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Weaving Threads of Empathy: Fashioning Support in Criminology and Geek Culture

• Dr. Roldan • Season 3 • Episode 5

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When the threads of fashion design intertwine with the stark world of criminology, you get Dr. Shelley, our remarkable guest, who weaves her insights into victimization and mental health with the finesse of a veteran. Our conversation traverses the misunderstood terrain of 'victim mentality,' highlighting the power of belief and validation in transforming lives. It's a heart-to-heart that promises to reframe your understanding of support and the immeasurable value of education, as we reflect on our own journeys as first-generation college students finding solace and purpose in the labyrinth of criminal justice.

Venturing further, we tackle the thorny issue of toxic charity, where good intentions can sometimes lead to more harm than help. Our anecdotes bring to life the concept of experiential learning and its ability to cultivate empathy in those who wish to lend a hand. As we share poignant stories, you'll discover the profound difference culturally competent services can make, especially when facing the entwined challenges of cultural, financial, or familial constraints. It's a chapter that will leave you contemplating the delicate balance between aiding and empowering.

Guess speaker:
Shelly Clevenger
@shellyclevenger
https://news.illinoisstate.edu/2020/02/shelly-clevenger-named-recipient-of-rives-award/
Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Victimology-Shelly-Clevenger/dp/1498772846

Disclaimer: It's essential to note that while I am a therapist, this podcast is not a substitute for therapy. The stories and discussions shared here are meant to inform and inspire but should not replace professional advice or support. If you or someone you know is struggling, please seek help from a professional therapist or contact a helpline.
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Speaker 1:

Hello beautiful souls and welcome to Oroasis Community Podcast. I am Dr Roldan, your host. I am a doctor in clinical psychology, a BIPOC therapist professor and a mindful somatic coach. While I am a therapist, remember I'm not your therapist. This podcast is not a substitute for professional mental health care, but we have resources in our website and Instagram to support you in that search. Join us for a cozy, felt conversation about mental health, personal growth and mindfulness. We explore tools to care for your mind, your body and your soul. Check the footnotes for disclaimer, trigger warnings and additional resources for each one of the episodes. So grab your favorite cup of tea, coffee or hot chocolate, wrap yourself in a warm blanket and find a coffee spot here with us to be kind to be brave, loud, loud and strong in your search of mental health wellness. Welcome to your oasis.

Speaker 2:

Grab your cup of tea or coffee or a warm beverage that warms your soul, and have a seat here with us, because today I have a guest that I have followed for many years and kind of like right now. Like everybody knows, I'm a geek at heart but I'm also a scholar, so I'm totally fumbling right here with Dr Shelley, so I'm going to try to keep my cool, but if I go all fangirling, you just let me know. So what do you know for the audience that they don't know? A lot of them they know I'm a geek and a geek therapist and I'm a clinical psychologist. But what do you do in a little bit of your background? That way people can connect with you and understand why I am so excited to have you in the podcast today?

Speaker 3:

Well, I'm very excited to be here. So my background is I have a PhD in criminology. I work in victim studies right now, but in the past I had been in a criminal justice department teaching. I have done lots of different things before becoming a professor. I actually worked at PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I worked doing mobile therapy for children with behavioral issues. A lot of those had connection with the criminal justice system and were victims themselves. And in my spare time, which also kind of is professional too, I do a lot of panels at Comic-Cons and I do a lot of writing and research related to comic books, which I also use in my teaching. And I'm a first generation college student, which I always like to say, and so that helped kind of shape my journey. And then now that I'm a professor and a department chair, that shapes how I kind of see the world for our students who are coming in, who maybe don't come from backgrounds where their family were college educated, correct.

Speaker 2:

And I resonate so much with you. I'm myself first generation college student, a Latina, and on top of that we shared this love for criminal justice. I did the Homeland Security Program and I work in human trafficking. But when I was on my undergrad it was for special education and I were ABA. But the funny thing is I started working in advocacy for sex offenders that they were cognitive delayed and so I thought I was going to go to criminal justice route.

Speaker 2:

But you know, I am more in the mental health. It resonated with me and the same I have seen Dr Shelley in panels. Her writing is exquisite. So if you have time, just Google her and soak all the info, because it's just going to light you up. But today we are going to talk about mental health and victimization and what is a victim or how? Because people always think the victim is somebody that went through a very, very traumatic event, and yes, that's the case. But there is different types of victimization and different types of cycles that people that have suffered from a traumatic event or they have been victimized in order to recover. So one thing that you know in the social media is very talk is like oh, you have victim mentality when in reality they don't even know what that term means. So can you help us to light up some understanding about this topic?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So one of the things that I've seen in my work and then in teaching in this area is not everybody knows they're a victim, even if they've been a victim. So when people say, oh, victim mentality, everybody is a victim A lot of people who may even had serious things happen to them, don't even identify. The best example I can give is we have a student who now she founded her own nonprofit. She works with human trafficking, but she didn't even realize she was a victim of human trafficking until she came to Sam Houston and was in a class where they were talking about trafficking and she was like hey, that's what happened to me. And so some of our students who come to our classes they might not have associated what happened to them as abuse, but it is so I think too.

Speaker 3:

Social media often gets a bad rap, but it can help us identify things that happen to us. It can help us figure out resources. It can connect a lot of my students who go to work in the field of victim services. They do online support groups and that's amazing that we live in a world where, if I have a specific type of victimization that there isn't a local support group, I can do a support group. You know in a different state, even in a different time zone, and connect with people, and so I think you know victimization is coming a long way. It's come a long way in terms of health and services, and people are able to figure out what they need and how to get it.

Speaker 2:

Beautiful. Can you tell us a story? How do you get into criminal justice and to this path? Because sometimes I feel like the path chooses us. We don't choose the path, kind of. So can you tell us the?

Speaker 3:

story. Sure, I was just telling the story the other day to a student. Um, because people don't think I'm a criminal justice professor all the time. It's the most like people are always shocked when they see me and then they find out what I do. So I initially was going to go to FIT for fashion design. So that was my initial plan, which maybe aligns with how I look, more so than what I do, and so I had spent my whole like childhood, high school, sewing, creating my own patterns, making things, to have a portfolio, to be able to go to fashion design school.

Speaker 3:

But then my last semester in high school, I took a class that was criminology and law and that class really opened my eyes to a lot of things and, similarly to the student that I just talked about, I was in that class and I had known, kind of my origin story, so my mom. I grew up a single mom and she had left domestic violence, so her and I were victims of domestic violence and I knew that. But being in that class whenever the professor was talking about like these are the things that can be done to help people these are different jobs, like different services I never really thought about it Because we my mom, left, my mom went and lived with my grandma. We got out of that situation. We didn't seek services, we didn't go to law enforcement.

Speaker 3:

It was it was the 80s. It was like a different sort of timeframe. But going through that class and then thinking about who I was was like maybe I could do something that would mean more to me personally than fashion and I still love fashion and I still sew, and you know I do all those things but I just felt like I could help people who were like me or who were going through those things, and I had never really thought about that as a career. And so so I changed trajectories and got my undergrad degree in criminology, my master's degree and then my PhD, all in criminology. How?

Speaker 2:

did it felt, going through being a first generation, a lot of the higher education is kind of like a non-known territory and it's not like people told you oh, you can apply for this scholarship, you can apply for this mentorship, you can apply for this internship, you can't stumble to it or it's growing pains. I was so lucky that I have a mentor that putting me under their arm and guide me through the whole undergrad, graduate and doctoral programs. But when I came to this country I came already with an education of it's the equivalent of ED, but in here it was like nah, just high school, you know.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And that's what I always tell people when you see I don't know the janitor or your cleaning people, you don't know what background they have, because sometimes we have to do things just to survive. So and that includes victims of domestic violence or any kind of victim that you sometimes have to redo your whole life because you have to be removed from where you were or the environment that you were, to be removed from where you were or the environment that you were. So can you tell us about how environment is crucial to either become a good student or get out of a bad situation, or even realizing no, I'm being victimized? This is not the norm outside of this little clan.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and it's so important when you're a victim how people respond to you, and that's the thing that I really try to reiterate to my students. If you are in a situation where you're being victimized or you might not know, but it feels wrong, something feels sort of icky. If you tell someone, how they react usually can have a big impact. So you go to someone and say this is happening and they don't believe you or they blame you or they tell you you're mistaken, right, you're confused. That can lead to people staying in that situation, dropping out of school if they're in school, getting into worse sort of situations than they're currently in.

Speaker 3:

I think having somebody to support you and believe you at least one person is crucial and I've seen that with people who I've interviewed students of my own they always say, well, this one person believed me, um, and so I always try to tell people like, just listen and just believe them, um, it's a very it's. It sounds simple, but it's actually really hard for people to do um and not try to fix it yet and not try to fix it yet, just listen and be supportive. And that's what we see, even when victims are going through sort of their healing journey. Having support and having people believe in them is often what leads them to success.

Speaker 2:

So, to reiterate, one of the biggest propellers to not search help or stay in bad situations is that when we do have the courage to say to anybody depends on your reaction. So I say no reaction is no action and it's OK, just listen and sit down. I remember a lot of my students who I have some that are like well, you know, that's how it is in our culture, that's how it is. You get beat up because that's what your parents did, so that's what your partner does and that's what I will do with my kids. Right, so how can for people that is listening and they're in a situation, how they can break those chains? Because a lot of the times victims also are mesh with the person or the community due to money, culture or even their own children. Can you tell us how, in your experience, how people have handled that? What is the best outcomes that somebody can offer support for that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's so hard when it comes to like culture and background, whether you know it doesn't and it.

Speaker 3:

I found it to be sort of universal. There are different norms that different people have, and I think people have to recognize what is right or best for them. Right or best for them and that is hard to step outside of your family or your culture, and I have seen that. I have some research that is so sad I still haven't been able to write it up yet because it's very like I guess triggering is the word for me about women who were raped and became pregnant and kept their children for a variety of reasons, and one of them was cultural slash, religious of being Catholic, being Hispanic, not thinking that they could have an abortion and or leave their partner who raped them.

Speaker 3:

And so I think people have to figure out what's right or best for them and have to be strong and have courage to go through those channels that they need to get out, which you know isn't always easy.

Speaker 3:

But the thing that I always say to be able to help people is culturally competent services where someone knows those things right, because if you're trying to help somebody and you're different from them and you have no idea what their life is like, you're not going to be able to give them the services that they would need, and so I think training is important because even me, even if I'm a different race or ethnicity than you, if I'm aware of the circumstances that you're in, I will be better informed to help you leave those kinds of situations or at least get the help that you need. So I'm always trying to, with my students, talk about those things within victim services, because I think that's what will help victims the most is having someone understand them and know what they're going through and then be able to offer some things that are actually real and concrete that they can use to help themselves Correct.

Speaker 2:

Which brings me to the other side. Right, the helpers. Right, there's something called toxic charity, which in my country they do like it's candy, which they come and help you with the knowledge that they have in their culture and apply to the other culture. Right, for example, I'm from Guatemala. We have a lot of little villages and it's one of the few countries that still maintains a lot of the Mayan culture, because we have a lot of still population that is Mayan and indigenous. But a lot of Europe and United States and even Canada comes and do services in there.

Speaker 2:

The best way that I can describe it is that they come with good hearts, good intentions. One of the things was like they come to do recycling and I was like you're coming to a place that doesn't even have water. Like, what recycle? Right, like I was like, why is that? So I remember I used to take my students. I did a with my mentor. We create this program that it was sustainability, uh, with uh, cultural awareness, and I literally we will take the, the kiddos from. Well, college kids, freshmen.

Speaker 2:

I call it, kiddos, because it's like kindergartner to me, because everybody comes in different levels. But we will go to the city and then from the city we will go to the inner city, then to a county. From the county we will go to a village and from the village we go to the real, real village. So, little by little, they will see how they lose services and they lose basic needs, right To the point that one of the kiddos I remember this one I always remember because she now has her own nonprofit because it had that impact on her that she washed her hair.

Speaker 2:

She just washed her hair, without thinking, in the village and she used the whole month of water to wash her hair. And we have to spend like three days going downhill to get water to the village and that was all of us, Right, and it was like 20 of us. So I, it had such an impact because she was like I was so selfish and I didn't know I was going to do that. So tell us about what do you, when you pick a charity to donate, to donate your time, your money, your effort how do you make sure that it's not a toxic charity or how do you handle that, Because it's very sticky?

Speaker 3:

That is the best question I might've been asked because it matters and we have, like I mentioned a student who was a victim studies student who created her own nonprofit, hands of Justice. I'm going to give them a shout out. Who founded this organization? She has the knowledge, she has her master's degree in victim studies, and the people she hires in her organization are also survivors of human trafficking. So it is a organization filled with and led by people who have experienced trafficking, and so I personally do a lot with them because they are the survivor or overcomer is the term they like led, and to me that matters because they can come at it from a different perspective than someone who hasn't been in that situation.

Speaker 3:

I also for me personally I guess it's my biggest thing related to charities is I want people who are going to treat people who have been victimized with respect and dignity and not make them feel bad, which seems so simple that I say that that that should happen, but it doesn't happen in every charity or every organization, and so Hands of Justice does that for the folks. One of the things that they do that I love is they have a dignity boutique, and when I know when someone comes in. They get to go into the boutique and it's all new clothes, it's all new bath products, like jewelry, everything is brand new, just like going to a store and the person can go in there and get like a new start and that's the kind of thing. It might seem small but it's giving that person's like life back and it also gives their life meaning and it's you know, you feel that through this organization. So when I'm looking at organizations that I align myself with, that's what I care about is like kindness to people who have been victimized.

Speaker 2:

Right. The other tip is, like, you know, if you don't donate your time but you donate your money, I always make sure what percentage of that purchase or X, y and Z goes to that organization, for example, for, is dear to my heart, like young adults that suffer from cancer, right, because I am part of that population. So when pink happens every October, right, I was like, not everything that's pink go through the same thing, right? So always check the percentage that the company's donating, because, say, we donate to this charity, right, and you see that is 1-2%. That is not this charity, right, and you see that it's 1%, 2%, that is not a lot, right?

Speaker 2:

Also, sometimes it's better that you donate your own money yourself versus a big company or a big store box, as I call it. Yeah, they always ask you do you want to donate for the children? Do you want to donate this and that? And that's part of the dignity, right? When I work with people with, uh, disabilities, one of the things that used to irk me is how they parade them in order to, to, to get money, right, which I was like that that is not dignifying for them. And when I used to work with my human trafficking teams and why not?

Speaker 2:

one of the things, uh, that I found that was so healing for them, it was creating costumes, because they were able to create their own superhero or villains, some of them they want to be villains because they never had the autonomy to dress themselves and that's um piggyback to that is like how I, how I love a sense of uh fashion design, if you will. For for dr shelly, today I'm wearing all my geeky stuff because you look great, I have my like you know, my uh layout t-shirt. I love it I love it in my comics.

Speaker 2:

So if you haven't followed dr shelly, go, it's just a delight to see her. If you're a geeky person or just a fashion person, her fashion is like I always like where do you buy that? And she always will say I made it, I made it and I made that. So can you tell us now, to make it a little more light, how did you get involved into geek culture? How did you get into comic-con and all that fun stuff?

Speaker 3:

sure, um, I've always been the way that I am now. Um, so I always tell my students because Marvel is popular, now right, like Marvel is big bucks like it's, everybody loves it.

Speaker 3:

Uh, back in the 80s it wasn't cool to like the Incredible Hulk nobody there weren't any movies, like there was the tv show, but, um, I started reading the hall in 1989. Um, I've always been a fan of comics. They sold them at the newsstand. I was from a really rural area, pennsylvania, and so they didn't have a comic shop, but they sold comics at the newsstand and so I would read comics at the newsstand. I read like but like you know, nerdy books like Lord of the Rings, before it had the movies, right, like there were the kids reading the books and I've always loved Star Trek and Star Wars and I even read the books, not just the movie. You know, like I'm very, I was always very nerdy and that wasn't cool for a really long time. Now it's cool to have these you know affinities for these things, but I've always been into those, those kinds of things, and I was so happy that cosplay kind of caught on and it's acceptable. Now.

Speaker 3:

I just told a story the other day about going to see the Phantom Menace when it released in theaters 25 years ago and we were dressed up but nobody else was. So it wasn't as accepted, you know, or as mainstream, and so I'm happy to see it. I'm happy to see the Marvel movies. I'm happy to see the cosplay. I'm happy to see it. I'm happy to see the Marvel movies. I'm happy to see the cosplay. I'm happy to see all of the nerd culture, especially being inclusive of women. Within the last like 10 to 15 years, we've seen women being at the forefront, just like the shirt you have on right, like the lounge flies, everything is being targeted more towards women, which I think is great too. So I've always been into this stuff. I'm just glad to see you know it's made its way out into the world and into the public, because I just love it and how do you combine it with your studies and with your classes?

Speaker 3:

I'm so glad you asked that. So my students read comic books in class. I use comic books in my courses. So my students read the Incredible Hulk 312, which has aspects of domestic violence in it. So they get to see kind of the origin story of why the Hulk is so angry, because he and his mother are victims of domestic violence. Students like love that. They have no idea why the Hulk is angry. They just assumed he just was. So I use that. I also use an Avengers comic that has domestic violence in it, which they love. You know these kind of backstories related to comics.

Speaker 3:

And we also will create our own comics, which has been wonderful, where students have created comics that express something related to crime. And we have partnered with local homeless shelters and also children's groups to actually print the comic books and then go and give it to the children, which has been awesome. So we did cyber safety. So my area is like cyber victimization. So we did, and it was a cyber crime class. So we created a cyber comic and we went to the homeless shelter and talked about like safety online, which was amazing. And so students do comic books, storybooks, and that's been really great.

Speaker 2:

And I use a lot of examples which, now that I'm getting older, I'm going to have to change some of that, because students haven't seen those movies, um, you know, but I try to incorporate it as much as possible within my courses, um, and I just, I love that connection and, uh, I work with aptitude first responders and law enforcement in my clinic and a lot of the times 99% of the time they cannot talk to a lot of things that happen to them or what happened or what they have done, but a movie and a comic book can tell me everything and also it helps them to find redemption, because even the villains have redemption and, and you know, sometimes I always, I always say we're the villain of somebody's story and the hero of somebody that we don't even know, because we all have the same traits that they have.

Speaker 2:

And I love that you say about safety online, because we use a lot of I use a lot of video games and why not? For therapy and therapeutic benefits, and one of the things that parents always tell me is like how I make sure my kid is safe and they video game world or online. So, since you touch on that, can you give us a little quick tips? Or if you have any kind of like pamphlet or something, I can always put it in, download it in the notes. But can you give a quick nugget of interest for people to, for parents, mostly parents because you know, like you say, what we used to be dangerous for us doesn't even exist.

Speaker 3:

So you know and it depends, everybody has a different like parenting strategy or things that they're comfortable with or not. Parents or my students have put in informational items that we've distributed is to talk to your kids honestly about what is online and about people sending you, you know, direct messages offering different opportunities. We'll say, like for a lot of girls, they think that if they get information about a modeling shoot or to be an actress, that that could you know, that it could be legit, but it also could not be. So, talking about different dangers online, one of the more I guess I'll use the word controversial things that we talk about is monitoring children's cell phones, and so that has been something that people have really strong feelings about monitoring not just their location but what they're doing online, and so that's something people like to have lots of discussions about whether or not we should monitor what our children are doing online.

Speaker 3:

But I think making children aware about those things and one of the things that I do with my own daughter and I talked to my students about is it's not just strangers online that you need to be wary of. And then my specific area is related to images, so I will talk my daughter's only nine. But I'm like you do not send images to people, to your friends. You cannot, you know, post things, um, and talking about the realities of um, you know what can happen to images that like are sexual or, um, maybe not even sexual in nature, but where you're not wearing clothes, those kinds of things, because you know things can be on the internet and be taken down but that doesn't mean that they go away Right, which it's a scary terrain as a parent thinking about those things, and so I think you just have to give your children the information so they can try to make the best decisions.

Speaker 2:

And what do you think about? You know social media and kiddos. Right Now we have a lot of social media that is actually driven by the kids. Like you have a lot of accounts that is, you just go and watch kids doing kids life and people is very polarized about that. Yeah, right, um. So what the? What are your thoughts or experience? Um with that subject, especially because it's kind of related to cyber uh bully, cyber security and why?

Speaker 3:

not, it sure is so and I'm very aware having a nine-year-old. She watches children like doing the most random things on the like. You know the YouTube channel and I think it can be positive. I'm going to start with the positive. I think it can be positive for kids to see other kids doing things that they do and they feel connected to them. It's real. It's not necessarily scripted, it's not all negative. I do see the positives.

Speaker 3:

The I guess negatives from a cyber standpoint is you know, those kids who are on those YouTube videos or have those accounts don't have the privacy. They could potentially be victimized in a lot of different ways, online and also in person. So my research looks at the connection between in-person and online victimization and they're not separate. So my concern because my daughter wants to have her own YouTube channel and I was like you will never have your own YouTube channel because people can find you in real, in the real world, and I know people don't like to think about that, but they can, and so I'm overly cautious it's probably because I'm the victim studies department chair and I know all the ways people are victimized. But you know, I think you just have to be careful and figure out what would work for you, right? Like I said, I'm overprotective just because I know all the things that can happen, right, for what we were seeing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if, if people didn't know like you can find location just by clicking in your pictures and stuff like that. So always be aware, I say the more bagged baggage, oh, the more I'm beat with the the background looks better. Never say where you located and stuff like that. You know some things that we say, oh, it's common sense. No, it's not, because when you're with your friends and a lot of kiddos perceive this as friendships, like parasocial friendships, right, one-sided, um, they will tell everything to the people that is watching because it's that. And then, of course, we have the discussion of the victimization of, like the kids never consented, like the little, tiny, tiny ones that are being um thing, which brings to point three, ai and all the drama that has come with that, right, so what kind of precautions can you recommend? Or what kind of like just education that you can offer to go people to go read to any parent that is concerned about that, or even any adult that is concerned about that, about ai?

Speaker 2:

yeah, because, you know, with ai, now you can change, you can put your face in anything yes, um, you can.

Speaker 3:

So I feel like the internet has given us a lot of wonderful things, but it's also made it like worse than any horror movie that we could have ever thought of, like 20 years ago.

Speaker 3:

You know, and there's no easy answer at all, like I wish that I had a better answer, other than to do the best that you can by educating yourself or educating your kids, because it's not going to go away. I always joke that, like when the robots take over, I want them to know that I'm robot friendly Because, you know, the technology advances very quickly and we, you know, are limited in what we can and can't do. So you need to understand what the technology means, what you're, what you're doing, what you're putting out there, and so one of the things that I'll tell parents or kids think about whatever you're posting or sharing, would you be fine with anybody seeing that? Anybody, because just because it's private or just because you limit your account to friends, people can take screenshots, people can save it. Would you be okay with everybody in the world seeing those things?

Speaker 3:

And if the answer is no, then maybe don't post it. You know, and not everybody thinks that far ahead of time, or young kids aren't, you know, developmentally develop. They don't have the development in their brains to think about long term consequences the way that we may. But just to be careful, and everything that has to do with the Internet. That's my best advice.

Speaker 2:

And I always do the young to the college students. I always tell them because it's true, they don't think it passed tomorrow, right, because why? What would they? Uh? But I always say it was different and say would you like to see your mom or your grandma doing that?

Speaker 3:

yeah, like that's a good one, I'll have to do that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's right, because they're like ew, no and I'm like there you go, then we maybe should not post it. And then the the other thing is like it was still like okay, that message and the message that disappears, will you send? If your grandma sent you that, will you be comfortable with it? Or if you're the, I always ask them what is the person that you don't like? Because we always have somebody right and it's like will you like that person to send you that? And then they were like no, okay, they're watching it. So think about that when you post certain things, or when even you say certain things. Right, so to wrap it up, can you leave us with any kind of nuggets that you would like to for our audience to know, or any kind of preventative care, anything that you would like to share with the audience?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think you know, whatever it is that you are doing within your life, to find something that brings you some joy, to be able to deal with those things, whether you're a victim, whether you work with victims, whether you work in a job that's stressful or hard to find joy. So for us, we have our nerd culture, which brings us a lot of joy, and the number one question I get is how do you do this sad job where it's victims all day, every day, and teaching about victims and interviewing victims? And the answer is well, like I have, like comic books and sewing and like you know, all of the things that kind of make me happy outside of work, and so my, I guess, parting wisdom would be to find your joy and hold on to it tight joy and hold on to it tight, very good.

Speaker 2:

So, as you hear, find your joy, and that is all what we have here in our ACES community. Find a community that resonates with you either sewing, comic books, tea, coffee, x, y and Z. Pick a community that lights you up and it's also. You don't have to stay just in one community, you can play with different ones, right? I have my nerd community, I have my psychology community, I have my reinforcement community and I also have my tea community. You know we all are. I'm a dog mom, so I have my doggie community, which I know you also have a doggie, a little beautiful pug. So if people want to go find you because, again, one of the things that brings me joy is just seeing Dr Shelley's outfits it's like I'm like, oh my gosh, I want to be her when I grow up, kind of thing, um, because your sense of style is like, so, like into, like I want that kind of thing, um. So can you let us know where we can find you? Or if people want to connect with you, sure, um.

Speaker 3:

So I'm on the Sam Houston State University Department of Victim Studies website, so that's my official if you want to reach me through um my job. And then I'm on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, um, where I do post a lot of outfit photos. Um, you can find me there as well.

Speaker 2:

In the notes of the podcast you will have all the links, and also in Oroisa's Instagram. Thank you so much, Tucker Shelley. This was delightful and I hope this is the one of many times coming to the podcast.

Speaker 3:

Oh, thanks for having me, it was wonderful.

Speaker 1:

As we conclude today's episode, take a moment to reflect. Be proud of the journey, for every step that brings you closer to who you truly are. Embrace the kindness towards yourself, as you did to each one of our guests. Yourself, as you did to each one of our guests, honor the bravery in your actions and celebrate the importance of mental wellness with us. And remember it's an exercise that we practice daily. Continue to grow and flourish, knowing that we are in this training for our mental wellness together. We are so proud to have you as part of our community, so join us on Instagram at Oasis Community Podcast for more inspiring conversations, valuable resources and supported content, including journals, worksheets and content in Spanish.

Speaker 1:

Exciting things are in the horizon. Our Oasis community break rooms are coming soon to grab tools and take a break for your mental health. Also, we are featuring our six-month training ethical mental health coaching program, designed for new and experienced coaches, as well as holistic and healing professionals. Enroll to create a safe and transformative experience to your clients. Links in the bio. Until next time, take care, stay connected and welcome to our Oasis community.