December 9, 2025 • 36 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. I am thrilled today for
this episode to have someone who is dedicated and has
just been making such great strides in the Washington state area.
(00:26):
She is a therapist and she is also the founder
of the Therapy Fund Foundation. So I encourage you just
to keep listening for this episode of coming up next
on Checking In with Michelle Williams. Hello, everybody, Welcome to
Checking In. Okay, I'm excited because y'all know, I've been
(00:49):
doing lots of solo episodes, which are great. But when
I bring somebody in in the chat with family, you
know they are doing something and I believe that they
have something incredible to share it. I am so glad, y'all.
Seattle's own she is a licensed therapist, a teedex speaker,
(01:10):
founder of the Therapy Fund Foundation, which is a nonprofit
dedicating to eliminating mental health stigma and being a bridge
to getting mental health care in black communities. She's also
got a new book coming out, The Cost of Healing
in Silence, Navigating Racial Trauma and the call for culturally
(01:31):
responsive care. Y'all give it up. Against Seattle's own Ashley
mcgert adair.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I'm truly, truly, truly humbled and honored to be here
with you, of all people.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Girl, Yes any time. We have been checking in for
five years on the Black Effect Podcast Network, and I
bring in some of the best of the best in
mental health and we know that you are one of
them because of the great work that you're doing in
the community, specifically you've chosen the black community. Give us
(02:08):
a deep dive into why, specifically our community.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, and I love that you've been doing this for
five years because we just celebrated our five year anniversary yesterday.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Congratulations you.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
It was so exciting to just be together with community.
We don't always get to see everybody working virtually all over.
But the reason why I started doing this work was
because of the loss of my grandmother who raised me,
and my grief turned into major depression, suicidal ideation, and
(02:43):
I just kept hearing just pray, just pray when I
sought out help, and I felt like, I mean, I
love God and prayer, but all of those things were
not helping me to get to where I needed to be.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I needed to actually do the work.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And so when I did try to do the work,
I seen one of the school counselors. I was living
in a predominantly white neighborhood at that time, and so
I saw a white counselor who didn't understand the role
of grandmother and black families. So I was nine years
old educating a grown adult on race relations in America.
(03:18):
And I never really got the help that I needed
in my youth, and I'm like, there's got to be
another way.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So I really just.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Started studying psychology social work in an effort to really
help myself and heal my own depression. And I knew
that there were other people who looked like me who
were sitting in a dark corner and felt like they
didn't have any help or anyone who could relate to them.
And I'm like, if when we go to therapy, we're
(03:45):
spending our time educating the very person who's supposed to
help us, how is that going.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
To help us get to the healing that we need.
Or when we look at.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
The history of harm that's occurred in our communities from
the medical apartment, tied misdiagnosis and over diagnosis of black communities.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Whoa, whoa, Yes, misdiagnosis over diagnosis. Okay, let's put a
pin in that, because I want to go back to
you saying this all started when you were in deep
grief and that turned into depression. How do you know
(04:31):
when it's depression?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, the DSM will say, once you have a set
of symptoms that occur for six months or longer.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
How did I know?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
As a child, I didn't want to live, I didn't
want to go to school, I didn't want to get
out of bed, but I put on the.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Brave face straight a student smiled.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Recently, one of my childhood classmates actually sent me a
photo of myself and I was smiling so hard, absurdly hard,
and he's like, you were always so happy, and I
was like, I was putting on that face that I
needed to look happy when inside I was really hurting,
and that picture show like if you see it, my
(05:15):
eyes were closed and the other kids were around me,
but nobody was smiling like me, and it was like
I was forcing myself to look that way. And he
was just in such a shock that that was my
experience during my youth because he'd been in my classes,
grew up with me and didn't know that I was
experiencing any of these things in my life.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
At nine years old. Did you know the word You
knew the word depression.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I don't know if I knew the word depression.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I knew that I was sad, I was angry, I
was upset with my family, with society. So my grandmother,
she experienced a stroke. She was sent home with a
brain bleed. And recently Jamie Fox told the same story
on his stand up What had happened was and it
(06:07):
was interesting that the same thing that happened to my
grandmother happened to Jamie Fox.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
But he survived.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
He's got his celebrity and his family that advocated for him.
And I'm like, they're still treating black folks in this
way still.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
So unfortunately, my.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Grandmother was sent home really to die. She was found
a couple days later, went to the hospital. She was
ninety pounds, really frail, tiny, She needed tube feeding, and
they incorrectly placed the tube feeding and the two feeding leaked.
And so it was a result of systemic racism and
(06:44):
the way that she was treated as a black woman.
And I think about all of the stress that she
had and that she was compiled with during that time,
raising her grandchildren, living in a community that was really
left behind, you know, devastating conditions. There were liquor stores
on every corner, and I often wonder would my grandmother
(07:07):
still be here today if instead of liquor stores on
every corner, they were community centers, there were mental health agencies,
there were people to help them, and the community.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Lived before she died.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Now through gentrification that there's sky rises where the crack
houses used to be.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
It's built up and you don't see people who look like.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And I actually went to her old home not too
long ago, as I've been writing my book. Her block
is still pretty much the same, and the family that
lives in her home they.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Invited me in. They were like, what are you doing
over here?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I was dressed up because I was going to an event,
so I didn't really look like I belonged in that neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And I was like, my grandma actually used to live there,
and they were.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Like, really for real, And so they opened the door
and small, very small place. As soon as they opened it,
I kid you not, I saw a mirror into my
own life, and it looks like my family, the Aunties,
the uncles, the kids, all of these people in this
very tiny space. They put some stainless still appliances in there,
(08:18):
remodeled it a little bit, but it still looks the same.
And so that's why I do this work for families
like them, families like mine, so we can heal out loud.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Mm hmm. How has it been received. Is there a
lot of pushback or are people open, like, you know what,
we could use the help, or is there we don't
need no help?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
In his family, my family is interesting, so they love
mental health and they love the work that I'm doing.
My mom's a registered nurse, and we have open conversations.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
But it's still a pushback.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
It's still very much just pray, I'm gonna go to therapy,
I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it, but are
you actually doing it? So there's a little bit of
pushback in my family and the community. Overall, I am
seeing more of an openness, especially with the pandemic, because
I felt like we all experience some form of loss.
(09:21):
We all grieve something, whether it was just the loss
of going to your favorite movie theater or gym, or
the loss of a life. Unfortunately, and then people were like, Okay,
this mental health thing might be real because you know,
you can't see it like you could see a broken arm.
But once you experience it, then you're more open to it.
(09:42):
Even though all of us have mental health, and one
in five of us has a mental illness and we
don't like to talk about the one in five, and
there's so many of us, even myself, when I share
my story with depression and suicidal ideation, people are always
just shocked, pauled and they can't believe it. And so
(10:03):
that you know, I want people to know that you're
not alone, and these things do happen, and we can't
get through life, but we can't do it in isolation.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
And even way back at first of all, thank you
for sharing that. It's brought up so much, and as
I'm trying to do active listening, I think there's another
miss undiagnosed part in me that's also going down a
rabbit hole too. But I'm curious because at nine years old,
(10:33):
because I feel you're talking about me too. At that age,
I didn't know it was depression, but now I don't
even think it's a it's an official term. But we
were high functioning back then. For those listening, there has
(10:55):
been this term called high functioning depression, especially when you
have something every day that you can do, school work,
you're a public figure and you know how to show
up and turn it on. But you still have but
there's still are other symptoms of depression. Maybe when you
go home and go debate, it's still hard for you
to get up, but you know how to get up. Somehow,
(11:16):
you get up, go to school, put the face on.
But when I'm trying to say, even at that age
of nine years old, you learned how to put on
a mask.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yes, you learn to perform wellness, and it's a learned behavior.
It's really passed down from generations. And as I started
doing a deep dive into this work, which is why
I specialize in racial trauma, the impact that racism has
on our mental health, you know, started looking at how
(11:50):
through slavery we weren't allowed to cry or to be sad.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
We would literally be beats.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
And then fast forward slavery and we tell our children
shut up or I'll give you something to cry about.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Wow, that now that you say that, that takes me
back to when they were probably being beat in the field.
Shut up or I'll give you something to cry about.
You talk about how certain mental health issues weren't only
(12:28):
a psychological wound, but you're talking about a cultural inheritance.
I can hear that as you're talking to as you're
talking about way back. You know what, our ancestors, maybe
our great grandparents, great great We're not too far removed.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Not at all.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
People think that it was so long ago. We actually
were enslaved longer than we've been free. So we haven't
even been free when you look at what was in
eighteen sixty five when the Emancipation Aclamation was signed. And
then he still got to think about the folks who
didn't even know that they were free.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Come on, Ashley, come on, and still still carry out.
We still carry that. I was I was even watching something,
a video that had surfaced and it had something to
do It was literally domestic violence. This young man was
(13:26):
telling this girl, you're not going to get an order
on me, or you're not going to divorce me, because
I will. And he put a weapon to her head
and was like and I was like, these are our
black men. Yeah, a black woman. The cycles of where
(13:48):
did that come from? And I was just I was
like can that be helped. I know we kind of
made a pay because we're now it's shifting to domestic violence,
but just violence period. I refuse to believe that we
were destined to be a people to inflict harm intentionally.
(14:14):
I believe if we were cornered and had to defend
ourselves or to get food in the in the to
get you know, you you're going to get that fish,
You're going to put that steak in the fish, You're
gonna do. But to like, I just don't believe that
as a people that we were intended to inflict intentional
harm on someone.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I don't believe that either if something that you know
has been taught and passed down from generation to generation
and we haven't been shown another way, which is where
my work in our seeds to come in and stop
stop the harm that's been happening in our communities so
that we can come together, because this isn't how we
(14:56):
were before.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It's something happened between.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Happen that you know, migration period, American shadow slavery, colonization
where violence just started to spew.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Within our communities.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
And then there's the mistaken belief you know about black
on black crime. And all of these things, but you
harm the person that's closest to you.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
The same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Within white communities, it's just nobody talks about white on
white crime. But when we look at how violence is
perpetuated through our communities, through our DNA, through our children's lives,
and how do we break that barrier, there's this internalized
rage that we haven't been able to really process through.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I wanted to also ask a question, especially for our listeners,
everything that we've been seeing with the current administration, food
disparities that will typically affect low income are I can
(16:04):
even imagine even talking to someone at my hometown church
in Rockford, Illinois, what is the need there? Because my
church is in the center of a black and brown community.
What are your thoughts on the current administration in black
people's mental health.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
It's devastating, the loss of benefits, the removal of diversity, equity,
and inclusion. It's a blatant attack on us. And really
it's the work that I do around racialized trauma, and
so I'm trying to help communities heal. But then when
we look at racism, that's something that's still going to
(16:42):
be here tomorrow unless there's some miracle or act of God.
So I'm really focused on the policies that help enforce
white supremacists, and when we have policies and people that
are putting things in place that impact you know, can
I feed my family? Can I afford therapy or keep
my lights on? Do I pay rent? Do I get
(17:05):
therapy from my child or for myself. I just had
a conversation with a woman yesterday who had to stop
having therapy, her own individual therapy because she wanted to
ensure that her son could have therapy. But through our foundation,
we provide through therapy for black people, and I was like,
you don't have to choose anymore because we got you.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Nope, I was going to say, y'all, if you guys
can go, and I'm going to get into that the
Therapy Fund. What I loved about her website is there
is a tap that says find a therapist, and then
a few our tabs down there is a link for
providers and maybe a thing where we can actually donate.
(17:47):
So that so if you have some dollars left to
the side, you know, you can donate to food pantries,
but consider her, consider donating to the Therapy Fund because
it is helping people, like she said, who normally could
pay for their own sessions, who are like Yo, we
need groceries for the week, so I'm gonna have to
forfeit something that is also necessary. Your therapy is so necessary,
(18:13):
it's not. Yes, it can be about processing trauma, but
it's not always doom and gloom. You can also process
a transition. Maybe you got to move to a different state.
That can be traumatic. I guess what I'm trying to
say is processing trauma isn't about this is a trigger warning,
(18:34):
because it's not just about blood and guts. It's not
just about a bunch of harm inflicted on you. It
could also be trauma that you saw. So I just
want to encourage people like Yo, just just try it.
You might have to try a therapist or two or
(18:55):
three before you don't act like you ain't dated multiple
people before or you found out which one was gonna
be the person that you chose.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I'm so glad you said that. Yes, like dating, it's
a relationship.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah, Listens, one therapist isn't right for you, don't give
up on the process. Listen.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yes, So the Therapy Fund Foundation, you guys, is based
in Seattle, Washington, but they are trying out a pilot
program in San Diego, California, with the hopes of planting
various therapy fund foundations all across the country. By the way,
I know it's gonna happen. I can't wait for the
(19:37):
day to seed in Illinois and Georgia, New York City.
These are three states that I live or I was
born and raised in Illinois. So let's go.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Let's go everywhere. Butna be like Comania Oprah. You get
a therapist, you get a therapist, we all.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Get I promise you it's okay. In full trans parentcy
Me and Ashley's session was supposed to be at one
o'clock today, I requested, can we move it to one thirty?
Y'all want to know why I had a therapy session
at noon which lasted an hour from twelve to and
(20:16):
I'm gonna get my full sixty minutes. Yes, And I
wanted to be able to decompress and make sure I
had all my notes ready for me and Ashley's podcast recording.
So y'all, yes, you might see us doing our thing,
but we still sit in that seat for sixty minutes
(20:37):
when we you know, at for me right now, it's
just been as necessary. But y'all, I absolutely love it.
I know my therapist be looking at me. Why are
you coming in here with joy? Because I'm ready to unpack.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yes, even me as a therapist, I have my own therapist,
and I think it's so important that we all have
someone with a non biased perspective, even if it's just
to talk about the normal day to day stressors of life,
like we are all experienced.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Talk about it, talk about it, even the therapist. How's
a therapist. Yes, sometimes the coach also needs a coach.
So I'm really excited you guys. I am going to
tell you where you can find Ashley and if you
(21:29):
are in the Seattle, Washington area, how you can support
or benefit from her organization called the Therapy Fund Foundation.
I love, of course black women. We're nurturers, so I'm
not surprised that a black woman has the Therapy Fund
Foundation and how she has chosen to focus on trying
(21:54):
right now currently eliminating the stigma that surrounds mental health
in our community and eliminating the barriers to even getting care.
She also has a book coming out that we can
pre order right now, called The cost of healing in silence,
navigating racial trauma and the call for culturally responsive care.
(22:19):
She's quoted saying silence may feel safe, but it comes
at a cost. Silence carries a cost. I'm like, give
you the floor for that.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Thank you, Thank you so much. It's really been a
labor of love. I wrote this book from myself. A
lot of the things that I do. I became a
therapist because there wasn't a therapist available when I needed one.
Most as I was reading the trauma books, I didn't
see myself in these trauma informed books. They say that
they're trauma informed, but they're written from a westerniz's lens.
(22:59):
They're not talking about the Kenneth and Mammy Clarks who
are known for the Doll studies. They're not talking about
the doctor Joy D. Gruz, whose research is pivotal around
post traumatic slave syndrome. So this book is really written
for Black individuals and communities who've been expected to endure
and persevere and to always be strong, you know, even
(23:21):
in the face of racial violence, and who've been taught
that we can't share our stories, that we have to
be in a dark corner. That's why it's called the
cost of healing in silence, because I want us to
heal out loud and for us to get rid of
the shame and the stigma and the guilt and all
of this that has really been built around mental health,
(23:43):
and it's also for the healers, for those of us
who are doing this work. I went to one of
the top universities in my field, and they did not
teach me how to care for people who looked like you,
and I I had to do a extra work, need
a lot of extra books because I wanted to be
able to show up for my communities and not take
(24:06):
psychodynamic theories which was created by Sigmund Freud who worked
with white women. How do I take these theories and
apply them to black communities? Looking at pH Or Watson,
the so called named forefathers of psychology, and it really
doesn't bring into play indigenous practices, African centered practices, the
(24:29):
ways in which our people have always healed ourselves outside
of the psychological field, and what that looks like.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Listen, we have always healed ourselves, even if that included
drinking ginger real.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Listen, I will live and die by Gingerrel. I don't
care Gingerrell and Vicks. Get a little vixpaper up. I'm heills.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Now.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
If you depressed, drink gingerrel and get a therapy.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
In fact, take gingerrel in the session with you. You
are allowed to drink a beverage in a session. I
love how in your book you give practical frameworks for
healing individually and collectively, because some people might think practical
means you can do it. Yes, it might be hard,
(25:23):
but practical just means oh, I can just pick this
up and do it. I can. You know you can do.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
It absolutely, just you know, setting aside the time, a
lot of the tools. A matter of fact, all of
the tools that I put in the book costs nothing,
just a little bit of time. You don't need money.
It's setting aside and prioritizing self so that you can
pour from your overflow and that you're not pouring from
(25:50):
an empty cup if you just take five, ten, fifteen
minutes out of your day to really prioritize yourself and
take care of you, because, especially as people of color,
were caretakers and were always giving and giving and nurturing
others to the point where depleted. And my work is
(26:10):
inspired by my grandmother who gave and gave and gave.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And it killed her way too early.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
She experienced a stroke, and the leading cause of stroke
is stress. My grandmother was extremely stressed out and she
never said no. And when I look at the things
that she implemented in her life, I wonder always would
she still be here today if she said no, if
she had a sound mental health therapist, if she had
(26:40):
more support as opposed to people coming to her taking
wanting and you know, she did it effortlessly. She didn't
ask for anything. You needed her to watch her children, feed, cook,
she would give you the cold off her back, anything,
And unfortunately it led to her demise because she wasn't
caring for herself and pouring from her overflow.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Now that you have the tools, can you look back
to see why she didn't say no.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I think a lot of it was probably out of obligation.
A lot of the people she helped.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Was her children. She was raising us.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Unfortunately, you know, growing up in the nineties. I was
born in the late eighties, just a product of the
crack epidemic, which is now a public health crisis. And
so when I look at my life, I'm like I
was born into a public health crisis, but it was
labeled as such. And now the way that we're treating
the opioid crisis, what if those families who were impacted
(27:42):
by the crack epidemic had all of the resources and
the support that we now have to those impacted by
the opioid crisis, but two different outcomes, one predominantly black community,
one predominantly white that gets the resource, gets the help.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
That isn't incarce.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
You know, just look at the devastating implications of mass
incarceration on black families. Well for their claws that prevented
black men from being in the home. You couldn't get
the benefits if there was a man in the home. Yeah,
all of these things and the myth and the mistaken
ideology that you know, we're the welfare queens when we
(28:22):
know who predominantly is on these benefits. While we are
recipients of them, it's not at the high numbers that
other communities received them.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
So I think she just didn't have the language or
the tools, and she felt that she was doing a
good thing, and that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Oftentimes we don't know how to articulate the thing, and
she wasn't shown how to do that.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I promise you today. I don't know if you do
the same thing. But there's a family member I'm sure
I get on their nerves that I had that I'm like,
why are you doing you can say? You know you
can say no, And I'm like, you're perpetuating the behavior
for the next generation, like you know you can say no.
(29:12):
And because I'm gonna tell you that when I've said no,
who I've had to say no to figured it out?
And then you're not abandoning people. I'm not leaving someone
in the cold in a car homeless. You and I
(29:36):
clap for them when they figured it out, like you're okay,
you didn't need me, or you can clap saying it
was a gift to say no. It's a gift to
the other person. It is a gift to say no,
because now I feel like you're teaching them. I can
(29:59):
figure it out. Although Big Mama was such a safe place, Mama,
if Big Mama wasn't cooking the pound cake, I didn't
want it.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Listen, listen.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
I always pay the big mamas, the barbers, the hairstylists,
because they were holding space for our communities when we
couldn't get to a therapist.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
And so true.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
They were the healers and they may not have had
the credentials that I have, but they were doing the
work on the ground. And there's still people who will
tell me today I need a therapist.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I'm gonna get my hair done. I'm gonna talk to
my stylists.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Poor stylists, and they got their own problems, yes.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
The man, and they're carrying all of that.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Speaking of out of this has nothing to do with
this talk. But you know, there are some stylists who
have like an option of like a islent option where
if y'all don't have to talk, you don't no one
will be offended.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Ooh, I sign me up. I'll be telling my stylists.
I'm like, I want to sit in silence. I talk
all day for a living.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
So we're gonna say you talk all day for a living,
or the stylist might need some solitude, but you're gonna
get a bomb trim, you know. Even though, and then
too for you, if people find out you're a therapist,
you end up doing free sessions, don't you, or have
you or have you learned a boundary?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
It's it's a balance.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I swear as soon as they find out, they're gonna
tell me the whole life story.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
And you're gonna be like, you know, you can go
to dostifhilling dot com or actually, but girt a there
no ashleyburgirt dot com is where y'all can go, Yesney.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
The funny part is when I'm having these conversations, they're
telling me all of this trauma dumping and telling me
how they don't need a therapist.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Okay, talk about I've heard seen this term trauma dumping,
and I'm gonna let you go because you know, you
keep saying stuff I can think of questions trauma dumping.
By the way, y'all, we have talked about the importance
of needing therapy, we've talked about the importance of it
in our black community, and we've talked about having a
(32:26):
safe place to share this, but at some point it
is called trauma dumping.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
And trauma dumping is really when you just overshare something
very painful, something heavy, You don't prepare someone and you
just go straight into it. So this happened during my childhood.
This just happened to me. And you are not even
asking the person if they are in a space to
(32:54):
receive and to hear and to hold what it is
that you're carrying, and it's oftentimes a really unexpected release
and you're just going well.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
But like girl, we was supposed to be going for
macha and a croissant and then it turned into thoughts
and prayers.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
So when be Thow did this, my husband and all
this happened, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
And we don't realize that, yo. We you can ask, hey, uh,
do you I need to share something with you? But
I just want to make sure you can hand you
are okay with what I'm gonna share, you know, And
I've done that, but I'm trying not to use as
they say, like therapy speak in relationships. But it's okay.
(33:46):
So anyway, y'all, we've talked about a lot and I
am so glad that I got to talk to you today.
You guys can find her at Ashleymagirt dot com or
her new book, The Cost of Healing dot com. I'm
very excited about it. When does that book come out?
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Sometimes on March thirtieth.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Is okay, So between now and then, you guys can
find her on Instagram as well at Therapy with Ash,
Therapy with Ash and y'all. I hope that this inspires
you to Some of you guys probably find yourselves being
a healer. There's a degree for it. You about can
(34:26):
get some coin for it. But I love Ashley's mission
and she really has a heart buy it because it
was something that she was She was affected by this
at the young age of nine years old. Ashley, thank
you so much for your time today.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Okay, we'll see you again. You are welcome to checking
in anytime, even in March when the book comes out.
Matter of fact, I'm like, come.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
On back, Yes, yes, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Come on back, because I know that you have you
will mate even some more more headway between now in
March of twenty twenty six. So we'll see you again
next year.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Thank you. Excited to be back.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
All right, y'all. I think what has spoken out to
me was the term, you know, silence feels safe, but
silence does carry a cost. I hope this inspired you
to continue to doing the work and encourage your loved
ones to do the work. All Right, I love you, guys,
(35:33):
and talk soon. Checking In with Michelle Williams is a
(36:30):
production of iHeartRadio and the black effect. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. I am thrilled today for
this episode to have someone who is dedicated and has
just been making such great strides in the Washington state area.
(00:26):
She is a therapist and she is also the founder
of the Therapy Fund Foundation. So I encourage you just
to keep listening for this episode of coming up next
on Checking In with Michelle Williams. Hello, everybody, Welcome to
Checking In. Okay, I'm excited because y'all know, I've been
(00:49):
doing lots of solo episodes, which are great. But when
I bring somebody in in the chat with family, you
know they are doing something and I believe that they
have something incredible to share it. I am so glad, y'all.
Seattle's own she is a licensed therapist, a teedex speaker,
(01:10):
founder of the Therapy Fund Foundation, which is a nonprofit
dedicating to eliminating mental health stigma and being a bridge
to getting mental health care in black communities. She's also
got a new book coming out, The Cost of Healing
in Silence, Navigating Racial Trauma and the call for culturally
(01:31):
responsive care. Y'all give it up. Against Seattle's own Ashley
mcgert adair.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I'm truly, truly, truly humbled and honored to be here
with you, of all people.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Girl, Yes any time. We have been checking in for
five years on the Black Effect Podcast Network, and I
bring in some of the best of the best in
mental health and we know that you are one of
them because of the great work that you're doing in
the community, specifically you've chosen the black community. Give us
(02:08):
a deep dive into why, specifically our community.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, and I love that you've been doing this for
five years because we just celebrated our five year anniversary yesterday.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Congratulations you.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
It was so exciting to just be together with community.
We don't always get to see everybody working virtually all over.
But the reason why I started doing this work was
because of the loss of my grandmother who raised me,
and my grief turned into major depression, suicidal ideation, and
(02:43):
I just kept hearing just pray, just pray when I
sought out help, and I felt like, I mean, I
love God and prayer, but all of those things were
not helping me to get to where I needed to be.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I needed to actually do the work.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And so when I did try to do the work,
I seen one of the school counselors. I was living
in a predominantly white neighborhood at that time, and so
I saw a white counselor who didn't understand the role
of grandmother and black families. So I was nine years
old educating a grown adult on race relations in America.
(03:18):
And I never really got the help that I needed
in my youth, and I'm like, there's got to be
another way.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So I really just.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Started studying psychology social work in an effort to really
help myself and heal my own depression. And I knew
that there were other people who looked like me who
were sitting in a dark corner and felt like they
didn't have any help or anyone who could relate to them.
And I'm like, if when we go to therapy, we're
(03:45):
spending our time educating the very person who's supposed to
help us, how is that going.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
To help us get to the healing that we need.
Or when we look at.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
The history of harm that's occurred in our communities from
the medical apartment, tied misdiagnosis and over diagnosis of black communities.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Whoa, whoa, Yes, misdiagnosis over diagnosis. Okay, let's put a
pin in that, because I want to go back to
you saying this all started when you were in deep
grief and that turned into depression. How do you know
(04:31):
when it's depression?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, the DSM will say, once you have a set
of symptoms that occur for six months or longer.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
How did I know?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
As a child, I didn't want to live, I didn't
want to go to school, I didn't want to get
out of bed, but I put on the.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Brave face straight a student smiled.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Recently, one of my childhood classmates actually sent me a
photo of myself and I was smiling so hard, absurdly hard,
and he's like, you were always so happy, and I
was like, I was putting on that face that I
needed to look happy when inside I was really hurting,
and that picture show like if you see it, my
(05:15):
eyes were closed and the other kids were around me,
but nobody was smiling like me, and it was like
I was forcing myself to look that way. And he
was just in such a shock that that was my
experience during my youth because he'd been in my classes,
grew up with me and didn't know that I was
experiencing any of these things in my life.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
At nine years old. Did you know the word You
knew the word depression.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I don't know if I knew the word depression.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I knew that I was sad, I was angry, I
was upset with my family, with society. So my grandmother,
she experienced a stroke. She was sent home with a
brain bleed. And recently Jamie Fox told the same story
on his stand up What had happened was and it
(06:07):
was interesting that the same thing that happened to my
grandmother happened to Jamie Fox.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
But he survived.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
He's got his celebrity and his family that advocated for him.
And I'm like, they're still treating black folks in this
way still.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
So unfortunately, my.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Grandmother was sent home really to die. She was found
a couple days later, went to the hospital. She was
ninety pounds, really frail, tiny, She needed tube feeding, and
they incorrectly placed the tube feeding and the two feeding leaked.
And so it was a result of systemic racism and
(06:44):
the way that she was treated as a black woman.
And I think about all of the stress that she
had and that she was compiled with during that time,
raising her grandchildren, living in a community that was really
left behind, you know, devastating conditions. There were liquor stores
on every corner, and I often wonder would my grandmother
(07:07):
still be here today if instead of liquor stores on
every corner, they were community centers, there were mental health agencies,
there were people to help them, and the community.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Lived before she died.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Now through gentrification that there's sky rises where the crack
houses used to be.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
It's built up and you don't see people who look like.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And I actually went to her old home not too
long ago, as I've been writing my book. Her block
is still pretty much the same, and the family that
lives in her home they.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Invited me in. They were like, what are you doing
over here?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I was dressed up because I was going to an event,
so I didn't really look like I belonged in that neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And I was like, my grandma actually used to live there,
and they were.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Like, really for real, And so they opened the door
and small, very small place. As soon as they opened it,
I kid you not, I saw a mirror into my
own life, and it looks like my family, the Aunties,
the uncles, the kids, all of these people in this
very tiny space. They put some stainless still appliances in there,
(08:18):
remodeled it a little bit, but it still looks the same.
And so that's why I do this work for families
like them, families like mine, so we can heal out loud.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Mm hmm. How has it been received. Is there a
lot of pushback or are people open, like, you know what,
we could use the help, or is there we don't
need no help?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
In his family, my family is interesting, so they love
mental health and they love the work that I'm doing.
My mom's a registered nurse, and we have open conversations.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
But it's still a pushback.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
It's still very much just pray, I'm gonna go to therapy,
I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it, but are
you actually doing it? So there's a little bit of
pushback in my family and the community. Overall, I am
seeing more of an openness, especially with the pandemic, because
I felt like we all experience some form of loss.
(09:21):
We all grieve something, whether it was just the loss
of going to your favorite movie theater or gym, or
the loss of a life. Unfortunately, and then people were like, Okay,
this mental health thing might be real because you know,
you can't see it like you could see a broken arm.
But once you experience it, then you're more open to it.
(09:42):
Even though all of us have mental health, and one
in five of us has a mental illness and we
don't like to talk about the one in five, and
there's so many of us, even myself, when I share
my story with depression and suicidal ideation, people are always
just shocked, pauled and they can't believe it. And so
(10:03):
that you know, I want people to know that you're
not alone, and these things do happen, and we can't
get through life, but we can't do it in isolation.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
And even way back at first of all, thank you
for sharing that. It's brought up so much, and as
I'm trying to do active listening, I think there's another
miss undiagnosed part in me that's also going down a
rabbit hole too. But I'm curious because at nine years old,
(10:33):
because I feel you're talking about me too. At that age,
I didn't know it was depression, but now I don't
even think it's a it's an official term. But we
were high functioning back then. For those listening, there has
(10:55):
been this term called high functioning depression, especially when you
have something every day that you can do, school work,
you're a public figure and you know how to show
up and turn it on. But you still have but
there's still are other symptoms of depression. Maybe when you
go home and go debate, it's still hard for you
to get up, but you know how to get up. Somehow,
(11:16):
you get up, go to school, put the face on.
But when I'm trying to say, even at that age
of nine years old, you learned how to put on
a mask.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yes, you learn to perform wellness, and it's a learned behavior.
It's really passed down from generations. And as I started
doing a deep dive into this work, which is why
I specialize in racial trauma, the impact that racism has
on our mental health, you know, started looking at how
(11:50):
through slavery we weren't allowed to cry or to be sad.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
We would literally be beats.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
And then fast forward slavery and we tell our children
shut up or I'll give you something to cry about.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Wow, that now that you say that, that takes me
back to when they were probably being beat in the field.
Shut up or I'll give you something to cry about.
You talk about how certain mental health issues weren't only
(12:28):
a psychological wound, but you're talking about a cultural inheritance.
I can hear that as you're talking to as you're
talking about way back. You know what, our ancestors, maybe
our great grandparents, great great We're not too far removed.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Not at all.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
People think that it was so long ago. We actually
were enslaved longer than we've been free. So we haven't
even been free when you look at what was in
eighteen sixty five when the Emancipation Aclamation was signed. And
then he still got to think about the folks who
didn't even know that they were free.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Come on, Ashley, come on, and still still carry out.
We still carry that. I was I was even watching something,
a video that had surfaced and it had something to
do It was literally domestic violence. This young man was
(13:26):
telling this girl, you're not going to get an order
on me, or you're not going to divorce me, because
I will. And he put a weapon to her head
and was like and I was like, these are our
black men. Yeah, a black woman. The cycles of where
(13:48):
did that come from? And I was just I was
like can that be helped. I know we kind of
made a pay because we're now it's shifting to domestic violence,
but just violence period. I refuse to believe that we
were destined to be a people to inflict harm intentionally.
(14:14):
I believe if we were cornered and had to defend
ourselves or to get food in the in the to
get you know, you you're going to get that fish,
You're going to put that steak in the fish, You're
gonna do. But to like, I just don't believe that
as a people that we were intended to inflict intentional
harm on someone.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I don't believe that either if something that you know
has been taught and passed down from generation to generation
and we haven't been shown another way, which is where
my work in our seeds to come in and stop
stop the harm that's been happening in our communities so
that we can come together, because this isn't how we
(14:56):
were before.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It's something happened between.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Happen that you know, migration period, American shadow slavery, colonization
where violence just started to spew.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Within our communities.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
And then there's the mistaken belief you know about black
on black crime. And all of these things, but you
harm the person that's closest to you.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
The same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Within white communities, it's just nobody talks about white on
white crime. But when we look at how violence is
perpetuated through our communities, through our DNA, through our children's lives,
and how do we break that barrier, there's this internalized
rage that we haven't been able to really process through.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I wanted to also ask a question, especially for our listeners,
everything that we've been seeing with the current administration, food
disparities that will typically affect low income are I can
(16:04):
even imagine even talking to someone at my hometown church
in Rockford, Illinois, what is the need there? Because my
church is in the center of a black and brown community.
What are your thoughts on the current administration in black
people's mental health.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
It's devastating, the loss of benefits, the removal of diversity, equity,
and inclusion. It's a blatant attack on us. And really
it's the work that I do around racialized trauma, and
so I'm trying to help communities heal. But then when
we look at racism, that's something that's still going to
(16:42):
be here tomorrow unless there's some miracle or act of God.
So I'm really focused on the policies that help enforce
white supremacists, and when we have policies and people that
are putting things in place that impact you know, can
I feed my family? Can I afford therapy or keep
my lights on? Do I pay rent? Do I get
(17:05):
therapy from my child or for myself. I just had
a conversation with a woman yesterday who had to stop
having therapy, her own individual therapy because she wanted to
ensure that her son could have therapy. But through our foundation,
we provide through therapy for black people, and I was like,
you don't have to choose anymore because we got you.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Nope, I was going to say, y'all, if you guys
can go, and I'm going to get into that the
Therapy Fund. What I loved about her website is there
is a tap that says find a therapist, and then
a few our tabs down there is a link for
providers and maybe a thing where we can actually donate.
(17:47):
So that so if you have some dollars left to
the side, you know, you can donate to food pantries,
but consider her, consider donating to the Therapy Fund because
it is helping people, like she said, who normally could
pay for their own sessions, who are like Yo, we
need groceries for the week, so I'm gonna have to
forfeit something that is also necessary. Your therapy is so necessary,
(18:13):
it's not. Yes, it can be about processing trauma, but
it's not always doom and gloom. You can also process
a transition. Maybe you got to move to a different state.
That can be traumatic. I guess what I'm trying to
say is processing trauma isn't about this is a trigger warning,
(18:34):
because it's not just about blood and guts. It's not
just about a bunch of harm inflicted on you. It
could also be trauma that you saw. So I just
want to encourage people like Yo, just just try it.
You might have to try a therapist or two or
(18:55):
three before you don't act like you ain't dated multiple
people before or you found out which one was gonna
be the person that you chose.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I'm so glad you said that. Yes, like dating, it's
a relationship.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah, Listens, one therapist isn't right for you, don't give
up on the process. Listen.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yes, So the Therapy Fund Foundation, you guys, is based
in Seattle, Washington, but they are trying out a pilot
program in San Diego, California, with the hopes of planting
various therapy fund foundations all across the country. By the way,
I know it's gonna happen. I can't wait for the
(19:37):
day to seed in Illinois and Georgia, New York City.
These are three states that I live or I was
born and raised in Illinois. So let's go.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Let's go everywhere. Butna be like Comania Oprah. You get
a therapist, you get a therapist, we all.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Get I promise you it's okay. In full trans parentcy
Me and Ashley's session was supposed to be at one
o'clock today, I requested, can we move it to one thirty?
Y'all want to know why I had a therapy session
at noon which lasted an hour from twelve to and
(20:16):
I'm gonna get my full sixty minutes. Yes, And I
wanted to be able to decompress and make sure I
had all my notes ready for me and Ashley's podcast recording.
So y'all, yes, you might see us doing our thing,
but we still sit in that seat for sixty minutes
(20:37):
when we you know, at for me right now, it's
just been as necessary. But y'all, I absolutely love it.
I know my therapist be looking at me. Why are
you coming in here with joy? Because I'm ready to unpack.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yes, even me as a therapist, I have my own therapist,
and I think it's so important that we all have
someone with a non biased perspective, even if it's just
to talk about the normal day to day stressors of life,
like we are all experienced.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Talk about it, talk about it, even the therapist. How's
a therapist. Yes, sometimes the coach also needs a coach.
So I'm really excited you guys. I am going to
tell you where you can find Ashley and if you
(21:29):
are in the Seattle, Washington area, how you can support
or benefit from her organization called the Therapy Fund Foundation.
I love, of course black women. We're nurturers, so I'm
not surprised that a black woman has the Therapy Fund
Foundation and how she has chosen to focus on trying
(21:54):
right now currently eliminating the stigma that surrounds mental health
in our community and eliminating the barriers to even getting care.
She also has a book coming out that we can
pre order right now, called The cost of healing in silence,
navigating racial trauma and the call for culturally responsive care.
(22:19):
She's quoted saying silence may feel safe, but it comes
at a cost. Silence carries a cost. I'm like, give
you the floor for that.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Thank you, Thank you so much. It's really been a
labor of love. I wrote this book from myself. A
lot of the things that I do. I became a
therapist because there wasn't a therapist available when I needed one.
Most as I was reading the trauma books, I didn't
see myself in these trauma informed books. They say that
they're trauma informed, but they're written from a westerniz's lens.
(22:59):
They're not talking about the Kenneth and Mammy Clarks who
are known for the Doll studies. They're not talking about
the doctor Joy D. Gruz, whose research is pivotal around
post traumatic slave syndrome. So this book is really written
for Black individuals and communities who've been expected to endure
and persevere and to always be strong, you know, even
(23:21):
in the face of racial violence, and who've been taught
that we can't share our stories, that we have to
be in a dark corner. That's why it's called the
cost of healing in silence, because I want us to
heal out loud and for us to get rid of
the shame and the stigma and the guilt and all
of this that has really been built around mental health,
(23:43):
and it's also for the healers, for those of us
who are doing this work. I went to one of
the top universities in my field, and they did not
teach me how to care for people who looked like you,
and I I had to do a extra work, need
a lot of extra books because I wanted to be
able to show up for my communities and not take
(24:06):
psychodynamic theories which was created by Sigmund Freud who worked
with white women. How do I take these theories and
apply them to black communities? Looking at pH Or Watson,
the so called named forefathers of psychology, and it really
doesn't bring into play indigenous practices, African centered practices, the
(24:29):
ways in which our people have always healed ourselves outside
of the psychological field, and what that looks like.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Listen, we have always healed ourselves, even if that included
drinking ginger real.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Listen, I will live and die by Gingerrel. I don't
care Gingerrell and Vicks. Get a little vixpaper up. I'm heills.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Now.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
If you depressed, drink gingerrel and get a therapy.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
In fact, take gingerrel in the session with you. You
are allowed to drink a beverage in a session. I
love how in your book you give practical frameworks for
healing individually and collectively, because some people might think practical
means you can do it. Yes, it might be hard,
(25:23):
but practical just means oh, I can just pick this
up and do it. I can. You know you can do.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
It absolutely, just you know, setting aside the time, a
lot of the tools. A matter of fact, all of
the tools that I put in the book costs nothing,
just a little bit of time. You don't need money.
It's setting aside and prioritizing self so that you can
pour from your overflow and that you're not pouring from
(25:50):
an empty cup if you just take five, ten, fifteen
minutes out of your day to really prioritize yourself and
take care of you, because, especially as people of color,
were caretakers and were always giving and giving and nurturing
others to the point where depleted. And my work is
(26:10):
inspired by my grandmother who gave and gave and gave.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And it killed her way too early.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
She experienced a stroke, and the leading cause of stroke
is stress. My grandmother was extremely stressed out and she
never said no. And when I look at the things
that she implemented in her life, I wonder always would
she still be here today if she said no, if
she had a sound mental health therapist, if she had
(26:40):
more support as opposed to people coming to her taking
wanting and you know, she did it effortlessly. She didn't
ask for anything. You needed her to watch her children, feed, cook,
she would give you the cold off her back, anything,
And unfortunately it led to her demise because she wasn't
caring for herself and pouring from her overflow.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Now that you have the tools, can you look back
to see why she didn't say no.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I think a lot of it was probably out of obligation.
A lot of the people she helped.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Was her children. She was raising us.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Unfortunately, you know, growing up in the nineties. I was
born in the late eighties, just a product of the
crack epidemic, which is now a public health crisis. And
so when I look at my life, I'm like I
was born into a public health crisis, but it was
labeled as such. And now the way that we're treating
the opioid crisis, what if those families who were impacted
(27:42):
by the crack epidemic had all of the resources and
the support that we now have to those impacted by
the opioid crisis, but two different outcomes, one predominantly black community,
one predominantly white that gets the resource, gets the help.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
That isn't incarce.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
You know, just look at the devastating implications of mass
incarceration on black families. Well for their claws that prevented
black men from being in the home. You couldn't get
the benefits if there was a man in the home. Yeah,
all of these things and the myth and the mistaken
ideology that you know, we're the welfare queens when we
(28:22):
know who predominantly is on these benefits. While we are
recipients of them, it's not at the high numbers that
other communities received them.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
So I think she just didn't have the language or
the tools, and she felt that she was doing a
good thing, and that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Oftentimes we don't know how to articulate the thing, and
she wasn't shown how to do that.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I promise you today. I don't know if you do
the same thing. But there's a family member I'm sure
I get on their nerves that I had that I'm like,
why are you doing you can say? You know you
can say no, And I'm like, you're perpetuating the behavior
for the next generation, like you know you can say no.
(29:12):
And because I'm gonna tell you that when I've said no,
who I've had to say no to figured it out?
And then you're not abandoning people. I'm not leaving someone
in the cold in a car homeless. You and I
(29:36):
clap for them when they figured it out, like you're okay,
you didn't need me, or you can clap saying it
was a gift to say no. It's a gift to
the other person. It is a gift to say no,
because now I feel like you're teaching them. I can
(29:59):
figure it out. Although Big Mama was such a safe place, Mama,
if Big Mama wasn't cooking the pound cake, I didn't
want it.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Listen, listen.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
I always pay the big mamas, the barbers, the hairstylists,
because they were holding space for our communities when we
couldn't get to a therapist.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
And so true.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
They were the healers and they may not have had
the credentials that I have, but they were doing the
work on the ground. And there's still people who will
tell me today I need a therapist.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I'm gonna get my hair done. I'm gonna talk to
my stylists.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Poor stylists, and they got their own problems, yes.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
The man, and they're carrying all of that.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Speaking of out of this has nothing to do with
this talk. But you know, there are some stylists who
have like an option of like a islent option where
if y'all don't have to talk, you don't no one
will be offended.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Ooh, I sign me up. I'll be telling my stylists.
I'm like, I want to sit in silence. I talk
all day for a living.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
So we're gonna say you talk all day for a living,
or the stylist might need some solitude, but you're gonna
get a bomb trim, you know. Even though, and then
too for you, if people find out you're a therapist,
you end up doing free sessions, don't you, or have
you or have you learned a boundary?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
It's it's a balance.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I swear as soon as they find out, they're gonna
tell me the whole life story.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
And you're gonna be like, you know, you can go
to dostifhilling dot com or actually, but girt a there
no ashleyburgirt dot com is where y'all can go, Yesney.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
The funny part is when I'm having these conversations, they're
telling me all of this trauma dumping and telling me
how they don't need a therapist.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Okay, talk about I've heard seen this term trauma dumping,
and I'm gonna let you go because you know, you
keep saying stuff I can think of questions trauma dumping.
By the way, y'all, we have talked about the importance
of needing therapy, we've talked about the importance of it
in our black community, and we've talked about having a
(32:26):
safe place to share this, but at some point it
is called trauma dumping.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
And trauma dumping is really when you just overshare something
very painful, something heavy, You don't prepare someone and you
just go straight into it. So this happened during my childhood.
This just happened to me. And you are not even
asking the person if they are in a space to
(32:54):
receive and to hear and to hold what it is
that you're carrying, and it's oftentimes a really unexpected release
and you're just going well.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
But like girl, we was supposed to be going for
macha and a croissant and then it turned into thoughts
and prayers.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
So when be Thow did this, my husband and all
this happened, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
And we don't realize that, yo. We you can ask, hey, uh,
do you I need to share something with you? But
I just want to make sure you can hand you
are okay with what I'm gonna share, you know, And
I've done that, but I'm trying not to use as
they say, like therapy speak in relationships. But it's okay.
(33:46):
So anyway, y'all, we've talked about a lot and I
am so glad that I got to talk to you today.
You guys can find her at Ashleymagirt dot com or
her new book, The Cost of Healing dot com. I'm
very excited about it. When does that book come out?
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Sometimes on March thirtieth.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Is okay, So between now and then, you guys can
find her on Instagram as well at Therapy with Ash,
Therapy with Ash and y'all. I hope that this inspires
you to Some of you guys probably find yourselves being
a healer. There's a degree for it. You about can
(34:26):
get some coin for it. But I love Ashley's mission
and she really has a heart buy it because it
was something that she was She was affected by this
at the young age of nine years old. Ashley, thank
you so much for your time today.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Okay, we'll see you again. You are welcome to checking
in anytime, even in March when the book comes out.
Matter of fact, I'm like, come.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
On back, Yes, yes, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Come on back, because I know that you have you
will mate even some more more headway between now in
March of twenty twenty six. So we'll see you again
next year.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Thank you. Excited to be back.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
All right, y'all. I think what has spoken out to
me was the term, you know, silence feels safe, but
silence does carry a cost. I hope this inspired you
to continue to doing the work and encourage your loved
ones to do the work. All Right, I love you, guys,
(35:33):
and talk soon. Checking In with Michelle Williams is a
(36:30):
production of iHeartRadio and the black effect. For more podcasts
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