Hi Mindful Partners. It's safe to say we have come a long way in the almost one year that I opened this mic to champion conversations around mental well-being. I had thought that I would be hitting 100 episodes as I moved towards the one year mark, but I am grateful for this 50th episode. The conversations I have hosted here have challenged me and made me question and re-strategize. Most importantly, they have helped shaped my or shape my understanding of humanity. And even though we're still just scratching, what is the cost of understanding? Okay, what does it truly mean to understand? What parameters are there to help shape your understanding? Or of a concept or a philosophy? If I tell you I have an answer to that, I'm just lying, and for this 50th episode I had something elaborate planned, you know, but I must refrain. I cannot do that right now, so I share my. So what I'm going to do is share my moments from all the episodes we've had for spark. I will not do it in noon. It's not possible now, because you will know that ola has to be here and ola is here, hello hello um let me say
Speaker 3:it's good to be here again, who are you pretending for right? I'm just no, let me, let me. Let me give the caveat. You know I told you about the recovery. Yeah, so that stuff on my mouth is really effective at making me speak in such a gentle because I cough on my mouth too much.
Speaker 2:Should I say thank you, juniverse, thank you God, oh God, but don't worry, we're still going to have fun.
Speaker 2:Okay so you know what I had planned. What I had planned today was that I was going to have a conversation with a friend. He had said he asked me a question, uh and uh it was around emotion and feelings. And I'm like, what you said now is that an emotion or a feeling? And he's just like, okay, that's a good question. We had talked almost offhandedly and I asked him was that an emotion? And the rest is history. But I'm going to still get him here because he's African-American and I need to hear from his side, because sometimes we're talking and Dee will say that, oh, ok, that's so Jamaican, so that's so old, so we're still Africans. I'm still going to get it here. And the question that came to me and maybe that's how we'll start this conversation for this 50th episode is how many people were truly giving the tools to identify and properly label and engage their emotions and their feelings and everything that comes with that. So let's start off with that. Let's start off with that.
Speaker 3:Let's start off with that. This question you've asked, I believe it's a hard one. Yeah Right, because it's differentiating between your feelings and emotions. It can be, can be. There's just, in some areas, there's just a thin line between what it is that you feel and the emotions behind it. It's just a thin line and, unfortunately, when you said tools, I regard to think who used, if we're talking about it in the african context? Or maybe nigerian context I don't know who gives tools for anything we do a lot of theoretical learning, right.
Speaker 3:But when you say give tools, maybe in the spare of the practitioners maybe some of them are able, because I would not believe, I'm sorry, that all practitioners in this, in this space, are able to properly correctly identify what the feelings are as against what the emotions. Um, my big question.
Speaker 2:My big question is even the definition of the two and, uh, it is I don't know.
Speaker 3:It's like again, there are no precise definition. If you check, you'll find um several definitions that against, what is this or what is not this right. But for me, what, what I, what I, um, what I choose to use is um. So they say that there are this number of emotions versus. This is what the feeling then is right.
Speaker 3:Again, I try not to be very, I try not to be what's it called, say, this is like I keep saying, I'm still learning and I have a lot to learn, right, but what I do is I define my emotions right Because they, again, they are subjective emotions are not, are not um, which is which is one of the reasons why I I find it difficult to champion validating people's emotions. I would acknowledge your emotions, acknowledge how you feel, sorry. I will acknowledge how you feel right because how you feel, regardless Sorry, I would acknowledge how you feel Right Because how you feel, regardless of whether you're right or wrong, is how you feel Right. But because of what I think of the word validate, validate means to give credence, to give validity to the emotions. What if your emotions or what you feel is not? When you now begin to work on it, you now say, oh, that wasn't justified. So what becomes of the validation that has been given right? So again, this is maybe this is my English, that is obstructing my understanding of how that is.
Speaker 2:To be honest, yeah, to be honest, I have not totally explored this because I probably don't even know how to truly walk. The thin line and this is me, because my coping mechanisms are higher now is to repress and deal before I then begin to navigate. Whatever came up for me, uh, for, from an event, okay, so I'm not sure. Um, so that is my. It's always been my coping, coping mechanism from as far as I can remember you, you know that I can say I knew myself has always been. There are times that I do bust out in, you know, extreme. Well, for me, some people might think it isn't, but the extreme show of emotions when I'm trying, and usually it is because I've not been able to resolve whatever or understand that event and I'm so upset and so it would just take something very small to kill me over to get me over there.
Speaker 2:so, yeah, it's not something I've truly explored, right? Uh so, and to be authentic and true to the essence of my fully-wit machine, I will not present an idea that I have not thoroughly explored. Of course, it's not like I can't understand, because humanity is extremely fluid evolution and this is one place that I embrace evolution. I can't say it is above my pay grade, but for as of this moment, as of this moment as a counselor, and a therapist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not a okay. So if you have to dig into the scientific work of it, then it might start to go a bit. But on the surface of what it is, in terms of English, in terms of how you feel, your feelings are the physical reactions right. That you get from the psychological or the subjective experience that happens to you.
Speaker 3:The feelings are. What you express outside really is how I define feelings, right, rather. So I'd rather say how do you feel? Right To someone who is not very self-aware, because that's easy to say I feel afraid, I feel angry, I feel. You know that it's easy to once you know what a feeling is coming from is identify the body or the, the category of emotion that might be at all right, it's still mindfully.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm with you, I'm with you, yeah, so what I look at is the. I look at in terms of thoughts, emotions, feelings, thoughts, feelings. If you can tell what the feelings are, it's easy to organize, it's easy to understand what the emotions that lead to that is, and then we can change the thoughts, what you're thinking that might be giving rise to whatever it is that you're feeling. Do you understand?
Speaker 1:I'm trying to.
Speaker 3:That's a stupid way I'm trying to. That's a stupid way I'm trying to Because I believe that thoughts give rise. However you feel, your emotions are instigated by your thoughts. A man becomes what he thinks about consistently. So if your predominant thoughts would eventually show up in your feelings that's how I see it. So if you're thinking good thoughts, you most likely would be you feel good. So if you're feeling good and we trace why you're feeling good, we can see that it is the thoughts that you're thinking that is making you feel good. If you're not feeling good, right, usually will be because you have negative thoughts or thoughts that are affecting how you're feeling on the outside. So we want to change, you know. So we want to change. You know cycle. What psychotherapy does is help you to change your speak right so that you can feel differently outside. Right there in the middle is your emotions is your emotions?
Speaker 2:all right, uh? Well, this again if we start, it doesn't mean that I will jettison exploring these concepts. Definitely, you know me. I'm going to sit down with it, oh yeah until I can, you know, present it from different kinds of perspective and lenses, right? It does mean, though, I have a lot of work to do, both personally and extrinsically all right, um, so that is where I think I'll hang it for now.
Speaker 2:I'm I really, you know, I really have been, you know, trying to navigate that, and, in reflecting through all the episodes, I wish I could say okay, go to this episode, and then there's an answer there, go to that episode and this and then but there are answers in almost all the episodes that we've had, starting from stranger attraction, that um, that uh, dearly, dearly, was the first guest I had and then that led to you and dearly being on the show, and so many things have happened. I also remember that in this last one year I oh, I also know not remember that I was commissioned by uh, by what's the name now, oh, my god, I can't believe I'm that um, uh, by the College of Psychiatry in the UK to do a podcast for the mental health month last um october and that was also very interesting. I had uh, um praise of gabby ingo studio and we talked about how we navigate our diagnosis as by people leaving with bipolar affective disorder, and that was really, really interesting.
Speaker 2:So let's start this reflection with this that what we said, what happened during that episode with daily uh, when we're trying to explore relationship peculiarities so um, when this personality thing comes in friendships and all that, it can actually be a crutch not to give up your best self and you now say, oh, I'm an extrovert. And when you see an extrovert being quiet, you now think that something is wrong with them. No, they are trying to draw from their inside so they can serve. When you see an extrovert being quiet, you don't think that something is wrong with them. No, they are trying to draw from their insides so they can serve okay. So this was one of the first arguments or debates that we had about personality types and how that reflects on relationships. What did that episode do for you?
Speaker 3:okay, so you know, there are opinions, there are facts right and there are truths and I think, um, if there's anything that I'm grateful for, is the fact that is the truth, that facts are not sacrosanct, right? So whatever it is that I thought if you, if you would easily go with new knowledge, can literally change my position. So, after saying that, um, where I am now in terms of personality is that there is, um, again one. I'm still where I see personality as a range more than a, a continuum. So, yeah, continuum, that's what I see as personality. I see the introverted, introverted, introverted person close to zero, 0.1.
Speaker 3:So those would be people who have maybe serious anxiety issues, but their personalities also tend to be on that side, so they don't want to go out, they don't want to mix, they don't want to do anything.
Speaker 3:Again, I'm referring to those who are introverted, right, and then on the extroverted side. Those are the people who are well, they must be out there, they can't just be anywhere else, they can't just. Probably you'd find that maybe some of them have ADHD, and now I'm talking about it, and I'm thinking about the likelihood that some of this, some of the mental health issues, would show up differently in different personalities. I'm thinking about that now. So for me it would be in a particular situation, in a particular setting, particular setting, an extroverted person may behave not the extroverted person at the outermost ends of these ranges, but maybe those ones close to the middle may behave differently in different settings setting right. So thinking about that makes me come to a place where I know that I, I can't be, um, I can't state categorically that, uh, because I believe you to be extroverted if I see you behave in a different way in a different setting.
Speaker 2:Something is wrong do you understand what I'm saying yes, I do, yes, I do I get that?
Speaker 3:for me it's more so. For me it's more of um. Okay, do I know this, my friend? For example, let me use my, let me use friendship. Do I know this, my friend? Am I used to how this person behaves? Do I know what um takes them, what them, what drives them crazy? And all that? Now, based off that, if I say I know my friend and I see something that I've never seen, say maybe we've been friends for two years, three years, and I see something that I've never seen before, my first inclination is not to say something is wrong. Right, that's assumption, that's presumption. I do not do that. My first inclination is to try and see what is inconsistent with my knowledge of them, and it is from there I ask are you okay Not saying it is not okay?
Speaker 1:Do you okay, not saying he is not okay, do you understand? So?
Speaker 3:rather than just come to a conclusion, I'd say okay, guy, what's up? Are you doing good? Because, again, it could be anything right, and because you don't, you're not in mind reader and I keep seeing. These questions are meant to help us understand things that we don't understand all right.
Speaker 2:so what you just said now is going to lead me to. I hope I can find it. It's going to lead me to something that I found um online yesterday again, it was simon um signing and he was talking about the eight minute rule. Okay, and just listen to each other, let's talk about it for a moment, because I was going to do a post about that and I said, okay, let's just talk, let me talk about it on that today and let's see. It's interesting that you go there. Clarity of questioning in clarity. Clarity, because sometimes your friend or your person says a certain thing that they say every time and somehow for that moment, it means differently, but you were not able to decode it.
Speaker 5:and again, yes, so let's take this thing that Simon said and I went to her house for dinner and she was telling me this multiple times she went there and I wanted to be sympathetic but at the same time I was really pissed off that she didn't call me and I was like what the hell? Like I'm here, I love you, I support you, like you're always there for me, why would you let me be there for you? Like how selfish are you. Like you wouldn't let me be there for you. She did. She says to me I did. I reached out to a number of times. I look at my phone like the text she goes want to come over.
Speaker 5:I'm? How the hell do I know that that's a cry for help, versus every other time you ask me over, which sounds exactly the same. And so she read an article that says that when somebody's struggling, all they need is minutes of help or support from a friend to get them back on track. And so we came up with a code we write to each other do you have eight minutes? It means I need you and anybody can step out of a meeting for eight minutes to be there for a friend.
Speaker 2:All right, so what do you think?
Speaker 3:You know my stance on friendship. I think friendship is. Every time I talk about friendship, I get emotional. It doesn't make any sense, but it is what it is. I think that Simon is absolutely right and I think what he just said in terms of coming up with food right makes a lot of sense. If you're the kind of person Simon is and has probably has a number of friends that he has to keep track of how they are doing right, it would make sense to have um codes that helps him to, you know, categorize and compartmentalize how things are. So he doesn't, he doesn't, nothing really falls through the cracks. That makes a lot of sense. So, at the end of the day, you have to come up with what works for you cracks. That makes a lot of sense. So at the end of the day, you have to come up with what works for you, right, especially if you're yeah, god god especially.
Speaker 3:Finish that thought, please yeah, especially if you're someone who is um self-aware with friends who are not so self-aware. Yeah, if you don't take their um where they are into account, you you would find yourself struggling to understand why it is they are not giving you what you want. You would find yourself struggling because you are self-aware. You know what you want. You can literally ask them for what you want, but they did most likely most times cannot articulate what it is that they want from you. They don't even know what they want in terms of how, how their feelings and their emotional um, uh and desires are right from you.
Speaker 3:So if you're not consistent and creative about seeking um, seeking clarity from them, you know, because sometimes when you start asking them, are you okay? It becomes very annoying because they feel they are okay, they believe they are okay, but you see something that's making you ask those questions. So if you're not creative about the kind of questions you are, it becomes annoying. It throws them off. You get into a fight because they are not as self-aware as you are.
Speaker 3:So it would mean that you have to take into consideration the kind of being that they are while they are still coming to a different, higher level of self-awareness. You have to be able to know what it is that you know, measure it with a bit of facts and figures of what it is you know about them and then, rather than say are you okay, you can say stuff like can we hang out if you're in the same state or the same city? Can we hang out tonight, can we see tomorrow? You know, just be creative, rather than just always say are you okay? That's part of the word friendship is right.
Speaker 2:So, for those who are just joining the mindfully with to meet your family, you're wondering why we're happy and honing on friendship and all that. That is one of the essence of Mindfully With Timmy Shea, where we believe that you having a psychological safe space, not just listening to the podcast but in your life, would help you maintain an agile and meaningful mental health space, because mental health, of course, is not mental ill health. All right. So there are two different things. There are two different things.
Speaker 2:And if you're wondering the reason why I somebody asked me over the week, a friend that I made over the young board, young God board, shout out Rodney.
Speaker 2:I think she's, I think I'm not sure, but I know she's East African, she's, she's not Nigerian and she like okay, I really want to know why you decided that, um, you're going to have a podcast like this. And I said to her oh, that's a long team story, but you know, and it's it's. It's because I know that what has helped me on my journey as a person leaving with bipolar affective disorder bipolar one is that I have people I can speak with, I can talk to, I can be vulnerable with. Of course, I have a team of therapists that are just amazing, and two of them are being on the show. And this is my way of giving back, okay, because we know, you and I know that the stigma, especially in this, our environment, of religious beliefs and all of that, everything is hinged on the spiritual. Now, don't get me wrong, everything about life is spiritual, but you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3:it drives down the stigma when we cannot have.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, it drives down the stigma where people cannot talk and you're saying that you know they are going through, uh, overwhelming thoughts and they cannot even identify or label. I still have times that I can't label, uh, whatever. It is that my mind is telling me that times. I still have those times. But being able to have a place where you can talk to, and this is why friendship is such such connections. Friendship, however way you want, because, um, the term uh, uh, friendship, as I said at last in the last episode, it has become so ubiquitous and prevalent that we don't even know. Some of us are not as aware as um ola, who knows who's a friend, who's an acquaintance, who's a worker and all that. For me, everyone is welcome.
Speaker 3:I can't yes for you.
Speaker 2:Say what you want to say, everyone is welcome. So long as I can be on that, I can be there for you to understand your bandwidth, not necessarily coming from my places, you know. So that's the essence of Mindfully With Tumi Shane and we've had lots of conversation and not conversations, not just of course we talk, like I said, we talk stranger attraction. Okay, when we're talking friendship goals at the beginning, the very first episode of the show, we didn't really, um, I thought I was going to get her here but, yeah, she couldn't come. So let's hear what she thinks about stranger attraction. And stranger attraction is simple, how I define, if I remember well, because I can't go back to listening, but that would be like 50 hours or more, 70 hours to listen to all the conversations. But what I said to her that made that episode, what I would title that episode, stranger Attraction, is every friend was once a stranger. Every friend was once a stranger.
Speaker 2:And then you begin to keep your values aligned and begin to grow. Let see what, uh, we said on. Just a snippet of what we said on stranger attraction you need to take a stop.
Speaker 4:You need to pause whatever it is that you are doing, in the noise, in the clutter especially now in this age, where I mean the noise in the clutter, especially now in this age where I mean the noise has been amplified by social media. It's too loud. You always need to take a stop and breathe. You need real-life connections. We can't continue to stay behind the screen and connect to people. The real-life connections are if we're born, have some level of depth that help us to live authentic lives yeah, connection.
Speaker 2:So what would you say to what generally said there Ola?
Speaker 3:but you know she's right, but you know she's right for me. So there's no amount of bashing that you will bash social media, that you won't, that you won't find me finding something positive about it, right? Um, and I'll tell you why. One of of the greatest things that have happened to me would be social media. Would be social media Because I remember growing up being very shy, right, and I would not want to speak in church to any other people, even getting At some point. I wanted to join the choir and I would not want to speak in church to any other. Even get in. At some point I wanted to join the choir. I could not tell my mother that I wanted to join the choir because I didn't know how to approach the choir before I said I wanted to join the choir.
Speaker 3:And it was a small choir. It was a small choir. It was a choir of about 10, 15 people. It was a small choir. Right, it was how he he need, right? I was with my friends. Uh, it's a. It's a different thing. Until maybe any of my friends does something that makes me pull back, right, because of course, I'm majorly introverted, I will do a lot of unnecessary thinking in my head about why they did what they did. Is it because they don't like me anymore, what you know? Those kind of nonsense, right?
Speaker 3:But at the advent of um, social media and that when I'm saying social media, I'm going back to, uh, yahoo, chat groups, chat rooms, right, if you remember chat rooms, yahoo, yeah, where you did? You didn't necessarily need to know anybody at the other end, you just have conversations, right. For me, that was. That was like oh, so I can actually reach out to anybody and talk with anybody and they don't need to know me, they don't need to see my face. Oh, that's exciting.
Speaker 3:Initially it was very. It threw me all over the place, because why would you want to have conversations with somebody you don't know? That's me thinking about what they'll be thinking about me, right? Yeah, but the evolution of it, from there to the BlackBerry Messenger. You know where you would just find yourself in groups and find yourself having conversations with people. Right To Twitter, right, being able to have conversations with very, very different many people. To Facebook, people adding you that don't know you and then you're joining their conversation online, right, I think I don't know you, and then you're joining their conversation online, right To find that really, I actually do like having conversations, right, which is where I learned how to hold conversation. It's on social media, so a place where now I talk with people and I can, if I choose to, I can approach literally anyone that I want to without feeling any strong fear of what they might think of me.
Speaker 3:Not that I still don't think that, but if this is what I want, oh so I like how this person has typed, I like how they think I like to be friends with, I like to get to know them. See, if we can be friends, it's much easier for me to do those things. So when, when it comes to what social media has done, I'm all for it. But beyond that, which is where friendship really grows, is you're not putting the effort because, see, I have friends and I have this fantastic guy. We've been friends for almost 20 years, right, let me say we've been friends for almost 20 years, right, let me share We've been friends for almost 20 years. We met on iFight, right? Wow, yeah, he invited me to Facebook. I'm like, no, I'm not doing any Facebook thing. Eventually, I joined Facebook, right, he literally was the one that made me go to Facebook Before we met. It was another 10, 12, 14 years Before we met. We were communicating. We went from having conversations in Facebook Messenger to talking on the phone. We didn't meet until 14 years or so after we first started having conversations, and I've known him now it's almost 20 years, do you understand?
Speaker 3:So those things have to evolve beyond just saying, oh, I know this person. You have to, and it's a lot of work. I think that's where the problem is. People think that friendship is just like applying for a job. I think no. I think that's what the challenge is, because friendship, trust me is is a huger work than when you just say you want to get married and then you want to leave it up. You gave after. It's a lot of work, because if you marry and you have a certain level of values, you say I'm going to stay married for the rest of my life. Right. But when it comes to friendship it's not like that. Even if you have the same amount of same kind of values, you still have to put a lot of work to keep in touch.
Speaker 3:I have friends that I don't talk to every time. So sometimes I say I won't talk to this person for a while. Sometimes I send them voice notes I'm thinking about you and I hope you're good. And sometimes the response sometimes I really don't care because I know that at some point I can just say let's jump on the call. It's been a while and if we jump on the call, we catch up. Do you understand? That's the depth that friendship has to come to for it to make sense. So people talk about friendship and say I don't understand. Like I think I said on that particular episode, I've seen how friendship has transgressed over 60 years. My mom has been friends with her best friend for about 60 years now 60 years. I've known this. I call her my second mom. I've known her for all of my life. All of my life, all of my life, all of my life. She's the only one person I can report my mother to. Only she would never take my side, Never. She never takes my side.
Speaker 2:That's interesting and, yeah, the friendship is, your connection is just deep, is a deep thing. And because I think that the reason we have this challenges I might not, I might I found corrected the reason we have challenges with connecting is, again, we, we, we truly were not connected. I don't know how to explain this. We don't know how to communicate. It's just as you said, we really do not know how to communicate, how to be, how to be vulnerable. We are afraid somebody that you're vulnerable to or with you, uh, and you know, and this new one that I hear now, your best friend has a best friend, and you know, and that I have never, you know, I have never felt, um and this is some people might not believe it, but I've never felt that, you know, because my best friend has a best friend. I should be insecure.
Speaker 2:I am secure in any, the depth of any relationship I have with a person, and I'll explain so if I meet someone now you know, and I have history with someone who's been my friend for over 22 years and it comes across as if this person I just met now, um, is closer to me than the person who have been in my life since over 22 years, it will be full hardy of me to think that, though I feel very close to and deeply connected to this person who I just met, that they don't have. They didn't have their own friends on their own journey.
Speaker 2:It'll be, extremely full hardy of me. This person has had friends before they met me in the year 2024 or in the year 2020, or in the year 2011 or in the year 2009. I had friends um my secondary school best friend um yes, I know you don't like that term, but I do. I do have them my secondary school it's all right, yeah I know it's all right though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, it's all right, I'm not seeking permission, it's all right. My second school best friend, mimi, in as much as we've known each other for over 30 years. We've known each other for over 30 years. We don't live in the same continent.
Speaker 2:I do not expect that she wouldn't have had another connection with someone else but I do rest, and I'm secure in that connection that she and I have that. I know that even though we've not spoken the you guys just spoke with her, like she said she sends me jokes like who is that person, um, um, who is that person that, no matter how much, or no matter how much I've made it to be, if I become Bill Gates, my farts will still be very funny to her. And she's going to. And we know, and even our classmates know that, and she's so extroverted, she's so extroverted. We still get questions. This is 30 years after we've left school. We still get questions and like, how did you guys navigate it? Because she's extremely extroverted and I'm not, and we just laugh.
Speaker 2:You know, fast forward another phase of my life I've had.
Speaker 2:You know, and it'll be full hardy of me this is just me, I mean because I'm very self-evaluating it'll be full hardy of me to think that a friend that I met in when when was this that I met this lady inquire, uh, in 1999, 2000 would have the same death of relationship or the same energy.
Speaker 2:It's possible I'm not saying it's not possible, but before I met her in 1999, 2000, she had her best friend that we have this deep connection does not mean that she cannot and I expect that when she's. I expected you know, um, somebody was saying to me the other day they, they were sharing something to me and it's like Tumshi Shibiri, is you, you are a well of secrets and I agree, I might not be that person who says what a best friend has said to me to another best friend, but in the reality, in the reality, there are some people who are just like that. I can't expect. And if I hear, because I know their best friends, do you understand? I know because I know their best friends, do you understand? I know the people Me and their best friends might not be connecting on the same wavelength.
Speaker 3:That's the truth.
Speaker 2:Like it will be full heart of me to think that if this other friend, this person I consider who's my best friend, have an event, I will not see the other person there, it's just and then I will expect expects for them to have, because they have more history than I do with the this person I just met. So it, and I think statesmen and I start to be corrected, I think statements like your best friend have a, has a best friend just um, just bust the bubble of vulnerability. Yeah, because if the other best, your best friend, needs to be there for you today and you are afraid that they are going to tell their best friend your deepest secret, I don't understand.
Speaker 2:I don't know and that's just me and that's just me, yeah, oh oh.
Speaker 1:I have. That's just me and that's just me?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not tempted to jump into that.
Speaker 2:I know you're tempted, but I'm just going to refrain right now. So I had on this episode I think when I took a break in December I asked that that's last December. I asked that people should send emails or what, and people really wanted to hear from my therapists.
Speaker 2:I had three, but I'm glad I was able to get to have a conversation with me on Mindful, and the first was Mujee, of course, and then the second was kenneth, and um, kenneth said something I will go to. I will play, of course, what muji said. But kenneth said something about I'm not sure I can find it right now, but she said he said something about mental health and mental ill health and when he and one thing that stood out for me in that conversation word was that he said when people say I'm protecting my mental health, he believes that they're trying to say and as a psychiatrist I well, I had to agree with him um, he said his belief. He believes that people are trying to say that I have come to a place that I understand what can feed my equanimity, right, my sense of self, and I don't want to lose it to you, to you not understanding it. And mental health and mental health are two different things. And he says that there is a time of abundance and there is a time of lack. When you can find the balance between the time of abundance and then the time of lack, you know exactly what it means to have a whole mental presence and that is what he says is mental health. I hope that what I'm playing now is going to be one of those things that I said. Just listen to what Kenneth Owaje says. Okay, I can't find that, let's see.
Speaker 2:While I look for what Kenneth says and that is doing this to me let's look for what moji said on mental health. Um, earlier on in the year, and again she, I, I like to have you know that I like to have um, what the word? Uh, I love to have balanced views from both uh the both, both men and women on anything, and that's just because we are different people, we are different and we will definitely respond to things differently. So moji did say something about mental health. Uh, while we tried to find, uh, what Kenneth said on mental health and if I don't find it, I've already told you what he said. I wanted to hear you from him, but I can't find it now. But I already told you what he said To find what mental health is, what it means to you is to find the balance between the time of abundance and the time of the time of lack. Okay, so what would you say that?
Speaker 3:while I try to find that sound like oh well, I don't know what you want me to say when a psychiatrist says this okay, I don't know what you want me to say, but it's again I use because more people are familiar with physical health, right. So I use that analogy. I use that analogy of what your mental health is. The same way you carry yourself to go and do physical checkup, right, that's the same way you should carry yourself to do mental checkups. You don't necessarily need to visit therapy or a coach for that.
Speaker 3:You can just have sittings and check yourself. Where am I with my mind? Am I feeling? Okay? My anxiety level is it normal? Because we all have times of anxiety and that's because life really can be uncertain, right? Is it normal? Um, am I worrying about anything? Is there a justification for this worry? What's the justification for this?
Speaker 3:Again, it would just carry me back to asking questions, because it's the same thing when you go for physical evaluations, check-ins. It's the same thing they do with you. They ask you questions. How do you feel? Is this based on you? Is this based on you? How is this doing you? It's the same thing you do with yourself. Just ask yourself honest questions. How do I truly feel? If you can come back with honest responses, then you can say, okay, this happened, I broke up with my friend and I really don't feel good at this moment. Good to go. So now you know that you have the challenge of finding a solution to how you feel with regards to what has happened. Right, that can throw you off. That can throw off your mental health in that particular spot. Because you are aware of what has caused it, it's easier for you to now begin to work towards either resolving it or letting go.
Speaker 3:I wrote something about letting go recently, and for me also, it was that writing was very therapeutic. I cannot lie to you. I'm one person that finds letting go hard. Painful can be excruciatingly painful, and I think that what makes it harder for us to let go is because we think that pain doesn't have an end. But that's not true. That's not true. That's not true. I think that's the lie we've sold ourselves, or they've sold to us, that when something leaves your life, you don't stop feeling the pain. But that's not true.
Speaker 3:After a while the pain becomes less and less and less. As long as you're not holding on too tightly to it. Eventually it will go. You will not feel the pain anymore. So maybe once in a while the remembrance of it will jog, your memory, will bring up, but it's not as live, as vivid as it was when it first happened. So for me, that's what it is. Do your mental check-ins the same way you do physical check-ins If you sense that something is wrong and you cannot deal with it yourself. The same way you go and see a, you go from a GP to a consultant, you go from sitting with yourself to find a therapist. That's what it means. I don't know what it means. We don't get.
Speaker 2:We don't. Get, okay, let's listen to what Kenneth has to say, or part of what he has to say. Okay, I got it, so let's just start. I'm so glad I got it. Okay, so let's go.
Speaker 5:Nobody stays on the end of abundance all the time. Nobody stays on the end of sustenance and nobody stays on the end of abundance all the time. Nobody stays on the end of sustenance and nobody stays on the end of lack it's spectrum. So it is ubiquitous, but mental ill health has the center stage, in my opinion all right.
Speaker 2:So the question I asked him now is are mental health and mental ill health? And he says that he believes that mental ill health has um the center stage as against mental health before we move on. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 3:but that's true really. But I think most, yeah, yeah, I again I don't I think with you and I we try to find that balance, because we don't always talk about mental health. We talk about the positive sides of having a great mental health. We talk about the outcomes of mental health or your friendship we talk about, I think we try to find the value. But that's true, the focus, really, when they say mental health, it's not on mental health, most times it's on mental illness. That's true, come to think about it, that's true. And I think we need to really find because, again, I'm one person that believes in the power of words and how you say it, right behind it is mental ill health. Then I don't know how much repair you can do to the damage that has already been done in terms of the stigmas and everything. But that's true, that's true, that's so true. What he said not thinking about it that's so true, that's so true.
Speaker 2:Hmm, I see that it's working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, that episode, okay. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to try my best to link, to put the link of all these episodes, because most of these conversations ran up to, uh, 45 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, and these are just um, these are just little nuggets from what uh, um, what they said and how they shared with me, and I just let's hear, um, let's hear moji's side of the of this, which is also a psychotherapist, okay, and my who was my psychotherapist. Well, I called them when I did, like they can't when they want to send me to, you know, but so let's hear what she has to say the thing is usually targeted at people that are at risk, so that the family is your mentor.
Speaker 1:your family, you know about your grandmother, your mother is usually targeted at people that are at risk. So the families have mental illness. Your family, you know your grandmother, your mother, someone has a mental illness. It is with prevention you coming out with mental illness because the risk is higher than in general population. For example, I said earlier on the schizophrenia there's a 1% risk in general population of anybody having schizophrenia, but of anybody having schizophrenia. But for someone that parents have schizophrenia the risk increases to 6%.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, that episode was interesting because what she did, she came from a point of view again. So let me clear this Kenneth is in the public health, both of them are in the public health, in psychiatry and welfare, you know. So she came from the point of view. That understanding. Do we have that conversation? Are we so aware to notice that, ok, my father is always angry, my mother is always angry? Do I have that propensity to is? Is that the right word? The tendency to do that? Also, where is that coming from?
Speaker 2:so the person is right okay, good, um, so how do I prevent it? If I've noticed even if it's not that you want you don't want to go for an evaluation if you have noticed a certain pattern in your lineage, in your ancestry, how do you prevent it? How do you serve yourself? If you do not like it, then how do you serve yourself to make sure that you don't fall into that also? Oh, I could, we could go on and on the conversations that we've talked about. We've talked about belonging and belonging and fitting in we've talked about.
Speaker 3:We've talked about Before you go on to go on to the next thing. I think that I just think that we make conversations about mental health hard.
Speaker 1:Is it?
Speaker 4:possible that we make it harder than it really is.
Speaker 3:Because I'm thinking now that if you notice that somebody in your lineage has the same patterns, right With how they do whatever it is, they do right. What exactly is hard about doing check-ins or check-ups? If your parent has diabetes? Right, and your grandparents had diabetes, you already know to begin to look out for it. Right, because that's physical, because you know that the likelihood that you are going to have to deal with diabetes is high, well, higher than somebody whose parents didn't have to do anything, didn't have diabetes in their system, right?
Speaker 1:So why?
Speaker 3:is it difficult when it comes to mental health? That's why I'm asking that question Is it that we're making it a very hard to understand conversation? Is that intentional? Or is it because, even as practitioners, it's still something that bringing it from the domain of knowledge to the domain of use is is it is hard?
Speaker 2:I know right, um, that's a that's. Do you do? I have your permission for us to talk about this on a later episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe we should talk about it, because I don't have answers right right now.
Speaker 2:yeah, because we need to, because the essence of of Mindfully to Mishay is to break this down to the you know to I don't know how to say it to break it really down so that people on it's not that deep. It's really not that deep. It is deep, but having to have that conversation it is deep, but what I mean by it is not that deep is having to have this conversation should help us to um navigate easily, as for me, for example it's the fact that even between you and I, between you and I, our relationship since september last year of course the show started in august, but, yeah, just started in august of last year the way we converse is different now.
Speaker 2:You know, we don't, we don't, you know, I, I, you can't say so, how are you today? And I'll just say, oh yeah, I fine, you and I know that that doesn't happen, it doesn't happen anymore. It doesn't happen anymore here you rarely. It's easy for you to say, okay, this is right now. It's easy for you to say, oh, until you're being super human right now, super woman, right now. Slow down. It's easy for me to say, oh God, go and sleep just then, because we have learned yes, now it's just.
Speaker 1:This one is just too easy good conversation.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's like, yeah, right, you and I have learned how to hold each other. But prior to this, prior to this uh, to this podcast, we were friends, just hello, hi, friends and and um, you know. But it has evolved in the last word, almost a year that we've been here and um, that will lead us to what we will finish this converse, this conversation with. But, of course, uh, we also, I think, one of the um, one of the episodes that really gained um, a lot of listener and in fact, I still had people, the, the. I still have people listening to it, as of this morning when I, when I went to look at the uh, and that is grieving, the ones where, uh, me and my friends, um, irene and soming, shared and talked about breathing and that episode I'm so glad that it's still blessing people.
Speaker 2:Um, a friend of mine on facebook, a facebook friend, and well, we've known each other since uni days I said she just went back to it this was on monday to listening and it was so calming. I got a senior colleague I can't say her name, she might not like it I got a senior colleague To listen and she was like oh, thank you, because I knew she was. You know she was in a season of grief and I sensed that episode.
Speaker 4:And.
Speaker 2:And it was a person. That particular episode Was so, so, so personal, was so, so, so, so vulnerable and personal to me. Because the day, the very day that I recorded that episode with my friends, before I published it, I called a friend, uh, who is not with the lord, and said to him I said for me, uh, acorn, I called him acorn, I just recorded an episode on grief and and he said, said to me oh, thank you, we have always had this conversation that you're going to have this difficult conversation. I'm glad that you're doing it. Please do it well. Unfortunately, exactly a week after the week before the day, I think, the Saturday I released, on Tuesdays, the week before I, the saturday, before I released this episode, um, he transitioned, oh, so it was really that episode was, and I'm glad it's still blessing people, it's still blessing people. So if you're in a season of grief, uh, just you know, go, go, listen to that podcast and that episode is called Grieving is Leaving, the one they talk about grief and loss.
Speaker 2:A place of rest, so to say, a place of rest. What does that mean, though?
Speaker 5:So when I say rest, I mean our call to terms with what life is. There's really nothing in the world that can be to change anything as designed by God as far as I'm concerned so I've come to agree with however it comes, face it and move on ooh, and that was, for me, defining how he sees grief, and you need to listen to his story.
Speaker 2:This is someone that his mother, uh, when he was young he died, uh right in front of him and he didn't know what to do. And you know, he said he still went out and he was still people around him was still saying, you know, and like, are you so? When the, the funeral rites were, where uh was, um read they're like are you saying that yesterday, when we saw you, oh yeah, she had already died and um, of course, at that time too, uh, it was a year. It was a year to when uh irene lost her sister. So that episode is heavy and if we start, we cannot finish.
Speaker 2:So if you are going through a season of grief, it does not mean that we answered all the questions on how you can grieve, because we did not just give tips on how to grieve. All we just said is grieving is living. It's part of life. Just prepare yourself for it. It will come. Allow yourself to live through it. That is part of your mental evaluation, your personal mental evaluation to be able to deal with sorrow, with loss, with pain, with loss with pain. So, going back to your question. Maybe we're going to have to record again next week. Going back to your question about whether we're not talking we're making mental health awareness questions very difficult to understand. What are we doing in November, ola?
Speaker 3:You want me to raise my voice? November, november I I, I'm still excited that you introduced me to that um to that so. So November is men's well, in certain societies is when they talk about the issues of men, especially with cancer, with regards to men and so on this side of and suicide prevention, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, sorry, no yeah, go ahead, sorry, sorry, no, no.
Speaker 3:I just felt she was all about talking about that. Those things are hard to Generally, issues that have to do with why men leave shorter lives than women.
Speaker 2:You put it perfectly why men live shorter lives.
Speaker 3:We're putting together an event. It's a physical event in Lagos. So if you are new in Lagos, start planning to be in Lagos. So if you are new in Lagos, start planning to be in Lagos it's not hard Before the end of this month, I'm sure. To Michelle, we shared the details and all that so you can begin to plan yourself for that and then when we open registration, you can't wait till the last moment because, trust me, it's limited. We're going to have limited invited people.
Speaker 2:So let me speak to the limited. We're not trying to be exclusive right, but it's exclusive it's what it is.
Speaker 3:Don't do that to me she. It's exclusive, not because we're trying to, not trying to be exclusive, exactly it's exclusive, but I'm saying we can't attend to everybody.
Speaker 2:That's why you want you should have lot of makes me know it's exclusive in the sense that we want every man who comes for that event to have fun, to be a child again, to heal the child in you so that they can serve that child and you can serve the man that you are becoming. That's the essence, and if if we could, everybody would come in right. But of course now you all know how big it is, you won't be able to attend to everybody.
Speaker 2:You won't be able to attend to everyone and it's just the beginning of many more that we would have. So, when the registration opens, just go ahead and open. We have very limited space to have. You're going to have fun, trust me Guided meditation, group coaching. You're going to be creative. Okay, you're going to unleash your creativity. There's going to be tools to play, tools to dance. So it's going to be a full event where you are going to be a child again and hopefully that will help you serve the man that you're becoming and the women will love you more.
Speaker 3:People will love yourself.
Speaker 2:At least it starts from you.
Speaker 3:It has to start from you.
Speaker 2:For those who will be wondering why and I'm going to say this a lot through till the time we have this event. People were wondering why. You know I'm starting the Black Images Mindful event with Focus on Men. My son, who is 13,. We were having a conversation the other day, just about three weeks ago, and um, he was saying that I see that girls and women are being taught how to fight. Who, mommy, is teaching the boy and men not to start the war?
Speaker 2:And I'm like what you know, I was too quiet. I know that there are a lot of ministries pardon my religious allusion and a lot of ministries and organizations who are tending to the boy, child and mental health and not. But, of course, just as we can't have female empowerment enough, we can't have these, uh, male empowerment events enough. But when my son, who is citing, I repeat it, says to me who is teaching us not to start the war, um, I know I birthed myself in that moment, in that moment I knew that, oh, you just birthed yourself and it has got me thinking and that is why um november is important and june, mental june, as a mental men's mental health awareness month, is also very, very important to me. We need to start teaching and empowering boys and men not to start the war, so that women can just be women, I hope.
Speaker 1:With these little words of mine.
Speaker 2:I've been able to encourage you and to convince you that the moment, the moment the registration opens, just register and we're here to receive you. Ola is going to be here. Whether he has to crawl, he will crawl for the Rapi Chattel Lagos, he has to be here. So we hope to see you all and have fun on November 23rdrd yes, that's the date so start the date is out november 23rd 2024. Jesus, take the wheel yes final words for the 50th episode Hola.
Speaker 3:I don't have final words, I'll just say take care of yourself, right? You really can't give of what you don't have. And your giving, your giving is. It's only authentic, it's only real when you give to yourself true love, true joy. Pastor, pastor since today was philosophical, let me end it up. My words to you are simple love yourself.
Speaker 2:All right, my words to you are simple Love yourself, love your neighbor, love your country. Above all of this, love God. He is the essence of your being Stay curious, look for yourself, find yourself, enjoy being with yourself. That way, you'll be able to serve you and the people around you Mindfully. With Tumishe, the 50th episode is over. See you on the 51st.
Speaker 3:Hooray.
Speaker 2:I was waiting for that. I thought you were not going to do that. I was like, oh no, he's changed.
Speaker 3:It's not going to happen. No way.