Category: <span>Self Care</span>

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What You Need to Know About Mental Health and How to Protect It

Mental health is a topic that is now being recognized as a serious issue today. In this blog, Industry Scholar Intern, Efia Blair, explores the definition of mental health and the surprising things she learned exploring the topic. Efia believes the Coronavirus lockdown shed light on why mental health is so important. The lockdown brought a lot of awareness to mental health because people were stuck in their houses for such a long time that it was inevitable for them to begin to experience mental health issues and illness as they grappled with change, uncertainty, loneliness, and new stressors. 

"Be dedicated to change the way in which people see mental illness at all levels of society. If not for yourself, advocate for those who are struggling in silence.” — Germany Kent

So, What Is Mental Health?

Well, it is your overall emotional well-being, and it is critical for us because it controls our actions and reactions. Various things can impact your mental health. Still, your main concern should be taking precautions to improve or sustain your mental health.

One thing that was surprising to me, that widened my knowledge on mental health, is that not only can mental health affect your state of mind but also your physical health. Your body can stop functioning how it used to because of psychological effects, increasing your possibility of developing an illness. Did you know that? I had no idea the mental and physical health connection was that strong. I also learned that our mental health can affect our ability to make decisions if our mental health is compromised. One more thing, did you know mental health problems can be passed down through genes? I thought your mental health was only affected by one’s environment or if you’ve experienced some sort of trauma. 

How Can You Protect Your Mental Health?

Mental health struggles are sometimes inevitable, but many practices can help support good mental health. First, you can connect with a therapist to talk to someone and get the help you need. Sometimes it’s helpful to speak about your feelings out loud. You can also start new hobbies, join a new club, or connect to the people around you. Those two essential acts- asking for help and doing things you enjoy can help protect your mental health in more ways than you realize. 

What things are you doing to protect your mental health? What about using a journal like this one or taking the time to nurture your well-being with walks, meditation, or yoga? Please share your suggestions in the comments!

Self Care Planner for Black women. a ay to protect your mental health

Researched and Written by High School Student Efia Blair for Kensho Psychotherapy Services, where she is an intern through Industry Scholars. If you or someone you know in the NY area is in need of a therapist or counselor, please click here and submit your details for someone to get back to you. The practice offers individual, family, or couples therapy and accepts several insurances like Aetna, 1199, BCBS, UHC, and Optum.

From Talk to Action: Making Safe Spaces a Reality for Black Women in the Workplace

Black women face a unique set of challenges that are often overlooked in mainstream conversations. From colorism and racism to health disparities and wage gaps to issues closer to their heart like identity and belonging, finding a blueprint for love, black women must navigate various issues that require space to discuss and address them.

Safe spaces allow a supportive and inclusive environment where women of color can share their experiences, gain insights and heal through the stories and solutions shared on issues that affect them. This blog will explore the importance of safe spaces for Black women and how to create them.


Why Safe Spaces Matter

First, safe spaces foster connection and access to information. For Black History Month, I hosted a fireside chat series called Confidence in Color for women of color because of my experiences as an Afro Caribbean Woman evolving at “work.” I didn’t have an abundance of mentorship and guidance to help navigate areas like entrepreneurship, financial planning, and leadership. Still, I always knew the value of the knowledge of my elders or those ahead of me and longed for it.

Our elders have historically provided wisdom, guidance, and sound judgments that provided direction and created a sense of emotional safety. As we progress in our professional or personal lives, it can become difficult to locate experienced individuals who can relate to our unique struggles, mainly due to systemic problems such as racism and glass ceilings, and a lack of understanding for the need for likeminded and cultural base mentorship, particularly for women of color. 

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” – Oprah Winfrey

While it’s beneficial to have supportive colleagues and allies, connecting with other Black women who have faced comparable challenges provides an additional level of psychological safety that should be appreciated in all settings. One of the women who attended the virtual chat series expressed how empowering it was for her to hear from other women in similar situations, which was why she decided to log on. There were over 50 women who felt the same.

I established the series precisely because of this desire for a shared experience and a need for mentorship by other women of color.

Secondly, safe spaces allow you to see that you are not alone. As a psychotherapist, one of the core issues I come across when high achievers come to therapy is the sense that they’re alone in their experiences, even in supposedly inclusive work environments where there’s a lack of diversity among executives and managers. This often results in black women’s accomplishments being undervalued or overlooked due to unrecognized biases. As a result, women may internalize these experiences, leading to anxiety, self-worth issues, acts of overcompensation that contribute to stress, and burnout.

On the flip side, safe spaces can also serve as an avenue for organizations to evaluate whether their initiatives are genuinely effecting change and meeting the needs of marginalized groups while establishing avenues for advancement and diversity – both essential factors in retaining a diverse and competent workforce and fostering balanced work cultures.


How to Create Safe Spaces

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a safe space is “a place or environment in which a person or category of people can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm.” Creating a safe space for Black women requires intentional efforts. Here are some steps you can take to create a safe space:

  1. Encourage open and honest communication: Encourage Black women to freely share their experiences and perspectives. Create a supportive environment that allows for vulnerability and validation.
  2. Create formal or informal check-ins: It’s difficult, to be honest, when you don’t feel safe. Consider if there are ways to create systems to attain information without fear of retaliation so the lines of communication can remain open and effective. Can check-ins be built into regular practices like weekly meetings or monthly forums, not just black history or women’s history month? 
  3. Provide resources and information: Provide information and resources that address the unique challenges and stressors women of color face. This can include workshops, seminars, educational materials, retreats, or opportunities for affinity groups and access to mentors or coaches. 
  4. Invite allies: Invite allies willing to learn and support all women of color and commit to their own personal growth. This can include creative learning through book clubs, lunch and learns, and conversations that challenge personal bias and foster true diversity and inclusivity. 

Safe spaces are essential for Black women to discuss unique issues and find support.

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By creating a safe space, we can foster people-first environments where Black women feel included and can see the value of their achievements, find validation and support, as well as connection, balance, and psychological safety.

Establishing safe spaces requires deliberate efforts. The onus is on organizations that endorse and facilitate these spaces to regularly evaluate their efficacy in assisting underrepresented groups to feel listened to, appreciated, and empowered. 

I would love to hear what resonated with you from this piece and what you think would be helpful in fostering safe spaces for black women or how you create safe spaces for black women.

Amanda Fludd, LCSW-R, is a Licensed Psychotherapist and Mental Health consultant. She works in partnership with organizations and institutions like schools and corporations to assess an organization’s emotional health, designing customized mental health and wellness workshops to help teams navigate stress, burnout, and trauma so they can thrive well.

Build Your Confidence By Taking A Look At How Far You’ve Come

confidence is something we can work on by slowing down and tracking our progress with it

How often do you really take the time to celebrate the wins in your life? If you’re like many of us, you probably don’t do this nearly often enough.

I had come to learn pretty quickly that life has its highs and lows just like the ocean does and sometimes you just have to see how far they’ll carry you”. — C.A. Williams

How far has life carried you? Taking time to acknowledge how far I’ve come and how much I’ve accomplished is always a HUGE confidence booster for me when I take the time to do it. I’m sure it’s no different for you. To be honest, there’s a lot we’ve all done over the past few fears or even few days that we should be proud of, yet we often don’t see it or foget to be mindful of where we’ve been and its contributions to our present. There always seems to be so much left to do, or a focus on the things we failed at that seems to take the joy out of the room.

A crucial component of confidence and our general well-being is our ability to pause and notice our past with compassion, while celebrating even the smallest wins that shape how far we’ve already come.

Why Do We Struggle to Slow Down and Celebrate Ourselves?

  • There is an urgency to keep going, to get to the next thing, the next accomplishment. It’s probably a feeling that keeps you up at night with thoughts you just can’t seem to shut off, and it’s just physically and emotionally hard to do. 
  • You’ve set the bar so high that no matter how far you get, it never feels like enough. A feeling that can erode your confidence because it’s personalized to, “I’m not enough”.
  • It’s hard to see the things that went well, and you tend to focus on all the little things that didn’t go as planned. 
  • It’s a reflection of your upbringing. You were raised to be humble about your accomplishments, or no one was really available to celebrate you. 
  • There is a part of you that’s scared that if you pause to celebrate, you’ll somehow fall behind. 
  • You’re not there “yet,” so there isn’t a big enough reason to celebrate- leaving no room for small wins.
Build confidence by honoring where you came from. Coaching tips and life strategies, life hacks. Quote.

Which one resonates with you? 

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. The value of slowing down is you get to find your strengths and the realizations you need to validate your ability to navigate current challenges and achieve your goals with confidence. But where do you start? Let’s begin with gratitude. 

How to Slow Down to Achieve Your Goals and Boost Your Confidence

Reflection and Gratitude

The simplest way to ensure you notice what you’ve accomplished and how far you’ve come is to get into the habit of spending a few minutes in the morning or right before bed in reflection and gratitude.

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” 

William Arthur Ward

When you wake up in the morning, before you get out of bed, or while munching on that bagel or sipping on your coffee, think about what you’ve accomplished and what you’re grateful for. 

I like this morning habit because it sets a positive and confident tone for the day ahead. If that doesn’t work for you, try it at night before you fall asleep. Keep a journal next to your bed and don’t just dump out your worries; dump out what went well for the day. You can even add three accomplishments or things that made you feel proud in the week or the last few months. 

Make reflecting in gratitude a daily habit, and watch your confidence grow.

three unexpected tips to boost your confidence

Journaling And Habit Trackers

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Visit the Shop to View Our Wellness Planners and Trackers

Spending a few minutes daily writing down your wins is a great way to reconnect to your truths. To build a better routine and establish this as a habit. If you’re trying to develop better habits, try a habit tracker. Grid paper and excel spreadsheets work well for this too. Seeing a month’s worth of little checkmarks on your habit tracker can be very motivating.

With the journal, make it a point to review your wins regularly and of course, whenever you need a little boost of self-esteem and confidence. Look online for plenty of journaling and habit tracker ideas. Give the ones that look good a try and devise a system that works for you. 

Get Your Own Personal Cheerleader

Sometimes it helps to have your own personal cheerleader. No, I’m not suggesting you hire a person with pompoms to follow you around everywhere (although that might be fun for a day). Instead, find a good friend or family member who’s encouraging already and ask them to cheer you on. Who are your cheerleaders? Keep their numbers on speed dial so you can call them whenever you feel low or don’t want to do something and need some encouragement.  

You can also think about who has been a key support person in your life, even if they played a minor role. I can think of my 4th-grade teacher Ms. English and how loving and accepting she was, which meant the world to me as a migrant child in a new country and school system. Who is your person? In your journal, list 2-3 of those people you have had in your life and note their impact on you. That relationship might even be another reminder of how far you’ve come. 

You now have some great ways to slow down and notice the value in your life daily. Taking the time to recognize those wins and seeing how far you’ve come has a ripple effect of increasing how good you feel about yourself, improving your mood, and building your confidence and momentum so you can continue to tackle future goals with more ease and joy. 

Celebrate yourself. You work hard, and you deserve it. 

How are you planning on bringing more celebration into your life? Let us know in the comments below!

Other great reads: Actionable Steps to Overcome Anxiety

The Self Love Journal For Women

Amanda Fludd, LCSW-R is a Licensed Psychotherapist, speaker, and Mindset Coach for high-achieving women in business. Her joy is addressing mental health on multiple levels from the boardroom to your virtual office.

prioritze your self care and wellbeing. Wellbing ideas to support good mental health.

Show Up and Glow Up

Pause, take a deep breath, and take in this present moment.

You have made it into the summer, and this is your reminder to make yourself a priority and not sabotage your emotional wellbeing and good habits.

To help you with that, we are sharing our Summer Glow Up Plan!

Glow Up means taking time to acknowledge and nurture your needs by showing up for yourself and your mental health.

Your Summer Glow Plan might look like this:

1) Figure out your daily routine. Add things you love or want to do for the summer into that routine. Without goal-directed action, it’s easier to lose motivation and fall into slumps of procrastination. We recommend starting your day writing in a journal to organize your ideas and embracing your phone calendar to keep you on task. 

2) There is healing in community. Take time to connect. Call, text, or even write a friend to say hi, or offer a compliment. Social connections promote positive mental health outcomes. Another great option is joining an online group or finding events on places like Eventbrite to expand your social networks.

Relate read: Women’s Retreat and Healing Community

3) Move your body. Your body is craving to be noticed and to move. Try a free yoga application like Down Dogg in the App Store, find a 10-minute workout on youtube, or turn up your favorite mashup and dance like your office mate isn’t watching!  

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4) Set your alarm to get outside during the day. Walk, run or sit outside and get some fresh air and sun. To get even more grounded, kick off your shoes and feel the earth beneath you- we call this grounding “earthing.” As you ground yourself, use that time to think about a few reasons to be grateful.

Let us know which self-care tips you’ll be working on this week in the comments below!

Amanda Fludd, LCSW-R, is a Licensed therapist, speaker, and Mindset Coach for high-achieving women in business. Her joy is addressing mental health on multiple levels, from the boardroom to your virtual office

The Powerful Lessons I Learned at the Business Retreat

A blog around the key learnings after attending the Retreat

I recently returned from my first curated Retreat for minority women in business in Mexico: Renew, Connect, Restore, Retreat.  It was more than I could’ve expected.  I wanted to pause and share five things I learned from sharing space with 12 exceptional women.

What Was The Business Retreat About?

The Renew, Connect, Restore Retreat was birthed out of the Mindset and Motivation Community for Women Entrepreneurs of Color.  It has been such an uplifting virtual space that it naturally made sense to transition it to a live experience.  As women, we often struggle to set aside time for ourselves because we are busy supporting everyone else’s life, with little energy left to create, ask for help, or continue to stretch ourselves.  When we attempt to work on ourselves, we are so wrapped up in our heads that things like procrastination, worry, and overthinking rob us of our potential.

The community is an intentional space to refuel, encourage, teach, and share.  Along the way, we foster skills to grow your business and voice.  What’s unique about the group is you don’t even need to have a business!  Just good intentions and a true understanding of sisterhood.  Those values are what I took and curated in Mexico.

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The Retreat was four days of connection, workshops on purpose, profits, and self-care, all facilitated by women from the community.  One of the facilitators was my good friend from UCONN Tasha Smith, MSW, MBA from Peach Valley Co (an inclusive Real Estate and Tech Company) who happened to be in Mexico and volunteered to do a workshop.

Here are five of the most powerful business lessons I learned from attending the Renew, Connect, Restore Retreat for minority women in business:

1.  The importance of building a solid and supportive tribe.  I was reminded that I don’t need to rely on others outside my circle to help deliver an experience.  Instead, I can ask within my tribe for support.

2.  It’s very encouraging to share space with like-minded women.  These women did not know each other, but you would swear we were best of friends. Being around other black and brown women striving for similar goals and willing to serve as mirrors to listen, be honest, and help identify issues that maybe you didn’t want to see on your own created such a safe and healing environment.

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3.  The Retreat was an opportunity for personal growth and development.  The speakers learned as much about themselves as the participants did.  I had the chance to coach some of them on expressing their gifts in creative and tangible ways, which led to dynamic and effective handouts for the group.

4.  Leveraging your skills and experience to create new business opportunities is possible.  There is a huge need for us to learn how to think outside our well-constructed professional box.  I challenged the idea of “an expert,” had them identify tangible skills, and walked them through how to use that to create a product.  The women were challenged to think outside the box and use their professional skills to create new opportunities.

5.  I am capable of so much more than I realize.  Challenging yourself with new and complex tasks or concepts that seem outside your reach will only push you to develop those tangible skill sets that can open doors.  Pouring out in this capacity also has a counter effect of filling you with things like joy, confidence, and contentment.  This experience showed me that I haven’t even reached my potential as an entrepreneur.

The experience solidified my purpose and strengthened the value of community and how far we can go together.  If you are a minority woman in need of a tribe, we extend an invitation to you and hope you will join us.

And yes, by request, we’ll be hosting the Retreat again.  We are thinking of a tropical place like Antigua.  What’s your favorite island? 

Let me know in the comments. If you don’t want to miss an invite follow me at Ig@amanda.fludd if you aren’t in the community already.

If you need help defining and implementing a digital strategy as you start to build your business, let us know if we can assist you.

Amanda Fludd, LCSW-R is a Licensed Psychotherapist, Speaker, and Mindset Coach for high-achieving women and professionals venturing into business. Her joy is tackling mental health on multiple platforms and she is available for speaking engagements and training.

Related Reads:Dismantle The Doubt and Build Your Dreams or How to Follow Through On Your Goals

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links on this page, which means we get a small commission for anything you decide to buy.  We only recommend quality products, but you should do your research before making a purchase.
anxious, communication

What You Need to Know About Mental Health and How to Protect It

Improve your understanding of mental health. Is your mental health protected? How much do you really know?

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When Life Gives You Lemons – Reframe Your Thoughts

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From Talk to Action: Making Safe Spaces a Reality for Black Women in the Workplace

Black women face a unique set of challenges that are often overlooked in mainstream conversations. From colorism and racism …