Survive and Thrive with Dr. Ebony Butler

Annmarie Kelly:

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Have you ever been to therapy? This is a podcast, so you can answer, but I probably can't hear you. If so, how was it? And, if not, why not? Here on Wild Precious Life, we do our best to talk honestly about mental health challenges and opportunities. But, a lot of us did not grow up in homes where we spoke transparently about our emotional needs. My mom's Italian, and my dad was Irish. With my mom's people, if you were upset, they gave you something to eat, spaghetti or a meatball. On my dad's side of the family, if you seemed unhappy, maybe they'd offer you a drink, beer or a whiskey sour.

However, if you've ever suffered from anxiety or depression or sleep deprivation or grief, well, you probably need something more than just food and a drink. Our guest today has made it her mission to help make therapy accessible, permissible, and safe for everyone. Dr. Ebony Butler is passionate about helping women survivors thrive in trauma recovery. She also specializes in guiding women to develop skills to increase their effectiveness in interpersonal interactions, including communication and asking for and getting what they need. Dr. Ebony is specifically interested in issues that impact marginalized communities, including minority women and LGBTQ individuals. Dr. Ebony uses her training and expertise in the roles of psychologist and food relationship and mindset strategist. Dr. Ebony, welcome to Wild Precious Life.

Dr. Ebony:

Thank you, Annmarie, for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Annmarie Kelly:

I am just jazzed to talk to you. I know you from Instagram and as a licensed psychologist and a food relationship strategist and recently a business consultant. I feel like I've watched all your videos, which is probably not possible, but I'm just a big fan of seeing you out there doing your great work in the world. But, I realize not all of our listeners are going to be familiar with the wonderful awesomeness that is you. So, would you mind by just telling us your story?

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah, yeah. So, I'm excited. Hey, y'all. So, I'm a psychologist, and I actually got into this work ... Honestly, you know how they ask you the question when you're young, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I knew that I wanted to be in the medical field in some way, but I didn't know quite what that was going to be like. So, I remember walking into a high school psychology class one day, and my psychology teacher was like, "Hey, Dr. Burrell, which is my maiden name," and he said, "Doctor, right?" I said, "Okay." So, that was the first seed that was planted that I was ever going to be a psychologist. I said, "Okay, I'm going to take this challenge, because I'm competitive, and we're going to make it happen." So, I majored in psychology, got my master's in clinical psych, and then got my doctorate in counseling psych. Everything just kind of morphed from that path.

Annmarie Kelly:

So, if this person had said, "Hey, Fire Chief Ebony," then do you think was there a part of you that always knew that you wanted to heal and treat people? Or, could this have been, "Hey, Tennis Player Ebony?"

Dr. Ebony:

No, it had to be be something that I was interested in, because he knew that I was really interested in psychology, because I would ask a lot of questions. So, it was actually between pediatrician and psychologist. I was very interested in the psychology class. I would ask a lot of questions, and he was like, "This is interesting to you. This is intriguing." So, I knew that I always wanted to work with people and help people in some way. I just didn't know in what capacity, but I knew it wouldn't have been firefighting. I knew it wouldn't have been tennis, but I knew that it was going to be in the service of some people in some way. I didn't even know about mental health until I took that psychology course.

Annmarie Kelly:

Wow, and this was in high school, you got to take a psychology course?

Dr. Ebony:

This was in high school, which is not common.

Annmarie Kelly:

No, that's not.

Dr. Ebony:

Most people aren't taking psychology courses in high school. So, I was very privileged in that way. I can't leave out the fact that I was looking for a way out of my situation. To me, I was interested in what's going to give me the highest level of likelihood that I'm not going to be in Jackson anymore, because I'm from Jackson, Mississippi. What's going to get me out of this city? What's going to get me out of scarcity and poverty? And, what's going to get me money? What's going to get me the highest level where I don't have to answer to people, and I have the most control over my life?

So, I can't miss that part. When he said Doctor, I was like, "Okay." And, I started to read more, listen more. I majored in psychology as an undergrad. I was like, "Well, what's the highest I can go?" Because, if I leave here now and get a job as a BS level psychology student, I won't have a lot of autonomy. I won't have a lot of money. I won't have a lot of chance to get out of where I'm from. So, I said, "I need to go get a doctorate." Getting a doctorate at that point then became non-negotiable for me, because that was my way out. Education has always been my way out.

Annmarie Kelly:

So, I'm really interested in this. One, I love that in your situation, that was what worked, right? It sounds like you made it. You did it. But, I also know from working in communities of color, there's such a huge stigma against what you're describing. Sometimes, it's against education, but more often, that mental health stigma. I teach writing classes. My students are predominantly students of color. Many of them have endured life-altering trauma, but I would say the vast majority of them have limited or no experience with mental health care. So, my question I guess is twofold. One, how did you transcend that personally? And, then how can we help everyone else?

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah, it didn't happen synonymously. It happened later. All I knew is that I needed to get a degree and get a job. I hadn't bought myself into the idea of receiving mental health care, because it wasn't something that was available to me. It wasn't something that was talked about. Even in my undergrad, we didn't have a counseling center. We didn't have a counseling center until I went to my master's program at a predominantly white college. I didn't start doing counseling until ... Actually, I didn't go to counseling myself until actually I graduated from my PhD program. So, yes. So, all of this time-

Annmarie Kelly:

They didn't make you do it along the way? I always feel like they must make you do it along the way,

Dr. Ebony:

They make us do a simulation of group therapy. So, we're in group therapy, but it's a course. You can choose to talk about real issues, or you can choose to take on a persona. So, it just really is up to you. But, it wasn't like you need to go to therapy. I was providing therapy before I actually had therapy myself.

Annmarie Kelly:

Wow. How did entering into therapy, or did entering into therapy yourself change you as a therapy provider?

Dr. Ebony:

Astronomically, significantly, because it allowed me to tap into some things that I needed to work on. Because, one of the things that I know about myself is I'm an intellect. I can intellectualize a lot of things. Intellectualizing things has also been something that I know how to do, but it's also been a coping skill. So, I can go there and I can regurgitate academic information or things that I know in knowledge and theory to help somebody else. But, that will only take you so far in my experience as a psychologist now. That can only take you so far. The more work I did on myself, the more I was able to reach new depths with my clients I couldn't reach. There's this saying somebody put up. You can only go as far with your clients as you've gone yourself. And, that's true.

If I only stick to academic and theory, I can only go that far. But, if I'm doing my own internal work, and I'm really getting to the crux and the core of the stuff that is driving me, motivating me, the things that hide and lurk the shadows, I can also help take my clients there as well, and I can offer compassion. I can offer kindness. I know what questions to ask, because those questions have been asked of me. One of the things that I really love about therapy is that I'm also learning while I'm in therapy. With my therapist now, I'm like, "Oh, I really like the way she asked that question." Or, "This is something I need to be asking my clients. I have not asked this." So, it's also a learning experience too, so it's almost like consultation in a way. I'm able to continue to evolve, and I feel like if I don't go to therapy, then I remain stuck with what I know at that point. It doesn't really help me or help my clients to the extent that it actually could.

Annmarie Kelly:

This is fascinating. I have never actually thought about how intellect and learning ... I always think about learning as kind of what you're talking about here. I went to therapy. I learned the questions they asked, and that shaped me as a learner, as a therapist. But, I never thought about the way that intellect helps us distance. If you and I just stay in the smart stuff right now, we don't have to feel together.

Dr. Ebony:

That's right. That's right.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, you are blowing my mind. I'm rethinking a whole lot of stuff and choices. If we just stay in the logic and the reason, oh, we don't have to do that other stuff, which is messier.

Dr. Ebony:

It's messier, but also, that's how psychologists and therapists are trained many times with the whole don't disclose. It's not about you. It's about the client. Let the client have the space. It creates that distance that is kind of needed in the profession, too. So, it's also a reinforcer, but really what I'm finding, that's not always helpful, especially when you're sitting in front of folks who are really hurting and hurting at a deep level. That intellect, that theory, it really creates more of a problem, I think. And, we need to feel together.

During the pandemic, we need to be here together saying, "I don't know what's going on. I'm experiencing the same thing you're experiencing. I am stressed." Because, it also shows your humanity, and it helps the other person in the room feel, okay, I'm not by myself here, and we're connected more. A person trusts you more. You get to do deeper level work. It just all ends up working together. I don't buy into the idea that therapists don't need to disclose or any of that stuff. I know that's how we're trained, but I don't believe it, because it does keep us distanced in a way.

Annmarie Kelly:

I think that makes sense. I'm thinking about, as a parent, the times when I've tried to be brave and fearless for my kids, super mom. Yet, some of my best parenting moments have been when I've cried, when I've wept with my kids and said, "I'm hurting," or when I've apologized to my kids and said, "I made a mistake," or even like you're talking about, during the pandemic, when I said to my kids, "I'm afraid, too. But, we're here together in this room with one another, and we're going to do our best to keep each other safe." Those moments of vulnerability, when you let that ... I don't know, let that barrier down, you'd think that it would be the opposite. You'd think me saying I'm afraid would make them more scared, but it almost let them see that fear is just part of being human, and it's okay.

Dr. Ebony:

That's right, and it does wonders. As a parent, kids can see that, but also if you're a therapist, your client can see that too. You don't need to make the session about you, but it's real, and especially when you're working with communities of color, and you're naming that this stuff is hard. I'm experiencing the same social injustices that you're experiencing. I'm experiencing some of the same oppression. It really does help in that fear that I don't know.

There used to be a time where we could use CBT to be like, "No, you won't be in your bed asleep at night, and somebody comes in your house and shoots you. You won't get shot walking to the mailbox." There used to be a time we could say that that's not likely, but we can't say that now. So, the fact that we can share in this fear together really does kind of allow us to bond in that vulnerability together and allows people to be seen in ways that they may not be seen, because we're sticking to some protocol of a gold standard treatment. No, that won't happen to you. No, we really don't know.

Annmarie Kelly:

From your perspective, do you think some of the stigma that exists is simply because we've had so much broken faith and broken trust between these predominantly white ... I don't know, I'm thinking of psychologists I can name. There's four, and they're all dead white men. Do you think that some of the resistance is simply because we're taking this white thing and asking Black communities to trust it. And, there's really no reason why they should, based on the history in this country. Is that where the stigma comes from?

Dr. Ebony:

Absolutely. A large part of it, I actually just did a talk in Boston. It's one of my signature talks that I do. I do a lot of talk around the mental health stigma and where it started. Talk therapy actually started from a place for Black folks of actually helping us not be delinquents, helping us become model citizens, and helping us learn how to be citizens in this society. When you have the history of that rooted in mental health, it's really hard for that to be taught generationally or for that trust to be passed down generationally, let me say. So, what's being passed down to us is don't talk to them. Go here. Go to church. Pray, because these are safer paths to take if you want to remain intact with your family, if you don't want to be institutionalized, if you don't want to be ostracized or sent to prison or overly diagnosed, those kinds of things. So, these are the avenues we're going to take.

Keep it here. Keep it tight to the chest. Go pray about it. Let that be between you and God. You remain with us. You remain safe. So, the stigma is rooted and wrapped up in all of that. Faith becomes a huge part of how we heal as Black folks. I know we're not a monolith, but for a large part of our experiences, faith has been a way that we found healing. For a long time, those two things couldn't exist because of the ways that we were treated within the system. So, I do think that stigma has been passed down.

Still, today it happens. Just during the pandemic, I had clients tell me that they were talking to therapists who were like, "You don't really know all the facts of what happened in that incident. So, you really can't feel that, because you don't have all the facts yet." So, it's still happening. I find people come to me. They said, "I tried it. I will never do it again." And, you know they're going to go tell other people, "Therapy doesn't work." It's not that something was wrong with that therapist. It's that therapy doesn't work, because this was one bad experience that I had that confirms the history of what has happened.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, that's maddening. I feel like I understand now. Sometimes, my students will write with a guard up. It's this idea that I'm not going to tell tales outside of my own. That's for us in my family or in my neighborhood. We don't speak outside. We keep it here. We keep it close, which I can see would be a barrier. That reminds me, this is tangential, but it reminds me. I think I heard you speak about this once before about the archetype of the strong Black woman. This is often lobbed about as a compliment, usually in political analysis to see who delivered Atlanta and the votes, the strong Black women. But, that label can be really damaging, can't it?

Dr. Ebony:

Oh, it definitely is. The strong Black woman started as a way to combat the other stereotypes that were present. So, we had the mammy, the matriarch, the jezebel, the sapphire. Those stereotypes served to demean and degrade, dehumanize Black women. The strong Black woman trope was created to say, "Wait a second, we can do all things. We are much more than this sex symbol. We are much more than the person who takes care of your kids. We could do all the things, and we could do things that men can do as well. We're independent." However, historically what that has done just over time is created this dehumanization as well, as seeing us as more strong than we actually are, and that we can actually take on more than we have the ability to. That doesn't provide us opportunity to take care of ourselves, to rest, to be easy, to be solved, to create a life that actually feels less difficult and less challenging.

Instead, we have to endure all things and go through all things. We can get through all things. It served us at one point, but right now what we're seeing is that it's not serving us as well as it once did, because the times are not the same. So, while that was a means of survival back then, we don't really need it now, and we can let go of some of that stuff now. So, it does become a detriment to carry that identity. It still helps us at times, but it's at our detriment many times.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, I think when you look at, oh, studies in the healthcare profession, in medicine, and the way that Black women, often their pain is not believed. You could see how a strong Black woman label would then negate the care that that individual needs right now. I had never thought about that.

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I know that you also, in addition to being a therapist and a clinician, you also specialize in a few different things. I've heard you talk on Instagram, for instance, about the dangers of diet culture. I know that many of us ... I'm an educated adult, but I fall for it. I fall for all of it. I've done all the-

Dr. Ebony:

We all do.

Annmarie Kelly:

You name it, the keto, the Atkins. I've done all the dumb things. I can tell you, again this is the logic, right? I can tell you that a glance at the research will tell you that the vast majority of diets do not work for the vast majority of people. You lose a few pounds now, but a year later, we've gained it back and five pounds more, right? I know this, but we keep making the same mistakes anyway. So, can you talk a little bit about the harms of diet culture and how in the world to navigate it?

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah. Well, it works. Diet culture works. We bought fully into it. We were born into it, and so it's deeply, deeply ingrained. Our parents were taught it. It's everywhere we look, so how can you not? I just want to lead with that. Diet culture works, because it plays on our desperation, and it plays on the insecurities that they planted. This is the thing. They create the insecurity and then say, "But, we have a remedy for it. You're inadequate, but we have a remedy for it." This is why it's a great market. If you want to study marketing, if you want to study how to create a culture, that's the one to study. I got into this actually because of my own weight loss or my own weight, body image struggles, as you can imagine. I was always a heavier child, always a child who was probably larger than the students in my class.

I've always struggled with this idea that my body wasn't good enough. It has been reinforced by adults who said things about my body, that kind of thing. I ended up losing all of this weight. Then, after people would ask me, "How did you lose weight? Tell me, tell me, tell me." So, in my little entrepreneur brain, I'm like, "I'm going to start a business about this. I'm going to become a wellness coach. I'm going to become a weight loss ... whatever it is I became. In 2015, I started a business with my sister where we were helping other Black women learn how to take better care of themselves, therefore lose weight. But, then as I learned more, I was like, "This feels very oppressive to me." As I read more, one of the books that I read that was pivotal for me was Sabrina Strings' Fearing the Black Body, the anti-Black roots of fat phobia and things like that.

I was like, "Wow, I can't be a Black woman in this space continuing to be the oppressor that we experience. This doesn't feel authentic to me. This doesn't feel right to me, but I know that this is a passion area of mine. So, how do I blend what I know about psychology and mental health, human behavior, with this idea of around food and health?" And, I didn't want to occupy the wellness space, because I felt like the wellness space was just diet culture dressed up in another name. So, I actually created the term food relationship strategist. I said, "I want to talk about our relationship with food." We have a relationship with our hair. We have a relationship with our dress. We have a relationship with so many things. We definitely have a relationship with food. What's that about? I really wanted to understand, teach, educate, explore what is this relationship? And, how do we build a healthier relationship with it? Because, the one that we have now is tainted by these ideals and rules that are rooted in diet culture.

So the reason I think that it's harmful, diet culture, is because I think it's traumatizing. It silences you. It takes away your ability to listen to your body. It un-grounds you. It creates a system. It creates chaos for your nervous system. It plants the seed of mistrust, this doubt, this uncertainty, this feeling of being on edge. If we go back to diet culture, food rules, they do the exact same thing. We're uncertain. We don't know how to listen to our bodies. We feel anxiety when we show up with food in any setting. We feel like we're unground. We're not grounded. We're unnerved. Our systems are out of whack.

So, when we do these things, we're experiencing some of the same trauma responses that we are experiencing when we engage with a catastrophic event. The reason that I think that it's harmful is because it creates this adverse response in us that almost is visceral in a way. Oh, no, we're apologizing. We're over apologizing. We then begin to navigate life out of this place of I'm a bad human because of the bad body that I live in, because of the bad food choices that I make.

Annmarie Kelly:

There are so many cultural indicators, and I think I've heard you address this as well, that I was raised with an Italian grandma who handmade pasta and kneaded bread and simmered sauce on the stove. That food and family and love became my understanding of what food and family and love meant. I know other communities have tortillas, and they have rice, and they have macaroni. What happens when our cultural backgrounds bump up against the diet industrial complex and tells us carbs are evil? Is my entire relationship with my family evil? I've never thought about this before.

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah, and diet culture actually wipes away a lot of our cultural foundations around food. They tell us that the very things that mean something to us, that means family, that means bonding is actually bad for you. Don't eat the bread. Don't eat the pasta. It's actually bad for you. What are you doing? You don't love yourself enough, which also creates distance from the family, distance from the thing that you're bonded to, which creates uncertainty, and an over-reliance on them is very much like a human abuser.

Oh, your family doesn't love you. They don't care about you. I'm the only one who cares about you, and I'm the only one who has the solutions for you. So, the more distanced you become from your family, the more control they can have over you and the more influence they can have. Diet culture is the same. The more I get you to buy into what I'm telling you, the more reliant you become on me, the more I tell you that your tamales are wrong. The more I tell you that your greens are bad for you, but you can also eat kale. Don't eat greens. Don't eat collard greens. Eat kale.

Annmarie Kelly:

It's the same thing.

Dr. Ebony:

And, they're the same thing, but collard greens, we know in the south, I'm from Mississippi, collard greens, that's what we eat. Collard greens with some ham hocks in it, that's what we eat, but that's bad. But, you can eat this kale with this MTC oil or put some coconut oil in it. Believe me, and I influence you, turn your back on what is cultural and foundational to you, and you lose a thing that ties you to your values, ties you to your identity, and you become reliant. And, you really become a person who's lost. So, you don't know which way to go. So, you're going to keep buying into my method, because I'm going to keep selling you the solution to the issue that I created in you. That is what happens. I can't name a cultural food that diet culture has not said was bad.

Annmarie Kelly:

No, I'm just thinking of all the food with the X's through them. Definitely.

Dr. Ebony:

Yes, don't eat this. Don't eat this. Eat this, all of the things. The reason I love that book by Sabrina Strings is it talks about the anti-Blackness of it all. Anti-Blackness affects everybody, everyone. If you are a person who's saying, "Oh, that's not going to be me," the minute they take away foods that are rooted in Blackness, they're coming for the other foods as well. Every other food is fair game. We have to understand that the racism that is deeply embedded in diet culture impacts all of us. The people who are impacted the most are white women. White women get dragged through the mud with diet culture. If they become the face of eating disorders, white women become the face of poor relationships. Well, Black people, poor relationships, because of diabetes and the disease, but the thinness, the thing that you did to become anorexic is just so bad.

The thing that you're doing around eating disorders and bulimia and purging is just so bad, when the issue was created by diet culture for us to meet a standard of white European woman-ness or just European image. But, even white women themselves can't fit within the image that is upheld in diet culture. The reason I say that it's worse for them is because they're trying to fit something that was created for them that they will never meet. It's an impossible. It's a complete impossible. They then, even in mental health, become the representation that we see around eating disorders. And, they're not the only people experiencing eating disorders. We are too, but we are not the face, because it doesn't center us, and we're not made to matter in this way.

Annmarie Kelly:

So, what do we do, Dr. Ebony? How can we have a healthier relationship with food when we live inside a culture and a system that doesn't really want us to?

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah, it doesn't want anybody to, to be honest, I really think that we've got to do things like this. We've got to have honest conversations about the harm that has been done. But, here's a thing. To admit that harm has been done, you have to admit that you've been wrong about a lot of things. A lot of people can't sit with the idea of saying, "I'm wrong. I was wrong about this. This is the truth." But, once we can tell the truth about the harms of diet culture and have these very real conversations, we might slowly stop buying into diet culture rhetoric and diet culture rules. And, we can begin to say, "You know what? It's actually not unhealthy to be fat. Actually, I'm not a bad person if my body becomes fat. Actually, I can still be an athlete and live in a fat body. Or, actually I'm not healthy because I'm skinny."

So, these are the truths that I'm saying that people will have to grapple with. But, to grapple with that means that you have to stop believing that obesity and fatness is inevitable and that you're going to die. So, I tell people, if you want to start building a healthy relationship with food, really start small and just interrogate how the rules show up in your life. What rules have you been operating under that you know aren't serving you? And, try to just start changing those. To change a system while we still live in it is very, very hard, as we can see. So, you have to do the thing that you can control. Say yes to some things sometimes. If you want to have a slice of pizza, say yes sometimes. See how that feels for you. See if you can sit with the anxiety, work through the guilt, work through the shame.

See whose voice you're listening to when that shame comes up. If you need to say no to some things sometimes, say no and see how that feels. Sometimes, you need to say no to an extra slice of pizza, if it's going to give you acid reflux, or if it's going to cause you to have stomach issues, or if you know that your blood pressure is going to spike, all of these things. See what comes up when you put these limits on yourself, either in the yes way or the no way. And, work through those emotions. And, if you can, just allow yourself to start with something with ... Okay, I usually say no to an extra serving of a dessert. Let me see what it would be like to just say yes. What comes up for me? And, just start there. Just start there, because I guarantee you some message around diet culture is going to come up. And, it's going to resonate that, oh, these are the things that I've been living by for some time now.

Annmarie Kelly:

You're so right in so many ways. I'm unpacking the times when I've been vulnerable, when I've been most vulnerable to diets. I remember Seventeen Magazine or Young Miss, one of those had at a diet in it when I was 13, probably did my first diet then. Well, what was going on in my 13 year old brain? There's a whole lot going on. It wasn't the diet that I was looking ... I was towards a diet to solve problems, but I think when I've been at my most vulnerable, it also had a lot to do with things that were bigger than me, right? That middle school, that entire time is really difficult. Sometimes, you're using this, this drop five pounds, to solve these other things which are much bigger. And, they're going to take a little longer.

Dr. Ebony:

We're all just trying to be good enough. We're all trying to be on the side of rightness and good enough-ness. And, we use body manipulation to get there. It's really less to do with, like you said, less to do with me not being in shape or anything like this. How do I become good enough and on the side of rightness and on the side of goodness to where people will see me as worthy and valuable? We've been taught a very quick way to get there is just to be in a skinny body. So, that's one way we can get there. And, we use that and we overuse that and overly on that particular way of being good enough.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, I'm wanting back some choices I made, but I'm grateful to be thinking about this. There were three things I wanted to talk about, and this is the third, that I recently started using your therapy cards in my classroom. As a writing teacher, I am tasked with teaching my students how to write thesis driven, academically reasoned, evidence based papers. I can do that, however as we inched our way out of the pandemic and the quarantine restrictions, I noticed that a lot of my students were limping along emotionally. This was affecting them academically. I'm teaching the same lessons, but we're struggling with things we didn't used to struggle with. I used to be the kind of teacher who was all about the work. We're all going to pass this standard and this bar. But, I brought your therapy cards to my classroom. First, would you mind just telling folks about your therapy cards?

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah, I'm so happy to hear using them. But, My Therapy Cards is a card deck that I created honestly to work through the barriers that exist for Black folks around cost, stigma, and access, so having people not able to find a therapist that they can pay for, a therapist in their area, also not being able to afford that therapist even when they find one. So, I put the questions that I ask my clients into a card deck, and that's what My Therapy Cards are. Because, I wanted folks to feel like I have questions that a real psychologists would ask, formulated for people who look like me, represented in graphics by people who look like me. And, I can see myself in a field that actually hasn't always represented me in a positive way. So, I created them for that.

Out of that first edition, the women's deck, came the teen edition, and then the men's edition. We've just continued to explore ways that we can help folks access a mental health tool that can allow them to do some work. So, that's what My Therapy Cards are, is a way for you to just do some inner work on the things that may be coming up for you with regard to mental stuck-ness, habitual cycles, and then triggers, coping skills.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, they're tremendous. I've actually set aside portions of class time. Sometimes, we're talking through a question that I feel like is for sharing. Other times, we're writing through them. I've given the kids small stacks. Pick the one that seems easiest to you to answer, and then pick the one that seems like you don't want to answer, because it's tricky. We'll just do it on your page, and it's a conversation between them and with me. Some of them, I wrote down a few. What positive things help you through tough times? That's stuff that the kids have to be reminded of. Who do you look to for guidance?

Then, there was one you asked about social media, how it makes you think and feel about yourself. That became such a talking point one day that I actually changed one of our papers. We have to write an argumentative paper. It doesn't really matter what the topic is, so I changed it to be about, is social media, in general, is it more harmful than helpful or more helpful than harmful? The kinds of things the kids wrote by being able to bring their vulnerable selves into their academic work, Dr. Ebony, it was beautiful. Thank you so much for this gift.

Dr. Ebony:

Wow, that just touches me in a way. Every time I'm sitting here, this is so surreal to me. So, you'll have to forgive me. This is so surreal that I created the cards for reach and access, but to hear people use them in real time and the impact that they have, yeah, it hits me in a way that leaves me speechless. So, thank you for that, because I do think we need to be having these conversations. I do think it's very much like diet culture. I think we need to be critical of the systems that are at play and how they're impacting us.

Because, the earlier we can become critical thinkers around what is happening, we can become more independent thinkers around how we're going to allow this to show up in our lives and how we're going to use it. So, the fact that you're working with students who are now like, "Okay, social media is helpful and harmful. Let me think about this a minute. It's not just something that is cool. This thing is a real machine, and how do I want to engage with it?" Blows my mind, because it's so influential.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, and just letting the kids feel they had some power around it. Again, they wrote academically, but they also filled the board with lists. It was a great conversation. It all came because one of your cards was on somebody's desk. I also have the adult ones. I carry them in my purse. My kids laugh at me, but I keep the cards in my purse, and I pull them out in random situations. When you feel like you're stuck in one of those adult where you just ... There's those seven things adults talk about, and you can't get past it to get to the more meaningful thing.

It's funny, I was thinking. I call them, hey, I have these conversation cards with me. Do you want to do one? I don't call them therapy cards. I'm thinking about my own mental health stigma right there. But, I found that they're just a way to increase relationship. We were all without so much relationship opportunity for the years that we spent inside or away from each other. I don't want to waste as much time. I don't want to be with people and not be with them.

Dr. Ebony:

One of the things I want your listeners to check themselves on too is what conversations are you actually having? This triggered this thought for me around food relationship stuff. I encourage you to find some other things to talk about that are more meaningful and that does not center your flaws or that doesn't center your inadequacies, but that could really unveil themselves to work that you can actually do that you can actually improve in a meaningful way. I love that you're using the cards to generate those conversations, because it gives us some time. It gives us things that we can feel the space with when we're wanting to deviate from those mundane conversations that actually continue to make us feel bad about ourselves.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, and not letting us ... If you and I gather, that's the least useful thing that we could probably be talking about right now is whether I think you look some kind of way. I had to go to a writing training over the summer that I was kind of ... I was on the fence about it, but I tell you what, when we brought out the cards, it became a game and a time of really connecting in some cases with strangers I barely knew who were telling me beautiful ... trusting this space with their vulnerability and memories. It just was such a great way to grow in community with people.

Dr. Ebony:

I love that, and this is exactly what I wanted to happen. I wanted community. I wanted bonding. I wanted a deeper understanding of ourselves, but also of each other. That's why the cards were created to use alone. Therapists use them with their clients, or we can use them in community with each other.

Annmarie Kelly:

I know you do plenty of interviews, and you talk for a living half the time. So, I know you get asked a lot of the same questions. So, I always try to end conversations with playful things. These are My Therapy Cards to help us learn more about you that maybe is a little bit off the beaten path. So, these first-

Dr. Ebony:

I love it.

Annmarie Kelly:

This first batch of questions are just multiple choice. You pick one. So, coffee or tea?

Dr. Ebony:

Coffee. I used to be a tea person.

Annmarie Kelly:

You converted, got you. Mountains or beach?

Dr. Ebony:

Beach.

Annmarie Kelly:

Dogs or cats?

Dr. Ebony:

Dogs.

Annmarie Kelly:

Early bird or night owl?

Dr. Ebony:

Night owl.

Annmarie Kelly:

Are you a risk taker, or are you the person who always knows where the Band-Aids are?

Dr. Ebony:

I'm in the middle. I'm a little bit of both.

Annmarie Kelly:

These are fill in the blanks. If I wasn't working as a therapist, I would be a ...

Dr. Ebony:

Cosmetologist. I'd be doing hair.

Annmarie Kelly:

Really?

Dr. Ebony:

Really. I almost went to cosmetology school, yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Wow. What made you change? I've had a lot of folks who do my hair say they're actually very similar. Now, I'm not sure that you would say that, but that you sit and you listen, and people tell you stuff when they're in that chair.

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah, and I grew up in a hair salon. My aunt is a hair stylist. She taught us how to do hair, and I love it. It's creative, so it allows me to tap into my creativity. I would be doing that, for sure.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's excellent. All right, this is another fill in the blank. So, what is something quirky that people don't often know about you? It might be a like. It could be a love. It could be a pet peeve. I don't know. What is something that people don't know about Instagram Dr. Ebony?

Dr. Ebony:

I don't like people. I don't like talking to people.

Annmarie Kelly:

What? What do you mean, people?

Dr. Ebony:

So, here's the thing. Here's the thing, Annmarie. I love people, but I don't like talking to people and meeting new people, because it makes me so nervous and anxious. So, when I get on a plane, everybody thinks I'm an extrovert. I'm working on this in therapy, too. Everybody thinks I'm an extrovert, but here's the thing. When I'm on, I'm on, all right? So, when I get on a plane, I wear hoodies on planes. So, I wear a jacket. I wear hoodies, and I buy the window seat every single time. So, I get on a plane, and before, I get on first. Before anybody sits down, I turn my head towards the window, so I don't have to talk to people. And, nobody talks to me.

Annmarie Kelly:

I think I saw you once. I think I sat in your row. Oh, my goodness.

Dr. Ebony:

You would never know.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, my goodness. I love that.

Dr. Ebony:

Because, it makes me anxious. What my therapist helped me uncover, she was like, "It's not that you're not an extrovert." I am actually just really anxious about what people are going to think about me. So, I avoid conversations and meeting new people, because I'm left with that ... What did they think? Did they think that I was crazy? Did I say too much? Did I act weird? Was I awkward? Those kinds of things make me shy away from meeting new people. So, I tell people, "You would think that I would go to the party, and I'm like, "Hey, you. Hey, you." That's not me. I'm sitting in the back, in the corner.

Annmarie Kelly:

First off, what people think about you, I'll just let you know, is that you're wonderful. That's what they're thinking.

Dr. Ebony:

Oh, thank you.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's what they're thinking. But, I do love knowing that. Okay, what's one of your go-to songs? It could be your favorite song or just that corny song you listen to to get pumped up. What's a go-to song?

Dr. Ebony:

Whitney Houston, "I Wanna Dance with Somebody," I love it. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

I could see her. I could see the video with the dresses. Moment for Whitney.

Dr. Ebony:

Yes, love it, love it.

Annmarie Kelly:

What's a favorite book or a movie or both?

Dr. Ebony:

My favorite movie is What's Love Got to Do With It, ironically, Tina Turner.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, another great diva. Then, what's a favorite ice cream?

Dr. Ebony:

I'm not an ice cream person, but if I had to choose, it would be vanilla bean.

Annmarie Kelly:

If you did have a dessert, what would you prefer to ice cream?

Dr. Ebony:

Bread pudding.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, that is delicious. Then, last one, if we were to take a picture of you really happy and doing something that you love, what would we see you doing?

Dr. Ebony:

You'd probably see me traveling. I'd be somewhere, probably in somebody's restaurant. That's what I like to do when I travel. I'd be eating, drinking. That's what I'd be doing.

Annmarie Kelly:

I'm so glad traveling is coming back. I missed traveling. I'm so glad.

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah, I missed it. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, Dr. Ebony, thank you so much for being here today. It was such an honor to meet you.

Dr. Ebony:

Yeah, so good to meet you. These are great questions. I really like this end part. I liked all of them, but I really like the end part, because it makes me tap into some things that I really don't give space to all the time.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, I know. It's funny, we get people who write in, and they're always ... I would say more far more than half the comments are always about the last questions. I always wonder, what if we put them at the front? Would people answer different? I think they might, because we-

Dr. Ebony:

I think they would answer differently. I think they would. I like them at the end. I think that it closes out a lot of the thinking that has happened to just ... I just want to mindlessly think about some things. I love that, yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. Folks, Dr. Ebony is a licensed psychologist, a food relationship strategist, a speaker, a consultant, a trauma expert, the creator of My Therapy Cards. We will put links to all her stuff on our show notes page, but please consider how you can show up more fully for yourself, how you can be an advocate for your own mental health care, and know there are resources out there. And, there are wonderful people like Dr. Ebony who are out there to help. So, to everyone here, we are wishing you love and light wherever this day takes you. Be good to yourself. Be good to one another, and we'll see you again soon on this wild and precious journey.

Wild Precious Life is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Special thanks to executive producers Gerardo Orlando and Michael Deloya, producer Sarah Willgrew, and audio engineer Ian Douglas. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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