This is part one of a two-part series podcast with Dr. Dorian Hunter. This is part one of Episode #39.

We’ve had seven months now to get used to the new normal between the pandemic, life in quarantine, the mask debate, civil unrest, the kids at home, working remotely or trying to work remotely or not working remotely. The economy is shifting. The election is coming up and the news is constantly telling us it is the worst of times.

What the hell is normal, and how do we cope with a life that is so far from normal, let alone thrive?

 

Audrea Fink:
This is part one of a two-part series podcast with Dr. Dorian Hunter. This is part one of Episode #39.

We’ve had seven months now to get used to the new normal between the pandemic, life in quarantine, the mask debate, civil unrest, the kids at home, working remotely or trying to work remotely or not working remotely. The economy is shifting. The election is coming up and the news is constantly telling us it is the worst of times.

What the hell is normal, and how do we cope with a life that is so far from normal, let alone thrive?

Hi, this is Audrea Fink here with Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris and Julie Holton. We are your Think Tank of Three and we are welcoming back our dear friend Dr. Dorian Hunter. She’s going to talk to us about mental health, why right now it’s so hard on us, the tools we can use to build some resiliency, and how to have a little self-compassion.

Julie Holton:
Dorian, your first episode with us, episode eight is still one of my absolute favorites, and you guys, I can’t wait for you to get to know her a little bit more today, as we talk about all of this. Dorian is a clinical psychologist. She primarily treats people who are struggling with intense thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that feel out of their control. Sound familiar, anyone?

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Dorian focuses on fueling change, internal and external, and teaching skills that help support adjustments that people want to make in their lives. She currently provides clinical care, teaches, provides clinical supervision, and serves as a consultant to therapists who want to effectively implement behavioral interventions.

Audrea Fink:
As Julie mentioned, Dorian was our guest on episode eight, Building Your Confidence, which not only is our favorite but also happens to be one of the most popular episodes on this podcast. So Dorian, welcome back, and thanks so much for joining us.

Dorian Hunter:
Thank you. I’m really happy to be here with you all. This is a hugely important topic.

I’ve noticed with clients, with clinicians I teach and consult with, in the lives of people I love and my own life, everyone has been touched on some level by knowing someone or being somebody who has had a huge dip in mood, and motivation.

I am looking forward to talking with you all about the dip in mood that people are experiencing. Sometimes it looks like not wanting to do things, feeling bored, feeling restless. Sometimes sadness doesn’t show up, but there’s still this mood dip and lack of motivation. So I’m excited to talk about how to combat the blues in a pretty bluesy time.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That is exactly one of the reasons that I originally went to Julie and Audrea and said, “Listen, we have to address the huge scale of what is 2020. There’s simply too much going on right now from the pandemic, black lives matter, for us to ignore how hard the world is being on our mental health.”

So then the big question, though, is what makes the world today, 2020, so much more difficult than the typical mental health issues that we have been battling with our entire lives?

Dorian Hunter:
I think this is an important thing to dive into, in part, because I’ve noticed some people are invalidating themselves and saying things like, “My life is pretty good and why should I be feeling down? Why should I be having a hard time motivating myself?”

The first thing I want to say is that it’s normal, that many, many people are struggling now, not everyone, but many people. The reasons that I think that is, is that the things that are normal that help us offset having a hard day or having hard things happen in our lives have largely been taken away.

We’re getting some of them back, but there was at least a period where they were entirely removed for some people. So things like seeing people regularly, being able to have contact with people and face to face in particular. Even … I’ve noticed this, even when I, for example, see people that I care about, I can’t hug them without having some sort of barrier. There’s an awkwardness around it that never used to be there.

Julie Holton:
Right. Like even when we want to be able to wrap our arms around someone and just hug them, there’s that reminder of, nope, we’re not supposed to hug people. We’re supposed to keep our distance. It feels bad.

Audrea Fink:
There’s guilt. If I hug someone then I’m like, “Oh, am I putting them at risk?” But also if I don’t hug someone, am I going to get mad at them, or is it weird?

Dorian and I, we’ve kept each other in the COVID bubble, but at the same time, when we first were hanging out after COVID hit, we didn’t hug and that’s so weird for us because we’re both such touchy people and even now, this is okay.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
How do you deal with that because there are a couple of different sides to that?
I’m married. I have two kids. So I’m getting my hugs and my love from my children and my husband regularly and I’m enjoying it and the kisses and the cuddles but I have very close friends, my sisters that I could not communicate with like we used to like we were just discussing hugging. What is that doing to us?

Dorian Hunter:
I think for all of us, this is a very basic human need, physical touch in connection with each other. One of the things that I think is important is acknowledging that this is a huge loss, and coping with reality as it is. Not saying to ourselves, I can still talk with them on the phone. So I shouldn’t be upset. Validating that we’ve lost an important part of the connection with people.

That being said, I do think that people are on the whole pretty resilient, and we can start making new rituals. I love the elbow bump that people do, like how creative we are in making sure that we’re still acknowledging each other and having a meaningful connection with each other.

Julie Holton:
I love what you keep saying too, about validating our feelings and maybe you can expand on that for a bit because I think it is so human of us to say to whatever we’re experiencing, oh, but someone else has it worse. While that’s true, it’s so important for us to pause and remember, no, it’s okay to feel what you’re feeling. It’s more than okay. Feel what you’re feeling.

What are some coping mechanisms that we can use to talk ourselves through that when we start to have thoughts that make us feel like we’re less than what we’re feeling?

Dorian Hunter:
Yes, this goes to the topic of self-compassion. That there is a way that we can talk to ourselves that is harsh and judgmental, and there’s a way that we can talk to ourselves, that’s understanding.

Validation is essentially saying it’s understandable why you’re doing what you’re doing, why you’re feeling what you’re feeling and it makes sense. It’s not abnormal, it’s understandable. So I think about this with self-compassion, that self-compassion is not the same thing as self-esteem.

I think sometimes people try to combat feeling bad about themselves, the self-judgments that they have with, actually, I’m good in these other ways. This just becomes sort of this tense back and forth battle within people that, am I good or my bad?

Self-compassion steps outside of this question, am I good or bad and just says I am. I am. I’m a person, and it makes sense why I’m struggling and acknowledges that the most normal thing in being human is to struggle.

Audrea Fink:
In preparing for this podcast recording, I was reading some articles. The Washington Post came out with an article that said that the coronavirus pandemic is pushing America into a mental health care crisis.

According to Kaiser, they did a poll, and over half of Americans are reporting that this pandemic is harming their mental health, and there are companies like Talkspace, I think is one of them, which is like a textphone therapy. They’ve seen a 65% jump in their clients just since February.

If they look through what the contents of those sessions are, it’s primarily based on coronavirus. It’s affecting a lot of people.

We’re seeing the increase in medications go up along with it. 34% jump just since March in the prescription of anti-anxiety, 18% jump in antidepressants, and then a 15% jump in anti-insomnia meds just during this pandemic.

This point about self-compassion and listening to yourself and feeling your feelings I think is really important when you’re not alone in feeling this. It’s its pandemic alongside coronavirus, and potentially impacting more people than the COVID virus is.

Dorian Hunter:
Absolutely. I’ve been thinking a lot about what the long-term effects of this will be on mental health and mortality independent of actually being harmed by the virus itself. I’m thinking about how it’s impacted all of us in some way, in terms of needing to protect ourselves in the public, and all of the ripple effects that we’ll have.

I’ve also heard about some positive things coming out of this like I’ve got clients in my practice who have had a huge shift in the way they see the world, and rather than pushing themselves outside of their box all the time, the box feels smaller and it feels like it fits for them better. Being at home doing Zoom meetings, most of the time feels good for them, feels right for them.

The other things are like I think a lot about how it’s stretching our brains and I heard this podcast the other day, that we’re all being challenged in new ways that are ultimately maybe … Have benefits for us. That may be good for us.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Julia talked about the validating and you were talking about the validating, recognizing those emotions and realizing that you have them and that’s okay, but there’s also we sometimes, I know I’ve done it. Probably most people have in some way shape or form, really start to internalize that.

How do you stop yourself from going down into that rabbit hole of what’s going on, this is how I’m feeling. I’m heartbroken. I find myself I’ll start crying. Feeling emotions that I didn’t realize that I had, and can hear my son’s say, “This is the worst year ever,” because he’s nine and he sees that we didn’t get to go to Disneyland and we didn’t get to go see grandma and we didn’t get to go to Canada to see the grandparents. So that’s his perspective, but I as the adult need to find another way and it’s not always easy, because I’m sitting there with him like, “I’m with you. You’re right.” I don’t want to keep encouraging that. I shouldn’t be encouraging that.

How do you keep yourself from going down into that rabbit hole, and trying to find, for lack of a better term, a silver lining?

Dorian Hunter:
I’ll answer your question first with a metaphor. So let’s say you are metaphorically at home, and a painful emotion comes knocking at your door. What do you do? How do you respond to the pain?

Audrea Fink:
I would not answer the door.

Dorian Hunter:
Yeah, you block that door.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You know that’s what it is.

Julie Holton:
It depends on what mood I’m in because I might answer the door and give them a bashing. You catch me at the wrong time, all right, come on, ladies. You know what I mean.

Dorian Hunter:
You might fight it, you might-

Julie Holton:
I might have a few fighting words, or I might follow Audrea and just not answer the door.

Dorian Hunter:
So you can … We think about these as like two classes of behaviors you can engage in. One is blocking the door, fighting it, pushing it away. It’s stronger than you are. So it’s coming in, what do you do?

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Open the door and talk to it, I guess.

Dorian Hunter:
Open the door and talk to it. Because the other side is that we can open the door, invited in, run away with it. Get involved with it in ways that may not be helpful, either.

So the metaphor, I call it my drinking tea metaphor, you open the door, invite it in, make it a cup of tea and ask it what it wants. You don’t necessarily do what it wants, but you look into it.

There are things that we can do when we have found ourselves either fighting it, blocking it, pushing it away, mindfulness of sensations in our bodies to let it in at least some. Then there are other things that we can do if we found that we have run away with it, we’re like going to Vegas to get married.

You can do things like, there’s the two-minute rule. So running away with it often takes the form of rumination, which means to chew, like it’s chewing on thoughts, where you’re stuck in it and you’re all wrapped up with it.

You’ve set a timer, literally set a timer for two minutes. You allow yourself to ruminate about it for two minutes, and if you haven’t solved the problem you’re thinking about or haven’t gained a new perspective, it’s not … Nothing’s improved by thinking about it. You get your two minutes, and then you go do something else you get out of your head.

Audrea Fink:
I love this idea of the two-minute timer. So this is a really silly example of it, but when I saw that Ruth Ginsburg Bader had died, I was very upset. One, because she’s amazing and who doesn’t want her to still be around for so many reasons.

Then the other thing I kept seeing was people post things about how we shouldn’t replace her until the election is over, which I actually think is incorrect. I thought it was incorrect when the Republicans tried to do it to Obama, I think it’s incorrect now. Constitutionally speaking, Trump has a right to replace her and this is not a political podcast. I’m just saying the legality of it is there.

The reason I tell you this is not because that is important, but because I spent probably half a day going over the like, I don’t want her replaced and also like the rule says it’s okay, but I don’t want … At the end of the day, I was talking to a friend and she was like, “Why are you still thinking about this? First of all, you don’t make these decisions at all, and second of all, doesn’t impact your … You should feel these things. You should be sorry, angry, whatever, but why are you sitting here going back and forth, being upset because she’s gone and also being upset because someone’s saying we shouldn’t replace her?” These things are useless in your brain, useless energy. Lost half a day being upset.

Dorian Hunter:
Yeah, and I think about this sometimes with what you haven’t done in that scenario is done anything to solve the problem.

Audrea Fink:
Right.

Dorian Hunter:
A huge part and this is a huge part of depression treatment, at least the depression treatment I do is to get people to actively solve problems, rather than bathe in rumination and misery. So getting out of that bathtub, that you’re in there with misery and going out and doing something, and there are a few different ways to solve this.

So I think about people … I have a lot of people now who are obsessed with the news and it’s like they have an IV. They’re just exposed to it all the time.

Audrea Fink:
Reischea is over here being like, that would be me.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That’s me. I have been told to turn the news off but it’s like that traffic accident for me. I just-

Dorian Hunter:
You’re rubbernecking

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Yeah, I know.

Dorian Hunter:
So what impact does it have on you, if you’re watching the news all the time or reading-

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It’s not good because I stay in this state of frustration and anger and sadness, and it’s not helping my mental stratosphere. I know it’s not helping because I have friends who said, “Oh, I haven’t watched the news in a week, and life is beautiful.”

Audrea Fink:
I am on the opposite end of that though. I am fully avoiding it. When I said I wasn’t opening the door, I was not opening the door. Maybe that’s part of why the Ruth thing hit me is it was a big piece of news that finally got through the sand I had been dunking my head in because it just got too overwhelming to participate.

Dorian Hunter:
People who know me well know that I’m forever talking about balancing things that are opposites and finding equilibrium and honoring the truth and things like what you were talking about earlier, Audrea, the balancing, on the one hand, not wanting her to be gone, and on the other hand, saying, and legally, he has the right to place her. So there’s truth in both of those perspectives.

So balancing opposites leads down the road of what can I do about the news? What can I do to stay informed on the one hand, which is an important thing to do, maybe from a values perspective?

It’s meaningful to me to know what’s going on and to the investment in people whose lives are similar or different from mine, however, it may be. On the other hand, recognizing that for many people being invested in the news doesn’t add value to anyone’s life, and may make us less effective than if we spend 10 minutes a day catching up, and then we spend the rest of the day doing something active that may help solve problems, and those are very different things. One has you mired in the misery and the other has you relieving the misery of yourself and other people.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
What are you doing to help the situation? I know one of the balance issues I have, specifically with regards to Black Lives Matter, I can’t turn black off. Those issues are issues that I wake up with, I go to sleep with, regardless of whether or not I turn the news on I have an older brother, my father. I have those individuals that have dealt with issues within law enforcement. I am raising a son where I will have to talk with him that an entire half of the society doesn’t have to have.

So there’s that other aspect of things. So on one end, you’re right, I’ve got to turn some of this off and even my other friends of color are the same way. We can’t sit there locked in on the news, but then I also am saying I can’t but-

Audrea Fink:
You can’t turn it off, either.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I can’t turn it off, either. Even when I’ve turned off the news, what’s going on out there is sitting with me regularly.

Dorian Hunter:
It calls to you. What I like about this is, this is a balance between accepting reality. The fact is that many, many people are suffering, that we could do active things that would reduce the suffering like there are steps we could take.

Part of that reality is that the people who have the power to make changes are not doing that. All of that is a reality to accept. Coping with reality as is means that you can then actively make changes.

So like I was saying, turning off the news may fit with your values and it may not fit with your values but finding some balance around it probably is the right angle. Know what’s going on and then take steps to make it different.

Julie Holton:
I think that’s so key Dorian and Reischea to your point too, and what you’re saying, I think for myself, I think I feel the worst when I’m not doing something about whatever it is I’m feeling. So it might be related to my business or to my clients who are suffering during the pandemic, it might be related to the mask debate, it might be related to Black Lives Matter. Obviously, with each one of these topics growing larger and larger in scope, there’s only so much we can do to affect change on the level where we’d like to.

We’d all like to go in and change the system. Not that I necessarily know how to do that or where to begin, but I wish that I had some control over it. That would make me feel much better, but I don’t.

Depending on what we’re talking about the size and scope of what actions we can take will vary, but I think finding within our circles, finding people who we can connect with on these deeper levels, we can have conversations like this, the group of us we were talking before we started recording about just how heavy all of this can seem. And Reischea, a couple of weeks ago when you texted Audrea and I and you were like, “Hey, do you guys have a couple of minutes? Can we talk about fitting in some more podcast topics this year?”

We immediately got on a Zoom call and that turned into our mini therapy session because we just needed to talk through, yeah, these are all the things we’re feeling. Now, what are we going to do about it? So in our own way…

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Action steps.

Julie Holton:
Yeah, in our way, even sometimes just talking about these things, with like-minded people, I think that it is important sometimes to have those like-minded people when it comes to our mental health. Because if we talk to someone who we know is not going to be supportive, or we know is not feeling things similar to what we’re feeling or cannot nurture the emotions we’re having, then that can set us back even more.

I’ve seen that play out with some friends who … and family members who have a great support system, during this pandemic, and then others who don’t maybe have the support system.

Dorian, how do we adjust our tactics in finding that right support system, or the right people? What does that look like? What can we do to help us cope with these emotions?

Dorian Hunter:
So that brings up in my mind the three Ps of how to combat low mood and Ps as in the letter P. The biggest one, at least from my point of view, maybe from most people’s points of view is people. If we want to reduce depression or increase our moods, however, you want to phrase it, making sure that you have people that you have a sense of meaningful connection with.

We can all be out or around people where it’s not fulfilling connection, but like you were saying, finding people who we can either have a different perspective from, and still connect, or who think the same way we do, have similar values to us, and making sure that we’re not … As we can’t be as close in physical proximity with them, as we want to be, we used to be, we can still connect in some meaningful way. Like, getting on the phone and going for walks, things like that.

For the other two Ps, I’ll talk about our pursuit and pleasure.

Audrea Fink:
Pleasure is all I want now. I want the wine, I want the chocolate, I want junk food, I want a massage every day. I have too much pleasure.

Dorian Hunter:
So thinking about balance, again, I’m going to sound like a broken record, but all things in moderation, or at least being aware of the tension is important.

The pleasure as avoidance is different than deliberately engaging in pleasant events to soothe ourselves, to regulate our emotions, to improve our lives. Those are very different things. I would say if anyone is engaging in distraction avoidance all the time, they’re not doing things to solve the problems that are real.

So if I, for example, have a sink full of dishes, and the sink gets more and more full every day and I’m like, well, I don’t want to deal with those dishes. That sounds miserable, and instead, I use my massage gun, and I’m using the massage gun all the time. The problems are going to get worse, and my mood probably won’t improve. I’ll have a sink overflowing with dishes, they’re going to take over the house if I had enough dishes to do that.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You have to take the action step to lessen the burden because if you don’t get in there and at least put five of the 25 plates in the dishwasher or wash them, 25 becomes 30. Then it becomes too much of a burden. It becomes … You overwhelmed with now what do I do?

Audrea Fink:
This reminds me of a discussion Julie and I were having about self-care, and sometimes self-care is the ugly, uncomfortable things you do like building your budget. Instead of going out and getting that mani-pedi, I am not building my budget. I will be getting the mani and pedi, thank you very much, with my massage gun. Which I highly recommend, it’s on Amazon. My calves have never felt so good.

Julie Holton:
You’re right, though. Self-care looks … It has so many different forms and we have to, I feel like almost on a daily, sometimes an hourly basis, depending on the day, figure out what kind of timeouts we need to give ourselves for self-care because there is so much happening and I want to take a moment.

We’ve talked a lot in general overall about the situations that people are going through, and Reischea, if you don’t mind, I want to focus in a little bit for a moment on the racial injustice and dealing with that because I think that … The reality is for a group of people in our country, this has been an extremely trying time more so than I can understand as a white woman.

Because we have all of these complex traumas happening one on top of the other, just layering on top of the other. So I really would like to, Dorian, get your thoughts on this because I think we have people who, before mid-March, they were dealing with life, but they might have had other issues. We still had issues with kids, we still had issues with work. We had other life issues we were dealing with, and then suddenly mid-March hits, and we have this shutdown that begins. So then from COVID, we just, we’ve had one thing after another in our country happen.

I can only imagine that the emotions that have been building up from the previous traumas are adding to what we’re now experiencing. Then I look at our beautiful co-host, Reischea, this wife, mother of two, who’s now going through COVID, dealing with the school issues, to go to school or not to go to school, and what that looks like, and all of those complex decisions. She said she can’t take black off when she gets up in the morning. It’s always there, nor would she want to. Let’s say that here-

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Let’s say that right now. I am black, and I am proud, dammit.

Julie Holton:
Absolutely. The issues that come with it, however, no one would choose or choose for you. Dorian, I don’t even know how to frame this as a question. I just feel like there are so many traumas adding up and I want to recognize what is happening for some of our listeners, our own Reischea here.

How do we even begin to deal with peeling back these layers and dealing with all of the emotions that come with them?

Dorian Hunter:
Thank you for bringing this up. I have a few clients of color who have had very, very different reactions to what’s happening with the Black Lives Matter movement. Of other people I know, that’s true, too. So it’s not just in a clinical population. People are having very different responses.

What I’ve heard maybe overwhelmingly from my black friends and clients is that this is not new. This is not anything new. This is old, and it’s something that, from my point of view, is a really good thing, the Black Lives Matter movement, because it’s bringing attention to something that has not been attended to the way we would want it to be.

People still look away, people still push it aside, people still say things like all lives matter. I know this is not a political podcast. I will try and keep my rants to myself, but I do think that one of the benefits of COVID is that people are stuck in their houses, and they are reading the news. They are paying attention to what’s happening. People have maybe some more time to be protesting, and, I think it’s been a huge loss in terms of resources for many people, but for many people too, there’s more space to pay attention to what matters. So I think that’s been a beneficial thing.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I agree with that wholeheartedly, because as you said, for black Americans, what’s happening out in the real world isn’t new. People have been talking about it forever. So I’ve had this conversation with my friends, with these beautiful ladies here as well and it’s one of the great aspects that I’ve noticed.

One of my good friends, she was on a walk with her husband, and she said, “My husband and I were walking down the street one day, and just taking a nice little stroll, and he looked at me and he said, ‘I’m wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, and I’m walking with my wife, and there’s not a problem in the world.'” He said, “If my skin were just a little bit darker, someone might throw me a look or be concerned that I’m walking down the street and a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.” That to him was profound because he’d never thought about it before, never entered his mind.

That’s what I think in agreement with you, Dorian with regards to when you are stuck at home and forced to open your eyes and see because you don’t have all of these other things going on. You don’t have this meeting over there and have to take this kid over there or have to go to this thing over there. Your whole schedule is no longer so packed that you don’t have time to breathe. You didn’t have a choice for a long period. Things are slowly coming back into people’s schedules, my own included, but for a good chunk of time there you didn’t have a choice but to sit and see.

For the first time, some individuals were like, “What? This is happening?” We’re sitting there like, “Yeah, this is what we’ve been screaming about.” So finally, the conversation is happening.

The question now becomes, as we come back to what you’ve mentioned, what are the action steps? How do we take that turn and do the things to … We can’t affect the whole world but we can affect our small part of it. So what do we do in our small part of it to make it better, to recognize… yes, we know that all lives matter.

No one ever said all lives didn’t matter. What we were saying is black lives matter too. They are just as important as every other human being here, and once we get people recognizing that instead of the defense of, but all lives matter. Let’s peel that away and recognize that we’re talking about what’s been missing, what has been overlooked. It’s tough stuff, but that’s the other side of it. You have to have an uncomfortable conversation if you want to make it better.

Audrea Fink:
I think that’s the part that makes these conversations so difficult is it’s so easy to shut off that narrative by getting defensive. Well, all lives matter. Okay, why do you feel the need to say that? And I think that’s something that, this is not the main point of our conversation, but I saw this post that talked about you’re not struggling in 2020, because of your home. You’re struggling in 2020 because you’re not distracted and you have to face all the feelings that you have while you’re home.

I think that goes to this topic of black lives matters has been around, it’s not brand new. It’s just getting some publicity now because we all were finally home and stopped to face it. It is so built into us, in our culture, to say I don’t want to open the door to that. I don’t want to look at it. I’m going to get defensive, I’m going to push it back.

There’s this horrible thing happening to a large population of our country, and we’re closing the door on it, and I’m just as guilty as anyone else in doing that. I think we’re finally at this point where we’re like, oh, it’s coming through the door, whether you want it to or not and we have to deal with it.

Some people deal with it by going, “Oh, my God, this is profound and I’m going to try and educate myself and I’m going to get involved.” Some people deal with it by hiding their heads in the sand and some people deal with it by getting defensive. I think this goes back to it’s important to feel your feelings and to recognize them and to think, okay, if my first thought is all lives matter, why? Why is it so hard for me to hear black lives matter? Sit with that, think about it. Why?

Julie Holton:
Yes, and on that personal level to like, by yourself, and ask yourself that question. Instead of debating with whomever on Facebook or wherever you’re arguing about it, sit and ask yourself that.

I think that’s also why it bothers me when people say, “Oh, I don’t watch the news. It’s all bad.” You’re getting your news from somewhere, you’re still getting information. Are you now getting it from Facebook? Are you getting it from Fox News? Are you getting it from CNN? Are you getting it from your neighbor? You’re consuming news from somewhere.

I completely agree Dorian with what you said about balance. We have to balance the negative news that we’re getting and the things we’re taking in, but we can’t just turn it off, or pretend to turn it off and just be distracted with life again.

Dorian Hunter:
I think that’s a really important thing to hold in mind is that there’s this natural response among people to either get invested in horrific things or to turn a blind eye to horrific things. My point of view is that we’re on a public level recognizing horror, and it’s hard to cope with, for any of us. If you’ve lived such a life that you don’t have to face horrific things that happen, this is new. It’s not new for the people who’ve been experiencing the horror for a long time, but it’s new to many people who are not exposed to horrifying things.

So I think part of the conversation has to be about, just as Audrea was saying, why is it that people are being defensive? Why are people turning a blind eye? Why am I am part saying no to something important to look at straight on?

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Have that cup of tea, as Dr. Dorian said.

Dorian Hunter:
Have that cup of tea.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Open the door, have that cup of tea, and get a little uncomfortable. In all honestly, that’s what I try to tell everybody. It’s you need to be uncomfortable. I told them in that quick message … Texted them that turned into a conversation of change. I said, “I have reached a point A long time ago,” and I tell all my friends, “I no longer feel the need to make you comfortable with my discomfort.”

Audrea Fink:
Yes.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
So that’s where I’m at.

Dorian Hunter:
That’s a lesson to teach us.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
So I’m not saying that everybody needs to be all down but you need to recognize there’s a reason that I am uncomfortable. I’ve had conversations with people where I said you don’t understand the amount of accommodation that I’ve given to you. What accommodation? I’m saying, I keep myself on balance all day because I need to make sure that angry black woman is not what’s recognized.

Audrea Fink:
I struggle with this concept so much. I’m so glad you brought it up Reischea. One, I think that angry black woman trope is so overused and so annoying, and I’m sick of hearing it but I also know how pervasive it is. An angry woman is the beginning of it and we just escalate based on darkness skin, even if you haven’t escalated. I think that this idea of not being allowed to make other people uncomfortable is taught to us as part of that subservient nature of moderate yourself.

On the flip side, I also believe that for people to hear you, you have to be able to speak to them in a way that they can hear.

So I think there’s this balance between how do I moderate what I’m saying so that my audience can hear me? If I walk up to someone and start screaming at them, chances are, they’re not going to care about what I’m saying. The flip side is, you can’t just say because someone has shown an iota of emotion that they’re now a hysterical woman or an angry black woman, and also we have every right to our anger as women.

Black women have every right to their anger, but where’s that balance between I want you to hear me because I want you to hear what I have to say, and I’m allowed to be mad. I’m allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to be an angry black woman.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You’re allowed to be angry … We’re allowed to have feelings. We’re allowed to have the same emotions as every other man on this planet. When they’re not, oh, he’s an angry man, and they don’t say that.

Julie Holton:
Well, let’s face it. It’s just an excuse. If you were saying something I don’t want to hear and I choose to then call you an angry black woman, that’s just a way of making it okay, that I’m not listening to you, and it’s not okay.

Audrea Fink:
So many feels on this podcast.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Dorian, protect our mental minds.

Julie Holton:
It’s like we’ve peeled back all these layers like all the rabbit holes are gaping open now. So how do we-

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I’ll just say the minefield. How do we pull it together? How do we-

Julie Holton:
How do we protect our mental health?

Audrea Fink:
And how do we balance struggling with resiliency? Because we are … I mean, this group of women on this podcast today, is a bunch of really strong, smart, articulate, resilient women who are also tired and feeling burnt out and emotionally exhausted and feeling depressed, and, and, and, and…

Dorian Hunter:
So I’ll go back to what I started to talk about before the three Ps and dive into that a little more. On top of that, I think self-compassion is huge. I can’t emphasize it enough.

Audrea Fink:
This is part one of a two-part series podcast with Dr. Dorian Hunter, episode #39. Thank you for listening.

Be sure to check out the next installment of this two-part series wherever you listen to podcasts.