Holistic Healing and Recovery: Dr. Mala's Approach to Mental Wellness

In this episode of The Samantha Parker Show, host Samantha Parker sits down with Dr. Mala, a psychologist, coach, doula, martial arts innovator, artist, and mindset mentor with over 25 years of experience.

They discuss Dr. Mala's eclectic blend of cognitive therapy, psychology, martial arts, and her various specialties aimed at healing the masses. Dr. Mala shares her journey from wanting to be a medical doctor to discovering her passion for psychology due to the importance of connecting with people.

The conversation covers the importance of a holistic approach to mental health, the potential for addiction to the concept of healing, and the impressive work being done at recovery.com. A platform that connects individuals directly to treatment centers globally. Ending on a lighter note, Dr. Mala talks about her personal life, family, and her passion for training in martial arts.

The episode emphasizes the importance of intentional boundary-setting and holistic life engineering for personal growth and recovery.

Connect with Dr. Mala https://www.instagram.com/theofficialdrmala

00:00 Introduction to Dr. Mala

03:00 Dr. Mala's Journey into Holistic Healing

05:45 Understanding Healing and Recovery

07:10 Exploring Recovery.com

12:30 Personal Insights and Fun Activities

13:58 Engineering Your Life for Evolution

16:37 Redefining Life Post-Recovery

20:02 The Everyday Relevance of Psychology

20:50 Making Mental Health Tools Accessible

21:53 The Power of Social Media in Healing

23:09 The Role of Storytelling in Modern Healing

25:08 The Importance of Healing Out Loud

28:14 Setting Intentional Boundaries

35:11 The Vision for the Synergy Center

37:03 The Therapeutic Value of Henna

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Transcript

 Hey guys. Welcome back to the Samantha Parker show. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Mala. How do you say your name? My full name is Ry Cha, Mel Jerry. Then it says AKA Dr. Mala. Yeah. Okay. So you're a holistic powerhouse behind the Synergy Therapy Center.

A psychologist, a coach, a doula, a martial arts innovator. I thought that was awesome. A and a artist and a mindset mentor who blends cognitive science with heart. You have over 25 years of experience coaching, speaking, and transforming lives. But what I'm excited to talk to you about today is we were just chatting beforehand and you said that you're a part of the Recovery Center as well, so recovery.com?

Yeah. Okay. recovery.com? Yes. And we're gonna get into that. How do you introduce yourself because you've got 5,000 amazing things you're doing. That's a great question. I basically say I'm Dr. Malin. I'm here to help with healing the masses in whatever way I can.

That usually goes into a conversation as to what my journey has been, which led me to this place. I always say, ask any questions you want because I'm a pretty open book and more than happy to share. And I'm ready to do that here. Awesome. So what kind of drew you to such an eclectic blend, like cognitive therapy, martial arts, and do you do them all at once?

Just in my life, I thought I wanted to be a doctor and when I, long story short, like when I got into the program, I was in an accelerated program. I actually got scolded for sitting and talking to patients longer than five minutes.

And that basically led me to a place where I knew that, being able to connect with someone was what was gonna help me help them, right? And that without truly understanding that person. We weren't gonna get anywhere. So I felt lost because that was also in a time where functional medicine was not around, psychology was not as prominent as it is right now.

Mental health and the forte on mental health emphasis on mental health. It was not a. A good thing it was stigmatized. But I landed on a bio-psychology class and I felt like I was in heaven. And then that led me to focusing on psychology as my major. And then going into marriage and family psychology and then going into full fledged clinical psych and educational psych.

So it was really a beautiful path. I'm so thankful that I had it. And along the way I said to myself, I do not want to be limited. I want to be able to offer as much as I possibly can, because the person that's sitting in front of you isn't gonna be the same as the next person. And so in order to be able to service as many people as I could, I knew that I needed to have a really robust toolbox.

And so that's what led me into finding all the specialties that I have. So that I could be of service to wide populations of people. Yeah. Oh, I love that. So there's not a one fix, there's just like one bandaid for everybody. And also, one of the things that you do learn in,

college as a psychology major is that we need to take a very holistic view of the person, and you'll often hear the term bio-psychosocial, spiritual approach, which is essentially taking into account. The biology of a person, the psychology of a person, the sociology or the sociological ties for that person and the spiritual aspects of that person in order to be able to understand the whole.

And from that, I really not only learned that is a good foundation, but I diversified my own wheel of life that I've used with the people that I work with. That really helps with taking into account all aspects of life.

Okay. So one thing you mentioned right off the bat was like healing. Do you feel like that term has just become so overused? We have to heal, we have to heal, we have to heal. Do you feel like it's just a trend? I think in many contexts it is a very trendy word. But then I come back to this place of thinking about healing as what does healing mean to you?

We ask at my company, my other company that I work for recovery.com, we always ask, what does recovery mean to you? What does healing mean to you? So we can break free from what feels trendy, and really think about it for ourselves and define it for ourselves. I think that helps with, not just utilizing it as a surface term.

Yeah, it almost feels like it's become addictive, like you're addicted to healing now instead of actually healing from the. Thing that caused your addiction. I feel like now so many people are addicted to healing. Have you seen that? That's interesting. Yeah. I suppose that can be made into an argument.

I think if we had to be addicted to anything, addiction to me, that definition means that we're overdoing something. It's not happening in a healthy way. So I would caution people, of course, with what, as you define healing for yourself and recovery for yourself, making sure that there's balance and synergy so that it's not a replacement, for the addiction that you're trying to heal from is really important.

Yeah. Okay. So tell me about recovery.com. What is it? Oh, recovery.com is something that I wish I had 25 years ago when I started in this profession. Recovery.com is essentially a place where loved ones or individuals who are, suffering from their own afflictions are able to connect to treatment with ease.

There's been a lot of really inappropriate things that have happened in this space. Like patient, brokering, selling of names, things like that. Because there's typically a middleman involved with connecting patients and their loved ones or loved ones, and their. Patients, to treatment.

What we do@recovery.com is connect individuals directly to treatment centers. And we are worldwide, so it's a global platform. And we have a lot of treatment centers on our site. You can filter to location, to insurance to, preferences for treatment that you're looking for. You name it.

And we continue to add different sites around the world or treatment centers around the world to our site daily. And it's just an amazing free tool for people to use. In addition to the connection factor two treatment. We also have educational resources and as their chief clinical Officer

one of the newer initiatives that we're starting right now is really focusing on research and listening to our people. Listening to the people who are coming to our site and thinking about what it is that they need to facilitate the patient journey with more ease so that we can get to a place where we're actually.

Having successful outcomes, however, we're defining what successful outcomes are. It's a place to get education. It's a place to find research, to participate in research as well. If you're interested. So basically it's like I can go to the site and I'm like, I wanna find a rehab. For, and I can find specifically for what I'm struggling with. On this show, we talk a lot about alcohol and recovery from alcohol. So let's say I go to this page and I'm like, I'm a drunk. I need help. It's gonna direct me to some local resources or probably just like more options than that.

Way more options than that, and really whatever it is that you're looking for. So maybe you're a person who's needing recovery that's not in your local space. You can find that maybe you're looking to be five minutes down the road. You can find that maybe you're looking for an outpatient program and a non-residential program.

You can find that. So basically the sky's the limit. You can search for whatever it is that you need. That's actually kinda cool because I think everyone's recovery is different, right? You don't have to go to rehab, but I talked to a lot of rehabs.

Like my experience was funny 'cause I'm on the phone with these different centers and they're like, have you ever been to a therapist? And I'm like, I've spent 20 years in therapy, yeah. Sometimes we go out and we play pickleball and I'm like, I have five friends that I could call right now that would play pickleball with me.

And so I just couldn't find anything that felt like it would actually challenge me, if that makes sense. No, it's so true. Everybody's recovery journey is different and your needs are gonna be unique to you and your preferences, the other thing that I kinda stand on, this is my crate that I stand on and my podium that I follow through with is integration.

True integration doesn't mean just being multidisciplinary and offering services like multiple services. It means. The providers who are providing those services need to talk, but first and foremost, they need to talk to the person who's sitting in front of them to kinda gauge where they're at and see, like maybe going through a traditional integrative program that the treatment center is giving you isn't gonna be enough for you.

So one of the things as a provider that I really like to reinforce, and even a lot of the consultation that I do with other treatment centers or providers alike, is to really understand what truth. Integration means, and first and foremost, what that means for the person who's sitting in front of them asking for help.

So yeah. Okay, so that sounds like a really cool space for people though, honestly. Yeah, it is. Because I was like, this is good. I was just Googling and making phone calls and I'm like, all of this is stupid. That's literally how I felt. That was my experience. I don't blame you.

And you know what, what happens? We get into a place of crisis and then we end up on Google and we're typing in best treatment centers near me, and we go down the rabbit hole of oh my gosh not only do I have this, but I probably also have 500 other diagnoses because that's what Google does.

It's like you're finding all these different things. But yeah, recovery.com, like I said, I wish I had it 25 years ago because my goodness, how. Much, I would've used it across the board and for every single person, it really would've been a useful tool. So I'm glad that it's here now.

I'm glad that I can be part of it. I'm glad to, see that we're continually in a space of growth to be able to be of service to the masses, which is part of my own mission as well. That's freaking cool. Let's just stamp it on this episode. recovery.com.

Yes. recovery.com a hundred percent. Yep. It sounds really awesome. Okay, so what do you do for fun? My husband and I joke because my husband, who is also the director of wellness at the Synergy Center, he is our martial arts instructor, head martial arts instructor and specialist.

And he is my trainer. He is by far the person who has been my guru in this space ever since I met him, which is, 20 years ago now. So yeah, I joke with him now. Our date nights are no longer date nights. It's US training. So my fun thing to do is definitely train. And of course my other fun thing to do is spending time with my kids and my family as a whole.

I have four children, so I'm a mom as well. Okay. How old are your kids? Yeah, they range between 15 and six. So my eldest is 15, and then after that I've got a 13-year-old, 12-year-old, and a 6-year-old. Okay, so you're a busy girl. Yeah. Yeah. That's super fun. I for when you said 15, I thought you were gonna go up and I was like, oh my gosh.

Finally someone with older kids because seriously put I think parents once their kids like. Turn into adults, like we need to be put in therapy because that is a wild ride. And nobody prepared me for that. Yeah. They were like, toddlers are so hard, but they, nobody told me that 18, 19, 20, I was gonna wanna die.

Yeah. It's a lot. Every developmental stage comes with its own set of challenges. And loves, yeah. Oh, for sure. So one thing you talk about is engineering your life for evolution. What the hell does that mean? Yeah. So it goes back into, looking at the person holistically.

It's something that I can't emphasize enough. I'm also a professor. All of the students that I've taught, the departments that I've led, we've focused from that standpoint of. What does it mean to look at life holistically, right? What are the categories of life that we need to really pay attention to?

What are the categories of needs that we need to pay attention to? Not just the tangible stuff what do you wanna do for work? Or, how many kids do you wanna have? We're looking at what needs could look like as well. So when you like, gimme like some examples, like what do you mean when you say that?

So what I typically like to do is take people through an exercise that has them identify where they're at right now in context to the categories of life as well as what it is that they're needing in life from an emotional or bio-psychosocial spiritual standpoint.

We're looking at categories that include. Things like activities that you wanna do, hobbies that you wanna do, et cetera. But then we move into the concepts of transcendence. So what does it mean for you to have presence in your life? What gives you meaning? What gives you purpose? What do you find beautiful?

What does order mean to you? What does creativity mean to you? So on and so forth. What about rest? What does rest mean to you? How do you want it to look for you in your life? What does empathy mean to you? And how does that factor in a sense of community, a sense of safety, romance.

Challenge, autonomy, honesty. These are all the different categories that are really important to talk about from that needs standpoint. Moving away from that, which is tangible. So looking at all of the needs and looking at what it is that you're aspiring for in your life gives us a baseline to be able to understand. What you feel really good with and confident with, and what you feel needs a little bit more work. And then based on that, we move from there to start engineering a plan that will help you feel fulfilled, not just in the future, but starting today and then moving into your future, building into the future that you visualize and you want to bring to life.

So that's what engineering your life means. Do you think that people like tend to just go through life like willy-nilly and they're like, oh, boom. And you're saying Hey, let's stop for a second. And I think especially like in the sober space, it's okay, that's what my life did look like.

What do I actually want it to look like? Yeah. I think that's a big question that happens. When people go through the first part of their recovery journey and they land at the place where they're now fully sober. Oftentimes that means we've gotta redefine a lot of these things because it means something different.

Transcendence is gonna mean something different than it did before when there was a substance involved, right? So redefining it for the stage that you're in is very important and being able to understand how to actually attain. What you're wanting to attain and making a plan for that is really important.

No matter whether you're going through a recovery journey formally or not, right? I always say also everyone is recovering from something. This is just really good life advice and I wish I would've, been more consciously aware of some of the things I was doing.

Yeah. One thing I did say when I got sober was I'm like, I have to change everything. I have to change my habits. I have to change, who I talk to how I talk to people, what I do at night. Like it was a full, like life overhaul and it was cool 'cause it was right before I turned 40, oh nice. Yeah. I'm like, am I having a midlife crisis? We don't know. Sure. I think every year, starting from when you're 18, minimally. You're gonna go through a little bit of a crisis and it's totally okay because that just means that you, your brain, your body you're looking at everything and you're thinking like, am I doing what I wanna do?

And is it enough? And that's not a bad thing. So even with what I was talking about in terms of the wheels of life that I like to utilize with my people that I work with. Doing that on a quarterly basis is a really great exercise because that's you connecting with yourself. Okay. Have you done this?

Oh, of course I do. I've got four kids and a husband. No, absolutely. I think my longstanding crisis has always been landing in a place where I ask myself, am I doing enough? Am I doing enough to serve the masses? That has always been my pull.

And then from there I acknowledge what it is that I wanna do and I break it down into an action plan and then I move forward with it. What's your pull to serve the masses though? Like where do you get that drive from? That's a great question. I have my own recovery journey from trauma and a whole bunch of varieties of abuse.

And that really reinforced for me the want to have an eclectic set of opportunities for my own healing journey, which I went through that for myself and that. Was revolutionary. Which is why I also say you need to be able to talk to the person who's in front of you and really key into what their specific needs and wants are.

Because that's what's gonna help them with understanding their own healing lexicon. Their recovery lexicon. When I realized the power. Of integration for myself when I realized how important psychology is in school. I think it's funny. Every person who. Majors whatever their favorite subject is, you could go to a math class and the math teacher will say, you're gonna use this in everyday life. I do not use math in everyday life. Not high level statistics to anyway all the time. I'm not doing that. But psychology. Legitimately is used in everyday life, and it is in every aspect of our lives.

So I really get to raise my hand to saying, guess what guys? This is applicable to everything you do, how you behave, how you function, the connection between your neurochemistry and your body. In realizing all of that and seeing all of that and seeing the applicability and the relevance of it on a day-to-day basis, I was like, everybody needs to know this.

Everybody needs to have access to defining, being able to have the tools to define what wellness means to them, and that wellness isn't just about, or mental health and wellness isn't just about. I'm seeing somebody and they're helping me through it, which by the way, I am so thankful that is now more frequently part of today's language than it was when I first started.

Right now we're in a place where we can say, yeah, this mental health and wellness is important. Does everybody have ease in being able to access tools like that? If they don't have the people that they can go to talk to, or maybe they can't afford somebody, how are we making education and recovery literacy accessible for everybody so that they can define their own journey

no, I really like that because a lot of times I look at like healing and, all these therapy appointments and all this stuff. I'm like, it's really like a privileged position, like you have to have the funds to put that in. And you know what I've actually loved, I've loved like. Just this information age we're in and now, like even Chad Gpt is like helpful, but I love that we can go to TikTok and listen to people talk.

I love that we can find stuff on YouTube. I love that we can listen to podcasts. So like having just more information available where you're like, you're not alone. Here's how so and so went through it. Or even, I'm a social media manager and content creator by trade. That's how I make my money.

Nice. As I own like a company, but we have. Some clients who are therapists, like a therapy group, and they're like, we just want people to be able to go to our tiktoks and get some information that would help them. And what's cool is like she even spends time, finding people in their specific area, and I'm like, it's really cool that like we now have this resource like sitting in our hands. And you know what? I love the fact that you brought up social media because one of the things that I always have done is not have a social media strategy, which is probably a no-no. But I think that's the best way to go about social media.

I'm like, do what you want. That's what I tell everyone. My biggest thing is I wanna speak to what people are needing and not be part of the. Flood of information that's out there. The people that I've worked with or who do follow me know that, which I'm so appreciative of, but social media. What a beautiful, it can be a beautiful thing. It makes me think about what storytelling looks like in today's day and age. It's this digital short form passing along of information which tips its hat to a historical value where so many cultures, including, like what we have in America.

Oral tradition, for passing down information and wisdom. So today we have even greater access to that and it can definitely, if used right, be helpful for our healing journey and our recovery journey. Yeah. Did you say that? I just had to take notes. I was like oral tradition of passing on information.

Yeah. . I'm obsessed with that. Aw, if you see me stealing it, I will credit you though. Oh, thank you., We're actually starting to do some research on that because it is a passion project of mine. I think when we think about storytelling in general, right?

We think about minority and rural cultures that have utilized oral traditions to pass down that wisdom and to keep their culture going. How are we not, we're doing that today. Just, it's a different form and it can be healing I love, of course I think anything can be toxic, right?

We can just compare it to alcohol, like two glasses of wine is fine. Two bottles of wine is not fine. So it's like anything can be toxic. Even water, like if you have too much of it. But I have loved social media for the fact that like I can find, women who like are working on the same goals as me, who maybe even look like me.

It doesn't really matter what they look like, but they might be having like the same struggles or they have the same body type and I'm like, then I'm following their workouts and I'm like, I do feel that way. Like it's just really cool because I feel like we're really connected and like to me I see it in a good way.

Of course there is a dark side, but let's focus on putting more of that healing light and energy out there. Just to combat it and continue this new tradition of passing along Wisdom. I've realized too, I'm one of those people who like heals out loud.

I want to talk about it. I don't know why I was scared to talk about anything before. And now I'm like, people ask me how my day's going. And I'm like actually I was just down at, and I'm like realizing like I love to heal out loud because this last year and a half I've shared my sobriety journey on TikTok and it's saved me.

And I know just from the dms and messages I get, it's amazing. So I'm big on the let's heal out loud as well. I love that. No, it's so important because there's connection that you're talking about, right? What has helped with all of that is not only a validation of your own story, but the sense that, you're not alone.

So we're in essence, able to make connections throughout the world and have that be part of our Healing Connections forum, that we're creating. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, because a lot of times if you're just sitting at home and you're seeing everyone's like presentation of themselves, like in meetings or however you like work in the world you're not getting like a full picture. And so I know with me, like I felt so stupid. Yeah. I was like, this is so stupid that I have hit this point in my life. And I'm like, wait a minute. It wasn't stupid at all, no. It's meaningful and it's a milestone nonetheless.

However you wanna classify it. Bad, good, frustrating, you know what have you. It's a milestone. And sharing the fact that you go through these milestones helps other people understand. That it's okay, right? Yeah. It's just I think as women too, we've come to the conclusion that sharing about like even having children, but I'm like, what if we just went a little bit deeper?

I've said this on other podcast episodes and I actually, it just popped into my head. Now I wanna get your take. I have gone through my recovery journey via 12 steps. In AA and I keep telling people, I'm like, if we would all just get in a circle once a week and we would just spill our guts out on the presented topic, right?

You couldn't, probably couldn't just go willy-nilly, but like you just spilled your guts out. I'm like, I think everyone would be completely different. Oh yeah, a hundred percent. If we started to normalize having support and support groups. Even more than we have. I think we're on a good trajectory, although with a lot of the things going on in the world, I'm seeing a regression and a fear that's building again, to being able to heal out loud, as you said.

But still, if we were able to, destigmatize being able to be real, and being able to be real together so that we can connect. Wouldn't it even be like crazy if people could sit? 'cause I love the AA like principles and things like that.

Like you're not crosstalk, you're not doing any of that. You're just listening and you're like, huh? I could apply that to my life. Or some things people say, I'm like, that's really great for you, yeah. Wouldn't it be cool though if we could what you're saying is sit in a circle, even like politically and be like, just listen to what people had to say and then it would be, you wouldn't comment on anyone else, but I think we would start to see people more human.

Yeah. Holding space. It's such an important aspect of life. And then maybe too, you could be like, oh, I see. We're just humans. And I think sometimes we've forgotten that for sure. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So another question I wanted to ask you about is how do we set intentional boundaries, not just out of fear or avoidance, but to protect our powers? 'cause I know you talked about boundaries, emotional balance, and identity, but how do we like set our own intentional boundaries? I think boundary setting is really a beautiful thing because what it does is first and foremost empowers us to stand by what our beliefs are. So the first thing that I always say is that you've gotta tune in. In order to be able to set a boundary for yourself, you've gotta listen to what your needs are, right?

Not just what your needs are, but what's been bothering you. The acknowledgement of what bothers you is really important because that's gonna shed light on what you're actually wanting to bring more of into your life. So the first thing that you've gotta think about is how you're tuning into yourself, notice what is draining you? What are you feeling negative about? Where is the resentment or overwhelm or sense of obligation coming in? Because those feelings often signal that a boundary is missing or that it needs to be reshaped. So the thing that we don't wanna get to, is resentment.

Because resentment is the price that we end up paying for, not. Being able to express our needs, and then it just builds and it becomes toxic. So tune into yourself, acknowledge all of the things that are not feeling great for you so that we can shed light on the things that you're wanting to bring light to and bring more of into your life.

So that takes me to step two, which is naming your need. So once you've acknowledged all the yucky stuff, like now you're saying, okay, what is it that I need more of? I need space. I need time, I need respect, I need clarity. I need emotional safety in my interactions. And once you know the needs, now you're starting to be able to get to a place where you can define what the boundary is gonna become, whether it's gonna be a form of self-care,

that sounds like you saying no, what have you, right? So then the third step would be really being intentional, being clear. But that doesn't mean you have to be cruel. So in setting boundaries, now you've identified what it is that you need. Maybe it's you needing time for yourself, and you've gotta start saying no to people when they ask you for a time.

So saying something along the lines of I'm not available to talk about this right now, I just need some space, but I'd love to get back to this later on and, commit to maybe a date or a hypothetical time that you can come back to it. And reinforcing things like, I care about you.

I also need to take care of myself, so I just need some time right now. And that's totally okay. So you don't have to, this is the other thing too, is like when we're communicating what those boundaries are or saying no, people feel obligated to overexplain. But you don't need to, you don't need to over explain Boundaries don't require justification to be valid, right.

So saying something simple in one line is more than enough. And then holding the line with compassion, because when you say no, sometimes it will be challenged, right? People are gonna resist your boundary, especially if they benefited from your lack of one, right? Yes. That's not a reason to drop the boundary.

You've gotta remember to stay calm, repeat it. This is where I also like to say, be a broken record if you need to, but it doesn't have to be like a passive aggressive or aggressive broken record. You don't have to argue. You can just affirm and reaffirm. So saying something along the lines of this matters to me.

Now, maybe it's difficult for you to understand, and I can help clarify that later, but right now I just need time and space, and standing firm by it. Holding the line with compassion is important. And then the fifth step that I like to reinforce is aligning your actions. So boundaries.

They're not just about words, they're about. Follow through, and this is where accountability with yourself is gonna really be important. So you've gotta stay in like a conversational situation. You've gotta end the conversation. You've gotta focus on not explaining the why, and then you've gotta follow through with taking that time and space for yourself to actually do what it is that you're needing to do.

Even if that's sitting by the lake and just watching the birds, there's the five steps, that I like to recommend for boundaries setting and maintaining boundaries sometimes, people can get really excited. So like a tip to help maintain your own synergy is to practice co-regulation.

Okay? So if someone is emotionally activated, if you feel really up or maybe somebody is challenging, you, force yourself to speak slower, lower your volume of your voice. Use, grounding touch. Maybe connect yourself to your chair or even you can, place your hand on yourself, wherever you feel comfortable on your chest or on your hands together.

And breathe intentionally, ground yourself, co-regulate yourself. And then really focus on. Articulating more slowly and mindfully and purposefully doesn't mean you're being mean, actually is gonna help you with being more compassionate and gentle. So that's a little tip that I like to reinforce as well, to maintain your own synergy.

I'm like staring down my phone, but I keep like typing things. I was like, I should have my, here, I'm sitting in this phone booth at the office where of course I'm like there's a little whiteboard. It could be over here yeah. That's super beautiful and I think boundaries are great.

And I realized I'm not good at them. And I know a lot of people always talk about boundaries and I was like yeah, like boundaries. I get it. Like I'm pretty good at doing what I need to do, but there's been like certain situations, me and my husband, we were in the car the other day and we were hyping ourselves up and we're like, if she asks, we're gonna say no.

And he's okay. Did it work? Were you guys able to say no? Yeah. It's actually regarding our oldest child too. 'cause we were like, we have to say no to this. We have to, yeah.

Like we helped you do this, but we're not gonna help you do this. Of course. That's a whole nother can of worms, that feeling of wanting to protect our children and save them so that they don't have to suffer as much, I know. And that's something I'm learning right now and I think it's a beautiful gift to learn these things as well. I'm like, gosh, we learn like really cool things when we like come to this, planet and do our thing here. But yeah, someone told me recently and they're like, if you , just handle things for other people and what you're saying about even boundaries, like you just step in and you do it like you're just kicking a can further down the road and eventually it'll have to get picked up. And I was like, oh, that is such a good analogy. And it's really stuck with me.

I've been talking about it nonstop. Really good. That's a great analogy. Yeah. And don't kick the can further down the road, like just pick it up and deal with it, absolutely. Okay, so the Synergy Center, just to wrap up here, tell me like what it is your vision for, like where you guys are headed and how you can help people.

Yeah, so the Synergy Center is a virtual space. We do some in-person classes as well. But it's primarily a virtual space where you can. Elect to create your own customized plan for wellness, whether that's nutrition, wellness, coaching, life coaching, mindset martial arts, whatever you want.

There's a whole multitude of things that you can build your own package for and create your own wellness system. What do we see for ourselves in the future? We're really working very robustly on expanding our online accessibility. So we're gonna have asynchronous courses that will become available.

We also are building a community pretty quickly here, starting in the fall, we're gonna be launching our first ever. Homeschooling and remote working community platform. So that we can support each other again globally. But we are ourselves homeschoolers, and one of the things that we've learned on our journey for homeschooling, which we started well before the pandemic, is building a sense of community for homeschoolers.

So that's up and coming. And then I also have a few little passion projects coming along the way. We've got workbooks and different types of accessible tools that will be available for people if life coaching or regular, services aren't in the cards for you right now.

Again, it's all about that accessibility to care. We're trying to provide tools that will make your own toolbox more robust until you can get to a place where you can elect to have services all of that is coming. I love that you keep talking about that accessibility to care, and I think that's just like such a beautiful thing that you're doing.

So yeah, very early on in my career basically discovered that, first of all, I love Hena. Hena is beautiful as part of my culture.

I had it at my wedding. I had it at my baby shower. I had it, all throughout my life. And then I started to think wait a second. This is really therapeutic. So the Hena plant itself the henna that is applied. As long as it's like the pure version of Hena has actual cooling properties to it.

So they used to play it and place it like on the body or in the hair to cool you down and think about where it's used primarily. Like there's Asian, countries and Middle Eastern countries that all use this. Hot climates, right? So the Henno is used to be able to cool you down and it has very therapeutic properties to it.

And then what you can do also is you can put essential oils and, like lemon oil and lemon juice, on to make the color really nice and robust. Guess what? It smells good, right? So I started putting all of this together, and then I started thinking about the therapeutic values of art therapy.

And art in and of itself and expressing yourself through art. I developed a program that I utilized with TBI community as well as the military community to help with reprocessing and reframing and finding expressive means to be able to work through. Whatever it is that you need to work through, and I had great success with all of these communities.

So it's my own rehabilitative henna program. And just to summarize it, it's basically a combination of C-B-T-D-B-T and art therapy. When you said military with I was like, what? Yeah. I'm like over here like processing it. My husband been hired from 20 years in the Army, has done like multiple deployments and things like that, and I was like, I could actually see him painting, with customized the program so that it's not only about application on the self, but it can be done in a non applicative way as well. You can do it just in its art form and still have the benefits of it like adult coloring books, very relaxing. I love that. Thank you so much for your time today. This was beautiful. I have so many, you should see my little notebook over here. On my phone. I love it. And thank you. Just like for what you're doing in the world, thank you for bringing more attention to accessible care in the mental health space.

And it sounds like you're just doing incredible things. So I'm excited to see where you go from here too. Oh, thank you so much, Samantha, for having me on and for the time, and it's such a pleasure to be sitting here with you today. Thank you for holding space and for also having these out loud conversations about the, a UD and SUD space and recovery in general.