The Path to Self-Care: Conversations on Mental Health
3 women on destigmatizing the topic while healing themselves and others.
Over the course of the pandemic, conversations around mental health and self-care became more crucial than ever, increasingly appearing at the forefront of social media and entering real-life interactions as the world began to open back up. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we spoke to three women using their platforms to destigmatize the topic and cultivate supportive communities.
Liz Beecroft, Psychotherapist & Licensed Clinical Social Worker / @mentl.sesh
Tell me about your career.
I am a mental health therapist. I work with millennials and Gen Z, and I provide cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a therapy model, to people in creative fields.
What are the biggest challenges you encounter day to day?
As a therapist, it gets hard to not bring some of this stuff home with me. I'm often talking about a lot of trauma and triggering topics with people and sometimes those topics are relatable to my personal experiences in life. [I’m always] trying to create a healthy boundary between my job and my personal life.
When people start therapy, they often think that therapists have a magic wand and we're just going to solve all their problems, or we can just tell them a certain phrase and it's going to cure everything. Unfortunately, that's not what therapy is. In the last year, mental health has been such a huge buzzword—and that's a really good thing—but at the same time, there's a lot of misinformation out there. That’s what I've found the most frustrating, having people come to therapy and being open to it, but then being resistant to doing the work and practicing the skills that I teach them in between sessions.
What spurred you to be vocal about mental health awareness to your followers?
I was working in the nonprofit space in New York after graduating from NYU in 2016. I was working with a lot of highly traumatized people, doing in-home therapy. It was brutal.
I needed an outlet, so I started posting about my love of sneakers and style on social media, just [to] have something to do and to promote self-care. It got to a point where I started feeling like I was living this double life online.
My therapist at the time said, "You're a therapist who loves sneakers and that's not the most common thing, but it's who you are. So why don't you just own that?" I was nervous my colleagues would think I wasn’t being professional enough. And in the sneaker world, I was concerned that the community would think I was corny.
I was, like, "Screw it. This is something that I have expertise in." I started doing it and received a lot of good feedback. It started changing my perception of social media in general and how I use my platform to try to be authentic and have more digestible conversations about mental health.
While working at nonprofits, I worked for a juvenile justice program and then for a foster care program. I was working with a lot of kids and teenagers who didn't trust social workers or therapists. I'd come to work in a suit and I'd always have sneakers on. That really broke down a lot of the boundaries that [the kid] had built up because we would spend the first two sessions just talking about sneakers and it helped them see that I'm also a human and I have similar interests.
What tips do you have for bettering your mental health?
It's important to find a therapist who is a good fit for you because this is someone you're going to be sharing so much about your life with, and you want to feel comfortable doing so.
It’s also about finding outlets that bring you peace of mind. Things like playing basketball or finding what you're passionate about can really change perspective on why you do it. Instead of it just being a chore or an exercise, you're doing it for yourself and you're doing it so that you're really present in the moment.
Music, creating playlists that promote different emotions, such as feeling calm or energized or focused, can be really great, too. Creating a good sleep routine. Before you go to bed every night, make sure you have some structure and some routine so that you get a quality night's sleep.
Your diet, physical health and exercise are also great ways to promote positive mental health because they release endorphins in your brain that help boost confidence, self-esteem and mood. It’s about finding what works for you and creating a toolkit for yourself that you can turn to when you need to.
Why is it so important to look after your mental health?
There's a difference between mental health and a mental disorder. And just as we go to the doctor every year for our physical health or we get our shots and our yearly physicals, we need to do the same to prevent mental health conditions. Everyone has emotions and feelings, but we need to take care of our minds and make sure that we prioritize that time for ourselves, because if not, it could lead to an actual mental health condition or a disorder.
Liz’s Resources for Mental Health
Evelynn Escobar-Thomas, Founder & Executive Director of Hike Clerb
Where do Hike Clerb and mental health intersect?
The work that we're doing centers on the collective healing of Black, Indigenous, women of color through the modality of nature, whether that's hiking or connecting to nature in a way that they maybe have never done before. While we don't call ourselves a mental health organization, it roots back to that at the end of the day.
What are the biggest challenges you encounter day to day?
When you’re starting a nonprofit, an organization or a brand, you don't know what you don't know. I'm always learning as I go; surrendering to knowing that you're going to have to lean on other people and resources to help get you to a place of understanding. You do need help.
What spurred you to be vocal about mental health awareness to your followers?
It's just a natural extension of what is important to me. As a Black Latina, as a woman of color, nature has been so essential to my own healing, and I want to be able to facilitate and unlock that for others as well. In order to do so, I have to be vocal about what it has done for me and what it can do for others.
What tips do you have for bettering your mental health?
Being present. Checking in with myself if I'm feeling anxious, and tapping into all of my senses to be present in that moment, whether that’s going to therapy or going out into nature for a hike.
We get caught up in the idea that we have to reach a certain point in order to be free of something or to be healed. But when you’re practicing the learnings in the moment, when you’re redirecting yourself, you’re actually making progress—you are doing it.
Why is it so important to look after your mental health?
Because it connects to everything else. In order to have a full mind, body and soul connection, everything has to be aligned in that way.
What activities do you do that help uplift your mental state?
I love doing outdoorsy stuff, period. Whether that's swimming, riding my bike or even just reading outside. Nature is a huge vessel for me in gaining clarity and resetting, so as much time as I can spend out there in all different forms is the game-changer for me.
Evelynn’s Resources for Mental Health
Dom Roberts, Host of The Uncomfortable Podcast
How does your podcast tie into mental health?
We're only as strong as our mental health. Since I host The Uncomfortable Podcast, I always try to invite the aspect of mental health into what I do, because a lot of the time, we'll look at situations and not take into consideration our mental fortitude. We're slowly starting to see a shift where the conversation of mental wellness is entering into the workspace. After this year, everyone's needed some sort of mental wellness check-in.
What are the biggest challenges you encounter?
The conversations that I have. I have a lot of conversations surrounding racism and other uncomfortable topics. The stuff that I talk about has to do with my life and the realities that I live in. It's complicated, trying to compartmentalize and realizing that I actually shouldn't compartmentalize, but accept all aspects of my job.
What spurred you to be vocal about mental health awareness to your followers?
Going through a mental health crisis. I was at a low point in my life where I was really burned out, but trying to keep up the appearance on social media that I was okay. I was falling apart behind the scenes and I reached a place where I couldn't fake it anymore. That’s where a lot of the beauty came from, and the response from my community and my audience was that a lot of them felt the same way I was feeling.
It opened the door for me to be more honest about where I was at, because a lot of people found freedom the moment I was honest about where I was and how I was struggling. It allowed the doors to open for healing.
Why is it important for you to create a conversation around mental health?
The more we talk about the mental disorders that we may be facing, the more the stigma ends and the more people are able to get help and find freedom.
What tips do you have for bettering your mental health?
The most important thing to do is allow yourself to feel. When we’re going through a mental health crisis or we're struggling, the first thing we want to do is act like we're strong, to act like we're okay and we want to suppress our emotions. The greatest thing that we can do is allow ourselves to feel, but also let our community in on how we're feeling. There's nothing worse than going through something alone.
Why is it so important to look after your mental health?
When we have a physical injury, we deal with it right away. But when it comes to our mental health, if we're struggling or if we're dealing with something, we don't think to deal with it or think of the right methods to protect ourselves or heal.
If you broke a bone and you didn't put it in a cast, it's only going to get worse until you finally take the right measures to heal whatever's broken. From a mental health aspect, unless you start to deal with whatever's taking space in your mind or whatever you're struggling with, it's only going to get worse.
What activities do you do that help uplift your mental state?
Right now I have a five-minute journal and it's just a quick thing that I do in the morning. It just sets your intention for the day, allows you to clear your mind. I love meditating. That's another great way to clear your mind and recenter yourself.
Dom’s Resources for Mental Health