April 23, 2024 • 46 mins
In this episode of "The Success Palette", Jennifer Wright-Berryman, a dedicated mental health advocate, educator, and self-published author, discusses the pressing issue of suicide prevention in the creative community. We talk about the high suicide rates among artists and the importance of establishing genuine, diverse personal connections. This conversation highlights the value of constructing a healthy support systeme and the necessity of a "mental health toolbox".
Jennifer gives insights about the role social media plays in influencing our mental health, the risks of solely relying on social media for social connectivity and the paradoxical role it plays in shaping our sense of self-worth. We discuss the alarming impact of online validation on our emotional wellbeing and offer instructional counsel on managing expectations. From distinguishing emotional health from mental health, we provide practical solutions for preserving our mental wellbeing. We also delve into an enlightening exercise of post-validation based on social media interactions and the resilience required to endure the often harsh realities of the virtual world.
Lastly, the conversation turns to the concept of personal worth - explaining that it's not just about likes or follows, but how we engage with the world around us. We touch on enduring criticism, self-publishing, and managing mental health as a creative individual.
Suicide Hotline Info: https://988lifeline.org
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call or Text 988 (United States)
Crisis Text Line: Text START to 741741
Jennifer Website:
https://jenniferwrightberryman.com
Jennifer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenlberry
Podcast Info: https://www.TheSuccessPalette.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, hello everyone. I'm Soda and you are listening to The Success Palette.
And on this podcast, we typically talk about subjects that relate to being a
professional artist or creative of any type and aren't talked about enough,
especially in schools where they're supposed to prepare you for the real world.
(00:23):
And today's subject is probably the most important subject I could think of
that I wish was taught in our school systems, and that is suicide prevention.
Artists have one of the highest suicide rates, and I fear that it's going to
(00:43):
get even worse with how much things are changing within the arts overall.
This is something we've discussed a little bit in a few different episodes throughout
this podcast, but but I really wanted to have a full episode dedicated towards this specific subject.
And to help me out with that, I have Jennifer, who is a professor of social
(01:09):
work and also a very big mental health and LGBT advocate and a writer.
So Jennifer, I would first like to ask you, How did you become this activist
for mental health, for equality, for all of these things that are related to the subject?
(01:32):
Yeah, I graduated college and took a job at a mental health center.
It wasn't even what my bachelor's degree was in. I just happened to make some connections.
And so I started working in mental health straight out of my bachelor's degree
and really fell in love with the people that I was working with.
(01:56):
And the idea that recovery is the pathway that everyone struggling with a mental
health disorder can be on, but that it's also very personally defined.
Recovery is a very personal journey.
And I wanted to take that journey with folks.
And so that's kind of how it got started.
(02:17):
And once I started down that career path, I never looked back.
I have such an admiration for people who go into careers that's all about helping
others like what you do. So thank you for that.
And how do we as people who aren't
professionals help our friends without taking on all of their burden?
(02:38):
So what I hear you asking is about as a common friend,
neighbor, person who might be on the receiving end of a friend's distress call
or a friend's need for mental health support, how do I support them? How do I help myself?
How do I take care of myself when I'm doing that?
Those are excellent questions. And I hate to be too cliche about it,
(03:03):
but I do feel very strongly about the whole, you know, put your,
if you have to have your oxygen mask on before you put someone else's on.
So I think it's being really in tune with your own mental health and your own resilience level.
Where are you at? How are you feeling?
Because what happens is if we are feeling bad ourselves, if we are suffering,
(03:26):
if we are struggling, and we try to be strong for someone else in their dire
moment of need, that can be very challenging. That can be very difficult.
And then you can kind of devolve into this commiserating as opposed to lifting each other up, right?
Being that rising tide that lifts up other boats.
You can both sink together, and we don't want that. So if you are not feeling
(03:48):
well, if your mental health is suffering,
or if you're, I make a distinction between mental health and emotional health,
and we can talk about that, but I'll go on to say that if you're struggling
and you feel like your own tank is empty, or you don't have enough oxygen,
I would recommend that you would help this person with circling their own wagons in another way.
(04:13):
And I had this sort of plan for another question that you were going to ask
me, but there's this idea of, you know, circles of support and wrap around a person.
And so you might be in that person's circle of support.
Who else is in that person's circle of support? So then let's say you go ahead
and help the person and you need some self-care.
(04:36):
I think that being very intentional about help-seeking means that you're also
very intentional about developing circles of support where you know the people
in your circles that have that resilience and they're doing well and that they can receive a call,
that they can listen. Listen.
(04:57):
Listening is just such a key critical thing.
I also think it's okay to listen and to tell the person that I don't have all the right words to say.
I'm not exactly sure what to say, but I am willing to listen to you and make
you feel like you're not alone.
That goes a long way as well. Sometimes it's just about connection and belongingness.
(05:18):
And not having to be an expert. But I do recommend that if you don't feel well,
if you don't feel that your resilience is at a level that you can take on someone
else's emotional pain, that you avoid doing so.
And that you encourage the person to seek out supports where those resources
(05:38):
are maybe more resilient or strong at the time. I love what you said about the
importance of community.
And that was my next question I wanted to ask. The reason I started with this
one is because I personally last year I had four friends who either attempted
suicide or were about to that.
(05:58):
And that really, really was hard for me because I felt helpless.
I felt very lost and confused. But luckily, all four of these people did have some sort of support.
So whether it helped them not go forth with their actions or help them recover,
it was so important to them to have that support.
(06:19):
A lot of us don't have any sort of support. A lot of us who are creatives,
we tend to be a little bit introverted and it's hard to make those friends.
What is the best ways for us to find that support and how can support really
help us have that safety net?
I think there's two things here. I call it sort of the mental health or connection toolbox.
(06:44):
I did make that up, but it's just a way to put together some ideas where you
might have a toolbox for yourself and your own mental health,
and then you may have a toolbox to help other people.
If if we feel unprepared if
we are unprepared to help other people
then we are going to feel helpless it's it
(07:06):
would be similar to your car breaking down on the side of a road and you're
in it's night and you're in the middle of nowhere and you don't know or maybe
you your tire blue right and you don't know how to change a tire and you think
to yourself oh my goodness i don't ever want this to happen again.
So I need to learn how to change a tire in case I'm driving in the middle of
(07:31):
the night on the middle of nowhere and I need to change a tire.
So I think what, when people call us for help or when people reach out for help
and we don't have those toolboxes built yet, then that is a call to action for us to build a toolbox.
So what that means is having those crisis line numbers on the ready,
(07:52):
you know, whether it's in a spreadsheet or whether it's in your wallet or whether
you just have them memorized.
Of course, now 988 is super easy to have memorized as opposed to the old suicide
prevention lifeline number.
But also, I think having, and I know this is another thing we plan on talking
about, but having, you know, resources,
(08:14):
lists of resources in your local community, your larger community,
whether that's your state, so I know you're in LA, is that correct?
So, you know, having sort of LA-based resources and then having state of California resources.
I'm in the Midwest, so having local state, you know, national resources.
But in terms of connection, I think that that does require some intention because
(08:41):
for artists and creatives, a lot of that work is happening in isolation, as you said.
So whether it's someone like me, who's an author who sits to write a book and
I'm in my office space and that's all I'm doing all day, or an artist with whatever
medium they're creating,
they're not doing that surrounded by people talking in their ear.
(09:04):
That makes it difficult to be creative.
Just being creative can be isolating.
So connecting outside of your craft is going to have to be intentional.
You are going to have to make a decision, a choice to connect.
So let's, let's, let's look at this sort of filling your tank sort of concept.
(09:28):
So if you allow your creative to.
Whatever it is, your medium, to be the only thing that fills your tank,
then you are relying on your creativity and your role, your job,
your creative works to be the thing
that fills your tank, which means that you're asking it to give to you.
(09:50):
Things like creativity need to be out in the world, right?
So what actually gives to you is when someone appreciates your creativity,
when someone says, I love what you made. I love what you drew.
I love your graphic. I love that piece you made. I love your book.
Yeah, I love that poem, you know, all those things.
So connecting and building community is essential.
(10:14):
And you have to get outside of your studio. You have to get outside of your
office. You have to get outside of your creative space.
And sometimes that is really, really difficult. So you have to plan for it.
You have to be intentional.
Now, it could be that your community is your art community or your creative community.
(10:37):
But here's the thing with that. You may be met with other folks who are having
those same struggles, which make you feel like you're not alone,
but at the same time may not be the place for resources.
And so they'll say, oh, I know how you feel.
And it feels validating and connecting for someone to say, I know how you feel.
(11:00):
But here's what I'm saying. You have to get outside of that world.
You have to form a connection.
I just read this. It might've been threads even where someone basically
said, if you make your, you know, your creative life, your only life,
then, you know, you're, you're basically asking for, you know,
(11:25):
sort of, you know, additional,
you know, sort of weight.
But if you go outside of your, I forget the actual quote, that's why I rambled
on that. But if you go outside of your space, okay, and give.
To give to others what your gifts are, right?
(11:45):
There is so much healing and community building when you are giving yourself.
And whether it's volunteering or spending time with people who need something that you have to offer,
teaching an art class at a senior center, or if you're me, it's animal adoption.
(12:08):
Those are other things that fill your tank and build community.
You have to diversify your portfolio of community.
Do not expect your creative community to be the end-all be-all of filling your tank.
You have to diversify your portfolio and your tank filling.
(12:30):
I love that. I love that so, so much.
Because looking back this last year, I've made so much progress on my own mental health.
And I'm realizing while talking to you, a lot of that is because I diversified.
Because I mean, if you cancel culture is huge.
If you get canceled from your community, what do you have?
(12:51):
So, yes, I started getting involved with an entrepreneur community.
All these other sort of activism communities, other communities besides just
my art community and my writer community.
So thank you for bringing that up. That's not really a connection I made before,
but I'm realizing how important that's been for me. And that kind of goes along
(13:15):
with my next question is regarding social media.
And you talked about how it's important for us to be validated and have a community and everything.
How can social media both positively and negatively impact our happiness with
ourselves and suicide prevention? That is such a great question.
(13:41):
And what's really interesting is that there's so much debate around what is
social media helpful? Is it harmful?
And when you read the research on the relationship between social media and
mental health, quite frankly.
(14:03):
It doesn't come down on an answer, okay? So we do not have a clear answer of
the impact of social media.
Part of that is just research design, and it's very challenging to study social
media and mental health because there are so many platforms and there are so
many people, and there's time variables.
(14:24):
How much time does someone spend on social media?
Let's kind of go back to filling our tanks and diversifying our portfolio.
Human connection is important and social media,
unless it's a bot, are human beings behind their phones or behind their,
you know, laptops or behind their tablets, inputting information to be seen. Okay.
(14:50):
So when you post something, whether it's a TikTok video or a tweet or a thread
or Facebook post or Instagram photo or reel,
whatever content you're creating, when someone hits that like button, right?
When someone hits that heart, when someone validates that, you are going to
(15:13):
get that dopamine hit, right? It is going to feel good.
Who doesn't want to feel good?
But then those will stop. I do understand there is a very small percentage of
these things that go viral.
In fact, my very first TikTok wasn't mine.
My daughter created a TikTok like five
(15:36):
or six years, whenever TikTok first started, I had no idea what it was.
She created a TikTok with me, posted it. I had no idea. Didn't have a TikTok account.
And she calls me like two days later and says, our TikTok got over a million
views. And I'm like, what are you talking about?
And it was, it was just a silly little video, but I think TikTok was new.
(15:56):
I'm not sure something like that would go viral today, but my daughter was so
excited and I couldn't believe.
That, that level of excitement over a video that in two days got a million views, but guess what?
Since then, since that, you know, six years ago, whatever, whenever we made
(16:16):
that video, there's not been, there's not been more millions of views.
So we have to go,
if we fill our tank with hearts and likes and words of validation from social media by itself,
(16:36):
once again, that tank will run dry because those hearts will run dry.
Those likes will run dry.
All of those things will run dry and we will post more to try to get more filling of the tank.
And then it becomes this exercise, this hamster wheel, right?
This exercise of post validate, post validate.
(16:57):
And eventually if we hit a wall, you know, then all of a sudden the tank is
empty because we've only put all of our, you know, desire to have the tank filled by social media.
I think it's okay to post and to enjoy getting validated, but we have to learn
how to manage our expectations.
(17:17):
And I also think that if we diversify our validation portfolio and our kindness
and compassion portfolios across these other forms of connection and not rely
on social media as the way to get that validation,
to get that tank filled, then we are going to benefit.
So I think the downside is allowing social media to be the one thing that fills your tank.
(17:42):
I think it's okay for it to fill your tank to some extent, if you have,
again, that diversified portfolio of how to get validated and how to get your
needs met and how to get your tank filled.
I just love all of that. That is so important.
And sometimes we don't even realize how much we're struggling,
(18:06):
how much we're being affected by what other people think of us.
What are some ways that we can kind of self-analyze and realize what we're struggling with?
And how do we know when we're at the point that we do need to reach out for
help, but again, without making them in an uncomfortable situation?
(18:29):
There's many layers to this, I think. So in ourselves, so there's,
I hear two questions here, sort of like, how do we know when we need to get help?
Or maybe how do we know when someone else needs professional help?
And then how do we avoid making other people the receivers of our trauma if
(18:50):
the relationship maybe doesn't have that level of connection or that unspoken
agreement that we're going to communicate at that level.
So I mentioned this earlier, I differentiate between emotional health,
mental health, mental illness, and crisis.
So these are not linear, okay? These are not linear things.
(19:12):
Emotional health is our day-to-day feelings and reactions to the small things that happen, right?
We may have something that disappoints
us. We have something thing that irritates us or frustrates us.
Those are sort of not, those are kind of softer emotions, if you will, right?
So we're not, you know, our reactions may be what we might call pretty on par
(19:37):
with the way a human being would react to a disappointment or a frustration.
So that's our, you know, that's sort of our emotional health.
Where it tips over into mental health is when we have a series of things that
are very challenging for us to deal with, right?
So it tips over from frustration into getting stuck in that place of frustration.
(20:01):
Isolation tips over into a place of despair where we feel like not only are
we isolated, but we are completely disconnected and we don't belong anywhere.
And so when it shifts over into a mental health disorder is when we are,
we have begun from being stuck to then going down and sinking down into the
(20:25):
hole where we, we don't have access to our coping skills anymore.
Okay. So we, when we don't have access to the things that have generally helped us in the past,
the things that have, whether it's journaling or creating or talking to a friend
or reaching out, listening to music or taking a hot bath or a hot shower or taking a walk,
(20:48):
when those coping mechanisms are no longer working for us and we are entrenched
in this feeling and we can't get out and we have tried,
that is when it is time to join with somebody.
Okay. And I'm going to say, I'm saying this intentionally, join with somebody to help us.
(21:09):
So I don't know if you watch too much, a lot of Renee Brown has gotten a lot
of public sort of, she's also a social worker and she is someone who speaks
a lot about empathy and hope and resilience.
And she makes this little video that's been seen like 200 gazillion times.
And it's about empathy, right? And it's about being present with somebody and
(21:29):
joining with So when empathy no longer feels genuine, when you are in that place of darkness,
all of those places that I'm speaking of are places where it is definitely time
to seek out professional help.
Help and also then if we don't if
we don't seek out professional help at that point
and it tips into crisis crisis is
(21:52):
when you feel like when you are having imminent thoughts
of taking your own life okay and it can also be behaviors that are are would
be interpreted by just about anyone as being suicidal it could be hoarding medications
it could be buying a firearm it could be you know any of these means by which
(22:12):
you could end your own life,
that crisis obviously needs emergency help, not just professional help, but emergency help.
So when do we know when we're at these times.
Sort of various places. You know, when I'm having emotional health sort of struggles,
right, where I'm feeling frustrated, I'm feeling a little angry, I'm feeling upset.
(22:34):
That is generally when talking to a friend helps.
And I recommend that we have and that we're intentional with building those
circles of support where there is an agreement. I even recommend listening buddies.
So a listening buddy is someone that you talk to and say, would you like to be my listening buddy.
And what that means is that you pair up and maybe once a week you have an intentional
(22:57):
phone call for 15, 20 minutes or however long you designate and you take turns.
There's no interrupting.
It's not to replace therapy, but it's just you get to, you have that agreement.
It's not, I wouldn't call it trauma dumping. I would call it checking in and
noticing and listening.
And so you have this person, you tell them how your week's going.
(23:18):
They tell you how their week is going, you listen, and then you do some validation.
And you might do some checking in on some things about how they're handling and coping.
And you do that once a week. And you schedule it and you're intentional and you protect that time.
That can help you from, you know, sort of stumbling into this place of being stuck, right?
(23:41):
If you're constantly, you know, it's like changing the oil in your car.
If you never change the oil in your car, your car engine is going to seize up.
We want to avoid seizing up.
We want to have those people in our life at the beginning, planting the seeds,
keeping that connection fostered so that we're not developing into these places
(24:02):
of darkness and despair and require emergency care.
Did I answer your question?
That was beautiful. I really, really liked that answer.
And a lot of us as creatives, we tie our worth into a lot of how we are received.
And you were talking about filling up your tank and making sure that you have
(24:26):
the diversity of having people care for you and listen to you.
What are some ways that we can remind ourselves that we do have worth no matter
how well things are on social media and how
well we're I honestly think it takes practice if your
personality is not one that leans itself toward resilience a natural resilience
(24:49):
if you have to work hard at being resilient I think it takes practice and it
does take intention everything takes intention and I realize that I'm using
that word a lot in the podcast but we have to choose
ourselves, okay?
And when we choose ourselves, we have to treat ourselves as beautifully as we
(25:10):
would treat someone else.
If you had a dear friend who was not choosing themselves and you are trying
to help them choose themselves, you better be setting a good role model for that.
If you want the beautiful people in your artistic community to choose themselves
and to choose health and to choose connection and to choose wellness and choose wellbeing.
(25:34):
We have to learn how to do that for ourselves. And it takes practice. It does take reminders.
I believe, you know, and, and I've got this thing on my wall that says,
be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
And I literally read that every day.
And I know we have this, there's this new, you know, you'll walk into a gift
(25:56):
shop and they have all the little memes, you know, with the nice sayings and all that.
And we surround ourselves with those things and we see them on social media.
But I think we have to choose to apply this. It's not just reading them and
smiling and say, oh, that's a nice thought.
We have to choose to apply things to our lives, again, sort of with intention.
(26:20):
So remembering our worth, it's being able to learn that measuring our worth
isn't, you know, you have to start from a hundred percent. You have one life to live.
You are 100% all the time, even if you don't feel like you're 100%. So what do I mean by that?
We have to have an armor of resilience where we are choosing to and being attentional
(26:48):
about social media and not, gosh, this is a really tough one.
You know, again, we are not using social media as a place for validation.
Maybe we're choosing it as a place of learning. Maybe we are choosing as a place
of connection, But we cannot choose it as a place, again, to be the thing that
(27:10):
fills our tank and our worth.
I think there are a lot of probably better resources than me on this particular
question. I really, really like Johan Hari's book, Lost Connections.
I'm not a religious person, but for me, it's got some biblical wisdom.
(27:31):
But he talks about how our worth is how we interact with the world.
And it's not in social media, quite frankly. think about
if once again you blow your
tire on the side of a road at the middle of the night and you
don't know how to change it but then someone comes along and fortunately
they look safe and not like you know somebody who's gonna
(27:54):
you know do something awful and and they help you change your tire and get back
on your way that person just told you what they're worth they are a citizen
of the world who helped someone who was stranded so if we think about how to
build our worth you You know, if for some reason we don't feel worthy,
then what measuring stick are we using?
(28:14):
And so we have to think about how are we measuring? If we feel unworthy,
what measuring stick are we using?
Maybe the measuring stick of being in the world and being a human being who
has something to give and something to contribute and being intentional about that contribution.
That's what worth is actually about. Not likes, not hearts, not follows, not views, right?
(28:37):
And that goes back to what you said about talking to yourself differently than
how you would talk to someone you care about.
That goes back to what you said about having a listening buddy and how helpful
that could be because you typically will not talk to someone you care about
in that negative way and just having that relationship to uplift each other.
(29:01):
So I love that idea of a listening buddy and just helping you boost yourself
up before you even get down to that point.
Have you ever had a situation where you got really bad criticism or some sort
of negative interaction with your community or someone you care about regarding
(29:23):
one of your books that you wrote? Because I know you wrote a few books.
And how did you handle that and not let it affect you? Oh, yes.
Yes, I have had muchos criticism.
Muchos. I love talking about this because I learned so much from being criticized.
So the very first fiction book I wrote, and it is now a series,
(29:46):
is called The Dying Five, a hospice heroes mystery series.
And I'm still writing a series about people who are at the end of their life
who choose to use their last months to solve mysteries and solve crimes. times.
So I didn't know anything about the publishing industry.
I just wrote a book, right? And so I, you know, I said, oh, I guess I should query this book now.
(30:08):
So I wrote a query letter, which is when you submit, you know,
a pitch to literary agents to see if someone wants to pick up the book and sell it to a publisher.
And so I thought, oh, gosh, you know, and again, Again, this was years ago,
and I have no idea what I'm doing.
So I put together the pitch. And, you know, as...
The rejections came in, I wasn't learning anything because most of those rejections
(30:33):
are what we call form reject rejections.
You write a book and a literary agent doesn't want it.
And they send you an automatic response back that basically says,
thank you for your submission.
I appreciate you considering me for your work, but this is not a good fit for me.
There's no way for them to tell you why they get thousands of these hundreds
a day. There just is not possible for them to give personalized feedback.
(30:57):
But I did get personalized feedback from one literary agent who said,
there's no way I could, no way I could sell a book about people who are dying,
who spend their last months solving mysteries.
No one would want to read that. No one would want to buy that book.
And, and how else did she put it?
(31:19):
I can't, she said, I can't even see anybody in hospice. Why would they do that?
And so I said to myself, you know what? This person is a literary agent.
They are an expert in selling and publishing books, but they are definitely
not an expert in the human condition.
And so I left with my pride intact and said, you know what?
(31:44):
I'm just going to self-publish this book. I didn't query much on those books
because I thought to myself.
You know what? That's okay. And if that's the reason why this book is getting
rejected, I only sent out 20 queries.
I said, I love this book.
And if I only have family and friends that read it, it's not my full-time job. I am okay with that.
(32:11):
So I did suffer criticism. Now, Now, I see tons of people on social media who
get criticism for their craft and, you know,
they are full-time artists or they are full-time creatives or they are full-time writers.
And so when you are criticizing someone's work and that's their full-time and
(32:34):
their livelihood, it probably lands a lot differently than it does for someone
like me who has a full-time job who writes on the side.
So where your life station sometimes dictates your reaction.
But I do think that even if being a creative is your full time job,
like I mentioned before, I
(32:54):
still think you have to get your validation bucket filled in other places.
Right. So if you're a creative and the only thing that matters is selling your
creative works as opposed to like Soda, what you do,
which is what linked us together as I saw you on threads and that you actually
draw cartoons for your podcast guests.
(33:16):
I was out of my mind with excitement.
I said, if she has me on or if they have me on their podcast and I get a cartoon.
I'm I'm going to be the happiest MFR in the whole world because that to me is
just the most beautiful gift to have, you know, so anyway,
(33:37):
that's, that's a sidebar, but that, you know, that lifted me up the thought
and then you and I started talking and I just,
I have stayed so lifted up and ready to do this podcast with you because I'm
getting a cartoon and that is such a gift.
And so I think when we see our hard work as a gift to the world,
(33:59):
if we can reframe the work we're doing and accept the praise,
people have such a hard time accepting praise.
And that hurts my heart so much because it is absolutely well intended. ended.
So everybody focuses on that one bad review or that one person who didn't like,
and when you've got 75% good, 25% doesn't make you happy in terms of the criticism.
(34:24):
We are putting all of our energy in the wrong bucket.
Let that good feedback, let people being lifted up by your gifts,
fill you up till you're spilling over.
Then there's no room for the bad Yeah, when I see people who have my little
cartoons as their profile picture or something like that and just excited about it, sharing it.
(34:47):
It doesn't necessarily make me feel worthy, but it lifts me up.
So I try to do that where I don't base my worth on praise or negative feedback,
but it does get you excited.
And I know with AI and everything, a lot of creatives are feeling extremely
distraught because they're like, oh, I'm being replaced.
(35:10):
My feed is being flooded with things made by AI instead of me.
And that's been a huge, huge part of a lot of this distress.
But what you were saying of diversifying your validation, your worth,
your excitement is, I believe that's the most important thing creatives can do.
(35:31):
And I know you mentioned you volunteer, you do a couple other things.
How has really getting out of your creative bubble helped you with confidence, with that self-worth?
And how can we get the courage to do that when we're, I know we talked a little
bit about this earlier, but I know for a lot of us, it is so scary to get out
(35:56):
of our houses, especially like for me. I just moved here. I don't know people.
So I'd love to hear your thoughts about actually getting out of your houses,
having face-to-face connections, and how that could give us confidence in our
life and in our creativity.
This is such a timely question for me because during COVID,
I was one of those people who really enjoyed staying home and working from home
(36:18):
and being in my bubble and writing and creating and just doing all this really
jazzy stuff with my brain all by myself.
And then everything lifted, right?
COVID lifted and the restrictions or whatever, we were supposed to stay home lifted.
And I found myself getting phone calls to do that.
(36:38):
I'm someone who has spoken nationally on these subjects of mental health and suicide prevention.
And I was getting all kinds of requests and COVID hits.
And then I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm at home. I'm not traveling.
I love this. I am thrilled to be in a bubble.
And then COVID lifted and I felt my heels dug in.
(37:01):
I didn't want to accept having to go back out.
And then I started to get socially phobic.
I didn't want to go to the grocery store. I didn't want to go anywhere.
I felt, and it wasn't a COVID thing. I wasn't afraid of getting,
you know, well, I mean, I had a healthy level of fear of getting COVID.
(37:21):
But, you know, I wasn't afraid that something bad was going to happen related
to COVID. I was just afraid to be around people again.
It's like I almost had to redo being in public.
And so now, like, I just gave a talk last week, I'm getting ready to give another
talk. So my answer to your question is baby steps, baby steps.
In mental health, we have a therapy. It's called exposure therapy.
(37:45):
And we use this a lot for people with anxieties and with panic.
So social anxiety, panic disorder.
So essentially, you dip that one tiny toe in the end of the pool where if you
fell in, you could get back out, right?
You're not in the deep end, right?
You're in the shallow end. You're in three feet of water, right?
(38:05):
But you dip your toe in first. So that might mean committing to and being intentional
about attending a small gathering of friends or creatives or an event, right?
And preparing yourself, breathing, but or it could be just a small dinner party.
It could be, you know, but being very intentional. intentional
(38:27):
i'm not saying you have to host it yourself i'm not
saying that you have to go to a
big you know a game or something where they're surrounded
by thousands of people dip your toe in and then
dip your toe in a little further make it a little bit of a bigger event and
so on and so forth have a buddy right have a buddy go with you have an escape
(38:47):
plan right you know like have all these things but you've got to do it you've
got to do it because connection In suicide prevention.
If we know anything, there are two things that work the best.
The first is always going to be means restriction, removing the means of someone
(39:09):
being able to take their own life. But the second thing is connection.
Connection is the strongest, most powerful protective factor against suicide.
So people not just knowing that they're not alone, which is a double negative,
you know, knowing that they, but also being able to connect and belong somewhere.
Somewhere so finding community right and
(39:32):
it could be in the unlikeliest of places
you mentioned earlier before we started the podcast you're part of a mom i think
a mom's group so i assume there are other moms in that group you share stories
storytelling is so powerful so if you can find community where people are telling
their stories that helps you to not only feel like you're not alone,
(39:55):
but it may also help you answer questions that you didn't even know you had, right?
So one thing I made a note of is how creatives can start mental health conversations,
and that is through storytelling.
What helped someone in their recovery journey?
So when we talk to our listening buddies, or when we talk to our therapist,
(40:16):
or when we talk to our friends, or when we talk to our families,
we can tell them all about what's wrong, and we can also So tell them what's
going right, but we should also talk about what has helped.
So when you've had a panic attack, what's helped bring you out?
What's helped you heal from that?
What are the things that are in your coping toolbox, your mental health toolbox?
(40:41):
Those things could help somebody else.
So I think, you know, in terms of final thoughts for me, it's about if you cut
yourself, and I don't mean self-harm.
I just mean if you accidentally, because self-harm is a whole other conversation.
But if you accidentally injure yourself, that part of your body hurts really, really bad. Okay.
And you're going to do everything you can to protect it from like getting dirt
(41:04):
in it. You know, like you put a bandaid or a bandage on there.
And we're so focused on the pain of that place where we injured ourselves.
We forget that the rest of our body is doing okay.
The rest of our body is feeling pretty good. Right. We're so focused on the place that hurts.
So I think taking that into our mental health, we tend to focus so much on the
hurt in our heart or the hurt that our depression causes or the hurt that our
(41:28):
anxiety causes, that that's all we can think about and we stay so focused on it.
So if we have a diversified emotional or mental health portfolio where we get
our tanks filled in these different places, we can go and we can spend time
with older adults at the agency or the nursing home or whatever.
Or we can spend time with the rescue animals, or we can spend time,
(41:49):
you know, volunteering or giving back to our communities,
being in that role is going to take us out of that place of pain where we're
only focused on our pain and realize that the rest of our body,
the rest of our hearts, the rest of our minds are fully capable of giving and
fully capable of loving and being loved.
So I guess if I'm going to kind of wrap it up on that point,
(42:09):
that that would be a good place to do it. Yeah.
That's such an important point. And I just want to thank you again for coming on about this.
This could be a very difficult subject to talk about.
And I'm glad that you're out there advocating because so many of us,
we don't know what to do when we are at this point and we don't know where to turn.
(42:32):
And I love the suggestions of having a listening buddy, diversifying your self-worth,
your praise, and just really having that love for yourself the way you would love someone else.
So thank you again. Where can people find you if they want to follow you,
want to read any of your books?
(42:53):
Do you mind just finishing up with that?
Yeah, yeah. I'll put one little plug in for some mental health resources for folks.
So obviously, I mentioned this earlier, but if someone is in suicide crisis,
since we talked about suicide today.
The National Suicide Prevention and Crisis Lifeline is 988.
If you're a veteran, you dial 1-988 and then you hit 1. That would be the Veterans Crisis Line.
(43:17):
There's also the Crisis Text Line, which you can essentially,
you can text almost any word.
You can text HOPE, HOME, START, all in capitals to 741741.
I would recommend the National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI.
I would recommend Mental Health America for resources.
Both of those organizations have local chapters in every state.
(43:38):
So you should be able to find someplace near you where they will offer resources and support.
There are community mental health centers that will see people on a sliding fee scale.
So community mental health centers can, if you're an artist or creative and
you're living off of very minimal means, you don't have a lot of income,
you may not have insurance or your insurance isn't that
(43:59):
stupendous. Your local community mental health center should have sliding fee
scales so that you can get some professional help if needed.
We did talk about listening buddies. So I will say that folks can find me on
almost any social media platform, but I do so many different things that all
my social media has different.
It's like, I don't have any consistency, which makes creating a brand really difficult.
(44:23):
And everybody, all my, all the people in publicity, even my daughter,
or who's got a PR degree shakes her finger at me, you've got to develop a brand.
My brand is just being whatever people need me to be, you know?
So I am at jenniferwrightberryman.com.
That's my website.
Jennifer with two N's, W-R-I-G-H-T-B-E-R-R-Y-M-A-N.com, jenniferwrightberryman.com.
(44:44):
On my website, you'll see my books, but you'll also see I have a blog. I need to update it.
I'm also on Substack. If you Google me, you'll find everything,
all my academic publishing, some of the talks I've given.
I did a TEDx a while back, and that's up as well. That TEDx is about suicide prevention.
You can find me at Jen L. Berry on Instagram threads, and then my full name,
(45:09):
Jennifer Wright Berryman with
a hyphen on Facebook, and probably somewhere else. I'm also on TikTok.
So, and I will have all of that in the show notes.
So I'm sure people will want to follow you after to this.
So thank you again for all that.
And thank you to everyone who took the time to listen to this important message.
(45:32):
Remember, you are valuable, you are worthy of love, and you have so much potential.
To learn more about this podcast and for social media links,
you can go to thesuccesspalette.com.
Let's work together to make this a successful week.
Music.
Hello, hello everyone. I'm Soda and you are listening to The Success Palette.
And on this podcast, we typically talk about subjects that relate to being a
professional artist or creative of any type and aren't talked about enough,
especially in schools where they're supposed to prepare you for the real world.
(00:23):
And today's subject is probably the most important subject I could think of
that I wish was taught in our school systems, and that is suicide prevention.
Artists have one of the highest suicide rates, and I fear that it's going to
(00:43):
get even worse with how much things are changing within the arts overall.
This is something we've discussed a little bit in a few different episodes throughout
this podcast, but but I really wanted to have a full episode dedicated towards this specific subject.
And to help me out with that, I have Jennifer, who is a professor of social
(01:09):
work and also a very big mental health and LGBT advocate and a writer.
So Jennifer, I would first like to ask you, How did you become this activist
for mental health, for equality, for all of these things that are related to the subject?
(01:32):
Yeah, I graduated college and took a job at a mental health center.
It wasn't even what my bachelor's degree was in. I just happened to make some connections.
And so I started working in mental health straight out of my bachelor's degree
and really fell in love with the people that I was working with.
(01:56):
And the idea that recovery is the pathway that everyone struggling with a mental
health disorder can be on, but that it's also very personally defined.
Recovery is a very personal journey.
And I wanted to take that journey with folks.
And so that's kind of how it got started.
(02:17):
And once I started down that career path, I never looked back.
I have such an admiration for people who go into careers that's all about helping
others like what you do. So thank you for that.
And how do we as people who aren't
professionals help our friends without taking on all of their burden?
(02:38):
So what I hear you asking is about as a common friend,
neighbor, person who might be on the receiving end of a friend's distress call
or a friend's need for mental health support, how do I support them? How do I help myself?
How do I take care of myself when I'm doing that?
Those are excellent questions. And I hate to be too cliche about it,
(03:03):
but I do feel very strongly about the whole, you know, put your,
if you have to have your oxygen mask on before you put someone else's on.
So I think it's being really in tune with your own mental health and your own resilience level.
Where are you at? How are you feeling?
Because what happens is if we are feeling bad ourselves, if we are suffering,
(03:26):
if we are struggling, and we try to be strong for someone else in their dire
moment of need, that can be very challenging. That can be very difficult.
And then you can kind of devolve into this commiserating as opposed to lifting each other up, right?
Being that rising tide that lifts up other boats.
You can both sink together, and we don't want that. So if you are not feeling
(03:48):
well, if your mental health is suffering,
or if you're, I make a distinction between mental health and emotional health,
and we can talk about that, but I'll go on to say that if you're struggling
and you feel like your own tank is empty, or you don't have enough oxygen,
I would recommend that you would help this person with circling their own wagons in another way.
(04:13):
And I had this sort of plan for another question that you were going to ask
me, but there's this idea of, you know, circles of support and wrap around a person.
And so you might be in that person's circle of support.
Who else is in that person's circle of support? So then let's say you go ahead
and help the person and you need some self-care.
(04:36):
I think that being very intentional about help-seeking means that you're also
very intentional about developing circles of support where you know the people
in your circles that have that resilience and they're doing well and that they can receive a call,
that they can listen. Listen.
(04:57):
Listening is just such a key critical thing.
I also think it's okay to listen and to tell the person that I don't have all the right words to say.
I'm not exactly sure what to say, but I am willing to listen to you and make
you feel like you're not alone.
That goes a long way as well. Sometimes it's just about connection and belongingness.
(05:18):
And not having to be an expert. But I do recommend that if you don't feel well,
if you don't feel that your resilience is at a level that you can take on someone
else's emotional pain, that you avoid doing so.
And that you encourage the person to seek out supports where those resources
(05:38):
are maybe more resilient or strong at the time. I love what you said about the
importance of community.
And that was my next question I wanted to ask. The reason I started with this
one is because I personally last year I had four friends who either attempted
suicide or were about to that.
(05:58):
And that really, really was hard for me because I felt helpless.
I felt very lost and confused. But luckily, all four of these people did have some sort of support.
So whether it helped them not go forth with their actions or help them recover,
it was so important to them to have that support.
(06:19):
A lot of us don't have any sort of support. A lot of us who are creatives,
we tend to be a little bit introverted and it's hard to make those friends.
What is the best ways for us to find that support and how can support really
help us have that safety net?
I think there's two things here. I call it sort of the mental health or connection toolbox.
(06:44):
I did make that up, but it's just a way to put together some ideas where you
might have a toolbox for yourself and your own mental health,
and then you may have a toolbox to help other people.
If if we feel unprepared if
we are unprepared to help other people
then we are going to feel helpless it's it
(07:06):
would be similar to your car breaking down on the side of a road and you're
in it's night and you're in the middle of nowhere and you don't know or maybe
you your tire blue right and you don't know how to change a tire and you think
to yourself oh my goodness i don't ever want this to happen again.
So I need to learn how to change a tire in case I'm driving in the middle of
(07:31):
the night on the middle of nowhere and I need to change a tire.
So I think what, when people call us for help or when people reach out for help
and we don't have those toolboxes built yet, then that is a call to action for us to build a toolbox.
So what that means is having those crisis line numbers on the ready,
(07:52):
you know, whether it's in a spreadsheet or whether it's in your wallet or whether
you just have them memorized.
Of course, now 988 is super easy to have memorized as opposed to the old suicide
prevention lifeline number.
But also, I think having, and I know this is another thing we plan on talking
about, but having, you know, resources,
(08:14):
lists of resources in your local community, your larger community,
whether that's your state, so I know you're in LA, is that correct?
So, you know, having sort of LA-based resources and then having state of California resources.
I'm in the Midwest, so having local state, you know, national resources.
But in terms of connection, I think that that does require some intention because
(08:41):
for artists and creatives, a lot of that work is happening in isolation, as you said.
So whether it's someone like me, who's an author who sits to write a book and
I'm in my office space and that's all I'm doing all day, or an artist with whatever
medium they're creating,
they're not doing that surrounded by people talking in their ear.
(09:04):
That makes it difficult to be creative.
Just being creative can be isolating.
So connecting outside of your craft is going to have to be intentional.
You are going to have to make a decision, a choice to connect.
So let's, let's, let's look at this sort of filling your tank sort of concept.
(09:28):
So if you allow your creative to.
Whatever it is, your medium, to be the only thing that fills your tank,
then you are relying on your creativity and your role, your job,
your creative works to be the thing
that fills your tank, which means that you're asking it to give to you.
(09:50):
Things like creativity need to be out in the world, right?
So what actually gives to you is when someone appreciates your creativity,
when someone says, I love what you made. I love what you drew.
I love your graphic. I love that piece you made. I love your book.
Yeah, I love that poem, you know, all those things.
So connecting and building community is essential.
(10:14):
And you have to get outside of your studio. You have to get outside of your
office. You have to get outside of your creative space.
And sometimes that is really, really difficult. So you have to plan for it.
You have to be intentional.
Now, it could be that your community is your art community or your creative community.
(10:37):
But here's the thing with that. You may be met with other folks who are having
those same struggles, which make you feel like you're not alone,
but at the same time may not be the place for resources.
And so they'll say, oh, I know how you feel.
And it feels validating and connecting for someone to say, I know how you feel.
(11:00):
But here's what I'm saying. You have to get outside of that world.
You have to form a connection.
I just read this. It might've been threads even where someone basically
said, if you make your, you know, your creative life, your only life,
then, you know, you're, you're basically asking for, you know,
(11:25):
sort of, you know, additional,
you know, sort of weight.
But if you go outside of your, I forget the actual quote, that's why I rambled
on that. But if you go outside of your space, okay, and give.
To give to others what your gifts are, right?
(11:45):
There is so much healing and community building when you are giving yourself.
And whether it's volunteering or spending time with people who need something that you have to offer,
teaching an art class at a senior center, or if you're me, it's animal adoption.
(12:08):
Those are other things that fill your tank and build community.
You have to diversify your portfolio of community.
Do not expect your creative community to be the end-all be-all of filling your tank.
You have to diversify your portfolio and your tank filling.
(12:30):
I love that. I love that so, so much.
Because looking back this last year, I've made so much progress on my own mental health.
And I'm realizing while talking to you, a lot of that is because I diversified.
Because I mean, if you cancel culture is huge.
If you get canceled from your community, what do you have?
(12:51):
So, yes, I started getting involved with an entrepreneur community.
All these other sort of activism communities, other communities besides just
my art community and my writer community.
So thank you for bringing that up. That's not really a connection I made before,
but I'm realizing how important that's been for me. And that kind of goes along
(13:15):
with my next question is regarding social media.
And you talked about how it's important for us to be validated and have a community and everything.
How can social media both positively and negatively impact our happiness with
ourselves and suicide prevention? That is such a great question.
(13:41):
And what's really interesting is that there's so much debate around what is
social media helpful? Is it harmful?
And when you read the research on the relationship between social media and
mental health, quite frankly.
(14:03):
It doesn't come down on an answer, okay? So we do not have a clear answer of
the impact of social media.
Part of that is just research design, and it's very challenging to study social
media and mental health because there are so many platforms and there are so
many people, and there's time variables.
(14:24):
How much time does someone spend on social media?
Let's kind of go back to filling our tanks and diversifying our portfolio.
Human connection is important and social media,
unless it's a bot, are human beings behind their phones or behind their,
you know, laptops or behind their tablets, inputting information to be seen. Okay.
(14:50):
So when you post something, whether it's a TikTok video or a tweet or a thread
or Facebook post or Instagram photo or reel,
whatever content you're creating, when someone hits that like button, right?
When someone hits that heart, when someone validates that, you are going to
(15:13):
get that dopamine hit, right? It is going to feel good.
Who doesn't want to feel good?
But then those will stop. I do understand there is a very small percentage of
these things that go viral.
In fact, my very first TikTok wasn't mine.
My daughter created a TikTok like five
(15:36):
or six years, whenever TikTok first started, I had no idea what it was.
She created a TikTok with me, posted it. I had no idea. Didn't have a TikTok account.
And she calls me like two days later and says, our TikTok got over a million
views. And I'm like, what are you talking about?
And it was, it was just a silly little video, but I think TikTok was new.
(15:56):
I'm not sure something like that would go viral today, but my daughter was so
excited and I couldn't believe.
That, that level of excitement over a video that in two days got a million views, but guess what?
Since then, since that, you know, six years ago, whatever, whenever we made
(16:16):
that video, there's not been, there's not been more millions of views.
So we have to go,
if we fill our tank with hearts and likes and words of validation from social media by itself,
(16:36):
once again, that tank will run dry because those hearts will run dry.
Those likes will run dry.
All of those things will run dry and we will post more to try to get more filling of the tank.
And then it becomes this exercise, this hamster wheel, right?
This exercise of post validate, post validate.
(16:57):
And eventually if we hit a wall, you know, then all of a sudden the tank is
empty because we've only put all of our, you know, desire to have the tank filled by social media.
I think it's okay to post and to enjoy getting validated, but we have to learn
how to manage our expectations.
(17:17):
And I also think that if we diversify our validation portfolio and our kindness
and compassion portfolios across these other forms of connection and not rely
on social media as the way to get that validation,
to get that tank filled, then we are going to benefit.
So I think the downside is allowing social media to be the one thing that fills your tank.
(17:42):
I think it's okay for it to fill your tank to some extent, if you have,
again, that diversified portfolio of how to get validated and how to get your
needs met and how to get your tank filled.
I just love all of that. That is so important.
And sometimes we don't even realize how much we're struggling,
(18:06):
how much we're being affected by what other people think of us.
What are some ways that we can kind of self-analyze and realize what we're struggling with?
And how do we know when we're at the point that we do need to reach out for
help, but again, without making them in an uncomfortable situation?
(18:29):
There's many layers to this, I think. So in ourselves, so there's,
I hear two questions here, sort of like, how do we know when we need to get help?
Or maybe how do we know when someone else needs professional help?
And then how do we avoid making other people the receivers of our trauma if
(18:50):
the relationship maybe doesn't have that level of connection or that unspoken
agreement that we're going to communicate at that level.
So I mentioned this earlier, I differentiate between emotional health,
mental health, mental illness, and crisis.
So these are not linear, okay? These are not linear things.
(19:12):
Emotional health is our day-to-day feelings and reactions to the small things that happen, right?
We may have something that disappoints
us. We have something thing that irritates us or frustrates us.
Those are sort of not, those are kind of softer emotions, if you will, right?
So we're not, you know, our reactions may be what we might call pretty on par
(19:37):
with the way a human being would react to a disappointment or a frustration.
So that's our, you know, that's sort of our emotional health.
Where it tips over into mental health is when we have a series of things that
are very challenging for us to deal with, right?
So it tips over from frustration into getting stuck in that place of frustration.
(20:01):
Isolation tips over into a place of despair where we feel like not only are
we isolated, but we are completely disconnected and we don't belong anywhere.
And so when it shifts over into a mental health disorder is when we are,
we have begun from being stuck to then going down and sinking down into the
(20:25):
hole where we, we don't have access to our coping skills anymore.
Okay. So we, when we don't have access to the things that have generally helped us in the past,
the things that have, whether it's journaling or creating or talking to a friend
or reaching out, listening to music or taking a hot bath or a hot shower or taking a walk,
(20:48):
when those coping mechanisms are no longer working for us and we are entrenched
in this feeling and we can't get out and we have tried,
that is when it is time to join with somebody.
Okay. And I'm going to say, I'm saying this intentionally, join with somebody to help us.
(21:09):
So I don't know if you watch too much, a lot of Renee Brown has gotten a lot
of public sort of, she's also a social worker and she is someone who speaks
a lot about empathy and hope and resilience.
And she makes this little video that's been seen like 200 gazillion times.
And it's about empathy, right? And it's about being present with somebody and
(21:29):
joining with So when empathy no longer feels genuine, when you are in that place of darkness,
all of those places that I'm speaking of are places where it is definitely time
to seek out professional help.
Help and also then if we don't if
we don't seek out professional help at that point
and it tips into crisis crisis is
(21:52):
when you feel like when you are having imminent thoughts
of taking your own life okay and it can also be behaviors that are are would
be interpreted by just about anyone as being suicidal it could be hoarding medications
it could be buying a firearm it could be you know any of these means by which
(22:12):
you could end your own life,
that crisis obviously needs emergency help, not just professional help, but emergency help.
So when do we know when we're at these times.
Sort of various places. You know, when I'm having emotional health sort of struggles,
right, where I'm feeling frustrated, I'm feeling a little angry, I'm feeling upset.
(22:34):
That is generally when talking to a friend helps.
And I recommend that we have and that we're intentional with building those
circles of support where there is an agreement. I even recommend listening buddies.
So a listening buddy is someone that you talk to and say, would you like to be my listening buddy.
And what that means is that you pair up and maybe once a week you have an intentional
(22:57):
phone call for 15, 20 minutes or however long you designate and you take turns.
There's no interrupting.
It's not to replace therapy, but it's just you get to, you have that agreement.
It's not, I wouldn't call it trauma dumping. I would call it checking in and
noticing and listening.
And so you have this person, you tell them how your week's going.
(23:18):
They tell you how their week is going, you listen, and then you do some validation.
And you might do some checking in on some things about how they're handling and coping.
And you do that once a week. And you schedule it and you're intentional and you protect that time.
That can help you from, you know, sort of stumbling into this place of being stuck, right?
(23:41):
If you're constantly, you know, it's like changing the oil in your car.
If you never change the oil in your car, your car engine is going to seize up.
We want to avoid seizing up.
We want to have those people in our life at the beginning, planting the seeds,
keeping that connection fostered so that we're not developing into these places
(24:02):
of darkness and despair and require emergency care.
Did I answer your question?
That was beautiful. I really, really liked that answer.
And a lot of us as creatives, we tie our worth into a lot of how we are received.
And you were talking about filling up your tank and making sure that you have
(24:26):
the diversity of having people care for you and listen to you.
What are some ways that we can remind ourselves that we do have worth no matter
how well things are on social media and how
well we're I honestly think it takes practice if your
personality is not one that leans itself toward resilience a natural resilience
(24:49):
if you have to work hard at being resilient I think it takes practice and it
does take intention everything takes intention and I realize that I'm using
that word a lot in the podcast but we have to choose
ourselves, okay?
And when we choose ourselves, we have to treat ourselves as beautifully as we
(25:10):
would treat someone else.
If you had a dear friend who was not choosing themselves and you are trying
to help them choose themselves, you better be setting a good role model for that.
If you want the beautiful people in your artistic community to choose themselves
and to choose health and to choose connection and to choose wellness and choose wellbeing.
(25:34):
We have to learn how to do that for ourselves. And it takes practice. It does take reminders.
I believe, you know, and, and I've got this thing on my wall that says,
be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
And I literally read that every day.
And I know we have this, there's this new, you know, you'll walk into a gift
(25:56):
shop and they have all the little memes, you know, with the nice sayings and all that.
And we surround ourselves with those things and we see them on social media.
But I think we have to choose to apply this. It's not just reading them and
smiling and say, oh, that's a nice thought.
We have to choose to apply things to our lives, again, sort of with intention.
(26:20):
So remembering our worth, it's being able to learn that measuring our worth
isn't, you know, you have to start from a hundred percent. You have one life to live.
You are 100% all the time, even if you don't feel like you're 100%. So what do I mean by that?
We have to have an armor of resilience where we are choosing to and being attentional
(26:48):
about social media and not, gosh, this is a really tough one.
You know, again, we are not using social media as a place for validation.
Maybe we're choosing it as a place of learning. Maybe we are choosing as a place
of connection, But we cannot choose it as a place, again, to be the thing that
(27:10):
fills our tank and our worth.
I think there are a lot of probably better resources than me on this particular
question. I really, really like Johan Hari's book, Lost Connections.
I'm not a religious person, but for me, it's got some biblical wisdom.
(27:31):
But he talks about how our worth is how we interact with the world.
And it's not in social media, quite frankly. think about
if once again you blow your
tire on the side of a road at the middle of the night and you
don't know how to change it but then someone comes along and fortunately
they look safe and not like you know somebody who's gonna
(27:54):
you know do something awful and and they help you change your tire and get back
on your way that person just told you what they're worth they are a citizen
of the world who helped someone who was stranded so if we think about how to
build our worth you You know, if for some reason we don't feel worthy,
then what measuring stick are we using?
(28:14):
And so we have to think about how are we measuring? If we feel unworthy,
what measuring stick are we using?
Maybe the measuring stick of being in the world and being a human being who
has something to give and something to contribute and being intentional about that contribution.
That's what worth is actually about. Not likes, not hearts, not follows, not views, right?
(28:37):
And that goes back to what you said about talking to yourself differently than
how you would talk to someone you care about.
That goes back to what you said about having a listening buddy and how helpful
that could be because you typically will not talk to someone you care about
in that negative way and just having that relationship to uplift each other.
(29:01):
So I love that idea of a listening buddy and just helping you boost yourself
up before you even get down to that point.
Have you ever had a situation where you got really bad criticism or some sort
of negative interaction with your community or someone you care about regarding
(29:23):
one of your books that you wrote? Because I know you wrote a few books.
And how did you handle that and not let it affect you? Oh, yes.
Yes, I have had muchos criticism.
Muchos. I love talking about this because I learned so much from being criticized.
So the very first fiction book I wrote, and it is now a series,
(29:46):
is called The Dying Five, a hospice heroes mystery series.
And I'm still writing a series about people who are at the end of their life
who choose to use their last months to solve mysteries and solve crimes. times.
So I didn't know anything about the publishing industry.
I just wrote a book, right? And so I, you know, I said, oh, I guess I should query this book now.
(30:08):
So I wrote a query letter, which is when you submit, you know,
a pitch to literary agents to see if someone wants to pick up the book and sell it to a publisher.
And so I thought, oh, gosh, you know, and again, Again, this was years ago,
and I have no idea what I'm doing.
So I put together the pitch. And, you know, as...
The rejections came in, I wasn't learning anything because most of those rejections
(30:33):
are what we call form reject rejections.
You write a book and a literary agent doesn't want it.
And they send you an automatic response back that basically says,
thank you for your submission.
I appreciate you considering me for your work, but this is not a good fit for me.
There's no way for them to tell you why they get thousands of these hundreds
a day. There just is not possible for them to give personalized feedback.
(30:57):
But I did get personalized feedback from one literary agent who said,
there's no way I could, no way I could sell a book about people who are dying,
who spend their last months solving mysteries.
No one would want to read that. No one would want to buy that book.
And, and how else did she put it?
(31:19):
I can't, she said, I can't even see anybody in hospice. Why would they do that?
And so I said to myself, you know what? This person is a literary agent.
They are an expert in selling and publishing books, but they are definitely
not an expert in the human condition.
And so I left with my pride intact and said, you know what?
(31:44):
I'm just going to self-publish this book. I didn't query much on those books
because I thought to myself.
You know what? That's okay. And if that's the reason why this book is getting
rejected, I only sent out 20 queries.
I said, I love this book.
And if I only have family and friends that read it, it's not my full-time job. I am okay with that.
(32:11):
So I did suffer criticism. Now, Now, I see tons of people on social media who
get criticism for their craft and, you know,
they are full-time artists or they are full-time creatives or they are full-time writers.
And so when you are criticizing someone's work and that's their full-time and
(32:34):
their livelihood, it probably lands a lot differently than it does for someone
like me who has a full-time job who writes on the side.
So where your life station sometimes dictates your reaction.
But I do think that even if being a creative is your full time job,
like I mentioned before, I
(32:54):
still think you have to get your validation bucket filled in other places.
Right. So if you're a creative and the only thing that matters is selling your
creative works as opposed to like Soda, what you do,
which is what linked us together as I saw you on threads and that you actually
draw cartoons for your podcast guests.
(33:16):
I was out of my mind with excitement.
I said, if she has me on or if they have me on their podcast and I get a cartoon.
I'm I'm going to be the happiest MFR in the whole world because that to me is
just the most beautiful gift to have, you know, so anyway,
(33:37):
that's, that's a sidebar, but that, you know, that lifted me up the thought
and then you and I started talking and I just,
I have stayed so lifted up and ready to do this podcast with you because I'm
getting a cartoon and that is such a gift.
And so I think when we see our hard work as a gift to the world,
(33:59):
if we can reframe the work we're doing and accept the praise,
people have such a hard time accepting praise.
And that hurts my heart so much because it is absolutely well intended. ended.
So everybody focuses on that one bad review or that one person who didn't like,
and when you've got 75% good, 25% doesn't make you happy in terms of the criticism.
(34:24):
We are putting all of our energy in the wrong bucket.
Let that good feedback, let people being lifted up by your gifts,
fill you up till you're spilling over.
Then there's no room for the bad Yeah, when I see people who have my little
cartoons as their profile picture or something like that and just excited about it, sharing it.
(34:47):
It doesn't necessarily make me feel worthy, but it lifts me up.
So I try to do that where I don't base my worth on praise or negative feedback,
but it does get you excited.
And I know with AI and everything, a lot of creatives are feeling extremely
distraught because they're like, oh, I'm being replaced.
(35:10):
My feed is being flooded with things made by AI instead of me.
And that's been a huge, huge part of a lot of this distress.
But what you were saying of diversifying your validation, your worth,
your excitement is, I believe that's the most important thing creatives can do.
(35:31):
And I know you mentioned you volunteer, you do a couple other things.
How has really getting out of your creative bubble helped you with confidence, with that self-worth?
And how can we get the courage to do that when we're, I know we talked a little
bit about this earlier, but I know for a lot of us, it is so scary to get out
(35:56):
of our houses, especially like for me. I just moved here. I don't know people.
So I'd love to hear your thoughts about actually getting out of your houses,
having face-to-face connections, and how that could give us confidence in our
life and in our creativity.
This is such a timely question for me because during COVID,
I was one of those people who really enjoyed staying home and working from home
(36:18):
and being in my bubble and writing and creating and just doing all this really
jazzy stuff with my brain all by myself.
And then everything lifted, right?
COVID lifted and the restrictions or whatever, we were supposed to stay home lifted.
And I found myself getting phone calls to do that.
(36:38):
I'm someone who has spoken nationally on these subjects of mental health and suicide prevention.
And I was getting all kinds of requests and COVID hits.
And then I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm at home. I'm not traveling.
I love this. I am thrilled to be in a bubble.
And then COVID lifted and I felt my heels dug in.
(37:01):
I didn't want to accept having to go back out.
And then I started to get socially phobic.
I didn't want to go to the grocery store. I didn't want to go anywhere.
I felt, and it wasn't a COVID thing. I wasn't afraid of getting,
you know, well, I mean, I had a healthy level of fear of getting COVID.
(37:21):
But, you know, I wasn't afraid that something bad was going to happen related
to COVID. I was just afraid to be around people again.
It's like I almost had to redo being in public.
And so now, like, I just gave a talk last week, I'm getting ready to give another
talk. So my answer to your question is baby steps, baby steps.
In mental health, we have a therapy. It's called exposure therapy.
(37:45):
And we use this a lot for people with anxieties and with panic.
So social anxiety, panic disorder.
So essentially, you dip that one tiny toe in the end of the pool where if you
fell in, you could get back out, right?
You're not in the deep end, right?
You're in the shallow end. You're in three feet of water, right?
(38:05):
But you dip your toe in first. So that might mean committing to and being intentional
about attending a small gathering of friends or creatives or an event, right?
And preparing yourself, breathing, but or it could be just a small dinner party.
It could be, you know, but being very intentional. intentional
(38:27):
i'm not saying you have to host it yourself i'm not
saying that you have to go to a
big you know a game or something where they're surrounded
by thousands of people dip your toe in and then
dip your toe in a little further make it a little bit of a bigger event and
so on and so forth have a buddy right have a buddy go with you have an escape
(38:47):
plan right you know like have all these things but you've got to do it you've
got to do it because connection In suicide prevention.
If we know anything, there are two things that work the best.
The first is always going to be means restriction, removing the means of someone
(39:09):
being able to take their own life. But the second thing is connection.
Connection is the strongest, most powerful protective factor against suicide.
So people not just knowing that they're not alone, which is a double negative,
you know, knowing that they, but also being able to connect and belong somewhere.
Somewhere so finding community right and
(39:32):
it could be in the unlikeliest of places
you mentioned earlier before we started the podcast you're part of a mom i think
a mom's group so i assume there are other moms in that group you share stories
storytelling is so powerful so if you can find community where people are telling
their stories that helps you to not only feel like you're not alone,
(39:55):
but it may also help you answer questions that you didn't even know you had, right?
So one thing I made a note of is how creatives can start mental health conversations,
and that is through storytelling.
What helped someone in their recovery journey?
So when we talk to our listening buddies, or when we talk to our therapist,
(40:16):
or when we talk to our friends, or when we talk to our families,
we can tell them all about what's wrong, and we can also So tell them what's
going right, but we should also talk about what has helped.
So when you've had a panic attack, what's helped bring you out?
What's helped you heal from that?
What are the things that are in your coping toolbox, your mental health toolbox?
(40:41):
Those things could help somebody else.
So I think, you know, in terms of final thoughts for me, it's about if you cut
yourself, and I don't mean self-harm.
I just mean if you accidentally, because self-harm is a whole other conversation.
But if you accidentally injure yourself, that part of your body hurts really, really bad. Okay.
And you're going to do everything you can to protect it from like getting dirt
(41:04):
in it. You know, like you put a bandaid or a bandage on there.
And we're so focused on the pain of that place where we injured ourselves.
We forget that the rest of our body is doing okay.
The rest of our body is feeling pretty good. Right. We're so focused on the place that hurts.
So I think taking that into our mental health, we tend to focus so much on the
hurt in our heart or the hurt that our depression causes or the hurt that our
(41:28):
anxiety causes, that that's all we can think about and we stay so focused on it.
So if we have a diversified emotional or mental health portfolio where we get
our tanks filled in these different places, we can go and we can spend time
with older adults at the agency or the nursing home or whatever.
Or we can spend time with the rescue animals, or we can spend time,
(41:49):
you know, volunteering or giving back to our communities,
being in that role is going to take us out of that place of pain where we're
only focused on our pain and realize that the rest of our body,
the rest of our hearts, the rest of our minds are fully capable of giving and
fully capable of loving and being loved.
So I guess if I'm going to kind of wrap it up on that point,
(42:09):
that that would be a good place to do it. Yeah.
That's such an important point. And I just want to thank you again for coming on about this.
This could be a very difficult subject to talk about.
And I'm glad that you're out there advocating because so many of us,
we don't know what to do when we are at this point and we don't know where to turn.
(42:32):
And I love the suggestions of having a listening buddy, diversifying your self-worth,
your praise, and just really having that love for yourself the way you would love someone else.
So thank you again. Where can people find you if they want to follow you,
want to read any of your books?
(42:53):
Do you mind just finishing up with that?
Yeah, yeah. I'll put one little plug in for some mental health resources for folks.
So obviously, I mentioned this earlier, but if someone is in suicide crisis,
since we talked about suicide today.
The National Suicide Prevention and Crisis Lifeline is 988.
If you're a veteran, you dial 1-988 and then you hit 1. That would be the Veterans Crisis Line.
(43:17):
There's also the Crisis Text Line, which you can essentially,
you can text almost any word.
You can text HOPE, HOME, START, all in capitals to 741741.
I would recommend the National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI.
I would recommend Mental Health America for resources.
Both of those organizations have local chapters in every state.
(43:38):
So you should be able to find someplace near you where they will offer resources and support.
There are community mental health centers that will see people on a sliding fee scale.
So community mental health centers can, if you're an artist or creative and
you're living off of very minimal means, you don't have a lot of income,
you may not have insurance or your insurance isn't that
(43:59):
stupendous. Your local community mental health center should have sliding fee
scales so that you can get some professional help if needed.
We did talk about listening buddies. So I will say that folks can find me on
almost any social media platform, but I do so many different things that all
my social media has different.
It's like, I don't have any consistency, which makes creating a brand really difficult.
(44:23):
And everybody, all my, all the people in publicity, even my daughter,
or who's got a PR degree shakes her finger at me, you've got to develop a brand.
My brand is just being whatever people need me to be, you know?
So I am at jenniferwrightberryman.com.
That's my website.
Jennifer with two N's, W-R-I-G-H-T-B-E-R-R-Y-M-A-N.com, jenniferwrightberryman.com.
(44:44):
On my website, you'll see my books, but you'll also see I have a blog. I need to update it.
I'm also on Substack. If you Google me, you'll find everything,
all my academic publishing, some of the talks I've given.
I did a TEDx a while back, and that's up as well. That TEDx is about suicide prevention.
You can find me at Jen L. Berry on Instagram threads, and then my full name,
(45:09):
Jennifer Wright Berryman with
a hyphen on Facebook, and probably somewhere else. I'm also on TikTok.
So, and I will have all of that in the show notes.
So I'm sure people will want to follow you after to this.
So thank you again for all that.
And thank you to everyone who took the time to listen to this important message.
(45:32):
Remember, you are valuable, you are worthy of love, and you have so much potential.
To learn more about this podcast and for social media links,
you can go to thesuccesspalette.com.
Let's work together to make this a successful week.
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