December 18, 2023 • 51 mins
You've probably heard about the importance of mental health, but have you ever considered how it intersects with issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion? Join us for a conversation with Dr. Haley Sparks, the Director of VISIONS' Mental Health Program, as we explore the terrain of DEI work and mental health. Dr. Sparks, a personality psychologist by training, shares about her journey and offers a preview of her upcoming workshop on rest and sustainability at VISIONS' 2024 Spring Summit.
The revamped mental health program at VISIONS centers around a coaching model, and is designed to help clients engage in exploration of their identities through an anti-oppression lens. If you've ever found DEI work challenging, you'll understand the importance of unpacking personal biases and negative experiences in a supportive environment, including the value of affinity work and the advantages of working with clinicians who share similar identities and experiences.
Stay tuned for exciting updates on the Mental Health Program, VISIONS 2024 Spring Summit, and our 40th anniversary event, which will take place on September 27, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts!
See what's coming up at VISIONS!
About us
Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and liberation is a production of VISIONS, Inc, a non-profit that offers effective tools that help individuals and organizations communicate and forge connections across differences that drive collective success.
Since 1984, we’ve offered research-based, time-tested approaches to cross-cultural learning that invite participants to engage in equity and inclusion work, starting at the personal and interpersonal levels and expanding to include changes toward institutional and cultural levels.
VISIONS offers actionable approaches that empower people to identify actions, explore their motivations, and effectively move through complex situations with respect and humanity for others and their differences.
Any opinions and views expressed by the speakers are their own and do not reflect the positions of VISIONS, Inc.
Follow us!
Instagram: @visionsinc_org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VISIONS.Inc.1984/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/visions-inc.org/
Music credit: Tim Hall @tv_hall
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (00:00):
Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a
podcast about transformativechange, equity and working
against oppression.
I'm Leena Akhtar, director ofPrograms with Visions Inc.
Welcome, hi, everyone.
I'm excited today to introduceyou to Dr Haley Sparks, the
(00:21):
Director of VISIONS' MentalHealth Program.
As some of you may know, theVisions model has deep roots in
20th century Libertory SocialPsychology, which, in my humble
opinion, is really our secretsauce.
Haley and I talk a little aboutthat here and you'll hear more
in upcoming episodes as we delvedeeper into the stories of our
founders and elders.
In honor of 2024 being Visions'40th year of existence, I always
(00:45):
love speaking and collaboratingwith Haley.
In this episode, she talksabout how she came to Visions
and the work, about our mentalhealth program and the
importance of anti-oppressionapproaches to mental health
coaching, and about the workshopshe's offering in April at the
Visions' 2024 Spring Summit.
The theme this year isTrauma-Informed Approaches to
Sustaining DEI, social Justiceand Anti-Oppression Work.
(01:05):
Haley will be offering aworkshop on the importance of
rest and what the sevendifferent types of fatigue and
corresponding types of rest are.
The goal of this summit is tooffer people concrete strategies
for staying in the work withoutburning out, and we'll be
leaning heavily into our rootswith clinical work.
For that I'm also excited toconfirm that one of our headline
speakers is Dr Gabor Mate,who'll be speaking about
(01:27):
compassion, fatigue and burnout.
Stay tuned for details andwe're recording.
I'm super excited to be todaywith Dr Haley Sparks, the
director of Visions' MentalHealth Program, and so many
other things.
I have a lot of respect andadmiration for Dr Sparks and her
work.
Welcome, haley.
Dr. Haley Sparks (01:47):
Thank you, Leena.
I'm very, very happy to be here.
I'm happy to talk about some ofthe work that I'm doing with
Visions.
I'm excited to talk about themental health program and I'm
here to talk about where I hopeto see this work going broadly.
I'm really happy to be here andtalking about how we can
(02:09):
sustain ourselves in the work.
Beautiful.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (02:12):
So, before we get started, haley, would you
introduce yourself to people whoaren't familiar?
Dr. Haley Sparks (02:16):
with you, sure , hi everyone.
I'm Dr Haley Sparks.
I got my PhD in my Masters ofSocial Work at the University of
Michigan.
My doctorate is in personalitypsychology, in personality and
social context.
I think those studies reallyinform all of the work that I do
(02:40):
.
As you said, I am the directorof the mental health program
here with Visions.
I'm also the director of equity, diversity and inclusion in
external affairs at UCLA.
I see the work all meldingtogether.
I am a clinician by training,so through my Masters of Social
Work I was able to practicetherapy with individuals,
(03:04):
couples, groups and families.
And UCLA.
I always say, basically in anutshell, I work with staff over
at UCLA, external affairs andis everything outside of the
university.
So development, folks who raisemoney for the university,
advancement services, folks whomanage said money once it's
(03:27):
raised, alumni affairs andgovernment and community
relations.
My job in a nutshell is to makesure there's a sense of
belonging.
So really, my work at Visionsreally beautifully, in my
opinion, overlaps with my workat UCLA, where I'm trying to
think as deeply as possibleabout how we get to more justice
(03:50):
, more inclusion, in a way thatfeels thorough and deep, and I
think that's what drew me to theVisions model.
We'll talk a little bit aboutthat in a little bit, but I
think that's what drew me to theVisions model in the first
place is just how in depth we'regoing, just how intricately we
(04:10):
are tying the self we always sayin Visions we're practicing
self-focus and how that reallyties into all that we do in the
DEI EDI Jedi, what we want tocall it diversity, equity and
inclusion space.
So I'm really excited about thedepth at which we're going at
Visions and where that can leadus in the future.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (04:33):
Beautiful.
Thank you.
First off, a curiosity question.
You alluded briefly to what youwrote your doctoral
dissertation on.
Tell me a little bit more whatyou mean about personality.
Dr. Haley Sparks (04:45):
Oh, man, okay, Personality At the time when I
started my doctoral program, Ididn't know it, and I love the
melding of personality andsocial context, because to me,
personality is a conglomerationof your intersecting identities,
(05:06):
your experiences, yourperspectives, your motivations,
your underlying hopes and dreams, all those things wrapped up
into what gives you this thingthat we call personality, that
is ever-changing, ever-moving,which is both a beautiful thing
(05:27):
and a sticky thing, acomplicated thing at times.
And really the personality,mixed with the social context
that people are in, is where Itry to dive in when I'm thinking
about how can we create moreequitable, socially aware,
justice-focused environments forall.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (05:47):
Interesting.
I have many questions that Iwill ask you at the time.
Yes, so you do work with UCLAand then you're also the
director of our mental healthprogram here at Visions.
I'm curious how you foundVisions.
I don't think I know this.
Dr. Haley Sparks (06:04):
Yes, yes, Okay , I love this story.
Bear with me because it's along story, but I very much am a
full circle type of person.
I believe in fate.
I believe when things arealigned they happen.
So I want to take us a stepback and then I will get to how
I got to Visions.
But when I started my doctoralprogram, I was feeling a little
(06:27):
bit not entirely fulfilled withthe work that's going on.
And I will always say pacing issomething that I kind of
struggle with.
That is because I want to seechange done yesterday.
So at times when I was kind oftrudging through the process
that is research, I was feelingat times like, okay, I'm not
(06:48):
making an impact fast enough now, now, now, now, now, now, which
is absolutely something that Ineed to work on and I have been
working on for the past fewyears.
That'll get into my interestand rest now when we're talking
about the work.
But at the time I was like,wait, how can I impact people in
a more tangible way right now?
So I added my masters of socialwork while I was doing doctoral
(07:12):
program so I could do researchand also be seeing people in
real time doing therapy.
Because, like no, I want thisone-on-one or group setting
where I see change.
You know, okay, somebody didtheir therapy homework and
they're, you know, kind ofimproving their lives or what
have you, or making those shifts, making those changes.
And that was really excitingfor me, in both the therapy room
(07:37):
and at the University ofMichigan, though I was seeing
that there were grave needs forDEI in every step of the way.
I think, Leena, you and I havetalked about I was doing sliding
scale therapy because I wasfunded by the university so I
could afford to have people payme what they could afford to pay
(07:59):
.
Sometimes it would be as low asa dollar an hour and because I
was working with a number offolks who could afford to make
as low as a dollar an hour, itkind of resulted in clinicians
who were more privileged interms of their identities, in
terms of, maybe, their partnerswho were able to fund them.
I was like, okay, if we're allkind of privileged financially,
(08:23):
we need to be doing some realdeep DEI work so that we can
serve our clients better.
And really that deep DEI workis what led me to visions, All
of the offerings that I wasseeing in university or more
corporate settings.
It felt to surface level,especially as I'm going as deep
(08:47):
as I possibly could and beingpushed to go there in my
dissertation.
At the time I was finding theDEI space was like the trainings
that I was familiar with arebeing offered.
It wasn't going nearly as deepor getting into the personality
as I wanted.
And I found myself one daytalking to my oldest brother
about this.
(09:07):
He lives in Austin and I waslike you know, Brandon that's my
brother's name, Brandon it'snot hitting for me, these
trainings are not landing for me, which is hard because I care
about this work but it does notseem to be starting where we
need to be starting.
And he was like that's actuallyreally interesting.
(09:28):
I have a friend who's on theboard of an organization who was
just talking to me about this.
Said friend was on the board ofvisions.
He connected me with her, whoconnected me to Elika, executive
director, and we talked aboutsimilarly feeling uninspired and
not as challenged, not like weneeded to.
(09:49):
We weren't going as deep.
It wasn't feeling assubstantive and Elika kind of
introduced me to the visionsmodel and I was hooked from day
one.
I was hooked.
It was hard.
You know my first pace.
I'm sure we'll talk about it alittle.
My first pace really didencourage me to go there in
terms of myself, my ownbackground, my own experiences
(10:11):
in ways that I hadn't foundbefore, and it really was kind
of the missing piece to me forDEI work.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (10:18):
Beautiful.
I didn't realize that, so yourconnection was via a board
member.
So for people who are justlistening to this and who don't
see you on video, as I do now,you know you're both are coming
to this from particular.
You know social locations andI'm curious what you're like,
what you want to share aboutyour first pace experience,
(10:39):
especially given your trainingand background and interests.
Dr. Haley Sparks (10:45):
Almost, almost like be careful.
What you wish for, I will say.
The vision's mental healthprogram is almost, excuse me,
the revamped mental healthprogram because you know we have
to honor our history.
There's a decades long historyat visions of having clinicians
offer mental health support.
(11:06):
So we're reviving somethingthat has existed for a while in
visions, but it kind of was bornout of my first pace session
and really uncovering things.
So one of the things that we dois called our first encounter
with difference, where wereflect on a time, preferably
(11:28):
before age 10, where we firstobserve differences between
individuals.
That can be between yourselfand somebody else or between two
individuals you're observing.
So for folks who are not seeingme, I'm a cisgendered black
woman who and this is alwayssomething that I talk about in
(11:50):
terms of visions offering thoseare kind of more my, my able
bodied cisgendered black woman.
Those are some of my moreapparent identities and I would
say one of the identities Ifirst became aware of was that I
was a daughter without a mother.
So when I was six years old mymother was killed tragically in
(12:14):
a car accident and my firstexperience with difference was I
was in the car accident withher and my first encounter with
difference was coming back toschool.
I wasn't second grade andcoming back to school with my
peers and, of course, being verypainfully and palpably aware of
(12:35):
that difference now with mypeers, you know, and especially
at age six, that's one of thefirst things that people ask you
know, what do your mommy anddaddy do?
And I very quickly became awarelike, oh, that is a difference
that I now have.
And I think being in a spacewith folks who were ready and
(12:57):
willing and prepared andequipped to go there with me to
explore those kinds ofexperiences and that's that's
one of many it brought up a lotin me that needed to be brought
up and made me palpably awarethat at times I feel like I'm
not around folks who areequipped to go there and help me
(13:19):
really dive into how that mightbe impacting how I show up in
spaces, how I interact withfolks, you know, at work, at
home, et cetera, et cetera.
I think that is frankly a luxurythat I think everybody deserves
.
And that's why I am so excitedand passionate about the
(13:40):
vision's model, because I thinkI have always felt like, wow,
people can't really go therewith me, and it does feel
important to go there.
And then, once again, when Ifinally got the opportunity, I
also thought it probably feelsvery important to have systems
within visions put into placewhere folks can have additional
(14:03):
support to investigate andprocess these things with
trained clinicians, which iswhere the mental health program
comes in.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (14:14):
Thank you, who were your pace one facilitators
, just out of curiosity.
Yeah, that was genie and Jabari, amazing.
Dr. Haley Sparks (14:22):
Okay, yeah, it was good and you know, of
course there they're on EastCoast time and you know pace can
be kind of intense and I was inCalifornia so I was getting up
at four in the morning, but Iwill say, for those intense for
maybe five days it felt worth it.
It felt very worth it to get upat that time and, you know
(14:47):
again, to engage with folks whoI felt like were equipped to do
that type of deep Self-worth.
That I really believe is thekey to DEI.
I think it's what's gonnaunlock progress for us.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (15:04):
You know what you just said about people who
have the ability to go there.
I think that summarizes reallynicely what we Really have to
offer and what differentiatesour approach.
It's deep, affective capacitybuilding, tools for
self-management, tools for beingable to contain hard stuff, and
(15:28):
you and I have hadconversations before in our
respective roles he was directorof the mental health program,
me as director of programs Aboutwhat the potential is for
people who are confrontingCertain issues, particularly
around race and aroundoppression more generally, and
how Support can be hard to findout in the world.
(15:49):
Not all practitioners, forinstance, are comfortable or nor
do they have the capacity totalk about it.
So you know we both have strongfeelings and impossibly
experiences around this.
I certainly do, and I'm curioushow you're, how you've been
thinking about it, right and andand maybe this is a good point
to Seg to what is the mentalhealth program?
Dr. Haley Sparks (16:10):
Yeah, well, okay, we can start with the
mental health program and why.
I think it speaks to some ofthe potential challenges that
you Are alluding to.
So the revamped mental healthprogram here at visions is
really an opportunity forcurrent and potentially new
(16:31):
clients to engage with ourclinicians in a coaching model
To gain additional support asyou investigate your own
personal experiences, your ownPersonal biases, your own
personal perspectives and let mebe clear, we all have our
biases In a way that feelsSupportive, that feels safe to
(16:57):
the extent that we can ensurethat of course, we can't always
Guarantee it, I would never lieto folks that way and in a way
that feels structured and givesfolks Really an environment to
explore things that perhaps theyhad never Done when it comes to
(17:17):
their identities and what mightcome up as they are trying to
be anti-racist, socially justicefocused folks, because it
really is.
It's hard work.
When we say, do the work, youknow, especially in the mental
health of therapy context, Ithink we really intentionally
(17:40):
frame it as labor or work,because it's hard, it is
Strenuous and, just as you know,it's not the same like at times
.
Use you know like a Personaltrainer, just as some folks find
it really helpful to have apersonal trainer to give you
structure, to give you ideasabout how to Move one's body in
(18:04):
a way that is accessible andsafe for that specific
individual in their body.
That's the same idea with themental health program is how can
we create structure, strategies, practices that are
specifically tailored for eachindividual as they try to
(18:26):
investigate their ownperspectives and experiences and
try to go deeper and deeper anddeeper into the ocean?
That is DEI work.
So, to Go back to your originalquestion about the potential
challenges, which you know, Iknow, we know you and I have
talked about you, and I havetalked about the ordeal that is
(18:47):
therapist shopping At times,trying to find the right fit,
and I don't I don't even know ifwe've talked about this, but
the potential power dynamics youknow.
Okay, I'm looking for atherapist.
Maybe this is my first time, Ihaven't done this work before,
so now I don't even know that Ican even really question this
person.
Maybe they've made anassumption is necessarily
(19:09):
correct, but they're the expert.
What do I know?
You know, I've never been totherapy before, but or maybe I
have been to therapy before butI'm still just kind of learning,
or I'm in a really raw spot.
And then of course it's do youeven accept my insurance?
You know there's so manydifferent moving pieces when
trying to find A therapist inthe first place, let alone
(19:33):
finding a good fit.
And what I think is reallyexciting About visions mental
health program is one that weare explicitly Acknowledging
that this work is hard.
Dei work is hard.
You know, sometimes, I think,especially in the workplace
context, we just throw folks inlike, all right, get in there,
like you should want to includeyour colleagues, so you should
(19:55):
know how to do it.
We don't know how to do thiswork.
We were never this, this typeof work was never taught to us,
it was never emphasized, it wasnever valued.
So we need to be starting wayat the beginning about what it
even looks like to be able tocommunicate with one another
Effectively, and then understandthat because we are all out of
practice or maybe we're never inpractice in the first place,
(20:18):
it's going to be strenuous attimes and then, once you find
that maybe it was strenuous andmaybe something did come up for
you, then I think the beautifulthing about the mental health
program Is that we have folks,individuals, in place who help
to match you with a mentalhealth coach.
(20:40):
That could potentially be a goodmatch for you, you know, and of
course it's never a guarantee,but I do think there's something
very helpful about, almost likethe boutique nature of the
program that you meet with anindividual myself I have a
intimate knowledge of thevarious clinicians who are
(21:02):
taking on new clients and then Iwill match you with someone who
I do think is a good fit.
So you don't have to do evenmore of that strenuous labor.
You know you're alreadypotentially working through
something, and so then I help toshoulder that burden, shoulder
that labor to fit you withsomebody who I think could
(21:25):
really match up to what you'relooking for, what your needs are
, where you would like to focusand what you would like to prop.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (21:34):
Now I should say for people who aren't super
familiar with visions or haven'tbeen in our orbit for a long
time, we are an organizationthat has deep roots in social
psychology.
We are very clinician heavy.
Our model draws on those rootsand leans heavily into what we
refer to as the affective or theemotional component of how
(21:55):
oppression surrounds us, threadsitself through us, imprints
itself on us and the worldaround us, and how emotionally
strenuous it can be to navigateit, and also what kinds of
things come up as we'reunpacking the impacts of it,
whatever side of the oppressionwe sit on.
So the roster of cliniciansthat we have ranges.
(22:19):
We have white clinicians, wehave clinicians of color, we
have a lot of queer clinicianson staff, a lot of queer people
at visions, and I've beenthinking about this for a long
time.
As you know, my training is as ahistorian of psychology and
psychiatry and I've beenthinking about the field and how
has itself been steeped inreally oppressive structures and
(22:41):
how, having an explicitlyanti-oppression approach that
has been developed by people whoare familiar psychologists
themselves, etc.
There's something reallyimportant and generative about
that.
The two scenarios that you andI have discussed I have
experienced as a person of color, as a person who sits in my
particular location, what adifference it has made for me to
(23:04):
seek out a therapist whoseidentities are similar to mine
and I didn't even know until Ifound that.
And I've also talked to whitepeople who, especially in the
wake of what happened in 2020,have said I went to my therapist
and they said, oh, when theywere trying to work through
feelings, the hard feelings thatcame up when they were
confronting the things that thisbrought up, I don't know.
(23:25):
I've heard responses aboutresponses that were unhelpful
100%.
Dr. Haley Sparks (23:30):
One.
I also have heard countlessstories on both sides, certainly
among my friends of color, youknow, talking about the happy
Indian stories where, you know,I finally found a therapist who
does share some.
You know, we're never going tohave an exact match, but that's
not a bad thing.
(23:50):
You know there are someperspectives that are not your
own or not.
Your experiences can be helpfulin the therapy room and you
know it can be helpful, ofcourse, like I said, a sister in
black woman really helpful forme to be able to with a clear
black person who was a clinician.
(24:11):
And on the other side, you know, lena, as you said, we do have
a lot of white clinicians whoare steeped in the anti racism,
socially justice focused workand they are well versed and
excited and at the same time,humble and ready to work with
(24:34):
white folks who are also excitedand energized about doing their
own work and they understandsome of the processes that one
might go through to try toprocess these things as a white
person moving forward in thispotentially heavy, sticky feel
(24:57):
that we all have to go through.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (24:59):
It reminded me of what I've conversations I've
had with clients and otherpeople about why affinity work
can be so important.
So for me and I've heardobviously a lot of people share
this the deep, reflective,identity based work of visions
(25:19):
was very much an eye opener forme, both in terms of thinking
about my historically includedidentities as well as my
excluded ones.
When I say that, I'm thinkingabout my so called marginalized
or one down identities, theplaces where I spent the most
mental energy, maybe time,mental, emotional energy.
Thinking about realizing thatthere were a lot of respects in
(25:40):
which I had privilege was an eyeopener for me.
The other part is around thework that we do with modern
oppression and what we callinternalized oppression or
survival behaviors that havestuck around, and in that
respect, being able to do workin affinity spaces around other
(26:01):
people of color, for instance,has been really helpful, because
there's painful things thatneed unpacking in order to be
healed, as you say, and that'snot necessarily work that I want
to do in an open group.
That's work that is better done, held and facilitated in a room
with people of color and then,similarly, across variables of
(26:22):
historically included or one upidentities and, given the time
that we live in, around whiteracial identity in particular,
unpacking that is work thatreally shouldn't necessarily
usually shouldn't happen infront of people of color.
Dr. Haley Sparks (26:40):
There are many reasons.
You know the previous summitthat we worked on talking about
getting rid of shame in thiswork.
You know I look at shame asalmost like go through fields is
on, like, almost like a literalwall at times that I see I'll
(27:02):
have to, whether it be withinmyself or with others, that I
see myself having to un-mentalbrick by brick and by the time I
get to the last brick I'malready exhausted and we haven't
even gotten to the good stuffinside the wall.
But shame can act as such abarrier that I could see really
(27:23):
taking away from the work thatneeds to be done.
And a lot of white folks orfolks who are working on their
white identity are lookingforward to doing or know that
it's very important to do.
But you know I could see ifthey felt on display, you know,
in front of others, that shamewall would come in.
(27:44):
And now we're focusing ontaking that down brick by brick
rather than getting to the meatof why they're there.
So I could see that being ahuge reason why you know this
affinity work can be important.
In addition to you know, ofcourse, that visions.
We are very committed tominimizing harm, unnecessary
(28:07):
where we can.
And you know that type ofalmost doing that work in an
amphitheater where everybody'sobserving you could cause harm
to both the observer and theobserved, and that's not
something again that that feelslike another barrier that
doesn't have to be there.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (28:26):
And because the work is so hard and lifelong
in the first place, I do thinkat this point in time we want to
minimize as many barriers aspossible so we can get to the
meat of the work for me,certainly in my included
identities, I've always had anaha moment when I realize that
(28:46):
it agreed to which my privilegeor lack of disadvantage affects
my experience, and that's not anaha that a person who lives
this every day needs to hearabout.
Which is why.
Which is why we do, which iswhy we do affinity work, just to
give people the space that theyneed to really unpack it and
show up differently, if that'swhat they want.
(29:07):
Yeah, yeah, absolutelyBeautiful.
That's the mental healthprogram.
And then I've been excited atmany points to be able to
collaborate with you.
Of course we did.
The summit that panel that youpresented on was wonderful.
People are still talking aboutit for folks who don't know.
The summit last year in 2023,was about taking shame out of
(29:28):
the equation.
So moving away from uncritical,just you know, discarding of
people and seeing what theconditions are that people need
in order to learn and show updifferently and align with who
they want to be right aligntheir, their impact, with their
intent.
Our 2024 summit is comingtogether and coalescing really
(29:52):
nicely and I'm excited tocollaborate with you again on
this.
The topic this time aroundgiven that 2024 is going to be
an election year, given justeverything that has been
happening over the past fewyears and is happening now the
topic is about trauma informedself care and trauma informed
(30:16):
community care recognizing thatcare is not just is not just an
individual matter, but reallythat we are parts of a
collective, and sustainingdifficult work can take
intentionality and strategy,especially now, especially given
everything that's beenhappening, and I think that
there's a lot of great lessonsto be learned from clinicians in
(30:37):
terms of how to stay engaged.
So I've invited Haley topresent a workshop and basically
said Dr Sparks, you can dowhatever you want and Haley tell
us, tell us what, what was topof heart and top of mind for you
.
Dr. Haley Sparks (30:52):
I clean.
I love that you described, atthe very least, where we want to
be going is making this worksustainable.
I've talked a lot, you know,one of our visions founders, dr
Val, my mentor.
I talked with her a lot abouther trajectory in this world in
(31:14):
doing this work and I talked toher a lot about the ebbs and
flows that she's seen doing thiswork and the ebbs and flows
she's seen in the world andwhere she feels like we've made
significant progress, and attimes, also talking about
warning periods that she's hadto go through where she thought
more progress would have beenmade.
(31:34):
And I won't I don't want to putmore words in her mouth and I
potentially already have, butI've been thinking a lot, you
know, in light of thoseconversations with Dr Val,
thinking about how can we makethis work sustainable for folks
who are in it.
Because you know, I look at DrVal and I don't know what I
(31:56):
would have done if, 20 years ago, she'd been like you know what
I'm too tired, I'm too, I'm tooburnt out, which you know we
talked about trauma.
Informed burnout is trauma.
Make make no mistake about it.
It is the result of sustainedand acute trauma.
And right.
(32:17):
If Dr Val had thrown in thetowel, lord knows where I would
be not not in a good spot, andso you know, I think goodness
that somehow she has sustainedherself and made the work
sustainable for her.
And how do we continue toinvite folks in to do the work?
(32:40):
I think one of the most ethicalways to do so is to continue to
create sustainable models.
I'm not comfortable withinviting somebody into my home
if it's a hellscape in there.
You know, how can we make thiswork sustainable and humane for
(33:01):
the folks who are already in thehouse and folks who we want to
invite in?
One of the main ways I seedoing that is being intentional
about how we sow the seeds ofrest into the work.
I think one of the biggestchallenges or barriers, I would
(33:21):
say, in really emphasizing howimportant rest is is, at times,
I feel like, especially in someof the western cultures I in
American person I live at leastpart time in America is this
hustle culture that we see inAmerican, in western cultures.
That, again, if you ask me, isvery not sustainable and I think
(33:45):
bleeds into the workplace bigtime.
Or maybe it was even born inthe workplace.
Let's be real.
Where, then?
Where we're in this hustleculture?
So the ideas of self care orrest are seen as optional, if
not shameful in themselves.
And so how in the world, how dowe help folks who are existing
(34:08):
in these systems where restingis seen as something that you
have to keep a secret, or youhave to avoid as much as humanly
possible, or you should feelshame or lesser than about?
How do we then turn it on hishead and be like actually rest
is a very important strategy todoing the work.
(34:31):
That is like the antithesis ofwhat so many of us have learned
about what it means to do anywork work and rest our opposites
and so many of our heads,whether it be conscious or
subconscious, and really in myseries or my workshop, that is
(34:53):
what I want to focus on.
I'm going to be deriving a lotof what I speak about from Dr
Sondra Dalton Smith, who talksabout the seven different kinds
of rest, which I think is reallybrilliant, really important,
really helpful for me in termsof how I've framed rest in my
own life.
I think a lot of times restimplies cessation in people's
(35:15):
heads.
So rest implies you have tostop doing something and for a
lot of folks, yeah, probablyprobably need to stop doing a
lot of stuff.
And we can reframe rest tothink about what can we add to
our lives that fills us up, thatreplenishes us, that restores
us.
So I'm going to be talkingabout in defining the seven
(35:38):
different kinds of rest in thecorresponding seven different
times of fatigue, and helpingpeople determine for themselves,
in their specific context, whatintentional, consistent rest
can look like in their lives asthey're trying to create more
(35:58):
sustainable ways of going at thework.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (36:01):
Beautiful, so I have thought about sustaining
the work ever since I did crisiscounseling working with
survivors of interpersonalviolence and I was a frontline
responder, so I would show up inthe emergency room and be a
medical advocate, and that wasrough work, as you can imagine
yeah and that's when I startedthinking about strategies for
(36:24):
how to not burn out, flame out,and I learned a lot from our
supervisor in that program, andit was a combination both of
personal strategies, some ofwhich I still implement to the
state, many of which inform howI show up in this work, and also
she was very smart aboutensuring that us, the group of
(36:45):
medical advocates, were a veryclose knit community.
We would socialize, we werefriends.
So if it was like 7am and Ijust had a very rough night in
the ER, there was a whole bunchof people I could call, not
worry about shocking them withwhat I was going to say, right,
and where I could, you know, geta little bit of support and
feel connected as opposed tofeeling isolated and
(37:07):
disconnected yeah, absolutelyand then there were other
strategies, like you know,monitoring my intake, keeping my
entertainment really lightright, being careful what kind
of conversations I got into yeah, like just all sorts of things.
Then, obviously, when I waswriting my dissertation, which
was about the history of traumapsychiatry, there was plenty of
(37:27):
really hairy stuff that I was Inregular contact with.
I started thinking about itbeing similar to intentionally
exposing myself to eitherintentionally taking in a low
dose poison, right With itsemotionally toxifying impact, or
intentionally exposing myselfto radiation.
(37:48):
And what are the strategiesLike?
How do I monitor how it'slanding on me so that I know
when to stop?
Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot ofparallels for me in engaging in
anti-oppression work, becausethat's similar to trauma,
bringing us into close encounterwith how unsafe and oppressive,
(38:09):
harmful, violent, horrific theworld is, yeah, horrific
horrific, yeah, for certainpeople, including people who
might share my identities,people who might not, and as
human beings with the capacityfor empathy, how do we structure
our engagement and whatstrategies can be integrated
(38:29):
into our lives so that we cansustain the work to work against
the oppression, do the workthat's so important to us
without, as you say, burning out, flaming out and having to stop
?
Dr. Haley Sparks (38:42):
Okay, well, one I want before I get into
that.
Really brilliant and, I wouldsay, paramount question.
I want to go back to theemphasis on empathy.
Can you help me betterunderstand?
Are you saying, with folks whohave the capacity for empathy
(39:02):
that can contribute to theburnout, or the empathy has the
potential to do something else?
Can you?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (39:12):
So where that statement came from was my nerdy
historian had on now.
Yes, in World War II, usmilitary psychiatrists made a
realization there was onepopulation that was immune to
battle fatigue, what they werecalling then battle fatigue
People, whom they labeled aspsychopaths, people who did not
(39:33):
have the capacity for empathy.
So the capacity to be both betraumatized and also, especially
where vicarious traumatizationis, like the trauma that comes
from witnessing that is acondition of just being a human
being with the capacity to feelyeah, okay, right, yes.
Dr. Haley Sparks (39:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do a training at UCLA on
empathy.
I call it emphasis on empathyand I always try to make it
apparent.
You know why am I you know, thedirector of equity, diversity,
inclusion doing this training?
I reference research that showsthat, and I use a ladder as an
(40:13):
example.
There are countless identityladders, if you will, and your
various identities will placeyou on a certain location on the
ladder.
So, let's say I have a ladder ofphysical ability or disability
ladder.
Because I'm an able-bodiedperson, I am at the top of that
(40:33):
ladder.
I have privilege on thatspecific ladder.
There's research to show thatdepending on your various
identities and therefore poweryou hold in those various realms
, the less in practice you arewith empathizing.
Because I'm at the top of thisspecific ladder, I'm not used to
(40:55):
looking up at other folks onthe ladder and seeing their
experiences that are differentfrom my own and perspective
taking and considering what it'slike for that, because I'm at
the top of my ladder, I'm notseeing anybody else, so only my
perspective is in my purview.
So I'm out of practice.
Because, let's be real, empathyis a skill that we can grow in
(41:18):
and improve in.
But if I'm out of practice, I'mnot as quote unquote good at it
because I'm not as skilled atit Versus, you know, like I said
, a black woman.
You know, on the ladder of race, I am lower down on the ladder,
so I'm more used to looking upthe ladder as I'm climbing,
seeing other folks who don'thave my specific racial identity
(41:40):
, and I am perspective taking.
What is it like?
I'm used to seeing theirperspective more and their
experience more.
So I am more in practice withthat.
So I am quote unquote better atempathizing.
So there's research to showthat essentially, the more power
, social power, privilegeidentities you have, the more
(42:01):
out of practice or less likelyyou are to empathize.
It does.
When I always say this to peopledoesn't mean you're a bad
person and that does mean thatnow that you're aware of it, I
believe you now have aresponsibility to get in
practice.
Now I am aware of it, let meget in practice.
Let me figure out what areas doI have privilege identities
(42:24):
Like I said, there are countlessof them and let me practice
empathizing more.
Let me practice perspectivetaking more.
That's a side note.
I think about that all the time, with empathy on the other side
of that coin.
I love that you brought upempathy when it comes to
potentially burning out becauseI'll cry.
(42:44):
I think of myself as anempathetic person and it can be
tiring at times.
You know I'll see strangers.
You know I'm crying becausethinking about their potential
experience, you know I can't andI don't know why I can't handle
it, and that can absolutelycontribute.
(43:04):
It's a beautiful thing.
Like I said, I do a literalwhole training on empathy alone.
I think it's a hugely importantskill when it comes to moving
our societies forward, and itdoes absolutely have the
potential to chip away at yourenergy levels if you're not
(43:27):
careful, if you're not doingsome of the practices that we've
talked about in terms offilling yourself back up.
Okay, so that's a long lead upto the question of what do we do
?
You know, and of course, thisis going to be different for
different people.
I will give a little taste ofone of the kinds of rest.
(43:49):
One of the kinds of rest issocial rest.
When I mean social rest, I meanlooking at the various
relationships that you have inyour life Family, friends,
colleagues, coworkers, you know,lovers, whomever they may be
and considering okay, whichinteractions, which type of
(44:10):
relationships do I have where Ifeel like I am more so in giving
mode, I am pouring into them, Iam having interactions that
feel less energizing, moredraining.
I leave from that conversation,whether it be five seconds or
five hours, I'm feeling a littledepleted, looking at that and
(44:34):
saying, okay, that's what socialfatigue is.
And then, on the other side,social rest.
Like I said, rest does not implythat you have to stop doing
something, but let me take areal intentional inventory of my
relationships.
Which relationships do I feelconstantly energized by?
Which relationships do I havewhere they don't want anything
(44:55):
from me?
They are just there to supportme.
They're just there to listen,they're just there to hold space
for me.
Which conversations, you know,after five hours do I still feel
energized, or maybe even moreenergized than I did when we
started talking?
That's what social rest is.
How can I fill myself back up?
(45:16):
That's when I've been trying topractice very intentionally,
especially, I would say, thelast couple months, that
intentional inventory.
Okay, who can I speak to?
Who I know is just there tohold space for me, who doesn't
want anything from me, whodoesn't expect anything from me,
who can pour into me in a waythat's not depleting from them,
(45:40):
because that's not going to makeme feel good.
You know, that's an example.
I can give an example ofphysical rest.
I think often, oftentimes themost common one, people think of
the sleeping, which fine.
But you know, there is moreactive physical rest, like
stretching.
Now, physical rest is not likestrenuous activity, that's more
(46:06):
so the opposite.
But stretching, yoga, justsitting in a cup, just sitting
in a comfortable position, thatcan be physical rest for you.
You're really trying to againpour back into yourself
physically.
What that looks like fordifferent people will absolutely
mean different things.
And lastly, I will say onereally good indicator for me
(46:31):
when it comes to rest has beenjoy.
When I feel joy, I think thatis often connected to what pours
back into me and that isintentional resting for me in my
spirit, beautiful.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (46:47):
Beautiful, thank you.
So I was thinking about whatyou said earlier and I think it
may be worth clarifying.
I'm using a lay person'sdefinition of empathy, which is
just feeling evoked by seeingsomebody else suffering, right,
and I think that that'sdifferent, than there's
something different to me fromthat, than being able to
(47:07):
perspective, take somebody whoseidentity is that I don't share,
right.
So, in the first instance, Ithink it's absorbing like really
terrible news that impactspeople, especially in particular
identity groups, whether or notI share those identity groups
or not, right, right.
And then you're adding animportant layer of nuance, which
is not that we're going to talkabout this, and I think just
(47:32):
had too many reminders in thelast few years that it is harder
for people to empathize in theway that you're talking about
with people who are different tothem if they don't see them as
people yes.
Dr. Haley Sparks (47:48):
The dehumanization yeah.
We don't have to get far intothat, but yes.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (47:53):
I have learned many powerful lessons from the
clinicians in my life, whetherit's been through writing or
through how I've seen themengage in the beautiful and
powerful and certainly impactfulin many ways for me personally
or in terms of what it's led meto think about and do in the
world that I would, with thissummit, like to offer to people
(48:17):
who are deeply, deeply engagedin anti-oppression work and
social justice work, because, asyou said, if our mentors and
the people who came before usgave up, then what would be here
for us right now?
Right, absolutely.
So I'm very excited.
The summit is on April 10th and11th, 2024.
People should be seeing noticesgoing out about it very soon
(48:40):
and I'm super excited for yourworkshop.
Dr. Haley Sparks (48:43):
Dr Sparks.
Thank you, Dr Hector.
I'm very excited myself.
You know I love giving workshopsand I'm excited because I feel
like it is something that Ibelieve very deeply in and, like
you said, you know I care aboutthe sustained nature and
(49:05):
sustained well-being andsustained joy of folks who are
doing this work.
I believe it's a right for allof us and I think it's a
monumental portion of this workthat you know folks have started
to talk about, and I think wehave a long way to go in terms
(49:26):
of continuing to instill that inthe work that we do.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (49:30):
I am so deeply appreciative of you, hailey.
I love being in partnership interms of thinking and putting on
events like this and justtalking to you about things that
matter so much to us.
So thank you so so much fortaking the time to do this Of
course.
Dr. Haley Sparks (49:44):
Thank you so much for having me.
Like I said, this is the typeof social rest you know.
I feel even more energizedhaving spoken about this with
you and exploring ideas.
Yeah, I feel energized, I feelgood, I feel invigorated in the
work.
So thank you so much for havingme and giving me this
(50:05):
opportunity to share and explorewith you.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (50:08):
Thank you, and so much the same Thank you.
If you don't already get ournewsletter and follow us on
social media, I've includedlinks in the show notes.
Look out for furtherannouncements about Vision's
mental health program and the2024 spring summit.
You can also always emailprograms at Vision's Inc with
comments and questions.
As I mentioned at the top ofthe episode, 2024 is Vision's
(50:29):
40th year and we'll becelebrating this milestone with
an event that's taking place inBoston on September 27th 2024.
Look out for details about thatas well.
Thank you so much for listening.
Until next time.
Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a
podcast about transformativechange, equity and working
against oppression.
I'm Leena Akhtar, director ofPrograms with Visions Inc.
Welcome, hi, everyone.
I'm excited today to introduceyou to Dr Haley Sparks, the
(00:21):
Director of VISIONS' MentalHealth Program.
As some of you may know, theVisions model has deep roots in
20th century Libertory SocialPsychology, which, in my humble
opinion, is really our secretsauce.
Haley and I talk a little aboutthat here and you'll hear more
in upcoming episodes as we delvedeeper into the stories of our
founders and elders.
In honor of 2024 being Visions'40th year of existence, I always
(00:45):
love speaking and collaboratingwith Haley.
In this episode, she talksabout how she came to Visions
and the work, about our mentalhealth program and the
importance of anti-oppressionapproaches to mental health
coaching, and about the workshopshe's offering in April at the
Visions' 2024 Spring Summit.
The theme this year isTrauma-Informed Approaches to
Sustaining DEI, social Justiceand Anti-Oppression Work.
(01:05):
Haley will be offering aworkshop on the importance of
rest and what the sevendifferent types of fatigue and
corresponding types of rest are.
The goal of this summit is tooffer people concrete strategies
for staying in the work withoutburning out, and we'll be
leaning heavily into our rootswith clinical work.
For that I'm also excited toconfirm that one of our headline
speakers is Dr Gabor Mate,who'll be speaking about
(01:27):
compassion, fatigue and burnout.
Stay tuned for details andwe're recording.
I'm super excited to be todaywith Dr Haley Sparks, the
director of Visions' MentalHealth Program, and so many
other things.
I have a lot of respect andadmiration for Dr Sparks and her
work.
Welcome, haley.
Dr. Haley Sparks (01:47):
Thank you, Leena.
I'm very, very happy to be here.
I'm happy to talk about some ofthe work that I'm doing with
Visions.
I'm excited to talk about themental health program and I'm
here to talk about where I hopeto see this work going broadly.
I'm really happy to be here andtalking about how we can
(02:09):
sustain ourselves in the work.
Beautiful.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (02:12):
So, before we get started, haley, would you
introduce yourself to people whoaren't familiar?
Dr. Haley Sparks (02:16):
with you, sure , hi everyone.
I'm Dr Haley Sparks.
I got my PhD in my Masters ofSocial Work at the University of
Michigan.
My doctorate is in personalitypsychology, in personality and
social context.
I think those studies reallyinform all of the work that I do
(02:40):
.
As you said, I am the directorof the mental health program
here with Visions.
I'm also the director of equity, diversity and inclusion in
external affairs at UCLA.
I see the work all meldingtogether.
I am a clinician by training,so through my Masters of Social
Work I was able to practicetherapy with individuals,
(03:04):
couples, groups and families.
And UCLA.
I always say, basically in anutshell, I work with staff over
at UCLA, external affairs andis everything outside of the
university.
So development, folks who raisemoney for the university,
advancement services, folks whomanage said money once it's
(03:27):
raised, alumni affairs andgovernment and community
relations.
My job in a nutshell is to makesure there's a sense of
belonging.
So really, my work at Visionsreally beautifully, in my
opinion, overlaps with my workat UCLA, where I'm trying to
think as deeply as possibleabout how we get to more justice
(03:50):
, more inclusion, in a way thatfeels thorough and deep, and I
think that's what drew me to theVisions model.
We'll talk a little bit aboutthat in a little bit, but I
think that's what drew me to theVisions model in the first
place is just how in depth we'regoing, just how intricately we
(04:10):
are tying the self we always sayin Visions we're practicing
self-focus and how that reallyties into all that we do in the
DEI EDI Jedi, what we want tocall it diversity, equity and
inclusion space.
So I'm really excited about thedepth at which we're going at
Visions and where that can leadus in the future.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (04:33):
Beautiful.
Thank you.
First off, a curiosity question.
You alluded briefly to what youwrote your doctoral
dissertation on.
Tell me a little bit more whatyou mean about personality.
Dr. Haley Sparks (04:45):
Oh, man, okay, Personality At the time when I
started my doctoral program, Ididn't know it, and I love the
melding of personality andsocial context, because to me,
personality is a conglomerationof your intersecting identities,
(05:06):
your experiences, yourperspectives, your motivations,
your underlying hopes and dreams, all those things wrapped up
into what gives you this thingthat we call personality, that
is ever-changing, ever-moving,which is both a beautiful thing
(05:27):
and a sticky thing, acomplicated thing at times.
And really the personality,mixed with the social context
that people are in, is where Itry to dive in when I'm thinking
about how can we create moreequitable, socially aware,
justice-focused environments forall.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (05:47):
Interesting.
I have many questions that Iwill ask you at the time.
Yes, so you do work with UCLAand then you're also the
director of our mental healthprogram here at Visions.
I'm curious how you foundVisions.
I don't think I know this.
Dr. Haley Sparks (06:04):
Yes, yes, Okay , I love this story.
Bear with me because it's along story, but I very much am a
full circle type of person.
I believe in fate.
I believe when things arealigned they happen.
So I want to take us a stepback and then I will get to how
I got to Visions.
But when I started my doctoralprogram, I was feeling a little
(06:27):
bit not entirely fulfilled withthe work that's going on.
And I will always say pacing issomething that I kind of
struggle with.
That is because I want to seechange done yesterday.
So at times when I was kind oftrudging through the process
that is research, I was feelingat times like, okay, I'm not
(06:48):
making an impact fast enough now, now, now, now, now, now, which
is absolutely something that Ineed to work on and I have been
working on for the past fewyears.
That'll get into my interestand rest now when we're talking
about the work.
But at the time I was like,wait, how can I impact people in
a more tangible way right now?
So I added my masters of socialwork while I was doing doctoral
(07:12):
program so I could do researchand also be seeing people in
real time doing therapy.
Because, like no, I want thisone-on-one or group setting
where I see change.
You know, okay, somebody didtheir therapy homework and
they're, you know, kind ofimproving their lives or what
have you, or making those shifts, making those changes.
And that was really excitingfor me, in both the therapy room
(07:37):
and at the University ofMichigan, though I was seeing
that there were grave needs forDEI in every step of the way.
I think, Leena, you and I havetalked about I was doing sliding
scale therapy because I wasfunded by the university so I
could afford to have people payme what they could afford to pay
(07:59):
.
Sometimes it would be as low asa dollar an hour and because I
was working with a number offolks who could afford to make
as low as a dollar an hour, itkind of resulted in clinicians
who were more privileged interms of their identities, in
terms of, maybe, their partnerswho were able to fund them.
I was like, okay, if we're allkind of privileged financially,
(08:23):
we need to be doing some realdeep DEI work so that we can
serve our clients better.
And really that deep DEI workis what led me to visions, All
of the offerings that I wasseeing in university or more
corporate settings.
It felt to surface level,especially as I'm going as deep
(08:47):
as I possibly could and beingpushed to go there in my
dissertation.
At the time I was finding theDEI space was like the trainings
that I was familiar with arebeing offered.
It wasn't going nearly as deepor getting into the personality
as I wanted.
And I found myself one daytalking to my oldest brother
about this.
(09:07):
He lives in Austin and I waslike you know, Brandon that's my
brother's name, Brandon it'snot hitting for me, these
trainings are not landing for me, which is hard because I care
about this work but it does notseem to be starting where we
need to be starting.
And he was like that's actuallyreally interesting.
(09:28):
I have a friend who's on theboard of an organization who was
just talking to me about this.
Said friend was on the board ofvisions.
He connected me with her, whoconnected me to Elika, executive
director, and we talked aboutsimilarly feeling uninspired and
not as challenged, not like weneeded to.
(09:49):
We weren't going as deep.
It wasn't feeling assubstantive and Elika kind of
introduced me to the visionsmodel and I was hooked from day
one.
I was hooked.
It was hard.
You know my first pace.
I'm sure we'll talk about it alittle.
My first pace really didencourage me to go there in
terms of myself, my ownbackground, my own experiences
(10:11):
in ways that I hadn't foundbefore, and it really was kind
of the missing piece to me forDEI work.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (10:18):
Beautiful.
I didn't realize that, so yourconnection was via a board
member.
So for people who are justlistening to this and who don't
see you on video, as I do now,you know you're both are coming
to this from particular.
You know social locations andI'm curious what you're like,
what you want to share aboutyour first pace experience,
(10:39):
especially given your trainingand background and interests.
Dr. Haley Sparks (10:45):
Almost, almost like be careful.
What you wish for, I will say.
The vision's mental healthprogram is almost, excuse me,
the revamped mental healthprogram because you know we have
to honor our history.
There's a decades long historyat visions of having clinicians
offer mental health support.
(11:06):
So we're reviving somethingthat has existed for a while in
visions, but it kind of was bornout of my first pace session
and really uncovering things.
So one of the things that we dois called our first encounter
with difference, where wereflect on a time, preferably
(11:28):
before age 10, where we firstobserve differences between
individuals.
That can be between yourselfand somebody else or between two
individuals you're observing.
So for folks who are not seeingme, I'm a cisgendered black
woman who and this is alwayssomething that I talk about in
(11:50):
terms of visions offering thoseare kind of more my, my able
bodied cisgendered black woman.
Those are some of my moreapparent identities and I would
say one of the identities Ifirst became aware of was that I
was a daughter without a mother.
So when I was six years old mymother was killed tragically in
(12:14):
a car accident and my firstexperience with difference was I
was in the car accident withher and my first encounter with
difference was coming back toschool.
I wasn't second grade andcoming back to school with my
peers and, of course, being verypainfully and palpably aware of
(12:35):
that difference now with mypeers, you know, and especially
at age six, that's one of thefirst things that people ask you
know, what do your mommy anddaddy do?
And I very quickly became awarelike, oh, that is a difference
that I now have.
And I think being in a spacewith folks who were ready and
(12:57):
willing and prepared andequipped to go there with me to
explore those kinds ofexperiences and that's that's
one of many it brought up a lotin me that needed to be brought
up and made me palpably awarethat at times I feel like I'm
not around folks who areequipped to go there and help me
(13:19):
really dive into how that mightbe impacting how I show up in
spaces, how I interact withfolks, you know, at work, at
home, et cetera, et cetera.
I think that is frankly a luxurythat I think everybody deserves
.
And that's why I am so excitedand passionate about the
(13:40):
vision's model, because I thinkI have always felt like, wow,
people can't really go therewith me, and it does feel
important to go there.
And then, once again, when Ifinally got the opportunity, I
also thought it probably feelsvery important to have systems
within visions put into placewhere folks can have additional
(14:03):
support to investigate andprocess these things with
trained clinicians, which iswhere the mental health program
comes in.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (14:14):
Thank you, who were your pace one facilitators
, just out of curiosity.
Yeah, that was genie and Jabari, amazing.
Dr. Haley Sparks (14:22):
Okay, yeah, it was good and you know, of
course there they're on EastCoast time and you know pace can
be kind of intense and I was inCalifornia so I was getting up
at four in the morning, but Iwill say, for those intense for
maybe five days it felt worth it.
It felt very worth it to get upat that time and, you know
(14:47):
again, to engage with folks whoI felt like were equipped to do
that type of deep Self-worth.
That I really believe is thekey to DEI.
I think it's what's gonnaunlock progress for us.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (15:04):
You know what you just said about people who
have the ability to go there.
I think that summarizes reallynicely what we Really have to
offer and what differentiatesour approach.
It's deep, affective capacitybuilding, tools for
self-management, tools for beingable to contain hard stuff, and
(15:28):
you and I have hadconversations before in our
respective roles he was directorof the mental health program,
me as director of programs Aboutwhat the potential is for
people who are confrontingCertain issues, particularly
around race and aroundoppression more generally, and
how Support can be hard to findout in the world.
(15:49):
Not all practitioners, forinstance, are comfortable or nor
do they have the capacity totalk about it.
So you know we both have strongfeelings and impossibly
experiences around this.
I certainly do, and I'm curioushow you're, how you've been
thinking about it, right and andand maybe this is a good point
to Seg to what is the mentalhealth program?
Dr. Haley Sparks (16:10):
Yeah, well, okay, we can start with the
mental health program and why.
I think it speaks to some ofthe potential challenges that
you Are alluding to.
So the revamped mental healthprogram here at visions is
really an opportunity forcurrent and potentially new
(16:31):
clients to engage with ourclinicians in a coaching model
To gain additional support asyou investigate your own
personal experiences, your ownPersonal biases, your own
personal perspectives and let mebe clear, we all have our
biases In a way that feelsSupportive, that feels safe to
(16:57):
the extent that we can ensurethat of course, we can't always
Guarantee it, I would never lieto folks that way and in a way
that feels structured and givesfolks Really an environment to
explore things that perhaps theyhad never Done when it comes to
(17:17):
their identities and what mightcome up as they are trying to
be anti-racist, socially justicefocused folks, because it
really is.
It's hard work.
When we say, do the work, youknow, especially in the mental
health of therapy context, Ithink we really intentionally
(17:40):
frame it as labor or work,because it's hard, it is
Strenuous and, just as you know,it's not the same like at times
.
Use you know like a Personaltrainer, just as some folks find
it really helpful to have apersonal trainer to give you
structure, to give you ideasabout how to Move one's body in
(18:04):
a way that is accessible andsafe for that specific
individual in their body.
That's the same idea with themental health program is how can
we create structure, strategies, practices that are
specifically tailored for eachindividual as they try to
(18:26):
investigate their ownperspectives and experiences and
try to go deeper and deeper anddeeper into the ocean?
That is DEI work.
So, to Go back to your originalquestion about the potential
challenges, which you know, Iknow, we know you and I have
talked about you, and I havetalked about the ordeal that is
(18:47):
therapist shopping At times,trying to find the right fit,
and I don't I don't even know ifwe've talked about this, but
the potential power dynamics youknow.
Okay, I'm looking for atherapist.
Maybe this is my first time, Ihaven't done this work before,
so now I don't even know that Ican even really question this
person.
Maybe they've made anassumption is necessarily
(19:09):
correct, but they're the expert.
What do I know?
You know, I've never been totherapy before, but or maybe I
have been to therapy before butI'm still just kind of learning,
or I'm in a really raw spot.
And then of course it's do youeven accept my insurance?
You know there's so manydifferent moving pieces when
trying to find A therapist inthe first place, let alone
(19:33):
finding a good fit.
And what I think is reallyexciting About visions mental
health program is one that weare explicitly Acknowledging
that this work is hard.
Dei work is hard.
You know, sometimes, I think,especially in the workplace
context, we just throw folks inlike, all right, get in there,
like you should want to includeyour colleagues, so you should
(19:55):
know how to do it.
We don't know how to do thiswork.
We were never this, this typeof work was never taught to us,
it was never emphasized, it wasnever valued.
So we need to be starting wayat the beginning about what it
even looks like to be able tocommunicate with one another
Effectively, and then understandthat because we are all out of
practice or maybe we're never inpractice in the first place,
(20:18):
it's going to be strenuous attimes and then, once you find
that maybe it was strenuous andmaybe something did come up for
you, then I think the beautifulthing about the mental health
program Is that we have folks,individuals, in place who help
to match you with a mentalhealth coach.
(20:40):
That could potentially be a goodmatch for you, you know, and of
course it's never a guarantee,but I do think there's something
very helpful about, almost likethe boutique nature of the
program that you meet with anindividual myself I have a
intimate knowledge of thevarious clinicians who are
(21:02):
taking on new clients and then Iwill match you with someone who
I do think is a good fit.
So you don't have to do evenmore of that strenuous labor.
You know you're alreadypotentially working through
something, and so then I help toshoulder that burden, shoulder
that labor to fit you withsomebody who I think could
(21:25):
really match up to what you'relooking for, what your needs are
, where you would like to focusand what you would like to prop.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (21:34):
Now I should say for people who aren't super
familiar with visions or haven'tbeen in our orbit for a long
time, we are an organizationthat has deep roots in social
psychology.
We are very clinician heavy.
Our model draws on those rootsand leans heavily into what we
refer to as the affective or theemotional component of how
(21:55):
oppression surrounds us, threadsitself through us, imprints
itself on us and the worldaround us, and how emotionally
strenuous it can be to navigateit, and also what kinds of
things come up as we'reunpacking the impacts of it,
whatever side of the oppressionwe sit on.
So the roster of cliniciansthat we have ranges.
(22:19):
We have white clinicians, wehave clinicians of color, we
have a lot of queer clinicianson staff, a lot of queer people
at visions, and I've beenthinking about this for a long
time.
As you know, my training is as ahistorian of psychology and
psychiatry and I've beenthinking about the field and how
has itself been steeped inreally oppressive structures and
(22:41):
how, having an explicitlyanti-oppression approach that
has been developed by people whoare familiar psychologists
themselves, etc.
There's something reallyimportant and generative about
that.
The two scenarios that you andI have discussed I have
experienced as a person of color, as a person who sits in my
particular location, what adifference it has made for me to
(23:04):
seek out a therapist whoseidentities are similar to mine
and I didn't even know until Ifound that.
And I've also talked to whitepeople who, especially in the
wake of what happened in 2020,have said I went to my therapist
and they said, oh, when theywere trying to work through
feelings, the hard feelings thatcame up when they were
confronting the things that thisbrought up, I don't know.
(23:25):
I've heard responses aboutresponses that were unhelpful
100%.
Dr. Haley Sparks (23:30):
One.
I also have heard countlessstories on both sides, certainly
among my friends of color, youknow, talking about the happy
Indian stories where, you know,I finally found a therapist who
does share some.
You know, we're never going tohave an exact match, but that's
not a bad thing.
(23:50):
You know there are someperspectives that are not your
own or not.
Your experiences can be helpfulin the therapy room and you
know it can be helpful, ofcourse, like I said, a sister in
black woman really helpful forme to be able to with a clear
black person who was a clinician.
(24:11):
And on the other side, you know, lena, as you said, we do have
a lot of white clinicians whoare steeped in the anti racism,
socially justice focused workand they are well versed and
excited and at the same time,humble and ready to work with
(24:34):
white folks who are also excitedand energized about doing their
own work and they understandsome of the processes that one
might go through to try toprocess these things as a white
person moving forward in thispotentially heavy, sticky feel
(24:57):
that we all have to go through.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (24:59):
It reminded me of what I've conversations I've
had with clients and otherpeople about why affinity work
can be so important.
So for me and I've heardobviously a lot of people share
this the deep, reflective,identity based work of visions
(25:19):
was very much an eye opener forme, both in terms of thinking
about my historically includedidentities as well as my
excluded ones.
When I say that, I'm thinkingabout my so called marginalized
or one down identities, theplaces where I spent the most
mental energy, maybe time,mental, emotional energy.
Thinking about realizing thatthere were a lot of respects in
(25:40):
which I had privilege was an eyeopener for me.
The other part is around thework that we do with modern
oppression and what we callinternalized oppression or
survival behaviors that havestuck around, and in that
respect, being able to do workin affinity spaces around other
(26:01):
people of color, for instance,has been really helpful, because
there's painful things thatneed unpacking in order to be
healed, as you say, and that'snot necessarily work that I want
to do in an open group.
That's work that is better done, held and facilitated in a room
with people of color and then,similarly, across variables of
(26:22):
historically included or one upidentities and, given the time
that we live in, around whiteracial identity in particular,
unpacking that is work thatreally shouldn't necessarily
usually shouldn't happen infront of people of color.
Dr. Haley Sparks (26:40):
There are many reasons.
You know the previous summitthat we worked on talking about
getting rid of shame in thiswork.
You know I look at shame asalmost like go through fields is
on, like, almost like a literalwall at times that I see I'll
(27:02):
have to, whether it be withinmyself or with others, that I
see myself having to un-mentalbrick by brick and by the time I
get to the last brick I'malready exhausted and we haven't
even gotten to the good stuffinside the wall.
But shame can act as such abarrier that I could see really
(27:23):
taking away from the work thatneeds to be done.
And a lot of white folks orfolks who are working on their
white identity are lookingforward to doing or know that
it's very important to do.
But you know I could see ifthey felt on display, you know,
in front of others, that shamewall would come in.
(27:44):
And now we're focusing ontaking that down brick by brick
rather than getting to the meatof why they're there.
So I could see that being ahuge reason why you know this
affinity work can be important.
In addition to you know, ofcourse, that visions.
We are very committed tominimizing harm, unnecessary
(28:07):
where we can.
And you know that type ofalmost doing that work in an
amphitheater where everybody'sobserving you could cause harm
to both the observer and theobserved, and that's not
something again that that feelslike another barrier that
doesn't have to be there.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (28:26):
And because the work is so hard and lifelong
in the first place, I do thinkat this point in time we want to
minimize as many barriers aspossible so we can get to the
meat of the work for me,certainly in my included
identities, I've always had anaha moment when I realize that
(28:46):
it agreed to which my privilegeor lack of disadvantage affects
my experience, and that's not anaha that a person who lives
this every day needs to hearabout.
Which is why.
Which is why we do, which iswhy we do affinity work, just to
give people the space that theyneed to really unpack it and
show up differently, if that'swhat they want.
(29:07):
Yeah, yeah, absolutelyBeautiful.
That's the mental healthprogram.
And then I've been excited atmany points to be able to
collaborate with you.
Of course we did.
The summit that panel that youpresented on was wonderful.
People are still talking aboutit for folks who don't know.
The summit last year in 2023,was about taking shame out of
(29:28):
the equation.
So moving away from uncritical,just you know, discarding of
people and seeing what theconditions are that people need
in order to learn and show updifferently and align with who
they want to be right aligntheir, their impact, with their
intent.
Our 2024 summit is comingtogether and coalescing really
(29:52):
nicely and I'm excited tocollaborate with you again on
this.
The topic this time aroundgiven that 2024 is going to be
an election year, given justeverything that has been
happening over the past fewyears and is happening now the
topic is about trauma informedself care and trauma informed
(30:16):
community care recognizing thatcare is not just is not just an
individual matter, but reallythat we are parts of a
collective, and sustainingdifficult work can take
intentionality and strategy,especially now, especially given
everything that's beenhappening, and I think that
there's a lot of great lessonsto be learned from clinicians in
(30:37):
terms of how to stay engaged.
So I've invited Haley topresent a workshop and basically
said Dr Sparks, you can dowhatever you want and Haley tell
us, tell us what, what was topof heart and top of mind for you
.
Dr. Haley Sparks (30:52):
I clean.
I love that you described, atthe very least, where we want to
be going is making this worksustainable.
I've talked a lot, you know,one of our visions founders, dr
Val, my mentor.
I talked with her a lot abouther trajectory in this world in
(31:14):
doing this work and I talked toher a lot about the ebbs and
flows that she's seen doing thiswork and the ebbs and flows
she's seen in the world andwhere she feels like we've made
significant progress, and attimes, also talking about
warning periods that she's hadto go through where she thought
more progress would have beenmade.
(31:34):
And I won't I don't want to putmore words in her mouth and I
potentially already have, butI've been thinking a lot, you
know, in light of thoseconversations with Dr Val,
thinking about how can we makethis work sustainable for folks
who are in it.
Because you know, I look at DrVal and I don't know what I
(31:56):
would have done if, 20 years ago, she'd been like you know what
I'm too tired, I'm too, I'm tooburnt out, which you know we
talked about trauma.
Informed burnout is trauma.
Make make no mistake about it.
It is the result of sustainedand acute trauma.
And right.
(32:17):
If Dr Val had thrown in thetowel, lord knows where I would
be not not in a good spot, andso you know, I think goodness
that somehow she has sustainedherself and made the work
sustainable for her.
And how do we continue toinvite folks in to do the work?
(32:40):
I think one of the most ethicalways to do so is to continue to
create sustainable models.
I'm not comfortable withinviting somebody into my home
if it's a hellscape in there.
You know, how can we make thiswork sustainable and humane for
(33:01):
the folks who are already in thehouse and folks who we want to
invite in?
One of the main ways I seedoing that is being intentional
about how we sow the seeds ofrest into the work.
I think one of the biggestchallenges or barriers, I would
(33:21):
say, in really emphasizing howimportant rest is is, at times,
I feel like, especially in someof the western cultures I in
American person I live at leastpart time in America is this
hustle culture that we see inAmerican, in western cultures.
That, again, if you ask me, isvery not sustainable and I think
(33:45):
bleeds into the workplace bigtime.
Or maybe it was even born inthe workplace.
Let's be real.
Where, then?
Where we're in this hustleculture?
So the ideas of self care orrest are seen as optional, if
not shameful in themselves.
And so how in the world, how dowe help folks who are existing
(34:08):
in these systems where restingis seen as something that you
have to keep a secret, or youhave to avoid as much as humanly
possible, or you should feelshame or lesser than about?
How do we then turn it on hishead and be like actually rest
is a very important strategy todoing the work.
(34:31):
That is like the antithesis ofwhat so many of us have learned
about what it means to do anywork work and rest our opposites
and so many of our heads,whether it be conscious or
subconscious, and really in myseries or my workshop, that is
(34:53):
what I want to focus on.
I'm going to be deriving a lotof what I speak about from Dr
Sondra Dalton Smith, who talksabout the seven different kinds
of rest, which I think is reallybrilliant, really important,
really helpful for me in termsof how I've framed rest in my
own life.
I think a lot of times restimplies cessation in people's
(35:15):
heads.
So rest implies you have tostop doing something and for a
lot of folks, yeah, probablyprobably need to stop doing a
lot of stuff.
And we can reframe rest tothink about what can we add to
our lives that fills us up, thatreplenishes us, that restores
us.
So I'm going to be talkingabout in defining the seven
(35:38):
different kinds of rest in thecorresponding seven different
times of fatigue, and helpingpeople determine for themselves,
in their specific context, whatintentional, consistent rest
can look like in their lives asthey're trying to create more
(35:58):
sustainable ways of going at thework.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (36:01):
Beautiful, so I have thought about sustaining
the work ever since I did crisiscounseling working with
survivors of interpersonalviolence and I was a frontline
responder, so I would show up inthe emergency room and be a
medical advocate, and that wasrough work, as you can imagine
yeah and that's when I startedthinking about strategies for
(36:24):
how to not burn out, flame out,and I learned a lot from our
supervisor in that program, andit was a combination both of
personal strategies, some ofwhich I still implement to the
state, many of which inform howI show up in this work, and also
she was very smart aboutensuring that us, the group of
(36:45):
medical advocates, were a veryclose knit community.
We would socialize, we werefriends.
So if it was like 7am and Ijust had a very rough night in
the ER, there was a whole bunchof people I could call, not
worry about shocking them withwhat I was going to say, right,
and where I could, you know, geta little bit of support and
feel connected as opposed tofeeling isolated and
(37:07):
disconnected yeah, absolutelyand then there were other
strategies, like you know,monitoring my intake, keeping my
entertainment really lightright, being careful what kind
of conversations I got into yeah, like just all sorts of things.
Then, obviously, when I waswriting my dissertation, which
was about the history of traumapsychiatry, there was plenty of
(37:27):
really hairy stuff that I was Inregular contact with.
I started thinking about itbeing similar to intentionally
exposing myself to eitherintentionally taking in a low
dose poison, right With itsemotionally toxifying impact, or
intentionally exposing myselfto radiation.
(37:48):
And what are the strategiesLike?
How do I monitor how it'slanding on me so that I know
when to stop?
Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot ofparallels for me in engaging in
anti-oppression work, becausethat's similar to trauma,
bringing us into close encounterwith how unsafe and oppressive,
(38:09):
harmful, violent, horrific theworld is, yeah, horrific
horrific, yeah, for certainpeople, including people who
might share my identities,people who might not, and as
human beings with the capacityfor empathy, how do we structure
our engagement and whatstrategies can be integrated
(38:29):
into our lives so that we cansustain the work to work against
the oppression, do the workthat's so important to us
without, as you say, burning out, flaming out and having to stop
?
Dr. Haley Sparks (38:42):
Okay, well, one I want before I get into
that.
Really brilliant and, I wouldsay, paramount question.
I want to go back to theemphasis on empathy.
Can you help me betterunderstand?
Are you saying, with folks whohave the capacity for empathy
(39:02):
that can contribute to theburnout, or the empathy has the
potential to do something else?
Can you?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (39:12):
So where that statement came from was my nerdy
historian had on now.
Yes, in World War II, usmilitary psychiatrists made a
realization there was onepopulation that was immune to
battle fatigue, what they werecalling then battle fatigue
People, whom they labeled aspsychopaths, people who did not
(39:33):
have the capacity for empathy.
So the capacity to be both betraumatized and also, especially
where vicarious traumatizationis, like the trauma that comes
from witnessing that is acondition of just being a human
being with the capacity to feelyeah, okay, right, yes.
Dr. Haley Sparks (39:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do a training at UCLA on
empathy.
I call it emphasis on empathyand I always try to make it
apparent.
You know why am I you know, thedirector of equity, diversity,
inclusion doing this training?
I reference research that showsthat, and I use a ladder as an
(40:13):
example.
There are countless identityladders, if you will, and your
various identities will placeyou on a certain location on the
ladder.
So, let's say I have a ladder ofphysical ability or disability
ladder.
Because I'm an able-bodiedperson, I am at the top of that
(40:33):
ladder.
I have privilege on thatspecific ladder.
There's research to show thatdepending on your various
identities and therefore poweryou hold in those various realms
, the less in practice you arewith empathizing.
Because I'm at the top of thisspecific ladder, I'm not used to
(40:55):
looking up at other folks onthe ladder and seeing their
experiences that are differentfrom my own and perspective
taking and considering what it'slike for that, because I'm at
the top of my ladder, I'm notseeing anybody else, so only my
perspective is in my purview.
So I'm out of practice.
Because, let's be real, empathyis a skill that we can grow in
(41:18):
and improve in.
But if I'm out of practice, I'mnot as quote unquote good at it
because I'm not as skilled atit Versus, you know, like I said
, a black woman.
You know, on the ladder of race, I am lower down on the ladder,
so I'm more used to looking upthe ladder as I'm climbing,
seeing other folks who don'thave my specific racial identity
(41:40):
, and I am perspective taking.
What is it like?
I'm used to seeing theirperspective more and their
experience more.
So I am more in practice withthat.
So I am quote unquote better atempathizing.
So there's research to showthat essentially, the more power
, social power, privilegeidentities you have, the more
(42:01):
out of practice or less likelyyou are to empathize.
It does.
When I always say this to peopledoesn't mean you're a bad
person and that does mean thatnow that you're aware of it, I
believe you now have aresponsibility to get in
practice.
Now I am aware of it, let meget in practice.
Let me figure out what areas doI have privilege identities
(42:24):
Like I said, there are countlessof them and let me practice
empathizing more.
Let me practice perspectivetaking more.
That's a side note.
I think about that all the time, with empathy on the other side
of that coin.
I love that you brought upempathy when it comes to
potentially burning out becauseI'll cry.
(42:44):
I think of myself as anempathetic person and it can be
tiring at times.
You know I'll see strangers.
You know I'm crying becausethinking about their potential
experience, you know I can't andI don't know why I can't handle
it, and that can absolutelycontribute.
(43:04):
It's a beautiful thing.
Like I said, I do a literalwhole training on empathy alone.
I think it's a hugely importantskill when it comes to moving
our societies forward, and itdoes absolutely have the
potential to chip away at yourenergy levels if you're not
(43:27):
careful, if you're not doingsome of the practices that we've
talked about in terms offilling yourself back up.
Okay, so that's a long lead upto the question of what do we do
?
You know, and of course, thisis going to be different for
different people.
I will give a little taste ofone of the kinds of rest.
(43:49):
One of the kinds of rest issocial rest.
When I mean social rest, I meanlooking at the various
relationships that you have inyour life Family, friends,
colleagues, coworkers, you know,lovers, whomever they may be
and considering okay, whichinteractions, which type of
(44:10):
relationships do I have where Ifeel like I am more so in giving
mode, I am pouring into them, Iam having interactions that
feel less energizing, moredraining.
I leave from that conversation,whether it be five seconds or
five hours, I'm feeling a littledepleted, looking at that and
(44:34):
saying, okay, that's what socialfatigue is.
And then, on the other side,social rest.
Like I said, rest does not implythat you have to stop doing
something, but let me take areal intentional inventory of my
relationships.
Which relationships do I feelconstantly energized by?
Which relationships do I havewhere they don't want anything
(44:55):
from me?
They are just there to supportme.
They're just there to listen,they're just there to hold space
for me.
Which conversations, you know,after five hours do I still feel
energized, or maybe even moreenergized than I did when we
started talking?
That's what social rest is.
How can I fill myself back up?
(45:16):
That's when I've been trying topractice very intentionally,
especially, I would say, thelast couple months, that
intentional inventory.
Okay, who can I speak to?
Who I know is just there tohold space for me, who doesn't
want anything from me, whodoesn't expect anything from me,
who can pour into me in a waythat's not depleting from them,
(45:40):
because that's not going to makeme feel good.
You know, that's an example.
I can give an example ofphysical rest.
I think often, oftentimes themost common one, people think of
the sleeping, which fine.
But you know, there is moreactive physical rest, like
stretching.
Now, physical rest is not likestrenuous activity, that's more
(46:06):
so the opposite.
But stretching, yoga, justsitting in a cup, just sitting
in a comfortable position, thatcan be physical rest for you.
You're really trying to againpour back into yourself
physically.
What that looks like fordifferent people will absolutely
mean different things.
And lastly, I will say onereally good indicator for me
(46:31):
when it comes to rest has beenjoy.
When I feel joy, I think thatis often connected to what pours
back into me and that isintentional resting for me in my
spirit, beautiful.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (46:47):
Beautiful, thank you.
So I was thinking about whatyou said earlier and I think it
may be worth clarifying.
I'm using a lay person'sdefinition of empathy, which is
just feeling evoked by seeingsomebody else suffering, right,
and I think that that'sdifferent, than there's
something different to me fromthat, than being able to
(47:07):
perspective, take somebody whoseidentity is that I don't share,
right.
So, in the first instance, Ithink it's absorbing like really
terrible news that impactspeople, especially in particular
identity groups, whether or notI share those identity groups
or not, right, right.
And then you're adding animportant layer of nuance, which
is not that we're going to talkabout this, and I think just
(47:32):
had too many reminders in thelast few years that it is harder
for people to empathize in theway that you're talking about
with people who are different tothem if they don't see them as
people yes.
Dr. Haley Sparks (47:48):
The dehumanization yeah.
We don't have to get far intothat, but yes.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (47:53):
I have learned many powerful lessons from the
clinicians in my life, whetherit's been through writing or
through how I've seen themengage in the beautiful and
powerful and certainly impactfulin many ways for me personally
or in terms of what it's led meto think about and do in the
world that I would, with thissummit, like to offer to people
(48:17):
who are deeply, deeply engagedin anti-oppression work and
social justice work, because, asyou said, if our mentors and
the people who came before usgave up, then what would be here
for us right now?
Right, absolutely.
So I'm very excited.
The summit is on April 10th and11th, 2024.
People should be seeing noticesgoing out about it very soon
(48:40):
and I'm super excited for yourworkshop.
Dr. Haley Sparks (48:43):
Dr Sparks.
Thank you, Dr Hector.
I'm very excited myself.
You know I love giving workshopsand I'm excited because I feel
like it is something that Ibelieve very deeply in and, like
you said, you know I care aboutthe sustained nature and
(49:05):
sustained well-being andsustained joy of folks who are
doing this work.
I believe it's a right for allof us and I think it's a
monumental portion of this workthat you know folks have started
to talk about, and I think wehave a long way to go in terms
(49:26):
of continuing to instill that inthe work that we do.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (49:30):
I am so deeply appreciative of you, hailey.
I love being in partnership interms of thinking and putting on
events like this and justtalking to you about things that
matter so much to us.
So thank you so so much fortaking the time to do this Of
course.
Dr. Haley Sparks (49:44):
Thank you so much for having me.
Like I said, this is the typeof social rest you know.
I feel even more energizedhaving spoken about this with
you and exploring ideas.
Yeah, I feel energized, I feelgood, I feel invigorated in the
work.
So thank you so much for havingme and giving me this
(50:05):
opportunity to share and explorewith you.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (50:08):
Thank you, and so much the same Thank you.
If you don't already get ournewsletter and follow us on
social media, I've includedlinks in the show notes.
Look out for furtherannouncements about Vision's
mental health program and the2024 spring summit.
You can also always emailprograms at Vision's Inc with
comments and questions.
As I mentioned at the top ofthe episode, 2024 is Vision's
(50:29):
40th year and we'll becelebrating this milestone with
an event that's taking place inBoston on September 27th 2024.
Look out for details about thatas well.
Thank you so much for listening.
Until next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!