Good morning, everyone. I guess it's late morning. I, I am Dr. Sandra Edmonds Crew and at Howard University School of Social Work, and I am so pleased that you have joined us today to talk about the meeting the demands of uncertainty. And if you're like me, you are uncertain about a lot of things that are going on in society at this point. But yet we're still grounded in who we are and what we believe that we can do to make a difference in the world. This is a part of a mental health awareness, grant that we have through SAMHSA, and we want to make sure that we are preparing everyone to deal with their stresses, their mental health challenges, and also thinking about the good things that are going on in life.

I am so pleased to be joined today by Dr. Orlando Wright, who Dr. Wright is, an adjunct professor here at the Howard University School of Social Work, but he h- he's a behavioral scientist and he has a master of social work degree and a PhD in beh- behavioral science. so he's also engaged in, data analytics, an area that we're all kind of focused on now, thinking about AI and all those good things. but his work is at the intersection of clinical practice, and technology. So I, you know, I really was excited to learn more about that, again, but I was most interested in Dr.

Orlando, Wright presenting today to kind of talk about the areas of uncertainty and how we all deal with this in our own special ways. So I am so pleased to have the blackdoctor.org, audience here today to really, learn and think with us as we navigate through these times.

So, Dr. Wright, take it on. Dr. Crew, thank you for that, wonderful presentation. first of all, I just wanna give a, a, a quick shout-out to, the folks who sit on the specialty practice committee, folks who are in private practice, Shanna, Downin and also another fellow who is Louis, Massa, who wrote, a couple of articles back in the presentation, and so this conversation was born out of that. And I'll sh- I'll try to share with, Dr. Crew and the team that newsletter so we can have some leverage, from, where the conversation is coming from. But nonetheless, it's really about this climate, political climate that we found ourselves in, and then also, I, as a practitioner in a private practice, when I see patients, I get a lot of complaints about, you know, especially in the Greater Washington, DC area, the challenges that they were facing.

And so when Dr. Crew comes calling, you know, I come answering as best as I possibly could 'cause I would jump at the opportunity to be able to present at a larger audience. And so today's talk is, gonna be centered around, three, core strategies, and also helping practitioners to be able to think about not only their clients but themselves in terms of how they will improve awareness and responsiveness in practice, and also what they can do within their agencies and organizations. And so today's talk is less about You can move to the next slide. I forgot about that part.

today's talk is less about, just our clients, but also thinking about the intersectionality of the work we do ourselves within the larger sociopolitical climate, and that framing, I think, is important.

next slide, please. oh. Oh. One of the W- what I've seen in my work pretty consistently, I asked the class that I teach at Howard yesterday night, how many folks have actually seen trauma-informed care embedded throughout their organization? And some folks said they have been trained, others say they have seen portions of it, but we never see an organization that has embedded in it trauma-informed care, which some of those principles is also important for how the staff is being treated. And so kindness matters, and we have to look at it as an important factor, right, of the way that we do the business of social work.

Next slide, please. I'm having a hard Let me just, I'm gonna go to my slide just to make sure 'cause I'm sometimes wanting to make sure I can read properly. what I like to do comes out of the work that we saw with cognitive behavioral therapy, one, because it's not only beneficial for our clients. Rather than saying, "Hey, I'm experiencing anxiety"We want to also increase the practitioner's insight into how they frame their own anxieties. Dr. Crew said earlier, and I was laughing, I said, "That's really insightful, right?" It's, it's how do we, and I'm paraphrasing this, present ourselves in a way that we are also being taken care of, because that impacts the clients that we are gonna be working with.

And so- Yes, Dr. Wright, you know, I said that, you know, we talk a lot about self-care if we're in- Right the service delivery area. But we have to make sure that we're not taking our problems and sharing them with someone else.

Right. So I It really is important that we maintain We address our own anxiety. And even though this is, for practitioners, it's also just for the, the, regular citizen out there understanding how you deal with anxiety. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. and I'll give you an example of that. Thank you for that, Dr. Crew. I an example of that was I had a client show up for working with me, and all of the conversations were about the very same thing, when we talk about transference and counter-transference. Very same thing I had been experiencing in terms of anxiety. And I had to really dig deep to be able to show up for that person, but also understanding the, the dynamic of what that looks like.

So when we think about the dual realities of the client's needs and managing our own anxiety, and that shared experience, it actually begs the question that there's some benefit there of that type of relational experience, right? But also making sure that I'm not spilling out in terms of what I'm going through, but making sure that I can utilize that compassion in a much more constructive way. That's what we mean when we talk about anxiety and uncertainty in practice, is the recognition that it is a dual reality, and also we might have some transference and counter-transference that happen as a result.

next slide, please. This, this quote, for me, captures something that helps to That captures our benefit of when we start to think about the type of work we do with persons that we're seeing in treatment, or just in the workplace, or for ourselves.

"Uncertainty is the birt- birthplace of creativity and change." Talk about a, strength-based perspective. Navigating it with awareness and intention. Unfortunately, I don't know who that quote is from, but I want you all to position that as the actual skill that you are nurturing in terms of being able to facilitate this for yourselves. "Uncertainty is the birthplace of creativity and change." Where we often think about uncertainty as the place where we kinda fall apart, or things don't look as good as it should be. And I start my class off a little provocative, on Wednesday nights, and I go, "We are living in Trump's America, and how are you all doing?" Mm-hmm.

And I crack a little joke here and there, because what I want to do is to let folks know that we've been through quite a bit of uncertainty in life in general, and this is a moment where things are uncertain. But I just want you to know I see you. I am navigating with awareness and int- intention. Those things are really powerful to be able to center. Next slide. Now, if I- Go ahead if I were in church, I would have people say, "Make a way out of no way." That's right. That, that is, you know Y- When there's uncertainty, you have to figure out how do you make a way out of no way.

That's right. So I love that quote, and it kinda resonates with what we have to do. Rather than looking at the glass half empty- Right we have to see it as half full. Right. 'Cause what's the alternative? The alternative is it's never helped us anyway, right?

The alternative is just gonna keep you in a particular place. So when we're thinking about strength-based perspective, it's really powerful to have something that's useful and it's tangible, right? Creativity and change. navigating with awareness and intention. Awareness and intention are two powerful things that we can utilize for ourselves. Next slide, please. W- What I, you know S- I gotta tell you, sometimes I struggle with kindness. It's my testimony for this moment, right? and I, I have found that some of my most challenging times do require me to practice kindness.

do require me. I can still deliver truth without being harsh, right? I can still deliver a message, I can still deliver care, without having to show up in a particular way. And I'm telling you, like I love to say, my, my internal petty ways might get in the way, right? But kindness in practice is the transformation that we're talking about. Next slide, please. And what does- And as I think about, you know, truth without harshness, we all need to work on that. Right. Because, you know, sometimes we wanna say, "Talk to the hand," because the head is just not listening. So thank you for sharing that.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So what does that look like? How do we bring that into, a focus for us to actually be able 'Cause I, I wanna I, I utilize cognitive behavioral therapy because it's mo- one of the most well-known, and if you have some insight about where you sit with things, then you can quickly do this for yourself.

And it's this process of what we call the cognitive triangle, right? Just sort of-Recognizing what it is that we're feeling, recognizing our thought process about life or things in general, and then being able to understand our behaviors can be shaped, right? So it's the same thing here. If you overlay that, we're exploring how kindness shapes professional practice and relationships. One of them is small gestures. Simple acts of kindness among colleagues can strengthen trust and foster supportive atmosphere during stressful work, conditions. In particular, when you are feeling like you're not up to it, how you show up every day matters even more because folks can understand when you're having a rough day.

What's harder for folks to understand is if that's your disposition all the time, right? Dr. Crew, I, I wanna pause there, see if you had I see your face- You know, it, it just You know- some people seem to have rough days every day. Right. So I guess that's what you're talking about, disposition- Correct. Correct rather than you're just coming in, you heard that you had, um- Yeah challenges. It's, it's the- Yeah it's the, It's, what I think is powerful about that, it's the, even though my first voice says something, I can put space between that first voice to make sure that the second voice is gonna be more appropriate, right?

That's the thing that I do because I, I don't ever know what it is you're going through, or you don't know what I'm going through. And so as social workers, we're shaping that type of environment, right?

In ways that are intentional and self-aware. The next piece is, that I, I think is really practical, practicing self-compassion allows the practitioner to respond to challenges without harsh self-judgment, promote an emotional wellbeing and resilience. And we see this bear out often, right? In terms of what do I do when I need to be able to practice self-compassion? That's key because a lot of the times in the helping profession, we're doing for, and we don't think about vicarious traumatization. We don't think about what it looks like to have experienced our favorite client passing away, or experience the challenges of someone not listening, or the challenges of watching that cycle continue for someone that we really like, right?

See, I say like because they're the clients that we may not always think as in the b- best light. Sometimes it might be a little easier to deal with, but the ones that we go, "We had so much in store for yourself," becomes really, really challenging, and that kind eats away at our sense of self. And it's really important that we not only practi- practice, rather, compassion for others, but we practice self-compassion for ourselves. The operative word in there- So can you tell me- Go ahead, doc. Can you tell us a little bit more about what vicarious traumatization means?

Thank you. I pr- thank you for that. Often when folks are working in the field and they're experiencing, things that are often outside of their control and/or they may have experienced trauma by secondary, nature, so to speak, so you may have observed someone.

Some of the times in the helping profession, we just, we just block it out, and then it shows up elsewhere. So it's this, not necessarily we have experienced the trauma. We may have observed it. We may have been around when it's happened, and because our field asks us to show up a particular way, we don't notice that some of our stuff might be coming out. And so as a resu- result, that type of nature of the secondary trauma experience, might show up for some of our practitioners, the social workers who might be interacting with people who are experiencing really challenging things.

One of the pieces that I did on a crisis team was I went out to meet with, a family, and unfortunately someone had died by suicide, and I remember holding the wife's hand for about 45 minutes. I tell that story all the time because in the moment I was experiencing some of that immediate shock, and I never would've called it that. And so I tell that story because this, this wife did not wanna do anything but, but, but hold my hand. Nothing else mattered, and I never thought about what I had seen that day until I had to go back and process my own stuff, right? So that's, how some of that stuff show up for us as well.

So we have to be, we have to really be thinking about these things in an awareness and intentionality that we're a human being, we're gonna experience things that are difficult and challenging, and some of the times it shows up in the, in our everyday lives in ways that we may have not expected it to.

My sister kind of describes her experience with aging as, "I'm gonna be good to myself." That's right. "I've been good to others all their lives, so now it's my time to be good to myself." So that sounds like self-compassion. That's right. Tell your sister that that's a wonderful plan. So we, we're gonna support that, right? And because often we frame it in a negative light when we talk about taking care of ourselves in ways that means that we be good to ourselves. 'Cause other people might be used to you being good to them, and you gotta take some time for yourself. Mm-hmm.

Right? What does that look like when I gotta do that, right? That's important. And then last but not least on this portion is supportive spaces. Creating safe, welcoming environments for clients enables them to express their fears and uncertainty with dignity and care. And I also wanna say creating space for yourself and also others, right? And so when One of the examples I use often is in spaces where it is interdisciplinary, where folks have different perspectives or insights-They may not value your opinion, right? What does that look like in terms of being able to be present and demonstrating that you have something to say?

Sometimes it may require a little bit of you getting out of your shell a little bit when you may not ne- necessarily have the supportive spaces. But I'm gonna tell you, and it's a quick shout-out to NASW and just sort of institution that have social workers that are immersed in practice.

I always come back home because I work, I work in a interdisciplinary environment, and as a result, I don't often get the reinforcement that I might need. So one of the ways that I do that is I come back to spaces and/or engage in activities that are gonna be safe spaces while I may not get that in every facet of what my professional life looks like. So that, I, that's one simple example of what I would suggest and recommend, folks do. It kind of reminds me, Dr. Wright, of one of the values within the social work profession, is the, importance of human relationships. So that person matters even though you may be going through something, but they matter and, and we have to figure out this whole kindness helps us to kind of figure that out.

Right. How does that person matter in this moment, at this time? Right. A- and, and an expansion of that is how do we operationalize this concept of kindness in such a way that we see the value of it? Mm-hmm. Because we're in an environment, and I'm sorry, I gotta put this, my good old-fashioned social work hat on, right? Is we got the President of the United States and the Pope who are vehemently opposed. That is unusual, right? Extremely unusual. If you put in there and you encourage some semblance of kindness, what does that conversation now look like in terms of two leaders?

And so there's a practical and grounding peace that kindness can bring to people and circumstances and ourselves in ways that I think set something up different. Like, we have to kinda start to think about what that means.

These are not abstract concepts. They have real meaning, and they, they're demonstrated even more so when they're not present. Mm-hmm. Right? We see them when they're not present. We know that that doesn't look kind. Mm-hmm. And we know what it looks like when it does look kind, right? Rather than drilling down on a position- Yeah kindness allows you to go back, "You know, I apologize for what I said the other day- Right because I was in a different, mindset." So I think being, being able to apologize is a part of kindness. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. Apology is the way that you Well, I'm gonna expand on that more.

I'm, I'm glad you raised that point. What I've found, especially in clinical work, in my, even my personal life, right? I kid you not, it's really hard for me to not have done that repair. It is the most challenging part of the work because sometimes a apology can be the thing that actually helps to drive that repair, right? And sometimes we're waiting on the other person to do it. Sometimes you have to initiate that conversation. But it's part of the human condition, but I absolutely think it can lead itself into a really beautiful bonding experience. And then last but not least on that is when we think about the most challenging thing to do to go to someone and say, "I apologize," it has the potential to build a long-lasting relationship that is deep, right?

It's not these shallow sort of interactions. There's depth to how these things happen 'cause there's a certain level of truth that is there, right?

It helps us to, to facilitate something intentionally that we are aware of, and I encourage folks to be able to do that even though it may on the surface feels really challenging. So we have this sort of pseudo kindness that may show up, but that's, there's no depth there, right? We only create depth when the relationship has gone through something that we can repair, so that's an important, part to, say as well. Next slide, please. And I, I know you c- so, so we're gonna talk about barriers of kindness. You can move to the next slide. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for that.

when we, when we engage in what we call intentional self-care to maintain emotional resilience and capacity, it is integrated, and this is really important, 'cause I notice that as human beings, we have sort of the fly by night things that we do. It becomes another chore. Self-care becomes another thing that we do, right? What I'm suggesting is that self-care becomes integrated into our disposition, the way we go about living our lives, because that's gonna be much more sustainable, okay? It's not just something I talk about. It becomes the thing, that I do when I'm recognizing that I'm stressed.

And I'm gonna tell you, one of the things I notice very quickly with myself is when I'm overwhelmed. When I'm overwhelmed, I look very different than the organized self that I portray to the world, right? And so I know that that's a trigger that I probably am doing too much. Dr. Crew, I, I'm like, look, I, I'm not able to meet my deadlines.

The things that I'm able to accomplish looks very different. And what I instead do is I don't do this process, and this is gonna sound weird to folks, but I don't do this process of going beat up myself. What I actually do is I integrate-This is gonna sound weird, I know. Procrastination. Ah. I integrate procrastination, so I don't try to do a lot of things last minute, right? I'm very clear on my nos, and I give myself at least a extra two weeks to be able to procrastinate, because I know I'm gonna get overwhelmed in the process. And what I do as a part of my self-care is I go, "I have this deadline.

I'm gonna do a little bit here and there, and I'm gonna integrate extra time." And if I know that I can't do that, most times than not, I'm gonna say no. Uh-oh. Did I lose you? For a moment. Okay. You're back now. Okay. All right. I'm back. Okay. Did, wh- did, which part did you hear, Dr. Crew? Talking about integrating self-care and- Correct procrastination. Correct. So I, I, I know- I thought you just did that to make sure I was listening. You were listening. Mm-hmm. but the, the important part about that is I s- I didn't beat up myself about procrastinating sometimes, because our lives are busy.

We have a lot going on. When we get overwhelmed, we sometimes will forget things. These are all natural responses to the stimuli in the environment. And so what I suggest is, is that we really start to think about emotionally where we are, and be able to know that I don't wanna lie when I s- lie to myself, that I'm gonna say I'm gonna deliver something I can't.

So I gotta say no, when I know I don't have that built in time. And when I say a yes, I build in the time to make sure I don't lie to myself about what I can accomplish. Right. I have a family, I have children, I have all types of things going on, and so as a result, I wanna build that in. So build in your procrastination as a strategy. Well, I think about, you know, a negotiated yes. Yes, I can do it. However, I'm going to need an extra day to prepare. But what Dr. Wright, this is so important. It reminds me, I was a caregiver for my mother with Alzheimer's, and I would be so frustrated because I had allotted 15 minutes for a turnaround to get up and go somewhere, and it took my mother at least an hour.

And so I thought, "Well, I'm the cause of my own frustration, because I'm basing this time on how long it used to take her." Right. And so I had to really sort of build in, as you're saying, understanding that what took 15 minutes is now gonna take an hour and 15 minutes. And it reduced my stress level a great deal- Absolutely because I wasn't late anymore. Right. Because before, I w- I wasn't making the medical appointments, I had to get back to work. I had to do all those kind of things, but I did not negotiate my self-care. That, that, that word negotiate is what I think is abs- that's phenomenal.

Mm-hmm. And I wanna seize on that a bit, right? Because it's an ign- There's so much happening in there, right? When we think about emotional awareness and the restore You did these things and, and that is a great example, because the emotional awareness is, where is it that I am at in terms of my feelings about this, and what's the process for effective restoration gonna look like, which is gonna require me to make some micro changes.

Mm-hmm. Which is the piece of restorative action. It doesn't have to be wholesale changes. It just goes 'Cause let me back up. I'm gonna use the example similar to yours, of I have a, a, a nine-year-old who's going on well, will be 10 soon, who's going on 25. Mm-hmm. And my emotion says, "I gotta treat her as if you are nine and you don't know what you're talking about." And then my restorative action says, "If I keep talking to you as if you don't know anything, then at, you might lose that creativity. The Wherever you, the blank slate that you're working with, I don't wanna damage that.

Instead, I'll listen to you, and I'm going to be able to now, instead of getting frustrated with you being sassy, I'm gonna think about why is this important for you to be sassy to get what you need," right? Okay. And so I have to change that practice, because it's much less stressful, and it doesn't damage the relationship at the same rate at me going, "No, I'm not doing that," and just shutting it down. Mm-hmm. Both examples that we just gave I think are really important in terms of emotional awareness, restorative actions, and also being intentional about how we connect with the people that we care about.

And the important thing is we do this for us. Dr. Crew, you mentioned, "My stress level went down." Mm-hmm. What I want folks to know is it does take practice, it does take awareness, and it does take the willingness to do these small micro changes. Now, it's not gonna ask a lot of you, right?

But it is going to require you to be aware and recognize that I am doing something that is getting in my way to being able to facilitate this differently. So reflect, replenish, and re-engage. Next slide, please. Now, I love these quotes. This is from Christopher Germer. "Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others. Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others." I hope that folks are really understanding what it's like to say, "These things, these expectations I had, Dr. Crew, of my mother, looks very different when I start to reframe it for myself and give myself, you know, that type of kindness." That's the operation of how we get it done.Right?

What does it look like? Right now By the way, I always go is if you have a action that you have to take, the ability to reduce the time in between the thought and the action is what helps you to really increase the kindness to yourself. If you take 30 minutes, if you take two days, you're gonna be feeling all of this stuff, but these strategies is around how do I increase my, my, my, ability to respond to what I need in the moment much quicker. Not that I eliminate that I'm frustrated. None of this is Pollyanna at all. Rather, what it's saying is, how much do I want- what does my locus of control look like as I'm developing this?

Next slide, please. And, and you all could tell that I, I use, I like Canva 'cause it gives me these really nice, pictures, to demonstrate what together looks like.

One of the things I've recognized very quickly, Dr. Carr, I believe your work around social isolation have something to this to do with. We do some work with the 55-plus population. What I think we have lost, quite honestly, is some of this intragenerational bonding and connection, and we don't realize how impactful social isolation is to our mental wellbeing. We're around each other. This is why churches are important, social and civic organizations are important, our professional supports and networks. you all heard me say earlier that while I'm in an interdisciplinary place and I'm used to being a community organizer, fighting, right?

That stuff drains you, and you need to go somewhere to replenish and build your resilience. And the way that we do that as human beings is really making sure that we have professional support, we have social support. I was raised by my grandparents. I'm gonna tell you, nothing is more beautiful being a young person who's talking to somebody in their 70s. You get a depth of experience that is wonderful. And I think there are some studies, I'm not as well-versed in this area, of what we talk about the, the bidirectional benefits of grandparents and grandchildren hanging out and doing things together, and how that helps are one of the number one things we're seeing one thing we're seeing, rather, in terms of social isolation.

When we talk about substance use disorders or mental health, exacerbation is pretty clear when those types of supports are not in place.

Simple enough, right? Mm-hmm. Families are sometimes in another state. You're not seeing folks as frequently, and families go through changes, but building resilience is a together effort. It's not a singular effort, right? That is, that is not the way to go. Mm-hmm. Well, intergenerational dialogue is really an important part of building resilience because you learn from other people's experiences. Right. what we know is you're not the only one who's gone through that. Right. We love to believe that it's special for us, but when we have conversations with others, you see others have gone through some similar things.

They may not be identical, but they're similar. And we do know that, you know, when you isolate yourself, then it makes the situation worse. Right. it's not, just about putting your business out there. It is about making you healthy- Right because social isolation literature states that being socially isolated is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day, the equivalent of harm to one's body. So this coming together when we're facing challenges has added benefit, and it really does help you. Dr. Wright, I was, reading something on the front porch therapy that many grew up with.

They'd be sitting on the front porch having conversation about what went on within that day, and we've lost some of that because we go, we take our, instruments, and we go into our homes, and we communicate that way. But there's that, that, you know, communal experience that's very helpful.

But I hadn't thought about building resilience together as a theme, and that's exactly, what's important, is that, you know, sharing your burdens with others- Right makes your burden lighter. Right. You know? Absolutely. Absolutely. But the, the, the spirit of it comes go back again to a, the practice of ubuntu. We talked about, a colleague of u- and, and I wrote an article the other day around, men who are aging 55 plus, and being able to when we saw what are some of the protective factors was those pieces, right? How we interact and engage with others. the other day, I was in Baltimore City, and I was doing a presentation over in the Sandtown area, and 95% of the folks who were present were women.

And I said, "The men gotta learn some stuff about what women are doing." And I'm not saying it doesn't happen on some level, but women are way more effective of being able to connect. And when we think about what we can learn, it's fascinating about that resilience and together and being there and making sure that we reduce some of the negative factors that are associated with, coming together and connecting. And so those are really important factors of just social, civic organization, churches. They are strengthened when we have people who are part of them. There are things that folks can do, and there's a variety of others as well.

Next two slides. Are- I'm sorry, Dr. Carr support, are support groups a part of this collective resilience?Yes. So we, we noticed very quickly. So we- I have a study that's going on now, and it's called, It's where we have peers who live in the 55-plus community, and they are often interacting with others.

And we have some folks who live there as well, who become sort of the, the peer facilitators. So they help them out with technology, and they engage in these types of support groups. And so the study's underway, but my hypothesis is that there's a tremendous amount of value. I did a group around grief, and I had never seen that type of turnout before, and I'm talking about all sorts of grief, right? And so when we think about how people experience grief, it's not just the stage that you go through. Rather, you can experience grief over a long period of time or shorter periods of time, depending on the nature of the relationship.

But what we found was that people tend to isolate around grief. And what folks don't often think about is, as you said earlier, is there's someone else who've gone through some type of loss, and just the fact of ex- exchanging that information becomes really valuable. Mm-hmm. and, and that is an act of kindness, right, to be there for somebody. Next slide, please. As we're transitioning, as I When I was a child, I never understood why families would come together and eat after a funeral. Right. And I was always seeing it, saying, "Well, this is a moment of sadness. Why are we all there, you know, deciding which potato salad is the best and which other one?" But it really is a form of collective resilience to help you get through things.

So there are ordinary things we do that sometimes we haven't given thought to what that looks like, or calling a g- group of, of friends together and say, "Listen, I just had a rough day.

Can, can you help a sister get through this?" That's right. That's that collective resilience, I believe, that you're talking about. Absolutely. Absolutely. A- and this thing is ancient. It's not something that's new. I think we've left it behind in some places in our, within our society. And when we think about the macro experiences that we have, we've forgotten that the way that we got to where we are today is some of this collective resilience. Mm-hmm. we have outsourced so much of ourselves that we have forgotten just the simple act, like you said, sitting and talking with somebody or another group of folk is important.

It's valuable, right? And it has value that's just beyond It's not just the surface. It's valued in terms of we share a meal together. It helps some type of bonding that can help us to facilitate a tra- tragic or sad times. So, the other The, the piece that I think is important in all of this, that I want folks to really gather for themselves, is that there is a process of permission that might happen with others. But I want to encourage you to be able to give yourself permission for evaluation of where you're at. Mm-hmm. raise your awareness around the things that you are facilitating for you, right?

It's reflecting on your journey. and so I'm gonna I use some of these techniques around cognitive behavioral therapy in this, because there's what we call self-talk. And I know, I know we always say if you answer back to yourself that might be something else. But there's a real value that we have metacognition.

As human beings, we can understand our thinking about thinking. Mm-hmm. I want to, I want to frame that for us. That is a powerful tool, right? And that is the commitment to evaluation, is that tool that we have called metacognition. The ability to think about our thinking, reflecting on our journey. How we tell ourselves these stories are going to make a difference, right? And so if you go, "Sister such and such was, getting on my nerves," and you're not willing to have a conversation with sister such and such after church, right, then you might walk away with a particular framing of the story and a particular perspective that feels alienating, and it could be damaging.

If your coworker is doing something, and you're walking away from that, and you go You never say anything about it, or you're not willing to let it go, you might have framed your metacognition in a way that it becomes damaging. And I'm asking folks to really think about this wonderful tool that's been bestowed upon us, right? As human beings, we get the ability to think about our thinking. That's the reflection on our journey. So it's even- it's really important to set, our actionable steps that foster kindness for ourselves as well as others, and that builds resilience.

we have to take a moment to really think about these practical strategies and that, that tool that we have, right? To be able, I keep repeating it because it's so powerful, to think about my thinking. We're not certain who else can do that on the planet.

I know for certain we can, right? You know, I had an interaction with Dr. Crew today, and I don't really like how I approached Dr. Crew, 'cause I noticed in my non-verbal interaction, Dr. Crew, and I'm making this up, folks. Dr. Crew may have, may have not liked that interaction. And so, you know what? I'm gonna go apologize, or just raise it up to say, "Hey, you know, I thought about that and I didn't really like how I may have approached you. I wanna take the moment to apologize." Right? That type of evaluation is an example of thinking about your thinking. You know what?

The kids were getting on my nerves, I was frustrated at work, right? I don't like my boss right now, but I'm going through all of these things, but as a result, I wanted to give myself an opportunity to forgive myself for having that type of interaction and I wanna act different when I'm approaching these folks again, or whomever it might be. Just something I randomly make up. Hopefully these strategies are practical enough that you can grasp how to do them day in, day out. it makes what I think is important about the world of uncertainty, how we treat each other. It starts to feel a little bit like our ancestors, what they used to do to be able to sustain themselves and survive all types of circumstances and situation.

That's what we need more than ever, is the ability to relate, to have a conversation, to be able to resolve conflicts, to be able to engage. All of those things go a long way in terms of maintaining our kindness to ourselves and others.

That's the talk for today. Dr. Crew, did you have anything to add? I wanna make sure I- Well, I was thinking about the, you know, the thinking about your thinking, and I believe there's a, a well-known qu- quote, "I think, therefore I am." Yeah. Right. So if you're always thinking negative thoughts- Mm-hmm and you're not sort of examining self, then we forget that we think about the value of the strengths perspective. And if I start thinking about my thinking, I'm saying, "Well, did I approach someone today just based upon a problem? Or d- was there something of value that I did not mention to them?" Right.

gratitude kinda makes me think about when I think about my thinking. It does, let me know that I have not expressed gratitude for something. I've started from a deficit lens. That, you know what? You know, there was nobody here to help me, and I needed a lot of help. Right. And if that's where my thinking is, that's where my action becomes. Yeah. So I act based upon the way I think. So I think that's critically important for us to really examine, our thinking, and I never thought about that, thinking about my thinking. Right. You know? But that, to me, sounds like the strength perspective when we're working with not only clients, but we're working with colleagues or relatives.

Mm-hmm. You know, as you were saying with your daughter. Thinking about, you know, how we are approaching things, because often the solution lies there- Right is how we are, are framing this- Mm-hmm as a half, empty situation with the sociopolitical client.

Right. Or is it a half full situation? We get to kinda grow from things. even if we look at that faith-based, debate that's going on. What it's doing is, is really pushing people to examine their faith. think about what their faith means to them- Mm-hmm rather than just sorta throwing out ideas and those kind of things. But, I would guarantee you that people are now searching their, biblical sources to see where does this come, the, the notion of human rights. You know, how is it really used within the faith tradition? But I also think your presentation today, I really You know, I, I love the quote, "Uncertainty is the birthplace of creativity and change.

Navigate it with awareness and intention." That is so important. It's important. Yeah. Rather than, just really, you know, saying it's, "This too will pass." Right. We are active players- Uh-huh in it passing. Yeah. So we don't have to just wait until tomorrow's another day. What can we do? Right. Because we, we have the ability to shift the way we're thinking about things. Mm-hmm. And, it's okay, I think Now, I'm not a clinician, so I have to rely upon my colleague here. Right. It's okay to be irritated- Right and aggravated, but if you stay in that place- Mm-hmm of irritation and aggravation, you can't get to that creativity space.

Like- 100% what can I do about this to make it- Right a little better- Right in doing that? So I really appreciated that quote. And I also love, "Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others." And sometimes that's hard, because we, we say, "Oh, I missed a deadline." Right.

"Oh, and I dropped the ball." And rather than saying, "Well, I had too many balls in the beginning, that's why I dropped one." So that self-assessment, if I didn't have that many balls, then maybe, you know, I wouldn't have dropped one. Mm-hmm. So really, as you say, negotiating your self-care. Right. because other people are not going to be as concerned about your self-care as we are. As you are. Right. Now, now you know, Dr. Wright, I, I, and my colleagues out there, we're not talking selfish care. Right. Because there, sometimes people want to do things for self when they really should be helping those in their circle of caring.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. that's not the time to engage in self-care, when someone else is relying upon you for something very important. Then to me- Right that becomes selfish care. Right. You get to care for self-When you've met your obligations sometimes. Mm-hmm. so what do you think about that? My, you know- a lot of clinicians, you know, don't agree with this whole self- I- Right and- Right. I know. What's happening. Part Well, part, part of what I, I'm, I'm, I, I want folks to understand is that it's, it is n- there's nothing passive about what we're talking about, right? Ah.

It, it is about a active, engaged understanding of the dynamics and the intersectionalities of the, the lives we lead, and it's not a situation by which we get to hide or reject. It is a process of being able to, be fully engaged with people in the processes, not necessarily to go, "Hey, I don't wanna be around," or, "I don't wanna do these things." I know that's sort of our emotional response coming out sometimes, and it's important that we understand that emotions are things that exist within our bodies.

Our actions and what we do based on what we feel doesn't have to always match what it is that we're feeling. This is why we don't say that anger is an action. It's an emotion. Right? So just because I feel angry doesn't mean I have to act angry. Mm-hmm. Just because I'm sad doesn't always mean I have to act sad. I might be reasonably sad because I lost a pet or these things happening, but I'm also going out to the park if that makes me feel better. And the inverse is also true. If I'm sad and I tell everybody I'm all right, and I'm not, I wanna be able to authentically talk about what that looks like, right?

My point is to be as authentic as possible about the experience without having to always act it out in ways that can feel dysregulated. Well, right. You know? That's- Well, Dr. Wright, I really appreciated your talk with us today, and hopefully- someone in the audience, you know, has some infr- they've gotten some new framing of how they are feeling about things, whether they're working with clients, whether you're working with peers, whether you're working with family members. it really is important for us during these times of uncertainty to be able to hold on to things that bring us joy, and I appreciate you, sharing that with us today.

So for those of you who are in our, audi- our virtual audience, this program is sponsored by, SAMHSA, and we certainly appreciate your feedback. there's a QR link that's there, and we hope that you will provide us our feedback, provide us some feedback.

And also, we want, to encourage you to go back and listen to some of the other, lectures and presentations that we've had through the blackdoctor.org, platform, because I think you'll find them as very helpful, and they may certainly help you during times of uncertainty to get through this. So we thank you for your, today's conversation. it has certainly, been a pleasure to be here with my colleague, Dr. Wright, and we'll see you next time, so take good care. All right. Take care.