[heartbeat thumps] [calm music] - I lay naked in a garden of someone else's despair.

I had told myself, it is beautiful here, where the thorns are rotting and the roots are moving, and I am safe, as long as I do not see my reflection in the water, I lay naked in a garden, where I use someone else's clock to keep time, where I plant my own fears, where I kill my own dreams, where I live a life running from the shade, and hiding from the sunshine.

I wade in loneliness, bathe myself in isolation, breathe in the fumes of destruction waiting to happen, I fight the wars, I come back bloodied and bruised, I come back a ghost, I come back alive, I come back again and again.

I come back to weed, to harvest, to give away the fruits of my labor until I lay starving, afraid of being full.

I lay naked in the midst of someone else's failures, I cry someone else's tears, I bleed someone else's blood, I wear someone else's skin.

This is not who I am supposed to be.

This is not who I am.

[serene music and water trickles] - Real deep breaths in from the diaphragm, okay?

Two, three, four.

[Angela exhales] [Grae exhales] And out, two, three, four.

There we go, all right.

- So this will go.

- Back to the- - Listen up, listen.

What happens next?

That is you, that's your break.

So come on.

[lively music] My earliest memories around having anxiety would have to have been, I was about to say church, singing a solo at about seven-years-old.

I got nervous, and I started crying.

- Oh no.

[toddler babbles] - What, give me some sugar.

[toddler babbles] Probably when I was younger, didn't know I had anxiety back then, but I had anxiety when I was playing sports 'cause I was good, and it was pressure to be good, you know?

- Past working professionally.

- Okay, so my earliest memory around having anxiety was being in elementary school and when the teacher would call on my name, my stomach would always jump just 'cause I was, I just didn't like being on the spot, I didn't like attention, I didn't like people looking at me.

- My earliest memory is my sister being born.

We're six years apart, so I was the only child for six years, so I had to find my place in wanting to share my parents, especially my father.

[birds chirp] - I would have to say that was when I first attended school in Florida, I was trying to befriend someone that was giggling about me with one of their friends, a complete stranger, and she jumped me in the middle of the class.

Made me a quite a bit apprehensive with people.

- Oh yes, so developmental trauma definitely starts in childhood.

Everything we do as adults, it stems from childhood.

That is having a parent with mental illness symptoms and not receiving treatment, divorce, racism, ageism, gender, so many things that you know, that you are impacted by in childhood definitely will cause mental health, negative mental health symptoms and definitely increases anxiety if it was not resolved in childhood because we manage every day.

There's a difference between manage and resolving.

- I realized that I have like situational anxiety, in which certain situations will take me back, will trigger me, and take me back to something that happened in the past, which just makes me feel like it's happening right now, but it's not.

- Triggers, dealing with people who are... What's the word?

Artificial.

- Typically any type of interview setting.

[Interviewee giggles] Any type of interview setting.

We spoke about this before, but I wanna say in almost every job interview that I've had, I cried.

[Alisha laughs] - My ex-husband is definitely a trigger.

[Angela chuckles] - I think social settings, always.

I always have social anxiety.

- Sometimes it's a mistake in what I said versus what I actually meant.

- And a sense of loss of control in situations.

- What's the fine line between just experiencing, we'll call it just regular anxiety, versus okay, now we need an official diagnosis?

Regular anxiety.

Being nervous before speaking, right?

Being nervous while you're waiting for test results, being nervous about being five to 10 minutes late.

A diagnosis for anxiety is when it's actually impeding on your day-to-day activities, I can't function, I can't get out of bed, I'm feeling stuck, and also just starting to manifest those physical symptoms.

Hey, I'm going to the doctor for headaches, for back aches, for neck pain.

My left side feels numb, but the medical professionals are not finding anything, that's anxiety.

Anxiety is dangerous and we oftentimes don't even know what to look for.

- I am Chloe Lane and I struggle with anxiety.

[children mumble] - Who's that girl?

[child cries] It's her camera time, it's not yours.

- I feel like as me personally, I get along with people of all races and I think that sometimes white people believe that because I get along with them so well, I'm not that type of Black person.

I'm not a pro-Black type person.

I'm not a a Black Lives Matter type of person, but I am.

When I was in the fourth grade, I went to the private school like right down the street and I was the only Black kid in my grade.

And back then I guess I didn't, like I didn't recognize anxiety back then.

And that was the year Barack Obama ran for president for the first time.

So it was, I would just hear things and I remember they had this mock election where all the students would go and vote and of course I wanted to vote for Barack Obama.

But I mean I'm the only Black kid in my grade and I'm at the school of all these rich white kids.

They not voting for Barack Obama.

They were voting for McCain.

And I remember how anxious I was about a stupid mock election and I felt so pressured that I voted for McCain.

I don't know, I just felt like I just had to do it because I just wanted, I didn't want them to look at me a certain way or I don't know, it was just tough.

But I just knew that I couldn't let them know that I wanted to vote for Barack Obama.

So I voted for McCain in this mock election.

'cause we were in the fourth grade, our votes didn't count.

[calm music] Yeah, so in middle school, I think that's when I started recognizing my anxiety just because I wasn't ever invited outside of school to do things.

And so it constantly made me anxious, just observing myself and being so self-observant, self-conscious of who I was at such a young age, especially in middle school.

I didn't know like anything or what was going on or anything about myself.

So it was tough.

[sad music] I think my parents and also my siblings mental health issues may have went undiagnosed because they probably just feel like they didn't have that problem.

You know, you try to like cover it up with material things or accomplishments to make it seem like there isn't a struggle on the inside.

But I was the first one to like outwardly show my struggle and that's when it became serious.

When I was 16, I was suicidal and I attempted suicide.

So that was my opening up or making it more obvious, it wasn't a talk because I've talked to my mom before about how I felt about, you know, not feeling like I fit in or sometimes I would just randomly cry and things like that and she knew that I was anxious.

So when that happened, when I was 16, it was an eye opener for them.

I think what, you know, what took them that next step for them was the fact that they don't want me to take my life.

They don't ever want that to happen.

And so for them, that's what made them sympathetic and that's what makes me like open up more about it just because I don't wanna feel that way again.

And then with anxiety, I don't want to, I don't like being nervous.

I don't like not being comfortable around people.

I want to be my full self and feel carefree around people.

♪ And I walk grace ♪ ♪ Like it's my house, ah-ha ♪ ♪ Oh drinking out the bottle ♪ ♪ I got no respect ♪ ♪ Doing like a model ♪ ♪ Who just a got a check.

♪ - What's going on, y'all?

Let's see where we at.

[bouncy music] - Man, working film opened my eyes up completely because I mean when I was in school, in college, all I really knew about was like people doing like local corporate work type of thing.

Like let's say a restaurant wanted me to make a video for 'em and then they just make a living on being a videographer but not a filmmaker.

In college, it was just was a predominantly white institution that I went to and I was in the honors college and so I had specific classes that I had to go to sometimes and I would be the only Black kid in my class.

I remember a specific project that we did.

I specifically talked about being Black 'cause that's just what I wanted to talk about.

And my professor was like, oh that's so great.

But I remember some of my classmates, they stopped talking to me and every time I went to class, my anxiety heightened.

In my hand, not my head.

Gracias, Olivia.

Can you hold these two things for me?

I can hold the... Oh damn, the light.

- Tryna make it look nice.

[wind rustles] - Boom.

I feel like it will make sense if all of us were anxious 'cause I just feel like there's so many expectations on Black women to just be like these martyrs of the community and it's like we can't.

Everybody wants Black women to be strong and just to take care of everybody and to just heal, heal the world type thing.

And it's just like, nah, it's not happening.

It is not my job to heal the community.

You know, I have to heal myself first and then I can help others.

'Cause the problems of the world will never stop and I do care about them, but I have to put myself first.

[lively music] - So we're talking about Black people, Black women.

So we inherit trauma, we inherit other people's pain.

It's a part of our DNA, it's just a part of our existence as Black folk living in America.

And so the only thing that we really do have control over and command over is our ability to take the steps to heal ourselves.

A lot of the things that are happening around us are beyond our control.

But what we can do is make the decision to say, I want to whole, I want to be better.

And so when we as an individual heals and commits to doing our healing work, we heal seven generations before us and seven generations after us.

And so this individual healing is key to us healing as a collective.

And that's why the work is important and that's why it's important to have spaces in which we can step into to do that work and to feel supported and held and affirmed in that work 'cause healing work ain't easy.

[Jacqueline laughs] It is not easy, but it is the most significant thing we can do that gives the greatest return on our investment is to take that time to heal ourselves and then to help heal our families and our communities.

- Stigmas that I'm most familiar with in the Black community concerning mental health is we don't wanna talk about it.

- Yeah, I think my parents probably view mental health as a white people problem.

- One is that you're crazy, there's something wrong with you.

- You had an attitude or you were just a bad kid.

- We can pray about it and it'll be fixed.

- Do we talk about it?

No.

- All in all, it's kind of swept under the rug.

- Parents would tell us, don't discuss what goes on in my house.

- So can't go out talking and telling nobody your business.

- And it's not something that we take seriously.

- I feel like that there is awareness that it exists, but not enough action taken to deal with it.

- And we as a people do not like to feel like we need help.

So.

- I'm Angel and I have anxiety.

[Phoenix coos] Okay, wanna try something else?

When I was pregnant with Phoenix, I had, before him, I had five miscarriages.

So when I got pregnant with him, just immediately it was like, oh my God, I feel like I'm gonna lose the baby.

So every time anything would happen, I could just have to go to the bathroom and it would just feel like, oh my God, I'm losing the baby.

So the whole really, the whole pregnancy I was, I had anxiety that I was gonna miscarry again since I had miscarried so many times before that.

The first one wasn't as bad as the others because it was like I got pregnant right after I took out some birth control that really didn't agree with my body.

So like a year later, I got pregnant again, lost that baby and then it was like, oh wow, it happened twice in a row.

And I got pregnant again and I lost that baby.

As soon as I would get pregnant any other time after really after that first time it was like, oh my God, am I gonna lose this baby?

And then I did and it made it so much worse and I just end up getting anxiety around even getting pregnant.

I wanted to have a baby, but being pregnant was just too much to handle.

[sad music] [baby cries] The doctors that I was going to really only saw, well I only saw Black people and Hispanics.

That's all I would ever see when I would go to the doctor and the things that they would do were very minimum.

We're gonna take your blood and run these three or four tests.

And I had to go there I think twice in a row.

And both times, they did the exact same thing.

I went to go see another doctor at a private practice, one of my old doctors actually, and she actually told me, well when you went here after they got my records, they only ran four tests and every time they only ran those same four tests.

So it was like they wouldn't ever have found out what was going on ever.

Because she was like, there's 16 more tests that we need to test you for that you have never even been tested for.

Wow.

It threw me for a loop that every doctor knows this, every doctor has access to all of this, and she said they could have ran these tests.

She kept saying, I don't know why they didn't, I don't know why they didn't test you for this.

I don't know why they didn't run these other tests, especially the second time you came back.

Why didn't they do this?

Why didn't they?

That's a good question.

- Hey.

- Hey, how you doing?

- I'm good, how are you?

- Good.

I don't know what time it seems like.

The 17?

Said something back to me well to us.

And they was like, so what do y'all have a meeting about?

It's like well its' not a y'all.

It's not even my shop.

My family was really there, you know, with their encouraging words.

Everything's gonna be okay.

God doesn't let things happen for no reason.

You know, there's a reason for everything.

God gives the strongest battles to the strongest people or hardest battles to the strongest people.

You know, I mean they had encouraging words and it was helpful, but really nothing anybody could say would help me.

[doctor and nurses chattering] [Phoenix cries] [calm music] He's here and that was the part that I thought was gonna get better.

I said after he got here, oh it's gonna be better once he gets here because then I don't have to worry about miscarrying him, wrong.

When he got here it got worse 'cause it was like, now I have to keep him alive.

Okay, it's our first time feeding Phoenix.

We're gonna go for the apples.

Want some apples, man?

Okay, you hold that and I'm gonna do this.

But wearing so many hats, it's just a lot.

It's a lot of pressure because it's something that I always do.

I gotta be on top of being a mom with two kids, a 12-year-old and a 1-year-old.

Big difference, two totally different needs that you have to keep up with.

Then I'm a wife, so I gotta keep up with what's expected of me as a wife or my husband.

Then I also run a business and you have to think about all the, not only the clients, but the stylists that work here, you know?

And just keeping the business up while mothering and being a wife.

And it's just, it's a lot.

I probably make it look easy, but I'm going crazy on the inside.

In the shop, I'm just hanging out, beautifying whoever's in my chair, chitchatting.

You know, it's just second nature and it's just feels so natural that it is not something I have to work hard to do.

I'm a perfectionist so I'm like getting every little piece of hair right.

But beyond that, I'm having fun the whole time.

It's like having a good time going to a party.

- Your grandmother was a hair stylist.

- She was.

- Was there any influence?

- Oh definitely.

That was the biggest influence.

I grew up in that shop.

I literally sat on the floor next to her studying everything that she did.

Being a Black woman, working towards my anxiety is, to me, it's great because I'm so much more self-aware now than I was before that I feel like I can help other Black women.

Especially like my clients sometimes will talk to me because you know when we sit in this chair, it all comes out.

[Angel laughs] When they sit down, they tell me everything.

I know everybody's business.

I have to talk back.

So what comes outta my mouth is way better than what used to come outta my mouth because I know I can recognize some things and then I can also say, well you know, this happened to me and I experienced something similar and my therapist told me this, but I'm not a therapist, I'm a hairapist like my sign says.

Just help them to recognize, hey, something is wrong, but it's okay.

That's somebody here who can help you.

- So therapy is important because we all need other people outside our family to just process with good and or bad.

I tell my clients all the time, you don't have to come to therapy and just talk about the bad stuff.

Talk about the good stuff too.

It helps with coping.

- I think that therapy has benefited me because I'm going to a professional and she knows what she's doing.

Like I can talk to my friends, my family, I can talk to God, but a therapist studied this and so.

- It would take my therapist to tell you that I've grown a whole lot 'cause when I go into my therapy sessions, I'm just like, well this is what's wrong and this is what I've noticed and how do we fix X, Y, Z?

And she's like, well Alisha, actually just a few months ago, this is where you were.

So like she's constantly having to remind me of the progress that I've made.

- She knows what's going on and she has like tools for me to use to help myself in that moment.

- Because I'm in therapy and we address different things.

It's like I told her before, I know since I'm so self-aware now, I know when I'm doing something wrong or I know that I shouldn't be doing this right now or I shouldn't be saying this right now, but I don't care 'cause I wanna be petty, you know?

[Angel laughs] I am a barrier to my own progress because I know better, but I don't wanna do better 'cause I feel like being petty right now.

It's not good word to you say.

I'm a work in progress.

- My name is Grae Marino and I have anxiety.

[sad music] I had issues when I was younger that, you know, nobody knew what was wrong with me, but I was told that it was like I was running from something like I just could not sit still.

It's because I had a bunch of creative energy and nowhere to put it.

There were so many things I wanted to do.

I wanted to learn to play a guitar, I wanted to do gymnastics, I wanted to sing, I wanted to do more high school theater and all that other stuff, but I wasn't able to do that.

My father was elderly and quit driving and then like, you know, my mother, she's been blind since two and a half.

So it's like nobody really had a transportation to do that.

And I was troubled, but like I said, I think that was a lot of it.

I had nowhere to put it.

So I think creativity and performing keeps me even keel.

As a spin, bend back of your arms.

I think and overthink.

I am in a race against age, in a race against time, in a race against myself, and a race against family situation's starting to change.

My kids getting older and it's just, I'm in a constant race.

As far as racism affecting my anxiety, more so I worry about my children when it comes to that.

I worry for all of our kids.

So when I see people have done horrible things because of what somebody looks like, it nauseates me physically.

My kids are growing up and becoming adults.

[Grae laughs] That is another form of where my anxiety comes from.

You know, you've raised them for so long and they've been your best friends and you guys have gone through so much together and now, they're slowly gonna start piling out.

[Grae chuckles] I also got anxiety from the impending empty nest.

Like what to do with myself next and just worried about them out in this world.

I am always in a struggle.

It's trusting the Lord and struggle.

There's always a duality of clinging to my God and dealing with my negative self.

The little voice that tells you you can't do this or nobody that wants you for this or you're not good enough for that.

That kind of thing.

That too is also a race in trying to see what your body needs to take care of itself.

Whether it's getting on your knees and singing and singing and singing and crying out or whether it's therapy or medication or whatever the case may be, that's another thing that causes anxiety.

Needing to stay on top of ourselves.

Needing to care for ourselves so we can care for others around us.

[wind rustles] I'm not consistent with staying on top of myself.

When I allow myself to get overrun by thoughts, daily life, not asking for help, thinking I can do everything on my own.

When I shrink, I'm a barrier to myself.

The surveyor was out to assess several months ago?

Right.

Acting, it doesn't stop my problems or solve my problems or my anxiety.

However, when I am able to share my time and my gifts with somebody, to bring something to life, I'm not worried about that.

That story I'm telling and that person I'm portraying, their problems are bigger and that helps me.

That helps me take my anxiety and give it to that person for a second and say, here, you know what?

You need this right now for whatever you're dealing with and it's gonna come out the way it's gonna come out.

So in performing wise and creative wise, I've been able to shift that to be a tool and not a obstacle.

I deal with me at my core.

My soul, my mental health, my needs as a woman, what I need to do or be for my children, my husband.

[birds twitter] Yes, it's a lot of homework.

You're a lot of work.

You're human, you know?

We're a lot of work.

A lot goes into us.

So we just have to be willing to do that work regardless of how tedious it may seem.

And it's only going to work with as much effort as we're willing to put into it.

[bouncy music] - My faith and mental health resides together because faith without works is dead.

I believe in God, yes.

I'm gonna go to church, I'm gonna keep praying, yes, but I need help because it's not enough.

At some point you need to be able to recognize what's going on.

How can I even know how to pray if I don't even know what's wrong with me?

So.

- So regarding faith, I believe in God.

And so I do pray.

I pray every day.

And some of my prayers are longer than others, just depending on how I'm feeling 'cause when I do feel anxious, I do automatically go to God 'cause I'm like, can you lift this off of me?

'Cause I'm just not feeling it.

Or sometimes I might need guidance.

And so I pray for guidance and I get that.

- I lift up my eyes to the hills.

Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved.

He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold he who keeps Israel in either slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper.

The Lord is your shade upon your right hand.

The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil, he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out and you're coming in from this day forth and forevermore.

- My faith in God, a higher source is not inside of four walls and it is not inside of the requirements placed on me by church people.

COVID actually gave me a great opportunity to actually get centered and be more clear about the fact that I feel like God is with me everywhere.

Spirit speaks to me always.

And I walk.

And whether people believe it or not, God speaks in the wind, paying attention to the trees, the trees will bring you back to present.

And it's been an amazing experience.

This is what, when did COVDI hit?

2019.

This has been a major spiritual lift for me within these past couple of years.

- Again, being able to just, being told to just pray about things.

And again, that's a coping mechanism, but it's not the only one.

- My name is Angela and I have anxiety.

[calm music] Being a Black woman working with my anxiety has been a rollercoaster because I don't look like the typical Black woman.

[calm music] You know, I am, I feel like we're in a society now where eyelashes and baby hair and long nails and all this other type thing are used as the criteria of what femininity and being a woman is and it just does not work for me.

And I mean, I have to be honest, there are times when I go into a place and I'm the only woman of color with a low haircut.

I've tried the eyelash thing, it didn't work.

It just didn't work for me.

And so I had to really, really do some self-reflection and be okay with what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

I am a teacher, so I teach children how to be themselves, how to be open, how to be honest.

Well, Ms.

Sergeant, where's your car?

Ms.

Sergeant, where's your husband?

Those are the questions that we hear from our fourth and fifth graders.

Where's your bling?

Where's your this, this, that, and the other?

Because the everyday woman that's going to work and that's in the grocery store is not reflected on what they see on a regular basis.

The racism as far as mental health and what's going on in society, it really, I guess because of the type of person that I am, he has never really affected me up until this COVID situation.

Especially when we were having the killings, especially when our former president was in, and I have noticed behavior amongst my white counterparts that I'd never seen before.

And it was very interesting and for a few minutes, it actually made me kind of think about how they see me and how I present myself.

It was always, y'all okay?

What's going on with you?

And I guess it made me uncomfortable, I'm getting chills now because you never checked on me.

You know what I'm saying?

You were never inquiring about my tone or if I was okay.

But now all of a sudden, we've all been lumped into this category where, let me be hypersensitive around the Black people.

They are a lot more vocal about how they feel and how there have been instances where they've been uncomfortable, but how aggressive they feel Black women tend to come off.

So me personally really made me do some reflective work on, how am I presenting myself?

How do they see me?

And is the adjustment needing to be with me or is it needing to be with them?

[calm music] I've always been a quiet person and in my room and in my business.

But now I've noticed that there has been a, are you okay today?

And why are you not smiling?

And I noticed your tone was a little different.

My tone hasn't shifted, my behavior hasn't shifted.

That's why I had to ask myself, has it been me or are you now just being more vocal about how have you truly felt all along?

[calm music] And then even with the school system, well we got a lot of emails about, well, we're not gonna discuss a lot of color.

So now that our brothers are losing their lives, let's not talk about color.

Let's not talk about, but the majority of my classroom are Black children.

You know, so that puts me in a, now that situation, I have to say, made me anxious because they're our children and I had to figure out a way to be able to talk to them in a way where they felt like they were human.

[bouncy twinkling music] This is a charter school, but the school really focuses on educating and helping the whole child.

So we don't only focus on academics, we also teach the students skills to regulate their behaviors.

[calm music] And I think, I'm not gonna say the hardest part, but the most challenging part about teaching is planning the lesson and thinking like the child.

You can do all the planning as a teacher, but you have to remember that these are second graders.

So your lessons have to be able to cater to the second grader.

And it may just be me, but any good teacher has anxiety about lessons that she plans or he plans because at any point you have to be flexible enough to say, okay, this lesson didn't work, let's scrap it and start over.

[calm music] I do remember dealing with my children not really wanting to be honest with them about the fact that their mom was suffering from depression or that their mom was an extremely anxious person.

And I spent a lot of time hiding those emotions because I wanted them to get this picture, perfect picture of their mom.

And as they got older, I noticed, okay, they're having some issues too.

They're having some issues processing and I tried the best that I could to start working on me so that I could help them.

I'm pouring out, I am a servant leader.

And so I have a tendency to overwork and become overwhelmed.

And what happens is because I'm not really at a good place where I can track when I'm almost like at a fourth of a tank, I have to then realize, okay, maybe I'm not feeling the greatest right now or maybe I'm snappy right now because I've given too much.

You know and I'm at a point now where I need to turn my cup over and actually rest and do some things for myself.

I don't wanna spend my entire life seeking to heal.

I want to enjoy my life.

I want to thrive.

So that means that I'm making a conscious effort to saying no to things that I do not really want to do and saying yes to those things that may even sound frightful, but I want to do them.

- I am Alisha and I have anxiety.

Are we standing straight up or leaning back?

- Leaning back.

- I need to see you lean.

Five, six, seven, step.

One and two and three and four.

No arms, five.

Right foot to the front, go right, go left, right.

My purpose as I understand it today, is to empower women and girls to heal themselves from trauma through love, empathy, and vulnerability.

And run, run, run and back, back, back.

And the reason why I care about that is because I am a woman who is actively healing from trauma.

And it's just important work to do.

It's important work to do.

I know in my previous role, I worked with students who shared similar upbringings as I did.

It became easy to over identify with them, kind of seeing that behavior and being like, man, I wish you knew.

Like I get it and you are free to be a child around me.

[calm music] Comes back to always being expected to be strong, always being expected to take care of all things, to have the answers.

That was a lot.

Good job.

Do it again.

Again, again, again.

How does racism impact my anxiety?

How does it not?

Let's see being in the military full of predominantly white male soldiers, having, you know, whenever I do have the courage to like speak up or say something, having my thoughts and opinions or my contributions undermined or questioned, that would, you know, make me retreat and close down.

Especially being a woman and then being a Black woman.

And then oftentimes I would hear things about being a Black woman from Memphis, I'm expected not to know certain things or not to sound a certain way or not to, you know, be professional.

But yeah.

Dealing with that is frustrating.

So this is all the like things I would dress my uniforms with.

My name tag, my rank and just the patches that I wore on my uniform.

Like I said, kind of tell a story.

There's supposed to be so many like transitional resources for veterans.

And not to get me wrong, the therapist that I'm seeing now is one that's provided by the VA.

But I don't think we've even really touched on a lot of my experience in the military or overseas.

That's a schedule.

May 30th.

I have my, I guess these are my, where was I May?

May, 2014.

My team, Donaldson and Spence.

Sick call and FTX state.

So field training dates.

Oh my god, field training.

Field training was the worst.

So once I got back home, like I said, I was in denial about anything.

I didn't realize that I was experiencing symptoms of PTSD.

I can recall my sister actually pointing it out to me.

I think I was at a family function and this wasn't even after my tour, this was after basic.

And I can remember coming back from training after those six months and just always being in parade risk.

Like we would be in normal social settings and... Yeah, I would just be standing in Paraders, just looking around hypervigilant.

I always like paying attention to my surroundings.

And the first time that I went out, it was like to a movie or something and a guy brushed up against me and I freaked out 'cause I was just like concerned that maybe he dropped something on me.

[sad music] Yeah, I dance so that I don't have to use a lot of words.

[sad music] [calm music] - You start to hear the word self-care and wellness a lot as a buzzword, but it has to be more than a buzzword.

It has to be a commitment to taking care of yourself first, regardless of what popular culture says, regardless of what patriarchy says about rest.

We have to accept that we are worthy of resting and caring for ourselves, period simply because we are divine beings.

We don't have to earn that rest.

We don't have to connect our worth to our work.

The fact that we are spirit beings means that we can and should take care of ourselves.

And so this experience this evening is a restorative yoga experience.

And the benefits of restorative yoga is that you are allowed to just simply be.

[beads rattle] Taking a few deep cleansing breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth.

Restorative yoga is a very powerful tool for self-care, also for mental and emotional wellness.

Why is that?

It is because when we experience stress, and stress is a normal response to occurrences that happen in life.

We cannot live without stress.

It also affects our mental capacity.

Inability to focus, lack of concentration, irritability, it impacts the way we communicate with others.

There's no part of our being that is not affected by stress.

So we have to do something to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of our body that takes us from fight, flight or freeze into rest and digest.

We have to turn that switch on, just like we turn that light switch on.

How do we do that?

We do things that relax us.

And press the knee away from the body.

Very gently press it away from your body.

Another very significant thing, we've talked about mental health, but also realizing that all parts of our being we have to take care of.

Our physical bodies, our mental and emotional body, as well as our spirit.

So whatever your purpose is, whatever your spiritual orientation is, but that's the core, that's the essence of who we are.

And so making sure that we nurture all dimensions of ourselves because that's what allows us to be a whole being.

[calm music] - As I imagine it, healing for me looks like... - Moments of peace.

Moments of understanding that I have to relinquish control so I don't drive myself nuts.

- I think for me, thriving with anxiety looks like being able to be a part of a community and constantly engaged with those people 'cause my anxiety causes me to isolate myself.

So whenever I am like around my friends or around my family or just meeting new people, it makes me feel really great because I know that I'm overcoming my anxiety in that moment.

- Me being able to address really any issue with anybody with a calm head.

Me being able to life, being able to throw these biggest balls at me, wrecking balls, and I could just stop it.

- You know right now, I wake up every morning and I enjoy teaching.

I enjoy seeing and being a part of the imagination and the curiosity of the children.

I love being in nature and just taking the moment to sit still and look at the people, feed the geese, you know, those type of things.

So I'm making a conscious effort to make sure that I'm loving life because life is loving me right now.

I really don't have any complaints, even with the ups and downs of just normal life.

I feel like I've finally at 46 caught the wave.

- Not shying away from difficult conversations.

Unapologetically advocating for myself.

Not second guessing my decisions, owning my story, and not feeling shame or guilt around the things that I've experienced, following my gut.

- Not holding on the grudges, forgiving people, but see healing also took a lot of internal work with boundaries because see, sometimes the things that people do to us that we feel like, or when people say, oh, but they did this to me and they did this and X, Y, and Z, right?

Sometimes we can't always blame it on that other person.

We allowed that person to do that because our boundaries have been so poor.

So healing is when you can put boundaries in place for you.

- Younger self, sis, calm down.

Put the chocolate down.

You don't need to have a drink.

Just hold on a second, take a moment, be still and just breathe.

- You're doing all right, you're okay.

- You're not mad, you're not angry, you're just going through some stuff.

- It will be okay.

Like the moment will pass.

It's just one moment in time that's making you anxious right now.

And then when you experience it, it might not even be as bad as you're thinking it's gonna be.

It'll probably be great.

It usually is great.

And so the moment will pass and you will be okay.

So don't let something that hasn't happened or even something from the past stall how you feel right now, stall you from making you feel good.

Don't let that stop you.

[calm music] - I would tell my younger self that her voice matters.

[calm music] That it is not her responsibility to bear the weight of the people around her.

Can I keep going 'cause I wanna get it off now.

- Okay.

- That her value and her worth is not tied to how helpful she can be to people.

That she doesn't have to fight for her worthiness.

She doesn't have to puff up or shrink down.

- When it comes to my affirmations and anxiety, I am safe.

I did what I was supposed to do today and I'm going to accept that and be okay with that.

I have to because I was not designed to do it all.

- Today I will make something miraculous out of the mundane.

- I am unconditionally loved and supported.

The small things I do lead to big results.

- And I have beautiful qualities to offer this world.

- I love myself, I trust myself, I honor myself, I am committed to myself, I believe in myself, I transform myself, I heal myself, I evolve myself.

- I am going to be okay.

I am loved and I am doing great.

- I am healthy.

I am wealthy.

I am rich and I'm enough.

- If my creator is pleased with me, then so am I.

And I am the true workmanship of the divine.

- And I am love.

I am kindness.

I am whole.

- I am.

- I am.

- I am.

- I am.

- I am.

- I am.

- I am.

[calm music] [serene music] [serene music continues] [serene music continues]