time. I kind of, I take my
• 21:22
  appointments when I want to take them.
• 21:23
  I scheduled my work, I made my work schedule around like
• 21:26
  myself. But now it's like, oh, I'm back
• 21:29
  in class like Howard don't care when my best waking moment is.
• 21:33
  They say you need to be here at 10:00 and you're going to be
• 21:35
  here all day. So I just just coursework.
• 21:38
  You're there all day on campus in the and you know what room it
• 21:41
  is because we're all in the same room.
• 21:44
  And every seat is a front row seat.
• 21:47
  Every seat, Yeah, every seat is a front row seats.
• 21:50
  Just that that getting back in the student mode, the time piece
• 21:55
  thinking through I can be I'm so good with just I like I like
• 22:00
  building little systems and keep myself on track with things.
• 22:03
  But it's also more than just school.
• 22:05
  Like it's not, you know, the PhD is so different than any other
• 22:09
  type of like academic experience I've had.
• 22:12
  So it is it's it's push me. I think I'm doing not even I
• 22:16
  think I'm proud of how I've been managing to this point.
• 22:21
  And I I don't know if this is some of the some anxiety.
• 22:25
  I don't know if this is some hyper vigilance perhaps, but I
• 22:27
  never get, I don't get too comfortable.
• 22:30
  I know that just because this week was cool, I don't think
• 22:33
  that next week is going to be cool.
• 22:37
  It's challenged me to accept stress.
• 22:38
  That was something I was telling my SO I got into a relationship
• 22:42
  over summer and for my boyfriend, he was a little, I
• 22:46
  guess like a little worried, like how could I manage a
• 22:48
  relationship and school? And I was just like, and he's
• 22:52
  very much like, I don't want my baby to stress.
• 22:54
  I want to, I want to, if it's a stressor, I want to eliminate
• 22:56
  the stress. And I'm like, we got to accept
• 22:57
  that there's going to be stress. Life is stress, right?
• 23:01
  Stressful. And for me, just, I think one of
• 23:06
  the things I've set kind of my mind last semester, which I
• 23:08
  think was really helpful, was allowing myself to be OK with a
• 23:13
  level of stress and being aware of like, if it's getting too
• 23:16
  much, what do I need to do? But like, some stress is gonna,
• 23:19
  it's gonna happen. And that's not a reflection on
• 23:21
  like me as a scholar or my fit in the program or it's just this
• 23:26
  is life. And I happen to be, you know, a
• 23:29
  good doctoral student who wants to do the best.
• 23:31
  As most of us, as most of us, we we want to be the best.
• 23:34
  We want to be and just you. Know and that's best word is
• 23:38
  what causes so much pressure sometimes for doc students, but
• 23:41
  it's the high performers, right, like high achievers that go into
• 23:46
  doc programs. And so like the stress, the
• 23:49
  balance, all of that is it's, it's a thing.
• 23:52
  And a lot of times it's coming from us, it's coming from
• 23:55
  internal, right? But you respect the faculty so
• 23:59
  much and like you got it, You know, the cohort sizes are so
• 24:03
  small. My cohort, we started with five.
• 24:05
  By week two, it was three of us. And then I, I need to follow up
• 24:13
  with somebody. One.
• 24:14
  Then she finished. She had already started her
• 24:16
  dissertation. So she left because something
• 24:19
  wasn't working for her. She went on, she finished hers
• 24:22
  at a different university. And then the other, I don't
• 24:25
  quite know what happened to him because I was not in my
• 24:27
  business. Because life has started life
• 24:29
  and. I understand and he.
• 24:31
  Hasn't told me that, he finished.
• 24:33
  You know what, I need to check up on my people.
• 24:35
  But it just kept dwindling and so when I slowed down, I fell
• 24:41
  into a class of sequence with the cohort behind me.
• 24:44
  So I was with Katie and Barbara because Barbara used to get in
• 24:48
  and go to class and then go get her money because she was
• 24:51
  practicing as well. Understand.
• 24:54
  I get it. We are here in the we're going.
• 24:57
  We got. I got to get down the street.
• 24:59
  And she was adjunctking to Yep, at Howard.
• 25:03
  So like the MSW students, they, when we, so she and I, we walked
• 25:07
  together because Katie got in and out of there in like 4
• 25:11
  years. She did not play games.
• 25:13
  Katie was not playing, but it was, it was just really cute to
• 25:17
  see the students calling her, you know, professor and doctor
• 25:20
  because I hadn't started and joking, but I started right
• 25:23
  after I finished. But so Speaking of that, how did
• 25:29
  being a licensed therapist shape or complicate your experience as
• 25:35
  a doc student? So you you're kind of getting at
• 25:38
  some of this, but was there any more that you wanted to
• 25:41
  elaborate? I love this question.
• 25:43
  I think so. When I did my MSW, I was on the
• 25:47
  clinical track and didn't take a ton of macro courses.
• 25:50
  And then, you know, now we do our seminars.
• 25:52
  So you start with iprosim individuals.
• 25:54
  I was like, I'm not going to say it was a breeze.
• 25:56
  I was like, oh, we're speaking my language, like theories,
• 25:58
  applying them to individuals. I do it, but I could do this one
• 26:01
  hand behind my back. Then we get into groups and I'm
• 26:03
  like, well, I do couples. I feel like couples kind of a
• 26:06
  group, so I can understand and then we get, I just did
• 26:09
  communities and organizations. I was like day one.
• 26:12
  The class might know what is Doctor Hussein talking about?
• 26:14
  What? Doctor Hussein was teaching, He
• 26:19
  teaches. He was still just doing strictly
• 26:22
  MSW communities. We had Dean, well, Doctor Ross
• 26:27
  Sharif, she retired. So it's like her and Dean crew
• 26:30
  were kind of sharing it and she was transitioning out.
• 26:34
  So I had a different experience, but I had Doctor Hussein for
• 26:39
  displaced populations. I've heard that class is really.
• 26:42
  Good. It's a good class and you work
• 26:44
  because it's Doctor Hussein. You work, you can work.
• 26:47
  Appreciate it, though, I I, I and I, I mean, I only hear
• 26:50
  people appreciate it, but it is a lot of work.
• 26:53
  I could tell you though, it, it, it the, so your thing about
• 26:56
  being a licensed therapist, It's it, I guess the challenge, but
• 27:01
  it's also it's been an opportunity because I've pushed
• 27:04
  more and when I think, you know, they talk about like the unit of
• 27:07
  analysis. And now I'm like, well, I always
• 27:08
  thought I was just going to be interviewing.
• 27:09
  I thought I was going to do a good little qualitative
• 27:11
  dissertation and interview some people.
• 27:12
  But now I'm like, well, I don't know if that's what I want to
• 27:15
  do. Do I want to look at an
• 27:16
  organization like I like playing around with these things.
• 27:19
  I've been looking a lot of like media lately.
• 27:22
  I've taken some classes and communication because because my
• 27:25
  I'm looking at sexual communication and black queer
• 27:27
  relationships and I really want to.
• 27:28
  Understand. And I, and I'm also really
• 27:31
  interested in like power and I want to know like how are we
• 27:33
  sharing power in our relationships and, and like
• 27:37
  idiot influences things and like the ecosystem.
• 27:39
  So I get I and I'm like, well, maybe I want to look at a
• 27:42
  community. Maybe I want to look at an
• 27:44
  organization. I, I, I so it's, it's, it's
• 27:47
  challenged me, but I, like I said, I really appreciate it.
• 27:51
  It's not just it's about somewhat getting out of your
• 27:52
  comfort zone. And I, I do appreciate that, but
• 27:56
  then sometimes depending on, you know, I live in DC, this year
• 28:00
  has been really tough. We can put a period at that, but
• 28:03
  it's been really tough sing to this administration and then my
• 28:07
  client. So in DC.
• 28:09
  So I, I love being a therapist, but I can tell you there's times
• 28:13
  where being a therapist feel less heavy and then there's
• 28:17
  times where it's just like, all right, I really need to do
• 28:20
  something with this energy. I need to do something with what
• 28:22
  I'm getting from people. Because when, you know, when
• 28:24
  they're doing mass layoffs, when they're talking about ice in
• 28:28
  our, you know, in our community, they like, I'm hearing it, I'm
• 28:31
  hearing it in the therapeutic space.
• 28:32
  And, and then it's like, Oh, I still got to go do something for
• 28:36
  a doctor saying or I have a, have this exam coming up.
• 28:39
  So just I think I see myself and my student as a student, that's
• 28:42
  my job. As a clinician, that's my job.
• 28:44
  And these are both very emotional and very like
• 28:47
  cognitive, like a lot of focus, a lot of thinking.
• 28:50
  So it's very exhausting and draining and also really
• 28:54
  rewarding. Yeah.
• 28:56
  It's all yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot of self-care
• 29:01
  and just like self-awareness that's involved.
• 29:03
  And one thing I do always remember hearing them say is
• 29:06
  that we should have therapists. If you're a therapist, you need
• 29:09
  a therapist. That was very, very, that was
• 29:12
  pushed on us a lot, right? Like in a healthy way.
• 29:15
  Recommended. I won't say pushed on us, but
• 29:17
  promoted. It's promoted very heavily.
• 29:20
  You know, you could have some fun.
• 29:21
  So once I've like seen more dissertations and things later,
• 29:26
  I was like, I might have done it differently because you could do
• 29:29
  like a contextual analysis and like if it's like a, a
• 29:34
  particular, like, like I know someone who they base their
• 29:38
  dissertation on Insecure and they like analyze Molly's
• 29:41
  character through a particular season.
• 29:44
  And I was like, that's so dope. Like it would have never
• 29:48
  occurred to me. Like I could just watch TV and
• 29:52
  do this. And as much as I was watching
• 29:54
  reality TV and would be analyzing the relationships
• 29:57
  anyway, could have been so much fun.
• 30:01
  So that's an idea for you If there's like a show that you
• 30:05
  like that shows some of these dynamics or a particular
• 30:07
  character, or I say a character, but if it's a reality shows a
• 30:12
  person. But you know what I'm saying?
• 30:14
  A personality if there's a. Particular person.
• 30:17
  So it's like, follow the portrayal of this character in
• 30:21
  this show and honor that they're a men.
• 30:25
  And that's why I shipped it to personality, right?
• 30:28
  Now I'm following. But like, yeah, there's someone
• 30:32
  you're interested in. Like you can do so many things
• 30:34
  like now that I'm on the other side and my brain has recovered,
• 30:37
  your brain is going to be different when you get out of
• 30:39
  this. It is different for sure.
• 30:41
  And you see things differently. Like everything is a study.
• 30:44
  But like in a fun way, it can be become fun.
• 30:46
  But I haven't taken the time to like write a bunch of articles
• 30:50
  and that sort of thing. I've not gone that route, but
• 30:54
  easily I could because I get, I get ideas about stuff, but also
• 30:58
  you're just getting started and you're saying you're having all
• 31:00
  these different ideas. Just write those things down
• 31:03
  because these are studies you can do later depending on like
• 31:06
  what you really want to do and some beautiful things may come
• 31:09
  out of it. And I, I'll say this, a lot of
• 31:12
  people think that their dissertation has to be like the
• 31:16
  best thing they're ever going to write.
• 31:20
  It's not you're just getting started.
• 31:22
  That's just like if you go back and read your first papers when
• 31:25
  you enter the master's program, when you're leaving, you're
• 31:27
  like, I wrote this for like even in undergrad, you know, you just
• 31:31
  go back and read old, old essays and stuff.
• 31:33
  It's just like, what is? I thought this was good so.
• 31:36
  And it's so helpful. Actually, I think I heard you
• 31:39
  say, I think it was when you had Khalil on your show, Doctor
• 31:43
  Green, because that's someone, you know, respect to Doctor
• 31:46
  Green, but he was in my cohort. So clear.
• 31:48
  But I I think you said it in that episode about like at some
• 31:53
  point when you're working on your dissertation, you were just
• 31:55
  like, I could write a paper. Like I just like, let me log in
• 31:57
  and like, yeah, that's just, that's just a paper.
• 32:01
  It's also been helpful to read dissertations.
• 32:04
  So I'm not reading as many as I would like, but I'm appreciate
• 32:09
  what I'm doing. Appreciate.
• 32:11
  I appreciate that I when I'm able to do it, I will skim
• 32:14
  through a little dissertation and it is helpful to see how
• 32:17
  people organize things differently.
• 32:19
  Seeing different dissertations that are similar to my topic and
• 32:22
  looking at the theories they use or like the approach.
• 32:24
  I love it. I'm just like this is it is
• 32:26
  really helpful. Some people are really creative.
• 32:29
  So the insecure thing that sounds super cool.
• 32:31
  I'm taking I'm looking at like critical discourse analysis and
• 32:35
  like critical methods. So just certain things because I
• 32:36
  do want to expand like my understanding, just make my
• 32:40
  knowledge of different ways to do your methods or I guess more
• 32:44
  so like methodology so that I'm getting too technical.
• 32:46
  But my point is, I want to be, I want to get it done and I want
• 32:51
  it to be OK with how I'm how it just just get it done.
• 32:53
  I'm not trying to be here forever.
• 32:55
  But I also like the idea of being creative with it and
• 32:58
  putting that in my own spend. That's why they say
• 33:01
  quantitative. You want to get done, as I was
• 33:05
  told, a piece of very sage advice.
• 33:08
  The best dissertation is a completed one.
• 33:11
  Amen. Amen.
• 33:12
  You'll live to write another article, you'll live to write
• 33:15
  another paper. But you know, we we want to get
• 33:18
  you done. Yes, seriously.
• 33:21
  OK, So getting to it right, like how do you define burnout and
• 33:25
  then specific to like doctoral or the advanced academic
• 33:29
  settings? So of course, the first thing
• 33:33
  comes on. Mine is like the textbook, like
• 33:35
  what they like, you know, they tell you you're training like
• 33:38
  the difference between burnout, compassion fatigue.
• 33:40
  I appreciate the spin on it, though, kind of grounding it in
• 33:43
  doctoral education. I said earlier, like I realized
• 33:46
  I love school and that's what got me here.
• 33:48
  And when I talked to my peers, they have similar stories, like
• 33:52
  no matter where they were in life, there's that comment.
• 33:54
  I love to learn, I love school, I want to do this.
• 33:58
  Signs that we're getting into burnout like that lack of
• 34:01
  interest, that this isn't kind of the what sort of like
• 34:04
  cynicism about it, sleep issues, things where it's like putting
• 34:11
  things off, you know, now we might procrastinate a bit.
• 34:15
  Some of us like to work under the pressure, but we got you got
• 34:17
  to be real. You got to know yourself.
• 34:19
  Like, is this your regular kind of procrastination or are the
• 34:22
  tasks really stacking up? And I'm just, I, I could care
• 34:25
  less. Like I don't want to look at
• 34:26
  this. I don't I don't want to am I I'm
• 34:29
  the type of person I get my I'm logged into Outlook so I can see
• 34:32
  my emails. Am I am I am I am I logged in or
• 34:35
  did I log out? Like where where like where am
• 34:39
  I? I gotta keep doc.
• 34:41
  I took you remember Doctor Harris, she's talk about signs
• 34:44
  and symptoms. Yeah, Sign for Me is that
• 34:48
  Outlook inbox isn't getting looked at.
• 34:51
  Or you scan for particular names if anything.
• 34:54
  Like is there anything that's dire pressing, OK, any of this
• 34:58
  that's a that's a thing for future me.
• 35:02
  Yeah, that is so funny, she said Besides and symptoms.
• 35:05
  You took me back to Doctor Harris, man.
• 35:10
  She duration matters. Duration matters.
• 35:14
  That's the key. Duration matters.
• 35:16
  Absolutely. See you see how the, the
• 35:22
  Nuggets, the wisdom that you know, they, they kind of stick
• 35:26
  with this. So I think you did a good job
• 35:29
  with that, right? And everybody's a little bit
• 35:31
  different. It could be like irritability is
• 35:33
  super high, their productivity and creativity, their outputs
• 35:38
  and things like that goes down. It could also look like appetite
• 35:42
  being a issue as well. They could show up as breakdown
• 35:46
  in their relationships and neglecting those relationships
• 35:49
  and anxiety as well because you know, you might be being pulled
• 35:55
  from so many directions or trying to split yourself for all
• 35:58
  the hats you wear. Which is why when we had that
• 36:01
  conversation, we were asking me about doing a doc program.
• 36:05
  I said, well what are you willing to give up because you
• 36:09
  can't be 100% not every single seat.
• 36:13
  You can't not have this one like the doctoral journey demands
• 36:17
  that it is the spouse primary. No big facts.
• 36:23
  Health is something else too, of course with these things we're
• 36:27
  talking about compound it could definitely impact your health
• 36:31
  and I think it's. So I tell doctor Lou invited me
• 36:35
  to speak to the incoming class and that was one of the things I
• 36:38
  get on top of your health, like see if you're able to get to a
• 36:41
  doctor, see providers, get your lab work.
• 36:44
  Think about like I'm rituals are so important to me.
• 36:46
  So it's like, what are your kind of what are the daily things
• 36:50
  that kind of help you just connect with yourself?
• 36:52
  Is that prayer? Is it something around ancestor
• 36:55
  veneration? Is it your exercise routine?
• 36:58
  Is it like, what are the kind of the things that you know when I
• 37:02
  have XY and Z done, I feel like myself?
• 37:04
  Yeah, it's like. So important to just, you're
• 37:07
  right, it's school is your spouse, but you're also
• 37:10
  connected to yourself and you're bringing you everywhere you go.
• 37:14
  So someone has to keep an eye on you and that's your job.
• 37:18
  It's your response advisor, your boss, your client, whoever.
• 37:22
  They're not tracking you. They're just unfortunately.
• 37:26
  And even if they are, they're not gonna be able to see all the
• 37:29
  things like if you're, if you're in touch with yourself, you'll
• 37:32
  be the your body is going to give you the sign, the body
• 37:35
  symptom. The body's going to give you the
• 37:37
  symptom before, before things really reach the surface.
• 37:41
  So I don't know, sometimes I tell people that depending on
• 37:44
  where they're at, they're like get me or sometimes I think it
• 37:47
  sounds a little woo woo, but you're health like.
• 37:50
  Well, the ultimate about that too, jazz, is if they've been
• 37:54
  conditioned. So just keep going and
• 37:55
  disconnect from the body and produce, produce, produce.
• 37:59
  Sometimes it's not until it's almost too late.
• 38:03
  They're on the verge of like a breakdown, failing or what they
• 38:08
  think is that right? Like they think their life is in
• 38:10
  shambles. Like people usually, I'm not
• 38:12
  kidding. People used to be like, how are
• 38:13
  you? I'd be like my life in shambles.
• 38:16
  And I would just keep going and smiling like it's in shambles.
• 38:20
  But I'm here here. Do the best I can.
• 38:23
  Seriously. One one day at a time.
• 38:26
  And so, you know, on the outside, it sounds really dope,
• 38:31
  like, oh, you're a doctor's student and like Howard.
• 38:35
  And it's like, I am. But then it's like, I am like,
• 38:38
  depending on the day is, is how I how I felt for sure.
• 38:43
  But yeah, those, those burnout signs and some people, they may
• 38:47
  even be diagnosed with a mental health disorder while in the
• 38:51
  program, even if it's just adjustment disorder, right?
• 38:56
  It's, it's a, it's high stress. It's it's definitely high
• 38:59
  stress, lots of pressure. And if you don't have, I love
• 39:03
  what you were saying about your daily rituals.
• 39:04
  I had a therapist that I worked with in the past that we would
• 39:07
  talk about four daily dues. Like, what are those four things
• 39:10
  that you have to do every day that you can feel proud of, feel
• 39:15
  good, That's going to, like, help you?
• 39:17
  Because I was like, that's so simple.
• 39:20
  And even as a clinician, right? Like, we, we know stuff, but
• 39:24
  like, sometimes you need someone else to say, hey, let's.
• 39:30
  Yeah. And so.
• 39:32
  And that's easy, the four daily dues because it doesn't have to
• 39:36
  be a big thing. And so I was just like, OK, I
• 39:39
  just need to, like, move my body, eat something green, drink
• 39:43
  water and take up space or an appropriate amount of space
• 39:47
  everywhere I go. And I was like, I love that I
• 39:50
  can do that. And then you feel accomplished
• 39:53
  because, you know, you've done that every day.
• 39:55
  And then it grew into 10 things. And then it just, yeah.
• 39:58
  So it can grow and you can build on that.
• 40:00
  But when you're in this stress, it can feel like I already don't
• 40:05
  have time and you're telling me to make more time.
• 40:08
  Exactly, exactly. That's what I like about your
• 40:11
  four daily dues because they're, it seems seems attainable.
• 40:17
  Yeah, there's a level of flexibility too.
• 40:18
  So depending on what your capacity is for the day, like
• 40:21
  taking up space, convene something really different.
• 40:24
  I like that. I also, I encourage, I do, I try
• 40:26
  to do this myself. I also talked to my clients
• 40:28
  about this too, is when you're, let's say you're, you're
• 40:32
  starting this four daily dues, how long do you want to try this
• 40:35
  for? Because that sometimes just
• 40:36
  getting started on something new can seem so overwhelming.
• 40:38
  It's like I'm making this lifetime commitment to do these
• 40:40
  four daily things. How about you try it for a
• 40:43
  month, like just how about you try and just see how it feels
• 40:45
  right, like kind of scheduling in that election time, like just
• 40:48
  get a little data, see how how do you feel, reflect on it And
• 40:51
  then you have like an out. You don't want to do it.
• 40:52
  You don't have to do it anymore, but if it was great, maybe add
• 40:54
  more to it. So I love that.
• 40:56
  I do like every I'm a planner girly.
• 40:59
  So like every month there's a like a monthly kind of
• 41:03
  reflection that I'll do and then every week I'm kind of tracking
• 41:07
  like, OK, how about we doing this week?
• 41:09
  But it's also, it's so much, like I said, so much more than
• 41:11
  just like what assignments are due, right?
• 41:12
  It's like, when am I going to do something for me?
• 41:15
  Like this week is looking heavy. I have all these therapy
• 41:17
  clients, I have these assignments, I have these, you
• 41:19
  know, I knew last semester like Wednesday through Friday are
• 41:22
  going to kind of be hell. So like, it's just there's not a
• 41:25
  lot of wiggle room. This is going to be hell.
• 41:27
  The weekend things will slow down in some ways, they'll pick
• 41:30
  up in other ways. So just kind of managing like
• 41:34
  for me, it's helpful to see the week on my planner like we'll
• 41:38
  open, just look at it and just like what's the distribution
• 41:41
  looking like? Yes, the energy.
• 41:43
  Yes, totally. I'm such a visual person, so
• 41:47
  that has been really helpful for me.
• 41:50
  If that, if it doesn't work, then it kind of comes to like,
• 41:52
  well, then what would work for you?
• 41:54
  Like, I know I'm visual. Are you more audible?
• 41:56
  Like are you more tactile? Like what?
• 41:57
  Because figuring out how to create systems that are really
• 42:00
  unique for you customized because we're customized people
• 42:03
  like, you know, like so and just knowing like the willingness to
• 42:08
  try different things and the willingness to like, it's not
• 42:10
  always going to be the best. We're you have to.
• 42:16
  That's one of those words that I encourage people to release
• 42:19
  best, right, proper, you know, some of those things that make
• 42:24
  you feel like creates that polarity, you know, those
• 42:27
  binaries that 'cause that tension, that all or nothing
• 42:30
  because that can become a lie. And I kind of chuckle when you
• 42:34
  were like, you're making this lifetime commitment to these
• 42:36
  things. And I was like, you know what?
• 42:38
  That part didn't even really occur to me that, yeah, because
• 42:43
  some of these things can become lifelong habits.
• 42:46
  And if you're stressed, adding another thing does feel like a
• 42:49
  lifetime. Man, you you're really taking me
• 42:53
  back into like my state of mind when I was in the doc program
• 42:58
  and I'm just because yeah. So what might be some of those
• 43:04
  those other signs and signals that if someone loves or knows
• 43:10
  it's friends with supporting A doctoral student, that might be
• 43:13
  indicators that maybe they're not coping with this as
• 43:16
  healthily or you know, nearing brand out.
• 43:19
  What are some more of those other signs?
• 43:21
  I would say really listening to what people are saying right,
• 43:25
  like and like sometimes a sign might not be clear, but if you,
• 43:30
  and this isn't, I feel like this is not an answer, but it is an
• 43:33
  answer at the same time. I'll give you, I'll give you an
• 43:35
  example. I feel like I was in a good
• 43:36
  space. I was talking to a peer who I
• 43:40
  met in like one of these doctoral writing groups and
• 43:44
  they, it was a goal that I wanted to accomplish and I
• 43:48
  hadn't reached the goal and I thought I was fine with it.
• 43:51
  But they could tell by the way I was speaking that I was being
• 43:54
  really harsh. Like I was being really hard on
• 43:57
  myself. It was almost like my inner
• 43:59
  honestly, I love my Mama, but I sounded like my Mama.
• 44:02
  Like I was sounding like my totally talking about my
• 44:06
  performance on this thing. And my friend was like very
• 44:10
  compassionate, like a very compassionate response to the
• 44:13
  point that like my kind of antennas went up.
• 44:16
  Like why are you being so passionate?
• 44:17
  Like what? What am I saying that's causing
• 44:19
  you to be this way? You say I'm not the client.
• 44:23
  What is this? No, exactly.
• 44:25
  And then that was a good little check for me because I was like
• 44:28
  sometimes it is really subtle because I am that high
• 44:33
  performing overachiever. I've always been like this to
• 44:37
  kind of what you were saying earlier where it's like the
• 44:40
  things that we would say these are signs of burnout.
• 44:43
  These have been traits that have caused, have allowed me to be
• 44:46
  really resilient to get to where I'm at, like being hyper
• 44:49
  focused, being driven by the anxiety, being a perfectionist,
• 44:52
  like all these, you know, being really competitive, like these
• 44:55
  things have got me here. But the truth is you get it.
• 44:59
  You get to a point where you're just like, hey, you, you're not
• 45:03
  allowing yourself no grace. Like there's grace, no grace.
• 45:06
  Like it doesn't matter that you know, all these contextual
• 45:10
  factors, all these things out of your control, like none of that
• 45:12
  matters. Like it was so I was supposed to
• 45:15
  get the job done. So I would say for sure, like
• 45:18
  not to beat a dead horse, but I would say for sure listen to
• 45:22
  what people are saying about themselves, about their program,
• 45:26
  about their progress. But even to be able to listen,
• 45:28
  the person has to be connected. They have to be you have to be
• 45:31
  talking to to someone. So sometimes a sign is
• 45:33
  isolation, like if you check on your friends, like if you know
• 45:37
  your friend is in a program and I get in this is no, just no
• 45:40
  shade because it's something that you can't really, really
• 45:42
  understand unless you're in it. But sometimes you don't have to
• 45:44
  truly understand to know that, like your friend might need you
• 45:47
  to just nudge them. How's it going?
• 45:50
  How are you doing? Do you want to have space to
• 45:52
  like not talk about school And we could just connect as
• 45:55
  friends. Like, I appreciate those
• 45:57
  invitations from people in my life.
• 46:00
  So yeah, listen to, listen to how we're talking.
• 46:03
  Listen to how you were talking about your and what you're
• 46:06
  focusing on. I feel like I'm rambling.
• 46:09
  I guess I'll land the plane here too.
• 46:11
  We do. I guess I can speak for myself
• 46:13
  and other people in my cohort. We do love feedback, but pay
• 46:17
  attention to where people are valuing the feedback.
• 46:20
  Like do you get as are you as receptive and open to hearing
• 46:23
  the positive as you are the negative or the OR the more
• 46:26
  critical comments? Because some of us, I might be
• 46:29
  telling myself a little bit, I want to hear what I didn't do
• 46:31
  right. I want to hear where I need to
• 46:33
  grow it. Yeah, it's nice that I did this
• 46:35
  part good. OK, that's great.
• 46:36
  I had a strong rule. My research question was great.
• 46:38
  Tell me like sometimes for me, the the positive get minimized.
• 46:42
  I'm like over emphasize, emphasize like the negative, but
• 46:44
  it's like you're both equally. If you need that balance,
• 46:48
  because how are you going to get through?
• 46:51
  You have to receive the deposit to continue to go through.
• 46:56
  Yeah. I mean, but this journey to you,
• 46:59
  you have to be willing to be critiqued.
• 47:03
  Totally you have. To and especially your
• 47:05
  dissertation, this is not something that you can write and
• 47:08
  get no edits on like you go get feedback.
• 47:14
  So that's just something to to prepare for.
• 47:19
  Now. Are there any things that you
• 47:21
  would say might look slightly different with high achieving,
• 47:24
  high functioning individuals? Slightly different in terms of
• 47:27
  burnout. Yeah.
• 47:30
  Though I guess the last thing I would add to this that might
• 47:33
  look different, I go back to pacing a lot.
• 47:36
  It kind of reminds me and I don't.
• 47:38
  I don't want to conflate these two issues because I know
• 47:40
  they're not, but it does remind me a bit when you're working how
• 47:44
  depression will look differently and like, let's say a black
• 47:46
  woman. Yeah, like a white woman.
• 47:48
  And then I think like when I even preparing for today, I was
• 47:51
  thinking like, well, even me as a black, as a high achieving
• 47:54
  black woman. And then I know that for us when
• 47:57
  we're depressed, it could still look like over functioning.
• 47:59
  So then when I add in the like PhD part, it's I don't know how
• 48:04
  people can see this, but I can, I can feel when my motor is
• 48:08
  running. I can feel if I instead of
• 48:10
  sleeping throughout the night, I'm thinking of deadlines are
• 48:14
  the first thing I do when I wake up is like, well, I want to get
• 48:16
  this abstract submitted or I'm behind.
• 48:19
  First off, I feel behind don't be really, really real because
• 48:21
  we both social workers. I want to submit to see if I
• 48:24
  feel behind on my propose over CSWE that ain't even due till
• 48:29
  like March. So it's like we got to, we got
• 48:32
  to slag. Things have to be put into
• 48:34
  perspective. Like sometimes things are, you
• 48:37
  know, it's so many comedian demands.
• 48:39
  And so everything takes time. I mean, especially when you're
• 48:42
  just starting. Everything takes time because I
• 48:44
  don't, I haven't fully carved out like what is the gap where I
• 48:47
  don't have data yet? I I, you know, I'm not quite at
• 48:50
  the point where every time I'm writing something, I'm starting
• 48:52
  from scratch, but I still don't have like a really solid where I
• 48:57
  feel like this is a solid frame or, you know, so it's just Ciao,
• 49:02
  we don't keep punching, but it is OK to slow down and not but
• 49:10
  like, I don't want to completely disconnect.
• 49:12
  Oh, I'm showing myself. I'm showing it.
• 49:14
  Hey, and it's real, right, 'cause like, as you were saying,
• 49:17
  I was like, yeah, I'm gonna pray for you, 'cause I'm you taking
• 49:20
  me back and bringing back all my memories.
• 49:23
  I could do it. Seriously.
• 49:25
  I think you aware of it. Let me, let me, let me, let me
• 49:28
  pat myself in the back. Sometimes I have these thoughts
• 49:30
  on my grill. That's why you all and I
• 49:32
  appreciate that. I can see it.
• 49:35
  I can't. I could see it.
• 49:37
  I think it would be, it would be different if I didn't see it,
• 49:43
  but I also like I can't. For me I can't.
• 49:47
  I think it can drift into like avoidance if I'm not doing
• 49:50
  anything with a thought, if that makes sense.
• 49:51
  So it is, it's some tension, right?
• 49:53
  Because it's like, I think complete burnout would be like
• 49:56
  this thing. Let's do like in March.
• 49:59
  I'm thinking about it now it's a bit I'm making it bigger.
• 50:02
  It's a stressor. I'm going to avoid it.
• 50:03
  I'm going to delay. I'm going to delay.
• 50:05
  I'm trying to not do that just but also find the balance is
• 50:09
  just like I can't do, I can, I could do some things.
• 50:11
  I can't do all the things. And also remembering that we
• 50:15
  have really good professors that can bounce ideas around.
• 50:19
  There's other people that have presented other, you know, so
• 50:21
  just for me remembering I'm not alone in this and appreciate
• 50:27
  what you're saying too, because I also this resident.
• 50:29
  So you, you remember this. OK, So I'm not alone.
• 50:31
  I'm not the first. I had, I guess I, I didn't feel
• 50:36
  like I had people close to me that I could ask, you know what
• 50:40
  I mean? But that's not true.
• 50:42
  That's not true. I knew people I was over
• 50:46
  functioning because I didn't, it was like I didn't have the time.
• 50:49
  I felt like to ask them. I have something to do instead
• 50:53
  of having that conversation. I could be getting something
• 50:55
  done when that's one of those things that could have been a
• 51:00
  deposit, right? There were some people I would
• 51:03
  talk to, but I yeah, yeah. You got me thinking, though, I
• 51:09
  don't know if I would. I wonder if that is burnout or
• 51:12
  is that a sign that you're on the road to becoming burned out?
• 51:15
  I guess we would. It would take more context,
• 51:17
  right? To really.
• 51:20
  Yeah, yeah. I don't know.
• 51:21
  Look, now I'm thinking back. I was like cha, I was on the
• 51:24
  road, probably went around it a couple times, visited, circled
• 51:27
  back. No, it's like because in one way
• 51:30
  we think burnout and it's just like, oh, you've completely just
• 51:32
  like, but that's not like I think for us, like whether it's
• 51:36
  our gender, whether it's our race, whether it's our, I guess
• 51:40
  these could all be factors. OK, Doctor Abu Bhattar, see you.
• 51:42
  Come on now. It could be gender could be
• 51:44
  raised. It could be the fact that you
• 51:45
  are in a PhD program, but it's just like the to just, and I
• 51:50
  hear it even when some like people in my cohort that I do
• 51:52
  like quitting. It's like even slowing down
• 51:55
  sometimes I think feels like a quit or like even like.
• 51:58
  But it's like. It's an adjustment in your
• 52:02
  process things and maybe you're not going according to like the
• 52:05
  plan you thought, but I think you know, you're moving forward,
• 52:07
  but you know, it could it could be burnout or at least flirting
• 52:10
  with that area or flirting, I guess with that territory of
• 52:14
  burnout, I guess maybe like ebbs and flows.
• 52:17
  Yeah. Now something else that I
• 52:20
  realized in having this conversation is that some of
• 52:23
  this identity, because you're a high achieving academic person,
• 52:31
  a lot of times the identity in school go together and so
• 52:38
  separating that. So what role do you think
• 52:40
  pressure, perfectionism and or identity lay in sustaining?
• 52:46
  There is a lot of pressure. You talk, we talked about
• 52:49
  earlier like the internal piece. There are different ways.
• 52:54
  I think external pressure plays a role.
• 52:57
  You know, it's clear that there's a high level like
• 53:00
  academic standard that you need to hit, which adds pressure.
• 53:04
  We're also like when you're in your class, sometimes I thought
• 53:08
  I could feel like different, different times of the semester.
• 53:10
  You can like field energy. So it's like I may have felt
• 53:13
  like I did the best self-care. I'm very Zen.
• 53:16
  I'm very mellow. I've done all my things.
• 53:18
  And then I walk into a room and it's like it is a pressure box
• 53:20
  in here. And now I'm like, like, what?
• 53:23
  What's happening? Like do I rise to this level?
• 53:26
  Although I felt walking. Yeah, I thought my level was
• 53:28
  chill. But am I right?
• 53:29
  Like what? Like what happens?
• 53:31
  And if you, for me, if I'm not mindful of that, that can loop
• 53:34
  around like I'm not doing enough.
• 53:36
  Like I need to like I tried to chill here, but this ain't the
• 53:39
  time to chill. You got to put the I got to hit
• 53:40
  the gas. So it, it, it could, it could
• 53:42
  push it, it could push it could push me there if I'm not, if I'm
• 53:46
  not aware of it. And then to the piece of
• 53:48
  identity. The, you know, my topic has
• 53:52
  evolved. I came in and there's
• 53:54
  professional, but there's also personal that reasons that got
• 53:57
  me here. And I'm very interested in
• 53:59
  qualitative research and you know, qualitative talk a lot
• 54:01
  about reflexivity and you do a lot of like assignments around
• 54:05
  like, well, who are you? And like in like, how are how is
• 54:08
  your identity like shaping the question?
• 54:10
  And then just your whole approach to the phenomena.
• 54:13
  And I'm just like, sometimes I'm like, OK, as I'm looking at
• 54:17
  queer black love. I'm a queer person.
• 54:19
  I'm in a queer relationship and I'm like, I'm not the only like
• 54:23
  there's gaps, but it's not on me to fill all of this.
• 54:25
  Like just kind of even remembering that too.
• 54:27
  It's like I deserve rest too. I'm a human.
• 54:29
  Like if I'm feeling like I'm getting burned out, I'm not
• 54:32
  helping my community by just like, like you kind of like
• 54:35
  barging my way through. And then I'm also like have to
• 54:38
  remember like just as I have strength and I have value, other
• 54:41
  people in my community do too. So it's not all on my like, who
• 54:43
  am I? Like it's not all on my back,
• 54:45
  just kind of remembering like I'm human.
• 54:47
  Because sometimes in these spaces, we spend so much time
• 54:49
  thinking about something so specific, so narrow, you know
• 54:53
  that you are creating something that hasn't been done before.
• 54:56
  And like you can easily hype yourself into feeling like it's
• 55:01
  all on me. And like, that is not helpful
• 55:04
  for burning out. If you're telling yourself it's
• 55:06
  all in you, then yeah, when you're having all these demands,
• 55:08
  it could totally feel like there's no one I can help.
• 55:10
  No one can help me. No one knows about this.
• 55:12
  It's me. It's me.
• 55:12
  It's me. And it's just like, we're in
• 55:14
  community with really talented, amazing people that want to put
• 55:19
  those deposits in, want to encourage us, want to see us
• 55:22
  grow. We started this conversation off
• 55:24
  reminiscing on those giants that we are really, like, in our
• 55:29
  lineage, right? Like, so it's just like, I can't
• 55:33
  forget that. I can't forget that.
• 55:34
  So this is like, yeah, I'm, I'm so grateful for this
• 55:38
  conversation at this particular time in my journey.
• 55:41
  Let me tell you something I still have to realize, I'm like,
• 55:44
  Jeannie, you are a adjunct lecturer at Howard University.
• 55:48
  You are somebody's professor. Like there was one day I was
• 55:51
  like, how did I get here? But then it was like, I, I know,
• 55:54
  but it was just like, it's real like.
• 55:57
  It's. You are shaping the next
• 56:01
  generation of social work scholars.
• 56:05
  Isn't that amazing? It is, it is, and it's just.
• 56:10
  How do I sit in it? You do got to sit in it.
• 56:11
  I'm not trying to point pump the message of like, Oh no, no,
• 56:14
  stand stand in that because that is it's it's it's big.
• 56:18
  It's it's especially at that university in this particular
• 56:22
  profession with a history of social work and then to being
• 56:26
  able to shape black social workers, social workers coming
• 56:30
  in with a black perspective to come and really do
• 56:34
  transformative work no matter where they fall, macro micro,
• 56:37
  like wherever they fall. Like, yeah, I to, to teach is
• 56:42
  such a such a such a such a blessing to just be able to
• 56:45
  connect with people in that. Yeah, I love it.
• 56:48
  I love, I love it. And then they, they, as we
• 56:51
  pointed them, they pour back into Yeah, it's exciting.
• 56:54
  Yeah, it's really exciting. This past semester was one of my
• 56:57
  best semesters. And just like how invested they
• 57:00
  were, I was like, OK, because like one of my classes there was
• 57:05
  only like 6 people. The other class had like 18 or
• 57:08
  19. My class was 6 had just as much
• 57:11
  energy as my 19 class. And so I was like, how's this
• 57:15
  going to go? Is there not enough people?
• 57:17
  Like am I going to carry this? You know, but they, they, they,
• 57:22
  they loved it. And I also feel like I'm, I hit
• 57:26
  my own sort of stride with the with the, with the material too.
• 57:30
  But it's, it's, it's such an honor.
• 57:32
  It really is. And it's it's a big deal like.
• 57:35
  Yeah, it's real. Yeah, I was like, I'm, I'm
• 57:37
  sitting in it and at the same time just like, wow.
• 57:40
  I just remember looking at my professors and like they're so
• 57:45
  amazing. They're so amazing.
• 57:47
  Like you did what and what you work with, who you created and
• 57:53
  established, what you published what, what you are presidential
• 58:00
  appointee like, like all types of things.
• 58:04
  And then the way they just, like, see us pour into us.
• 58:08
  And then they just so many things that I either didn't
• 58:13
  think we're imaginable or didn't even do it.
• 58:15
  Like I didn't even know these things existed, so I couldn't
• 58:16
  even dream about them because your dreams so much are tied to
• 58:19
  what you're exposed to. So to come here and then be
• 58:23
  exposed so much. And then, yeah, for professors
• 58:26
  to be like, we see something in you and I'm like, what you see
• 58:28
  because I don't know that I've really seen it, but just kind of
• 58:30
  stepping out, right. Look at me, like me, exactly me.
• 58:36
  Like I'm just, you know, I'm just here take my notes trying
• 58:38
  to trying to do the best I can. I'm just trying to push through.
• 58:42
  Yeah, but they they see it. Man, man, man, man.
• 58:47
  This is actually really good. I didn't think I was going to be
• 58:49
  reflecting this much, but I guess I needed this conversation
• 58:53
  as much as you did today. Come on now.
• 58:57
  OK, So what are some, and this is similar but a little more
• 59:02
  nuanced, but what are some symptoms or signals that someone
• 59:06
  may need more than rest? Earlier you mentioned context.
• 59:10
  I think context really matters, right?
• 59:14
  So let's say, let's go, I guess back to your example where you
• 59:19
  needed to lower your course load.
• 59:22
  If you did that and things are still not, there's no, you know,
• 59:26
  the expectation is this, you're going to reduce this and your
• 59:29
  symptom like symptoms will improve.
• 59:31
  If that doesn't happen, it may not, I don't want to say it may
• 59:36
  not be school, but it may be more than just that, right?
• 59:40
  Like where are you noticing these issues?
• 59:43
  Is it that you're experiencing issues at work?
• 59:45
  Are you experiencing issues in your personal relationships?
• 59:47
  Are you having issues at school? Are you having, you know, issues
• 59:52
  with yourself? Like what's happening with what
• 59:53
  are other behaviors looking like?
• 59:55
  Are we using more substances, different substances?
• 59:58
  Like are we not sleeping at all? Are we sleeping all the time?
• 1:00:02
  Like, like what else? I get really curious how like
• 1:00:04
  what else is happening beyond school?
• 1:00:07
  And then like what? What else have you been trying?
• 1:00:09
  Like, are you already trying the therapy route?
• 1:00:11
  Is therapy not helping? Is that a fit with this
• 1:00:14
  particular therapist? Is it something like?
• 1:00:17
  Like what? Is it more than just therapy?
• 1:00:19
  Do we need to start looking at medication?
• 1:00:21
  Like I get I having a lot more questions because it's not
• 1:00:27
  always, I'll put it this way. Sometimes you get into school
• 1:00:31
  and things start happening and it exposes stuff that was
• 1:00:33
  already there. Oh yeah, you know what I'm
• 1:00:36
  saying? And a social work program will
• 1:00:37
  definitely do it. 100 percent, 100%, especially depending on
• 1:00:43
  what your funding is looking like, like other life stressors,
• 1:00:46
  like some people, you know, you get into school and you said my
• 1:00:48
  wife is blowing up, like I got issues with this.
• 1:00:51
  I got issues with that guy. And then it's like, you know,
• 1:00:54
  it, it might, it might not be because you can't do it.
• 1:00:57
  It might not be because like in terms like capacity or not
• 1:01:00
  capacity, excuse me, like like cotton, like a intelligence,
• 1:01:03
  like it may not be like intelligence or lack of effort
• 1:01:05
  or lack of trying. It could just be you don't have
• 1:01:07
  the bandwidth like just, it could be the school.
• 1:01:10
  It just was an additional and school will make you vulnerable.
• 1:01:14
  Like school is what to make you vulnerable.
• 1:01:18
  So if you got other stuff going on too, it may be that you need
• 1:01:22
  to, some things may need to get adjusted and you need to expand.
• 1:01:26
  Treat your your treatment team for sure.
• 1:01:28
  Excellent, excellent. So then what do you think?
• 1:01:32
  Or why do you think a lot of times doctoral students might
• 1:01:35
  delay seeking help until things still unmanageable?
• 1:01:39
  Well, that's the thing, right? We're so used to managing things
• 1:01:44
  that it's just exactly what you said.
• 1:01:46
  It's just like if you, you so in the in the, I don't want to call
• 1:01:51
  it the struggle, but I mean, it's like you're just in the
• 1:01:53
  struggle. You're so earlier I made the
• 1:01:56
  thing about the tunnel as I heard there's a light, but
• 1:01:58
  sometimes I can't even figure how to get out of this thing.
• 1:02:00
  It's just like it can feel like you cannot stop.
• 1:02:04
  You've gone too far to turn around and go back.
• 1:02:08
  You just got to get it done. But it's, yeah, it gets hard.
• 1:02:13
  And then even I said to we get we're so passionate about our
• 1:02:16
  research. And now you get to a point where
• 1:02:18
  you're like, Oh, I found a gap. Like this is not, it doesn't
• 1:02:20
  exist. I care a lot about this.
• 1:02:23
  No, like early I mentioned, we started with the individuals.
• 1:02:26
  But then when by the time I get to communities and
• 1:02:28
  organizations, I'm looking at these theories and I'm putting
• 1:02:31
  those theories kind of crossing them over with like my issue, my
• 1:02:35
  topic issue, different kind of intervention.
• 1:02:37
  You get excited, you're like, I can do something that can really
• 1:02:41
  impact someone's life, my life, my community.
• 1:02:44
  So where it's just like you don't, you don't want to stop.
• 1:02:47
  And I think that makes it really hard for us sometimes to figure
• 1:02:51
  out like, how do you reconcile the things that need to be
• 1:02:54
  reconciled without feel like you let down your dream or let down
• 1:02:59
  your community or let down, you know, it, it's just, it's, it
• 1:03:03
  can, it can be, it can be really, really hard.
• 1:03:06
  I've seen people struggle with it and it's not an easy struggle
• 1:03:08
  to watch. And then as an outsider, it's
• 1:03:10
  like, who am I? How can I tell someone else what
• 1:03:13
  to do? Or how can I gauge with someone
• 1:03:14
  else's capacity as it's so individual.
• 1:03:17
  So, you know, we got to sometimes I think it takes a
• 1:03:20
  little humility and we, some of us struggle with that.
• 1:03:23
  We're just so used to, just so used to being like on top.
• 1:03:27
  So it's just it's hard. Yep, absolutely.
• 1:03:31
  Just I think bringing back up like you were saying to that,
• 1:03:35
  that self compassion, like what would you say to if one of your
• 1:03:40
  colleagues were saying this about themself or speaking like,
• 1:03:44
  how would you speak to them, right?
• 1:03:46
  Like, and you got to give yourself some of that too and
• 1:03:50
  trying to hide, right? I feel like this is where, no, I
• 1:03:52
  believe this is where sometimes that fear or shame of being seen
• 1:03:58
  as incapable because you can't do this one thing or you're
• 1:04:02
  having a hard time, where that can really take over because
• 1:04:06
  it's also a competitive environment.
• 1:04:09
  And then depending upon which program you're in, some people
• 1:04:12
  have even more competition. And I wouldn't say it felt more
• 1:04:17
  familial to me in social work, but I've heard other people talk
• 1:04:21
  about their experiences and it's not that at all.
• 1:04:25
  And I think too, it felt more familial because I did my MSW
• 1:04:29
  and other people in my cohort, they didn't have the connection
• 1:04:32
  that I had. And so sometimes it was hard for
• 1:04:35
  me to relate to some of the things they were going through.
• 1:04:38
  I'm like, just go talk to them. Just go do this.
• 1:04:40
  And they're like, well, you're Dean Cruz protege, like you'll
• 1:04:44
  be taken care of. And I was like, what it?
• 1:04:47
  Comes, yeah, yeah, no, it comes with like, it's like, yes.
• 1:04:51
  And that comes with a different level of, of like stress that
• 1:04:56
  like some people wouldn't get. No, totally, totally, totally.
• 1:05:01
  I, as someone who got their master's degree from the
• 1:05:03
  program, I can understand the kind of like why it would be
• 1:05:08
  great to be in that position and why challenging in some ways to
• 1:05:12
  be in that position. For sure.
• 1:05:16
  I would also, I say like it's an advantage in some ways for me
• 1:05:19
  that I got my master's from this program because I do see,
• 1:05:23
  although I, I hold my professors in high regard.
• 1:05:26
  I know that they're human. Yeah.
• 1:05:28
  And they like, and I've been around.
• 1:05:30
  I was like I said, I started the program 2015.
• 1:05:33
  So it's been 10 years that these relationships, you know, like
• 1:05:37
  we've, we've known each other for this long.
• 1:05:39
  But then I think like if I when I was an undergrad, although I
• 1:05:44
  wasn't being there a scholar, I didn't feel very supported from
• 1:05:47
  my mentor. I didn't feel like I fit well in
• 1:05:50
  my research lab and I was having a lot of family.
• 1:05:54
  Like my mom was sick at the time, my dad, there was just
• 1:05:57
  things happening and I didn't, I was much younger.
• 1:05:59
  I wasn't at school where I felt I didn't feel familial.
• 1:06:03
  So there were things that I didn't disclose, but also no one
• 1:06:06
  ever asked me, are you okay? No one ever said like, you know,
• 1:06:09
  we noticed that your progress is like slipping, like what's
• 1:06:12
  going, you know. So I know that that's a really
• 1:06:15
  common experience for a lot of marginalized people in higher
• 1:06:20
  academia. And that although we know that
• 1:06:24
  there's a familial aspect of our program, I know that sometimes
• 1:06:27
  people come to the door and they just haven't had that experience
• 1:06:30
  and they don't always feel so like trusting the system as I
• 1:06:34
  would because had experiences, right?
• 1:06:37
  So I get that and I feel for folks like that because I can
• 1:06:42
  sometimes see how they might be in some ways not setting
• 1:06:45
  themselves up for like really like accessing the support
• 1:06:48
  right? That is like there.
• 1:06:50
  But I get it. Like there's so many bad
• 1:06:54
  experiences that I've heard, whether it's other programs or
• 1:06:57
  other schools that I, I get what people are feeling, feeling
• 1:07:00
  guarded, feeling protective, not feeling not what they can ask
• 1:07:03
  for help feeling like if they show the vulnerability that
• 1:07:06
  things are happening that that can be perceived as like
• 1:07:08
  weakness and lack of like it's just, it's a lot of judgments.
• 1:07:12
  It's yeah. Yeah, and even as you were
• 1:07:16
  saying something another way right that I think it can be
• 1:07:21
  noted, but this would be observed by a professor that
• 1:07:24
  something else might be going on that needs more than rest is in
• 1:07:27
  your writing. So you just reminded me as you
• 1:07:30
  were talking, I was finishing up the MSW had already been
• 1:07:34
  accepted into the PhD and my grandmother passed away.
• 1:07:38
  Shyla was a Rick, and so one of my professors called me to their
• 1:07:45
  office to talk about my paper. And they were like, yeah, I
• 1:07:48
  called you for the paper, but what's going on?
• 1:07:52
  Because this is not how you write.
• 1:07:54
  This isn't like they could see it wasn't my normal standard, my
• 1:07:59
  normal quality of work. And so that was an indicator
• 1:08:04
  that something else is going on. Yeah.
• 1:08:08
  So they, they they get to know you through your writing.
• 1:08:11
  And I think we take that for granted sometimes, that our
• 1:08:13
  writing can also be a marker of something else going on.
• 1:08:17
  That's wrong. That's wrong.
• 1:08:19
  That's wrong. Yeah, shifting gears a little
• 1:08:21
  bit. So what would you say choosing
• 1:08:24
  yourself looks like in the midst of all of these academic
• 1:08:28
  demands? I love that.
• 1:08:31
  Oh, I'm going to. I really want to quote this but
• 1:08:33
  I don't know that my brain is going to remember it.
• 1:08:35
  Just do the best you can, give us the essence.
• 1:08:38
  Come on now, Essence, I'm thinking about Afrocentricity
• 1:08:41
  and, and I'm really I'm thinking about the African worldview and
• 1:08:44
  they talk about like affective knowledge and like that's like
• 1:08:46
  valid, right? Like how you you're feeling is
• 1:08:49
  real. And this comes up a lot.
• 1:08:51
  Even my therapy clients, because we live in like the dominant
• 1:08:56
  kind of, I guess like the dominant belief, the dominant
• 1:08:58
  kind of structure with society can have you invalidate yourself
• 1:09:01
  often times where it's just like, no, I don't like the way
• 1:09:04
  this feels, but I'm being told that like my feeling doesn't
• 1:09:06
  matter or I need to like suck it up and push through.
• 1:09:09
  So like choosing for me, choosing myself is like I feel a
• 1:09:13
  way that's a real feeling. I don't need to try to like
• 1:09:16
  unfilling or change the feeling. Like this is a real feeling and
• 1:09:21
  this feeling is information for me to use.
• 1:09:25
  And when I use this information in this small way, I'm taking
• 1:09:28
  care of myself. So like I try hold on to that
• 1:09:36
  because I don't always have time or even money to go get the
• 1:09:39
  nails done or get the hair or do the thing.
• 1:09:41
  Like and even for me, sometimes I might have the resources, but
• 1:09:44
  I don't want to spend my time at the nail salon.
• 1:09:47
  Like I don't want to do that. I don't want to rush to this
• 1:09:49
  appointment for self-care. And that is, oh, hey, like that
• 1:09:53
  is totally OK. I liked what you said about
• 1:09:56
  taking space. I feel like that's a great way
• 1:10:00
  to honor yourself. I also think that like my one of
• 1:10:04
  my mentors said this before in, in supervision, I'm telling him
• 1:10:07
  about a case and he wants to know how you feel.
• 1:10:09
  And I'm like, when you talk about me, I'm trying to get help
• 1:10:12
  with this case. But his point is like your
• 1:10:14
  feelings always matter. Like when you're in the room
• 1:10:16
  with your client, your feelings matter.
• 1:10:18
  When I'm working on my assignment, my feelings matter.
• 1:10:20
  I realize there's certain times where it's really, really hard
• 1:10:24
  for me to write because it's it's too late, I'm too tired.
• 1:10:27
  I'm starting to feel down. I'm starting to feel the press.
• 1:10:31
  I'm starting to feel negative. Like as I'm writing, I'm like, I
• 1:10:33
  don't want to be up right now, OK.
• 1:10:36
  I could choose myself by like respecting that.
• 1:10:38
  This ain't the time I want to do this.
• 1:10:41
  I may have to make an adjustment somewhere else.
• 1:10:42
  Now. I'm just going to wake up
• 1:10:43
  earlier. Like I'm going to just do this
• 1:10:44
  in the morning, start the day kind of, you know, so there is
• 1:10:47
  these like negotiations, but I would still own that as like, I
• 1:10:50
  trust myself. Like I don't have to do like I
• 1:10:52
  don't, I don't and everyone can say they were up till 4 working
• 1:10:55
  and this at the 3rd and that is great.
• 1:10:57
  My lifestyle a little different. I can't do that.
• 1:11:00
  I don't want to do that. I would rather so just I'm going
• 1:11:04
  to choose me. If I can do it, I'm going to
• 1:11:06
  take my self determination is real.
• 1:11:09
  And like what you said, some people the struggle is a badge
• 1:11:12
  of honor sometimes for people. I was up till four and you
• 1:11:16
  crazy. I was sleep because that's what
• 1:11:19
  I needed. Like seriously.
• 1:11:22
  And I think what what you were saying, it makes me think about
• 1:11:25
  when I ask my clients certain things or when when they're like
• 1:11:29
  bouncing all of this and they're not giving themselves self
• 1:11:32
  compassion, I ask them a question.
• 1:11:35
  What does your current reality support?
• 1:11:38
  Oh, I love that. And it's a simple question, but
• 1:11:42
  it helps shift the priorities, right?
• 1:11:44
  Like what does? What can you actually do right
• 1:11:47
  now? Like and trying to force
• 1:11:50
  yourself to write or read and you're reading the same sentence
• 1:11:53
  over and over again. Or you're deleting a paragraph.
• 1:11:56
  You can't get past the outline portion.
• 1:11:59
  Like just stop. Yeah.
• 1:12:02
  Just stop. Like it's not a good use of
• 1:12:04
  time. Then you're beating yourself up.
• 1:12:06
  You don't feel good, you don't feel accomplished.
• 1:12:09
  But then it's it's just like a negative loop.
• 1:12:12
  So you're you don't want to quit, but then you don't want to
• 1:12:15
  recognize that you really do just need a break.
• 1:12:18
  Totally, totally. You're battling with yourself
• 1:12:21
  and then you've burned the energy when you could have just
• 1:12:23
  taken the nap and then got back up and been in a better mood.
• 1:12:26
  Or go for a walk around the block, splash some water on your
• 1:12:30
  face, get up, stretch, do something.
• 1:12:33
  It's a move, you know, move that energy around.
• 1:12:36
  Or just just. And sometimes like, so like the
• 1:12:40
  therapist, me, I that like I know that's what needs to
• 1:12:44
  happen. But to that it's about like
• 1:12:46
  being real about just how I feel.
• 1:12:48
  Sometimes there is resistance, like I know, like I'm reading,
• 1:12:50
  I'm nodding off, I'm over it. I don't want to do this, but
• 1:12:53
  there's there's some part of me that wants to just get it done.
• 1:12:56
  But there's other part of me that's like, yeah, I want to get
• 1:12:58
  it done. Like you said, the current
• 1:13:00
  reality is not supporting this. And sometimes for me, there's a
• 1:13:03
  little, I don't know if it's necessary sadness, but there is
• 1:13:06
  a little like I wish I could go further.
• 1:13:08
  Like I wish I had more in the tank right now.
• 1:13:11
  And it's like, it's OK. It's OK, like expanding, right?
• 1:13:16
  Part of me really wants to do this.
• 1:13:18
  Majority of me as a girl, we can't.
• 1:13:20
  And the part of me that wants to do it, I might feel a little way
• 1:13:23
  about not getting it done. And I'm not trying to push that
• 1:13:26
  feeling away either. It's like, yeah, I would
• 1:13:27
  appreciate it. So like where I've learned is
• 1:13:30
  it's easier for me to continue something than it is for me to
• 1:13:33
  start brand new. So like I will respect that.
• 1:13:37
  Oh yeah. If I, if I open up the book and
• 1:13:40
  I read the first two paragraphs, it's so much easy.
• 1:13:44
  I started and I love checking things off my To Do List.
• 1:13:47
  So I will check I, I may have the goal in the morning may have
• 1:13:50
  been to read chapter 3, for example.
• 1:13:53
  Maybe I got through my other things and instead of reading
• 1:13:56
  all the chapter 3, maybe I read 3 pages in chapter 3.
• 1:14:00
  If I read them pages and I understood what I was talking
• 1:14:02
  about, I will mark the next day. The new box is going to say
• 1:14:06
  finish chapter 3. It's not do all of it because I
• 1:14:10
  already did some of it. So I just breaking things down
• 1:14:15
  for me has been really helpful and like I did it, I was
• 1:14:18
  productive. I did something, I'm good.
• 1:14:22
  I'm going to rest and that little part of me that's like,
• 1:14:24
  oh girl, go further, go further can chill off like that.
• 1:14:27
  That itch got scratched. I'm ready to disconnect, wake up
• 1:14:31
  in the morning, get back to it and I just I.
• 1:14:35
  I appreciate starting my day, completing a task and starting
• 1:14:38
  brand. New, I like that 'cause that's
• 1:14:41
  a, that's a good example of a middle path.
• 1:14:44
  Cause some people are like, I didn't finish it.
• 1:14:46
  What did you do? Like just do something towards
• 1:14:49
  it? Yeah, that's really good.
• 1:14:51
  Towards it moving forward. So what are or have been the
• 1:14:56
  roles of support, boundaries and faith lay in your journey?
• 1:15:02
  Oh, OK, I'll start with faith. I was raised Christian and I've
• 1:15:09
  my grandfather transitioned. Oh, when I was in my first
• 1:15:14
  summer, first summer of my MSW program, a Papa passed away and
• 1:15:21
  now recipes Papa. It's a good it's a good man was
• 1:15:23
  a good man and and my grandma too, actually, she asked me when
• 1:15:28
  I was younger and she gave me my my post is from the South, Very,
• 1:15:32
  very Christian. What?
• 1:15:34
  State my grandpa Arkansas. OK, OK.
• 1:15:38
  Am I see We're going. I'm going to come back to this
• 1:15:41
  now. You got to be curious, but I'm
• 1:15:42
  trying to get this thought out. So my grandma actually gave me a
• 1:15:47
  religious book around sex when I was a kid.
• 1:15:50
  It was not pro sex. It was not pro sex.
• 1:15:53
  It was a lot of things, but I, I, I've grown the time when I
• 1:15:56
  got it, I didn't know what she was talking about.
• 1:15:57
  I was like very young. I was like, what is this?
• 1:15:59
  But as I've gotten older, I, I still have it and I'm able to
• 1:16:04
  understand like where she was coming from with that in a way
• 1:16:06
  that like I wouldn't have got when I was a kid.
• 1:16:08
  And I so appreciate it because when I'm reflecting on kind of
• 1:16:12
  what got me here, I have so much gratitude to my ancestors and
• 1:16:16
  just understanding how they made sense of human sexuality from
• 1:16:22
  where their position and what they had access to and where
• 1:16:24
  their values were and how they did their best to like train us
• 1:16:30
  and then put us point us in the right direction as they
• 1:16:32
  understood it to be. And for me, I leaned to my
• 1:16:36
  Christianity, but I also really appreciate ancestor veneration
• 1:16:40
  and just being a community. I think about my ancestors
• 1:16:42
  daily. I like candles for them
• 1:16:44
  everyday. I am to the best I can be trying
• 1:16:48
  to respect them and also trying to know them more and build
• 1:16:51
  relationships with them in this way.
• 1:16:54
  And it's sometimes I'm just doing the thing.
• 1:16:57
  I'm like, what will my grandma say about this?
• 1:16:59
  Or what would what would have been helpful for my auntie to
• 1:17:01
  know about this or just what what like looking for the kind
• 1:17:06
  of nudges from them. If I where, where can where
• 1:17:08
  should I take this? Like where should I be looking?
• 1:17:10
  So it just because it's so much more than just me and
• 1:17:15
  remembering that helps me like reaffirm that it's not just me.
• 1:17:20
  Like I can get questions. I can get questions answered
• 1:17:23
  from those that have transitioned.
• 1:17:24
  I can get questions answered from a Dean crew or a Dean or or
• 1:17:27
  a Doctor Whitaker or a Dean Hussein.
• 1:17:29
  I can get questions answered from a Doctor Simpson like I
• 1:17:32
  could I could I, we have all these connections.
• 1:17:35
  So the, the spirituality and the faith part has been really,
• 1:17:40
  really helpful and transformative in a way that
• 1:17:43
  like, I'm happy I'm in school now.
• 1:17:45
  I'm happy they didn't work out for me earlier.
• 1:17:47
  I don't think I would have been thinking about things this way
• 1:17:50
  if I had, if I went when I was younger.
• 1:17:51
  And that's the thing about this program, people, not this
• 1:17:54
  program, but I think doctoral education in general, you have
• 1:17:57
  to do a lot of thinking about thinking.
• 1:18:01
  Why? Like, why are you thinking what
• 1:18:03
  you're thinking? And we were just taught to think
• 1:18:07
  more deeply. And it becomes like part of part
• 1:18:10
  of your norm and how you process different, like what I was
• 1:18:12
  saying earlier. But that's, yeah, I love what
• 1:18:16
  you're saying about that, that connection.
• 1:18:18
  And as you were saying that it's just the reminder like you are
• 1:18:21
  someone's answer prayers like people prayed for you before
• 1:18:26
  they knew. You right, right.
• 1:18:30
  I am my ancestors wildest dreams right 100%.
• 1:18:33
  Yeah, 100 percent, 100%. To be able to make it this far
• 1:18:39
  academically from folks that like, we're not even literate
• 1:18:44
  just a couple of generations ago.
• 1:18:46
  And then to be researching something, you know, where I'm
• 1:18:51
  looking at liberation and sexuality, you know, and us just
• 1:18:57
  affirming who we are, who we've always been and being able to
• 1:18:59
  stand just fully in our power. Where just a few generations ago
• 1:19:04
  they tried to reduce us to, to chattel and commodities and in
• 1:19:08
  just equating our sexuality to, to, to produce and, and commerce
• 1:19:12
  and, and in that, it's just, it's been so much trauma.
• 1:19:15
  So I think about my ancestors a lot and like, I have no, no
• 1:19:20
  will, no judgement for how they lived and how they tried to
• 1:19:23
  like, you know, assure me in the direction they wanted our
• 1:19:26
  generations to go because, you know, they're coming from a
• 1:19:29
  whole different perspective. So it's just like, yeah, the the
• 1:19:31
  freedom and the, and the things that I'm writing about and
• 1:19:34
  things I'm thinking about. Like I believe they are proud
• 1:19:38
  and I get confirmation. And sometimes I get confirmation
• 1:19:41
  that I don't know what the hell, What is the girl talking about?
• 1:19:45
  Hey, I am just so grateful for those that paved the way.
• 1:19:52
  Yeah. Just continuing to learn from
• 1:19:53
  them and then thinking about the generations that will come after
• 1:19:57
  us. And it's like I yes, I pray for
• 1:20:00
  those folks, too, because they're going to come and
• 1:20:03
  they're going to be doing something phenomenal.
• 1:20:05
  I don't know how we couldn't. It's just like, I believe that.
• 1:20:09
  So I. We here, we've always been here.
• 1:20:13
  We ain't going nowhere. And it, it gives something to be
• 1:20:16
  rooted in because as I alluded to earlier, it's so much that
• 1:20:20
  has happened in the past 12 months.
• 1:20:24
  It's been so, and that's me being nice.
• 1:20:25
  Just limiting it to 12 months. We could go, yeah, we're just
• 1:20:29
  being grounded in something. It's so real.
• 1:20:32
  Hold out the conversation. Facts.
• 1:20:35
  Let's see souvenir and wrap up. How can doctoral students honor
• 1:20:42
  ambition without self abandonment?
• 1:20:45
  You said ambition. Yes.
• 1:20:47
  How can they honor ambition without self abandonment?
• 1:20:50
  Yeah, I was like, oh, that's good.
• 1:20:52
  I like that the first thing that comes to my mind, I'm a rock
• 1:20:56
  with it is who are you doing it for?
• 1:20:58
  Same boy. So like I asked the question,
• 1:21:00
  right, because and you can be ambitious about a lot of things,
• 1:21:04
  but is this for like external validation, external approval?
• 1:21:08
  Is it to hit someone else's goal?
• 1:21:10
  Is this your goal? Like, and once you get to
• 1:21:13
  whatever this accomplishment is, how are you going to feel about
• 1:21:16
  it? How are you going to feel about
• 1:21:17
  yourself? Did you let yourself down in any
• 1:21:19
  way? If you did let yourself down,
• 1:21:21
  how do you come back to self and repair that breakdown?
• 1:21:25
  Because we talk a lot about repairing relational disconnect
• 1:21:29
  externally, I would turn it back to like, you can betray yourself
• 1:21:33
  and you can also come back and repair that, right?
• 1:21:37
  So it's just, I don't want to make it all doom and gloom, but
• 1:21:40
  I would definitely start with who are you doing that for?
• 1:21:43
  Especially now because you know, professors will tap you and say,
• 1:21:46
  I want you on this or why I got this opportunity here?
• 1:21:49
  Or did you apply for this? And it's like, no, wait a
• 1:21:52
  minute, I can't do all of these things once.
• 1:21:56
  I'm like can't you can't. So who are you doing it for?
• 1:22:03
  I think is a good place to start just so that you don't
• 1:22:09
  unintentionally abandoned yourself in your in your
• 1:22:12
  journey. That's so good.
• 1:22:14
  And as you said that it was a memory came up for me when I was
• 1:22:18
  feeling a little stuck or stagnant, had slowed down.
• 1:22:22
  I had one of those, you know, those boards and you can, you
• 1:22:24
  know, write a custom message in it.
• 1:22:26
  And I grabbed 1 or actually maybe I got it in like a white
• 1:22:30
  elephant gift exchange or something like that.
• 1:22:32
  But I was like, it was perfect. And so I changed the letters to
• 1:22:36
  say, remember why you started? I like that.
• 1:22:40
  Yeah, remember why you started and so that that encompasses
• 1:22:44
  what you said and then like, you know, so much more to to keep
• 1:22:49
  moving because. And he's like, yeah, I could.
• 1:22:52
  Just go make money, I don't have to be stressed like this, right?
• 1:22:57
  And I'm sure many doc students might feel that way, and
• 1:23:00
  especially in your case already being a practicing clinician.
• 1:23:06
  Yeah, cut the feeling, Cut the tape again.
• 1:23:08
  No, it's true, because I know how I was living before I was in
• 1:23:11
  school. But also that's why I don't let
• 1:23:14
  me not. I don't want to have revisionist
• 1:23:16
  history because like, it was cool in some ways and otherwise
• 1:23:18
  I really wasn't. Absolutely happy.
• 1:23:21
  I wasn't happy, but sometimes this semester I was like, was it
• 1:23:25
  really that bad? I mean you know the deposits was
• 1:23:28
  hitting. That's comfortability, but like
• 1:23:31
  you said, revisionist history for sure, because it's because
• 1:23:35
  it, you had gotten used to it, you know, it was familiar and
• 1:23:39
  then there's certain things that you're like, oh, but this was
• 1:23:41
  consistent. So really it's, you know, that
• 1:23:44
  adjustment and that that is definitely, that's one of those
• 1:23:48
  things. Uh huh.
• 1:23:51
  I was. I was poor.
• 1:23:55
  Girl. Because I didn't get my license
• 1:23:59
  until after. So I went from the MSW straight
• 1:24:03
  into PhD and like I said with all the grieving and stuff I was
• 1:24:06
  going through, the last like I wanted to do was study for an
• 1:24:09
  exam. I needed time to like, rest, do
• 1:24:12
  nothing, enjoy life before this crazy PhD journey started,
• 1:24:18
  right? That I didn't really know what
• 1:24:20
  it was going to be, but I was like, I don't want it.
• 1:24:22
  I'm supposed to go here. This is what I'm supposed to do.
• 1:24:24
  And if I don't do it now, I'm not going to come back and do
• 1:24:27
  it. That was something that I knew.
• 1:24:29
  So that was different. And then looking back, I was
• 1:24:31
  like, yeah, girl, if you took that exam, you could have made
• 1:24:34
  some decent money. But I wasn't that it wasn't that
• 1:24:36
  bad. At some point I did get a the
• 1:24:40
  contract case management position from my field placement
• 1:24:42
  organization. They actually started a
• 1:24:44
  different program and so I was like I worked part time.
• 1:24:49
  They were paying me about 50K. So that was that was good for a
• 1:24:53
  while, but at first I was on that GA stipend.
• 1:24:57
  No, no, no. No, thank you.
• 1:24:59
  God, that's different getting me.
• 1:25:01
  Made it, Made it. You made it.
• 1:25:03
  You made it. You did that our way.
• 1:25:06
  It's the hard way. Yeah.
• 1:25:09
  She made it, though. And that's it's it's helpful to
• 1:25:12
  see these, to see the light on the other side because yeah.
• 1:25:17
  Yeah. Fortunately, everything isn't
• 1:25:20
  about money, but sometimes you feel like it is.
• 1:25:22
  Yeah. It it it it it.
• 1:25:25
  Helped. That's why we lost two people.
• 1:25:26
  I told you my cohort of five went down to 3.
• 1:25:29
  Two of them it was about money. One she thought she would get
• 1:25:32
  more funding and the other was like, I can't sustain this class
• 1:25:37
  schedule. I have to work.
• 1:25:39
  The class scheduled Wild. No, we're at.
• 1:25:41
  We were at 4:00. We started at 4:00.
• 1:25:43
  We were at 4th in the last semester.
• 1:25:44
  But I'll be honest, I don't know what's going to happen in a
• 1:25:47
  couple of weeks. I'll follow back up with you.
• 1:25:49
  I know I'll be there. I ain't trying to be sure.
• 1:25:50
  I just know. I know I'll be there.
• 1:25:52
  It's real though. It it, it, it really is real.
• 1:25:55
  OK, so if you can leave our audience with one powerful truth
• 1:26:02
  to help them to rise and thrive, what would it be?
• 1:26:06
  One powerful truth Oh, I'm a double back to something I said
• 1:26:10
  it's that you matter and I'll tell you I'm doubling back to
• 1:26:12
  it, especially as therapist and depending on how you were
• 1:26:15
  trained to be a therapist, you part of your journey may have
• 1:26:20
  been to like detach from yourself when you're with the
• 1:26:22
  client, focus on the client. You know, a lot of, I don't say
• 1:26:26
  blank face, but just, you know, if your stuff comes up the old
• 1:26:30
  school way is like your stuff shouldn't even be coming up.
• 1:26:32
  Your stuff should have been at the door.
• 1:26:34
  And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:26:36
  That's not even realistic really.
• 1:26:39
  What's the word? Not disempowering, But it's not
• 1:26:42
  authentic. It's not authentic.
• 1:26:44
  It's like you're now when I say your feelings always matter,
• 1:26:47
  that doesn't mean you're always right.
• 1:26:49
  And it doesn't mean that those feelings don't matter.
• 1:26:52
  But like, how you feel truly, truly does matter.
• 1:26:58
  And that information is really, really powerful and, and can
• 1:27:01
  help illuminate some things for you, really help you make
• 1:27:05
  connections or things that you don't feel clear for.
• 1:27:09
  Sometimes you might be thinking too much.
• 1:27:11
  And especially us intellectualize.
• 1:27:13
  There's like, OK, there's a part of me that's intellectualizing.
• 1:27:15
  What else is happening? Like is it just 100%
• 1:27:18
  intellectualization? Are are there, there, is there
• 1:27:22
  joy? Is there fear?
• 1:27:23
  Is there uncertainty? Is there doubt?
• 1:27:27
  Don't don't shy away from the scary feelings that you might
• 1:27:31
  have or the feelings that might make you feel like you're not
• 1:27:33
  capable. Like do not shy away from them.
• 1:27:37
  Be aware what's happening, reach out if you need to reach out,
• 1:27:42
  whether that's friendship, professional, whatever, cuz like
• 1:27:45
  you, you matter And like we need like wherever you are on your
• 1:27:48
  journey, you're you're needed like you're needed here.
• 1:27:51
  And I, yeah, I just, yeah, we're like, I think I'm not trying to
• 1:27:54
  I don't want to be too heavy, but it's just a truth.
• 1:27:57
  I think that's just something that I think about time and time
• 1:28:00
  when I'm talking. Like I said, the message
• 1:28:02
  resonated with me. I talked to my, I have a, I'm
• 1:28:05
  supervising an intern. I talked to her about that and
• 1:28:07
  she's starting her clinical journey.
• 1:28:09
  When I teach, talk to students about it.
• 1:28:11
  It's just no matter where you are, you matter.
• 1:28:14
  You matter. That's so good.
• 1:28:17
  That was so good. Well, thank you so much, Jazz.
• 1:28:20
  This was so good. I know this is helping somebody,
• 1:28:24
  inspiring somebody who's, you know, on the cusp of making that
• 1:28:28
  decision. Maybe they just they're soon
• 1:28:31
  going to get their acceptance letter into a doctoral program,
• 1:28:34
  maybe even the Howard University School of Social Work where
• 1:28:37
  they're hearing this and you know, they can take some things
• 1:28:40
  that they can apply, help them through their journey.
• 1:28:43
  And, you know, this is essentially made us a resource,
• 1:28:47
  like a permanent resource that can be used for people that are
• 1:28:51
  going through this. And just I'd like to invite you
• 1:28:54
  to come back for February so we can talk more about
• 1:29:00
  relationships. Yeah, thinking I would love.
• 1:29:09
  To thank you, I would love to do that.
• 1:29:11
  So y'all are going to see the future Doctor Northcross again
• 1:29:15
  in a few months during our Month of Love series for February
• 1:29:21
  series, Yes. So thank you again for coming.
• 1:29:25
  This was an absolute pleasure. And I'm like every time I see
• 1:29:28
  you it's a good time. And I'm like, why haven't we
• 1:29:31
  really actually like, hung out for real?
• 1:29:34
  Girl, we don't talk offline. Can I tell you was you and a few
• 1:29:37
  other students? I'm just like, that always stood
• 1:29:40
  out to me and I'm just like, I timing probably, but we're here
• 1:29:44
  now. It's all like it's all you have
• 1:29:46
  been like in my mind. You're like my my big social
• 1:29:49
  work system. Like I I was, I was coming like
• 1:29:52
  you were just I just really being so kind And so.
• 1:29:54
  And I'm just like, yeah. And I remember when you were
• 1:29:57
  starting the program, I actually, we'll talk offline
• 1:29:59
  about this. We had a conversation then.
• 1:30:00
  I think we've had two conversations.
• 1:30:02
  Not that I'm thinking. Listen girl, I'll be on here
• 1:30:05
  telling all my business, just so you know.
• 1:30:07
  But you don't got to tell all yours.
• 1:30:11
  I received that. I received that.
• 1:30:14
  All right, Well, audience, this is where we ship to you, where
• 1:30:16
  you are going to get your, your call to action, your, your
• 1:30:19
  reflection and your affirmation. So I want you to reflect where
• 1:30:23
  might I be confusing exhaustion with devotion or productivity
• 1:30:27
  with worth? And then I want you to take
• 1:30:31
  action. I want you to take a grounded
• 1:30:35
  and compassionate step and that would look like identifying 1
• 1:30:39
  area where rest support, where a boundary is needed and to name
• 1:30:43
  it without judgment. And then choose one supportive
• 1:30:47
  action this week, whether that's a therapy session, honest
• 1:30:51
  conversation, scheduling an appointment, or some type of
• 1:30:54
  spiritual practice. Or daily, do the ritual like we
• 1:30:57
  talked about in today's episode. And then release the belief that
• 1:31:01
  endurance alone equals success and replace it with intentional
• 1:31:06
  alignment. And then finally going to leave
• 1:31:09
  you with your affirmation. I do not have to be depleted to
• 1:31:13
  be devoted. I am allowed to pursue
• 1:31:17
  excellence while honoring my humanity.
• 1:31:21
  Thank you again for tuning in to another episode of Rise of Dial
• 1:31:24
  for Doctor Jay. Nicole, make sure you shop the
• 1:31:27
  merch. I love that we have the
• 1:31:29
  embroidery collection available and our crew necks, our
• 1:31:33
  sweatshirts, and our skull caps. We have multiple colors.
• 1:31:37
  Check them out. There are things for you to wear
• 1:31:40
  that are rise and thrive year round.
• 1:31:42
  And if this episode has blessed you, make sure you leave a
• 1:31:46
  comment, leave a positive review for us, five star rating
• 1:31:50
  wherever you're taking the pod, and also share it with someone
• 1:31:54
  who you think that this might bless, who this might uplift or
• 1:31:58
  be a deposit for them. We need more black doctoral
• 1:32:02
  scholars in this world producing the original research and to
• 1:32:06
  just do their part and making this world a better place.
• 1:32:09
  So we'll see you next week. Thank you again, Jazz, for
• 1:32:13
  joining me today on Rise and Thrive for Doctor J Nicole.
• 1:32:16
  Thank you.