Welcome to Sheep Assisted, I'm your host Sadie Sutton, a 19
year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the
University of Pennsylvania. Sheep resisted is the teen
mental health podcast made for teenagers by a teen.
In each episode I'll bring you authentic, accessible and
relatable conversations about every aspect of mental Wellness
you can expect. Evidence based teen approved
resources, coping skills including lots of DBT insights
and education, and each piece of content you consume.
She Persisted offers you a safe space to feel validated and
understood in your struggle while encouraging you to take
ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.
So let's dive in. This week on She Persisted.
I think even right now, a lot of people are going through things
that no one's been through before.
You get to this particular space where you think, well, nobody
has the experience, so how will I make it through this, right?
And I think the exercise that we all can kind of take ourselves
through is, I may not have experience for what I'm going
through right now, but I know I've had a situation in which I
was starting from scratch, whether it was college, whether
it was tryouts for a team, whatever it is.
But I was able to learn and I was able to curate a way of
feeling comfortable enough to move forward.
Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of She
Persisted. I'm so excited you're here
today. We have a really incredible
individual on the podcast today, Yasmin Cheyenne.
She's the author of The Sugar Jar and Wisdom of the Path,
which has just come out. She is also a motivational
speaker and a self healing workshop leader.
And this was just such an incredible conversation.
We touched on so many different things.
We talked about navigating grief, how you can lean into
your own wisdom inside yourself. We talked about just the general
healing journey. And this was a really inspiring
and incredible conversation. But I know you'll have a lot of
great takeaways from. So with that, let's dive in.
Thank you so much for joining me today on She persisted.
I am so so excited to have you on the show and share your
journey and your books and your work with the She Persisted
audience. I'm so excited to be here.
Thank you for having me. Of course.
Well, to get things started, people have heard your official
bio, but I would love to get your journey and your background
and your words. Obviously today you're an
advocate. You have multiple books out, you
host a podcast as well. You've done all this incredible
work, but to kind of rewind and go back to the beginning, How
did you end up in the mental health space and doing this
work? My mental health journey started
when I was on active duty in the military.
I got the opportunity to serve as a victim advocate when I was
serving in the Air Force. And I think working with victims
of domestic violence, working with victims of crime, it just
became really curious about, OK, what happens to them after they
have this experience. And I think it opened up my own
healing journey to realizing I have a capacity to hold space
for really hard experiences. And I wonder, you know, how I
can begin to hold space for myself while I'm holding space
for these other people. So that was kind of the initial
starting point 15 plus years ago when I decided I really wanted
to learn more about how what we go through effects our mental
health. I think holding space for other
people is something that people either like, I know how to do
this, I'm good at this. So they're like, that makes me
uncomfortable, so I'm going to avoid it.
And when you're like, how can I be better at this?
There's sometimes like, OK, we'll validate, use eye contact,
like these very basic things, but for people who want to show
up more effectively and as a better friend or family member
in their relationships and kind of improve that ability to hold
space for people. Because it is really one of the
most incredible traits to have and one of the greatest gifts
you can give someone else. Do you have any advice or tips
that were helpful, especially in those early days before you did
all the internal work and got really good about speaking about
your own experiences? I will be honest and say that I
think it's something that I've always been able to do, but I
don't think that I was doing a good job of it in the past
because I think I was more concerned about what they would
think about what I was doing versus actually holding space
for them and being present to what they needed.
I think it's a natural response as well.
Like, Oh my God, are they going to be OK?
Am I, you know, like, am I doing all the things right?
But I think we really forget how amazing presence is and just
listening to someone, not necessarily trying to solve
their problems, not necessarily having the answers, but asking
them, what do you need? What do you think?
How are you feeling? A lot of times people just want
to talk. They don't really want to hear
your thoughts, they don't want to hear your opinion.
And whether you have any tools or not, listening is something
that I think we can all do better, including myself.
Yeah, no, it's, it's funny because I've been thinking about
that a lot recently because I feel like that's one of the
biggest relationship or like networking or however you want
to spin it. It's like one of those big
skills that people will tell you, but I think there's this
interesting balance of when you've struggled to be
vulnerable or that's been more uncomfortable.
It's almost like doing the work and sitting in that discomfort,
which is the key to so many things, is being more vulnerable
or talking about yourself or sharing those things so you
allow people to get to know you. And then on the flip side, it's
like when you are in relationships and supporting
other people, that skill of just listening and not sharing those
personal anecdotes or not being like, I've been through this
too, here's exactly how I solve this is also so powerful.
So it's like these very opposite sides of the spectrum, but both
are really, really important how to navigate and refine and
become effective at. Absolutely, and I think it's so
important sometimes just to ask people, how can I be here for
you? Do you want to hear what my
thoughts or do you want me to listen?
I don't we, I think we think that we have to have the answer
and show up perfectly when asking someone what they need
and they'll say, you know what, I really just want to talk or
yes, I would love to hear what you have to say.
What do you mean? You know, like the net opens the
door, respecting people's boundaries.
It's it's as simple as asking that question can help us show
up for people how they they need us to.
Yeah, and it's not a weakness. I sometimes think internally I'm
like, well, I should know what they want in this situation or I
should just be able to understand.
And when people like care enough to actually ask and and want to
be as effective and helpful to you as possible, they're even
like, what can I do in this situation?
I think that really does show that you care and and value that
relationship. And it's not like how dare you
not know exactly what I want even though I haven't told you.
Absolutely, I agree. So I want to talk about your
first book before we dive into your new book that just came
out. But you have this idea of the
Sugar Jar, which is a way that people can really look back on
their overall growth and see all the progress that they've made.
And I think this is something people might be somewhat
familiar with, but it's a really important concept and element in
your podcast is also called The Sugar Jar.
So I would love to hear how you came up with this like metaphor,
I guess you could call it, how that applied to your own journey
and also how listeners can apply that in their own lives because
it is such an important concept. Yeah, Thank you.
Well, the sugar jar is really an opportunity for us to check in
with our boundaries, right? Because the jar represents us.
Even if we are parents, friends, family, we only have one jar
because there's only one of us. The sugar in the jar represents
our energy, our time, our resources, anything people want
from us, anything people want to take, give.
And the lid represents our boundaries because in order for
people to get to the sweet parts of us, we have to say yes and
take the lid off. But most of us are walking
around with no lid on our jar. People are just walking in and
out of our lives, taking the energy, taking our car, taking
our money, taking our everything.
And often we say to ourselves, they're using me, they're taking
advantage of me. They are, you know, they are
taking from me. And part of that is probably
true, but the other part is how are they able to have access to
you? And the, that answer is because
we don't have boundaries. And so the sugar jar is an
opportunity to check in and say, do I have enough energy for what
they're asking me for? Do I want to help you move?
Can I actually help you with that project?
You know, do I want to, am I available to date right now?
It's a check in with ourselves. And I think for many of us,
myself for sure, when I, when this concept came to me, I
thought I was doing a good job. I had been healing for a long
time. I had been teaching this work
for a long time, but I was exhausted.
I was overwhelmed. And even the good stuff felt
like too much. Like I would get a party
invitation. I'd be like, Oh my God, there's
another birthday. Like I cannot do anything else.
And it wasn't that I didn't want to celebrate my friends.
It wasn't that I didn't want to go to the events.
It was that I was saying yes to so many things.
That was a that was a no. I didn't even have enough
energy, enough sugar, enough sweet parts of me for myself.
And so the invitation in the sugar jar is to ask yourself how
you can begin to say yes to yourself.
First, have a full jar so that you can have the sweet parts of
yourself for you. And then show up with the people
and places and things that you want to be with full, not
resentful, angry and tired, but your best self.
Yeah, I think about this a lot, especially when it's like during
the school year, it's around finals or things are just really
busy and overwhelming and it feels like I have less like
bandwidth. There's always what I'm
referring to it as. And I think about if I'm saying
yes to things or making commitments, I'm like, am I
bringing a net positive or a net negative to the situation?
And a lot of the times it's like, OK, maybe it's a little
bit positive, but I'm also tired and not at full energy.
But I know that it's so important to invest in these
relationships. And I like seeing my friends and
I can at least like hang out and be lighthearted, even if it's
not some groundbreaking discussion.
But there's also some people I'll be rounding up big.
I know that there is like something going on internally or
we have something to work through.
And I'm also low energy and don't have any sugar left at
that point. So me going and showing up in
that interaction isn't going to bring any good to them, even if
it's the commitment or like we've said, we were going to get
dinner being like, hey, let's do a couple days from now or let's
do next week. We'll actually be a more
positive experience instead of bringing some negativity into
their life. And I think that's a challenging
thing to decide for yourself and to be honest and be like, I am
not at my best right now. And I, I want to be able to
bring my best friend for myself to my relationships is the best
thing I can do is say no and adjust this or reschedule or set
that boundary. And I think that's been a really
important lesson because I think especially as young adults were
taught that you make commitments, you keep them, you
show up, you, you schedule these things.
And I think giving yourself and other people grace and like, you
can take a rain check and you can reschedule.
And especially if they're good friends and they they care about
you, they're not going to be completely upset.
The friendship's not going to be derailed over being like, can we
do this tomorrow instead? And so I really love that idea
and that concept and thinking about what value you're actually
providing beyond just showing up for the sake of showing up.
Absolutely. And I also think that the
concept of the sugar jar is not just, yes, we can reschedule
when we need to, but hopefully we get to a place where we're
not saying yes to things and needing to reschedule.
We're just saying yes when we have space.
And in the beginning we're saying, actually, I already know
I'm going to be busy because I have finals, so let's do next
week. Like in the beginning, we're
checking in with ourselves. Before that comes, things come
up and of course and we have to reschedule, but that's the
intention. Yeah, absolutely.
And I think one of the most challenging aspects of mental
health is like knowing what you should do but not knowing how to
do it. And one of the biggest game
changers are things that made that more accessible was having
past experiences as evidence that I was able to do that
thing. And so even if it's like saying
no to something where there's not really any stakes, it's like
you get an e-mail and it's like optional event or here's an
after school extra study session.
You're not individually being invited, but you're like, I am
so busy and stressed, I'm not going to commit to that.
And then the next time when someone's like, hey, I'm going
to this thing. Do you also want to go Bing?
OK, well, I I didn't make the commitment when I was initially
asked that first time, so I know I can say no, it'll be OK.
And having that as past evidence and I think having that physical
metaphor of like, I put that the top on the jar before I can do
it again, it's happened. Everything was OK.
Life continued to go on. I think it's really helpful for
that to be top of mind and for people to remember and have more
trust in themselves as well. Yeah, agreed.
Agreed. I would love to shift gears a
little bit and talk about grief because this is something that
you cover in your books and in your own experience.
And I think it's something that people either have no idea how
to navigate if they've never experienced a loss before or
they are suddenly presented with a loss.
And they are also like, I have never been through this before.
So I don't have the skills. And I think the approach I try
to take with everything mental health wise is why wouldn't you
equip yourself with the skills before you actually need them?
Like why not learn how to breathe through anxiety?
Why not learn how to advocate for yourself or set a boundary
or validate someone else or whatever these skills are so
that when you're in that situation, like I absolutely
need to know how to navigate this, you can and you've at
least practiced the skills, even if it's in a less intense
situation. So can you speak a little bit to
your experience there? And then we'll dive into what
was helpful and what you recommended, all those things.
Yeah, I would. I say I talk about experience I
have with grief and my new book was The Path and it was the loss
of my grandmother and it was in my 20s.
And I would say that grief was the first experience I had where
no matter what tools I had, none of them actually matter.
I mean, being honest, I'm not trying to be like, Oh no,
there's no tools. There are so many tools.
I'm going to share in a minute. But I do think it's important
that I share that because there's a misconception
sometimes. I know for me it was, it was
like, OK, I've been doing therapy a long time.
I have the tools, I teach this. If grief happens, everything
will be fine. I'll be able to move through it,
and it's like it threw my life apart, like everything just fell
apart. I almost feel like you go
through an experience of having to figure out who you are after
losing someone or losing something that is really, really
important to you. That even though you know
everyone's going to die one day and everything's going to
change, it still just shocks you to your core.
And so the biggest piece that I learned in grief is acceptance.
It was really hard for me to, sometimes it's hard to accept
things that you feel like there's no answer to it.
There's no reason. Like she just passed away.
She was older and I was like, well, why?
And, you know, trying to find a sense of understanding that can
help me feel, I guess, more comfortable with the
circumstances when really the acceptance was this sucks.
This is the hardest thing that I've ever gone through.
And I really just need to be there for myself as I'm moving
through it. And it took me a while.
I, I wanted to power through. I wanted to try to like distract
myself with work and really just being present to how hard it was
was really what I needed to do. The second piece is the tools
that helped me be able to be present.
The biggest tool was community. I can't stress how much I needed
to be around friends, around family, people who were going to
be low stress and no drama. Like people I knew I was going
to have a good time with. People who I knew I could just
like we could buy pizza, we could wear pajamas for two days.
Like people that were going to be easeful and easy.
I would say that's the biggest tool that I had in the in the
second one was therapy, knowing that my friends could not always
hold space for the big feelings that I was having.
So having a mental health provider be able to help me
navigate those feelings. I don't think that I would have
been able to make it through grief on our own, and I don't
think that we should be trying to make it through grief on our
own. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's really
such an interesting concept and something that has really
debilitating impacts. There was this whole, I think I
read it in Yohinari's Lost Connections book, and he talks
about the environmental causes of depression and anxiety and
like these different things that lead to us feeling this way.
And he was talking about the DSM and how a diagnosis of
depression is in a lot of ways synonymous with grief.
And yet that is sometimes like, OK, if someone has had a recent
loss and they may not be depressed, they may just be
grieving, and yet it's like the same emotional and physical and
mental experience as this really overwhelming and complicated and
intense experience that is depression.
And there it's also the question of like, okay, how long are you
grieving for before you're like, I need additional support and
help. And like you were saying, I, I
need professional support and on what I'm trying and the tools
that I thought would work in this situation aren't working.
So what can I do differently? And I did another interview
recently where we talk we're talking about how breakups when
you're in your 20s is biggest precursor for depression because
for a lot of people that's their first loss or.
Grieving. Experience that they have if
they haven't lost a loved one or a family member, that experience
of someone being gone from your life and not being able to move
forward in that. And so it is really debilitating
experience. And like you're saying, you
might think maybe these skills might work, right?
I know how to distract myself where I know that in the past
I've pushed through this experience, but grief can really
turn all that on its head and really change that lens and how
you view your mental health and identity, and in a really big
way like you mentioned. Absolutely.
And I think it's such a good point that you mentioned in
terms of breakups, you know, we often think about grief as just
death, as grief is loss. In terms of breakups, grief is
failing a class. Sometimes we have grief from
something people may think, oh, that's so simple.
No, for a lot of people, that's a huge thing and it's a huge
impact on your life. Depending on what the
circumstances are, grief can be even in the positive grief, like
when you have a child, like it's a beautiful thing, but the loss
of who you were before you had a child or before you had a
husband or before you moved. And so I think when we're
thinking about those losses that we experienced, especially like
when we're in our in our 20s, my first grief was probably a
breakup. The key thing that was hard for
me in that situation. I think I see it in all the, the
different types of clients and workshops I've been in where
people are experiencing grief. The acceptance piece is so hard,
like accepting that it's over, accepting why it ended or
accepting that I have to move on, or accepting that this is
what life is going to be like now.
Or getting used to what it's like that because who wants to
imagine life without someone who made them happy at one point,
even if that is no more. And giving ourselves grace and
learning to be gentle with ourselves is really the work
when it comes to grief. Sometimes even beat ourselves up
and we're like, why is it taking me this long?
And grief takes as long as it takes.
Hopefully building that community around you that can be
supportive and really understand what you're going through is
going to be key, I think, to getting on the other side of it.
You mentioned acceptance, which is key in so many things in the,
in the mental health context. And I, I really love the message
of your newer book because it's so aligned with DBT and
dialectical behavioral therapy, which is what I went through.
And one of the biggest core concepts is your wise mind and
leaning into that wisdom and balancing like the emotional and
the rational, which is acceptance in a lot of ways
because we experience all these emotions when things change.
And then like you mentioned, it was really challenging not to
have an explanation or reason why something happened, but it's
still needing to have that emotional path forward where
you're accepting and moving on without being like, and This is
why this happened. And so it makes sense.
And then we keep going one foot after another.
Can you speak to how wisdom kind of ties into that acceptance
piece? And also anything that was
helpful in your experience? Because it's again, you know
what to do, but you don't know how to do it.
It's like yes, I need to accept this.
The actual acceptance piece can be so, so challenging.
Absolutely. I think the key to the wisdom
that I'm talking about in this book is compassionate honesty.
I call it compassionate honesty because we pretty much know how
to be brutally honest. I think our society at this
point understands clearly how to be brutally honest.
And I think a lot of us even talk to ourselves in that way.
Like, Oh my God, I can't believe you did that.
Like, the other day, I was running late for something and I
was like, how could you know? I was like tearing myself apart
inside. But compassion, honestly is the
complete opposite of that. It's, yes, you're running late
and you're human and it's going to be OK.
And, you know, you can apologize.
And it's giving yourself the grace and understanding that
things are going to go wrong sometimes.
And I think that's the wisdom that most of us are cultivating.
It's as we grow that we realize, wow, life really does throw some
things our way that I'm not going to be able to be prepared
for in my 20s. I in in our 20s and in our
teens, but sometimes even in our 30s, we think I can prepare for
this and I can kind of build a life that allows me to not
really have a lot of mishaps or things go awry.
And that false sense of control, it's hard to surrender to.
It's hard to say actually, I can do the best that I can, but
there's going to be moments in my life where I'm not going to
be able to control anything. So that compassionate honestly
comes in and says, OK, I did the best I could to create this life
for myself that is going this direction.
I'm, you know, maybe I'm going to be a lawyer or maybe I'm
raising a family or maybe I'm building a business and on the
way, maybe I get a diagnosis or I break up with a boyfriend or I
lose my job or something great happens.
I get pregnant with twins. But that wasn't what I was
planning. So now, you know, there's all of
these things that happen. And when we ask ourselves with
curiosity, with gentle curiosity, what do I need?
How can I be present to what's happening in this moment?
And in my book, I'm sharing what have I already went through that
reminds me that I can get through this tough moment.
I have the tools, I have the lessons.
I have the muscle memory, for lack of a better term, that can
remind me that as much as I feel completely dysregulated in this
moment, I actually know how to get through this.
It may not be the same experience, but my body knows
how to be in discomfort and arrive on the other side
stronger, better, clearer, braver, right?
Maybe with a loss of something or with a gain of something
that's new with a change. But I can do this.
And I think that's the wisdom that we're cultivating as we
move through life. It's not necessarily I have the
exact advice to give you, which sometimes we do.
Like if you're buying a house, I could say, oh, exactly, this is
what you need to look for, right?
Because I know, and then I might go through a house buying
process next time and I'm like, Oh my God, this is completely
different. I think that's what life is.
It's like every time we have an experience where we think, I've
gone through this, I should know.
Life shows us actually, you do know within your body, but you
may not know these particular circumstances, but that doesn't
mean that you can't make it across.
So I hope that when people think about wisdom, they don't
necessarily attribute it to their age.
They don't attribute it to their education level.
They don't attribute it to where they came from.
They attributed to the past that they are no longer in.
And even with the circumstances where they didn't make, quote UN
quote the right choice, how they still arrived in a better
situation than when they were. Because I do believe for most of
us, even people who had circumstances that were really
tough, like myself, I share in my book, I feel like I'm in a
better place than I was and I couldn't have planned this
possibly for myself. I just had to take one step
after the other and arrive. Yeah, I love this idea that
wisdom is really this innate knowing and trusting yourself
even, and it's not tied to a certain accomplishment or an age
that you reach or an experience that you go through.
Do you have any exercises or experiences that you could share
that were helpful in your own journey to tap into that wisdom,
to have that trust in yourself and to remind yourself of those
experiences that you could lean on and say, I've, I've done this
before. I've been through this.
Because I think it's again, that idea of like, you know how you
should feel and you know that you should be able to call in
those experiences, which really tapping into that wisdom and
having that trust can be really, really challenging.
It's incredibly challenging. I think even though since we
talked about it a little bit, we can talk about when I got out of
the military. I got out of the military in
2011. I don't know how old you are,
but I would imagine you were younger than me at the time.
We were in a recession, you know, there were no jobs.
We're in the housing crisis, and that was most definitely
something that I hadn't been through before.
What was also interesting about that was because it was such a
unique experience. Nobody I knew, even my parent,
no one had been through before. So I think it's an interesting
thing to share because I think even right now, a lot of people
are going through things that no one's been through before.
You get to this particular space where you think, well, nobody
has the experience, so how will I make it through this, right?
And I had to remind myself that. And I think the exercise that we
all can kind of take ourselves through is, I may not have
experience for what I'm going through right now, but I know
I've had a situation in which I was starting from scratch,
whether it was college, whether it was tryouts for a team,
whether whatever it is. I've had a moment where I
arrived someplace and I had no reference point for what I was
going to be doing. But I was able to learn and I
was able to curate a way of feeling comfortable enough to
move forward. And I like to check in with
myself and ask myself in those moments, like, OK, I know that
I'm starting again. I know I don't know what I need
to do. Who do I need?
What do I need and how can I give it to myself?
Who do I need? Is there someone that I've
connected with, a friend, a coach, you know, whoever that I
can talk to that can help me point me in the right direction?
I think this is important so that we remember I don't have to
do it alone. What do I need for the next
step? Not for five years down the
line. I think 5 year plans are great,
but I think a lot of us get so caught up in them that we kind
of limit ourselves from being able to have things derail.
So what do I need right now to get to the next step?
And how can I allow myself, while I'm asking myself these
questions and while I'm at this place of change and starting
fresh, to be a beginner again and not have to know all of the
answers? I think it's incredibly
important, everything that I'm sharing in terms of like a
checklist or rules or anything like that for myself as a
recovering perfectionist. Trust me, guys, like I would
love to have the ABC step, but this was the closest that I can
find because in life, there really is no checklist.
And having questions that I can always ask myself that I can
kind of memorize is the checklist I've created in
moments where I know I'm uncomfortable because I'm going
to have to surrender to the fact that I have no idea what's about
to happen here. And it did work out in terms of
me being able to figure out what to do next and find a job and
get myself situated. But it took years for me to get
settled. And I think that's the last
piece that I'll share around the tools, the patience to know that
it may not be resolved when you want it to be.
Like, it's really hard to let go and allow things to unfold when
you're young. A lot of times you have parents
or people putting you on a direct path like, oh, you're
going to be in college for this amount of time, you've graduated
this time, and then you after that, it's off to the races.
And you kind of just have to allow life to be what it is.
And yes, you can take action and have direction and drive, but it
doesn't mean that you'll be able to control every aspect of your
life. And so that's the render piece
that letting go, that patience is something that I think we
have to cultivate as well. It's incredibly hard, and I
can't share that. It gets easier.
I just think that it gets more familiar and just like the
wisdom I'm talking about, you know?
Oh, I'm just in one of those zones again.
OK, I got this. You know what I mean?
Yeah, going back to the aspect of compassion that's so integral
to this wisdom and this approach that you're taking and giving
yourself more grace. One thing that you've shared
that was really helpful in your journeys, affirmations, which I
think is something that a lot of people can relate to that is
similar to asking yourself those questions, but these mantras and
things that you have on repeat to continue on that path and
give yourself more grace and support in those new foreign
experiences. We were like, I, I don't know
exactly what the next step will be.
I can't plan this all out. Can you speak a little bit to
that and, and how that was helpful and how you still use
affirmations today, whether it's at a different stage of your
journey in addition to like the early days of healing and
navigating and working through those stronger emotions?
Oh my goodness, yes. I would say I use affirmations
more today than I did before just because I think I was
harder on myself before and was less likely to pull toward
affirmations. I was more likely to be like,
what do I need to do? Affirmations changed my life
because when I'm in the middle of a crisis or some change or
discomfort that I don't know what to do, I can just
automatically pull to, but I have everything that I need and
I'm going to make it and everything's going to be OK.
And how do I know everything? You know, like that other voice
might say, how do you know everything's going to be OK?
There's like 100 voices that play inside of us sometimes that
sound just like us and sound like they're literally telling
the truth. And then I'll counter it and say
I know it because blah blah blah.
So I'm saying that to say that sometimes my affirmations will
help me lead to the questions that I was just sharing because
that alternate voice will pop up with its shame or it's guilt or
it's fear. And then it leads me to, well, I
have the evidence that I did this before.
So I know I can do this. I've got, I've got this.
I also just want to share that in moments where affirmations
may not be working because a lot of people will say to me, I did
the affirmations, I still feel terrible.
The phone, a friend is my favorite.
Like I will phone a friend when I do not believe in myself who
will remind me of, you know how badass I am of how I, you know,
I can make it. And I think that is more
important sometimes in those moments of crisis, especially to
have someone who can remind you. But I have affirmations on my
mirror. I have affirmations on my
computer. I have affirmations on my phone
and my notes app. I keep them everywhere so that
even if I'm in a moment where I can't remember that I can go to
them easily. And I share affirmations all the
time on Instagram too. And I think if you are someone
who's looking to create more positivity in your life,
following myself, following people like me or accounts like
me, that when you wake up in the morning, if you do find yourself
on social media first thing or around the first time that
you're starting your day, at least you're getting something
positive in you that you can use and carry with you.
And I even save them as my screensaver on my phone as well.
Yeah, no, I love that. And I think that's one of the
biggest things I'm always repeating because that's one of
the biggest questions especially parents have.
It's like, how does social media fit into the equation of Gen.
Z mental health? And doesn't it make things
worse? And is it even possible for it
to be a positive interaction? And I think like you're saying,
you have so much power to be a critical consumer and make that
a positive space. And like I would say mainstream
score page is Taylor Swift and dogs.
And I love it. It's great.
It's all positive things. Nothing negative is happening on
there. And so if you can be intentional
and add those people to your following list and just listen
to what those emotions are saying and anytime something
makes you laugh or smile, sprinkling those things in
because it is a significant part of our daily routine.
And like you're saying, when you wake up, if you can have those
more positive aspects and you don't have to do the work of
seeking them out, they're coming to you, which I think is really
incredible and important. And I really loved what you said
about how people come to you and say, what did the affirmations
and nothing worked or nothing changed.
And I think this is such an interesting aspect of mental
health. Or if you don't have that self
compassion and that, I don't even know if positive is the
right way to describe it. But that like more supportive
and giving yourself more grace and speaking to yourself in a
kinder way. If you don't have that, you'll
never get to that outcome of the mental health that you want.
And just changing the way you speak to yourself isn't going to
get you there either. But it's completely necessary to
have those kind of interactions with yourself and give yourself
grace and give yourself that support to get to the other side
of things because it is such an integral part of mental health
that the behavioral changes are also so important.
And so that's why I love that you mentioned these other
aspects like community and leaning on others for support
and then looking back on those past experiences to really
reinforce that aspect of resilience.
But I, I completely agree that that affirmation piece is really
important and huge, and especially in the maintenance
phase of things when you're continuing to just maintain your
mental health where it's AT and continue to have that dialogue
of grace and kindness and support with yourself.
Absolutely. And I think, you know, if you're
listening to this and affirmations may not have worked
for you in the past, say to yourself, OK, I'm saying the
affirmations and they're not working, So what do I need?
Allow yourself to need something else.
We think like, oh, affirmations were supposed to be it.
I was supposed to do the affirmations and everything was
supposed to be perfect. Allow there to be other options
for you. OK, Affirmations didn't work.
I'll call a friend. A friend didn't work or they're
not available. I'll journal.
Journaling is not available. I'm going to go for a walk.
I'm going to play with my dog. Like, allow yourself to be
curious about what you need and how cool it is to be able to
just give yourself what you need and not have to force yourself
to do something that's not working in that moment.
Absolutely. If someone is listening, that is
really struggling, they're going through a loss, they're
grieving, they're they're struggling to find that wisdom
in their life. They're not succeeding in these
boundaries that they want to set or they're really just at a low
point. And they really relate to these
aspects of your story that you you mentioned in this
conversation. And what would your advice be to
them? What can they apply today in
their life to kind of begin that journey which never ends, but
it's especially challenging when we're in those low points?
Yeah. The first thing that I would say
is what I wish I had known about then was a grief support group.
There's so many grief support groups now where people are
meeting up and talking about it. And it's so amazing to be in a
room full of people who are grieving when you're grieving
because you don't have to pretend, you don't have to say
everything's OK. And I think as much as we need
community who makes us feel great, we also need communities
where we don't have to pretend everything's OK.
So that's the first thing that I would say to someone who's
grieving right now and resonates with this.
And the other thing that I would say that I wish someone had said
to me is nothing's wrong. I had never seen anyone grieve
in the way that I felt where I, you know, for a while I felt
like I just can't even get out of bed.
Like, I can't, I don't want to do anything.
I'm fine with being here all day.
And my husband was really good with this.
But, you know, having someone say like, this is OK.
And not necessarily that this is normal, but your experience of
grief is normal and you don't have to be grieving in the way
someone else is. You know, sometimes people
grieve and they just, they're back to work and everything is
fine. And I, we don't actually know
what they're fine inside. We just see what they're
portraying to us. And so being really careful
about what we take in and our comparison, you know, this is
the other side of social media. We may see somebody on social
media who appears to have everything going for them and
everything's great, even though they just had a loss.
And we start to compare ourselves.
Really allow yourself to just be where you are and take it day by
day because I feel like grief makes you more present than
anything else. You don't.
You don't have any other option than to take it day by day.
So allow yourself to be in that slow space, and the last thing
I'll say I know is the last thing before.
Like, you know, it's. Amazing.
You will get out of this. There will be a moment where you
think about this person or this experience and you think, I
cannot believe that I'm at the place where I'm at now where I
don't feel like how I felt when I think about this anymore.
And there's grief in that. You even feel like, Oh my God, I
don't feel sad anymore. And we have these moments of
reassuring ourselves that I still miss them.
I still love them or good riddance.
But I'm, I still can't believe I'm where I'm at.
And the wisdom is in all of that.
I think it's such an exciting moment when you realize that
you're on the other side of it, but also allow yourself to go
back there when those moments come up.
Because I feel like even when you get on the other side of
grief, there's still those moments where it reminds you of
how hard it was the first time. I love that.
Well, this was so powerful and I know it's going to help so many
people. If people want to buy both your
books or listen to your podcast or follow along on Instagram,
where can they do that? Yeah, so Wisdom of the Path is
my new book. This book is a journey of love
and also sharing really tough stories like grief that I've
been through, but the other side of it and how we can live in our
peace. So you can find that anywhere
books are sold. Amazon, Target, Barnes and
Noble, and all the indie bookstores too.
The Sugar Jar is a book that is great for boundaries.
So if you're looking to refresh or start your healing journey,
that's the perfect book to start with.
And it's also available anywhere books are sold.
And you can follow along with my affirmations and my prompts and
questions on Instagram. Yasmin Cheyenne.
Thank you so much, this was absolutely incredible.
Thank you so much.