Encouraging Minds: Navigating Trauma with Resilience and Wisdom

What you are about hear is so very important. This episode contains conversational content that may be emotionally challenging to hear. Subject matter encompasseses childhood abuse, trauma, sexual assault, suicide, and various mental health conditions. Listener discretion is advised. Please stay tuned at the end of the episode for resources available to address these issues.

Guest: Ebony Johnson, Certified Speaker, Coach, and Mental Health Advocate

Embracing Mental Freedom is available to download on Amazon Kindle
➡️    https://a.co/d/7bdE0RV

Facebook (1): https://www.facebook.com/ebony.mitchem

Facebook (2): https://www.facebook.com/encouragingmindscorp

Instagram (1): https://www.instagram.com/encouraging_minds_/

Instagram (2): https://www.instagram.com/encouraging_minds_corp/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello, kings and queens. It's your favorite girl, Black Mampa, and I want to thank you for tuning in today or tonight, depending on where you are in the world. I want to ask for grace and mercy as I announced that this episode you are about to hear would drop Sunday evening, but unfortunately, I underestimated the time needed to edit this one. Plus, I forgot about everyday life and responsibilities. This episode is important for me to get right. The topics being discussed with my guests are sensitive and can be emotionally challenging to hear. The trigger warning is for those who may find conversations centering around abuse, mental health, sexual assault, suicide, and trauma harmful emotionally to hear. So please continue listening at your discretion. I hope you understand why it was important for me to take my time with this one. With that said, are you ready to jump down the rabbit hole with me? I promise to navigate you safely and securely, seeing that you come out on the other side with no complaint. So sit back, relax, and allow me to talk to you for a minute. See you on the other side. Let's go. Today I am chopping it up with another dope soul. My guest and I connected exactly three days ago on Easter night. She reached out to me in my DMs to express interest in being featured on the podcast. And well, you all know that mama don't meet no strangers, so I called her up. It is important to vet my guests for their authenticity, energy, and reasons for wanting to be featured. At the same time, it is just as equally important that they have the opportunity to do the same with me, to confirm if I myself and my platform is in alignment with their own. Y'all, when I say this lady was talking my talk, our conversation lasted for over an hour. So higher vibrational, and I stay thirsty for those types of conversations. Conversations that build, inspire, and are positive. I had to literally force myself to end our call so that we could save everything for this podcast. We touched on things my audience would love to hear. I ended that call wishing it was recorded. I knew that when we spoke again, it would be just like I never left the call. And I love that. I'm telling y'all, it was a great interaction filled with dope energy and confirmation. The fact that we connected so seamlessly was enough for me to get her on the books for an episode, and we set the date expeditiously. So without further ado, allow me to introduce to you Miss Ebony Johnson, certified speaker, mental health advocate, and published author, amongst a host of other things. Hello again, Ebony, and welcome to the Mambaran and Filter Podcast. How are you doing today, sis?

SPEAKER_03 4:06

I'm doing fine. I'm blessed.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yes, yes. But it's a beautiful day here today. So you heard my introduction, but I want you to introduce yourself. So go ahead, tell us who you are.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

So my name is Ebony Johnson. I'm a single mother of three kids. I'm the founder of Encouraging Minds, where I speak and teach about mental health. And I encourage minds to want to get to know more about protecting your mental well-being. Full-time college student, junior year, working on my bachelor's as a social work major. So I give back as a leader, APOC ministry, where I am serving for God, giving my time to serving for God, but also receiving the good word that motivates me and pushes me to continue to keep going.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, that's important. Definitely foundational. It's faith-based. But when you're young, you're not really immersed in it like that in terms of being able to apply what you're hearing to your life. You don't understand spiritual warfare until your metal is being tested. It's so important to have some type of foundational grounding to come back to when you get older. Those seeds will eventually come to fruition. I say that all the time. I'm planting seeds now, you know, but somebody else may water them. It may not be me. And then it doesn't have to be me. You know, there are people in my life that watered me, teachers, coaches, people that I can remember my life from elementary school and on up that played some type of role in my life unknowingly that I can just remember and be able to say, you know what? This is somebody that encouraged me to do X, Y, and Z. Just a word, their presence. So you can never discount your message, a word, or anything like that. Because when they own time, which I believe I was talking about my last podcast, those own time messages. When they own time, they own time, honey. But with all of that said, and if you don't mind, I would love for you to share with me your origin story because you have many titles: advocate, author, coach, speaker. The list goes on. On top of that, you're a mother. And what I want to know is what was the path that got you to where you are today to doing these types of things like mental health advocacy? Because advocates or people who are just passionate about helping encourage and build and inspire and motivate other people to be the best them possibly, they usually have some type of story to tell. And if you're willing, I would love for you to share that with Origin Story. How did you get to where you are here today?

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Well, at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, I had suffered from a severe mental breakdown. And that breakdown took me through many different scenarios of my life. I think I was having a conversation with my sister the other day where I was telling her, I don't know if anybody has ever experienced this type of mental breakdown. This was something new to me and my body. It's like videos of things that happened to me in my past just playing in my mind. There's images that I get. It's like a slideshow going on where it's reminded me of me being set in a tub full of icy cold water. And after that moment, I was placed upon a kerosene heater. Learning how to walk all over again. That was so traumatic. And being able to face my accuser and let them know, not once but twice. The first time it didn't go so well. Of course, I was in anger, rage. Second time, I was like, you know what, now that I'm healed, let me try this again. So second time, it was more or less like I just told my accuser once they explained to me because I was using the bathroom on myself, and they were tired of me using it by myself. So that was the lesson that they thought they were teaching me not to do it again. God explained to him the elusive lesson that you thought that you were teaching me, it traumatized me. It built many insecurities, it messed with my social life, it messed with how I carried myself as a female. So being able to go into depth details about that. And from that moment, it was other moments that played over sexual assault. So as I began to have just the thought of suicide on my mind, I started thinking about all the crazy things that I had been through that really took me at a very, very, very low level. I didn't understand what I was going through.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Around what age and ages were you?

SPEAKER_03 8:54

This happened to me at four different stages of my life.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

And the very first time it happened, I don't know exactly what age. I remember around the second time it happened, I couldn't be no more five, six years old at the time. Maybe this and then the third time I was a sophomore or junior in high school. Then the last time it happened to me on my job a few years ago. Being able to know that having the integrity to speak up cost me many things. It took away, you know, many things that I had worked hard for. So every time I had to speak to these people about what had happened to me, I was reliving the trauma and I was not healing from the situation. And I had always been a workaholic. So I thought, hey, you know, right after having a mental breakdown, I'm gonna I'm just gonna go to work. Well, I didn't actually make it. I got to work. My supervisor was like, I cannot let you work like this. She spoke to me, told me exactly what she expected from me, what she wanted me to do. She gave me the story of her life and how her brother had committed suicide, and she couldn't, you know, allow someone else close to her. So she not only prayed for me, but prayed with me and prayed over me, offered me to get that help that I needed, which is going to therapy. Right. I was refusing it at first.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

I find that to be a big thing in our community, especially our melanated community, when it comes to mental health therapy, psychotherapy, any type of therapy. I've always been told we don't need that. That's for white people. We don't have those kind of problems. Your mom ain't weak, or you gotta be strong. This is in our DNA. So it kind of makes you feel like, okay, I'm not strong because I need therapy. And that seems so backwards. So backwards.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

But for me personally, it was some of those same things, the the inner thoughts that I made myself believe at that moment. Oh, they're gonna think I'm crazy for real.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

The thought of people finding you crazy and that unknown, the judgment.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

And I think it's for most of us where we are so afraid of being of the judgmental people who continue to speak those negative things of our life instead of encouraging us to get out here, yes, go seek help, go do this. But I know it just changed me. I'd encourage more people to do it because how do we know that getting help is going to help us if we fill our minds with the things that they've already brainwashed to think and hey, don't do that. Oh well, no, take your problems to God, He's gonna fix everything.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Girl, we know God is good all the time, all the time, God is good, but once again, it goes back to application. How do you apply the principles? Because God also requires you to do things in order for you to receive things. You know, there's favor, of course, there's things that happen without you asking. You have favor, you're doing exactly the things that you need to do. Things don't just happen, seem like they're just happening, but they're not just happening. Like our connection, you know, we love to think that things are random, but confirmation is everywhere in everything we do. So to believe that you're not praying hard enough. God hears your cries, you know, he's counting your tears, and all that's required for you to do is to hang on and be strong. We know that God fixes things, but with that but, what was that but for you?

SPEAKER_03 12:33

But the conversation needed to be had with someone other than my family and God.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

We forget when we're young, there are so many things that are happening development-wise, our brains are growing, uh, even our reasoning isn't there yet. Those bracelets they used to have. What would Jesus do? To remind you and, oh, what would Jesus do in this situation to try to kind of help remind you to make better choices? But when you're young, you know, you don't think about choices the same way you do as an adult. We don't think about the effect that trauma has on us when we're young and how that manifests later in life, when we're older, in our relationships. Like you said, the difficulty being intimate with a partner or trusting people, even our children, how we raise our children, what we show and teach our children. A lot of what we go through has a big effect on that. When we go to talking about mental health, I hate that I waited until my mid-40s to decide to seek mental health treatment. I'm happy that I did though. But if I could go back, I wonder where I would be in my growth journey mentally had I had access to someone other than a family member telling you that you gotta be strong and you're weak minded and start attaching labels to your character for how you are responding to life's events. And these aren't just everyday events, okay? These are experiences that have lifetime effect, generational effect. It's not just get over it or that happened a long time ago. Why are you still worried about that? Or these people serve their time, they apologize. Why can't you move on? And girl, the mindsets that come attached with the people you talk to is so important. You have to think about those seeds that they're planting. They're planting seeds of self-doubt, of insecurity, of fear, all of those things because of their mindset, their lack of knowledge, their perspective. Can't nobody tell you about your experiences and how you should feel about your experience. I see a neuropsychologist and I've had my second appointment. I've only been twice, and it's been so amazing how my brain worked with what's actually happening in my life, the PTSD, the depression. I was a young victim of sexual assault when I was young by my aunt's boyfriend at the time, right? When I was younger in my 20s, to being almost killed, the kidnapping of my child, not seeing my child face. And girl, it brings me the tears. Recalling because it's a visceral reaction. I can feel those emotions, like re-experiencing it in a sense, all over again. But I'm thankful to be healed, so thankful because honey, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I had to be five, six, my sister, we're four years apart. I didn't learn until later on in life that my sister was going through the same thing that I was to a different degree. We were both living the same experiences, but we kept it to ourselves. The judgment, fear, those things that come into play for why we don't speak up, why we don't say anything. Oh, well, she didn't say nothing then. Why are they just saying now? Oh, they just, girl, that's I'm thankful to be healed. I can look back and draw a direct line to my actions, my behaviors, the places I hung out, the people that surrounded myself with that weren't good for me, healthy for me, the things that I was doing to my body or allowing people to do to my body, you know, not realizing all of those actions and behaviors, all of those things was a direct line to things that happened, the things that people told you that planted, downloaded in your brain as a young child about you. I just want to say from the bottom of my heart that I am proud of you. I don't have to know you to be proud of you, sis. I'm proud of you because I know what it feels like to walk that road and how hard it is. There's nothing pretty about healing, honey, but the joy that comes after to be able to talk about these things that happen to us in a way kind of like astral projection, where I can stand outside myself and see those video clips you mentioned, a timeline of my life and be able to look at it objectively, still feel it, but I know I'm not there anymore. I'm not the same person I used to be. I can't avoid things that happen. I can't avoid being attacked on my way home or anything crazy like that. But from my personal life and those that are within, making sure that I'm establishing connections with people of like mind, with mindset that's not toxic, not negative, that's filled with love and light. People who desire to see you healthy, want you healthy. I'm proud of you.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

It really takes a lot, I mean, a lot of courage to be able to tell your story without having tears. Now, sometimes on a bad day, it may catch me off guard, not knowing the right words to say, depending on the person who I'm telling the story to. If it's a family member that is very protective of this person, or I know I could tell the story to my mom without a shadow of a doubt.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

But it's like the older you get, you realize what social barriers that these things really had on it was complicated for you to make friends, or why you became so friendly towards people. Right. Everybody's behavior would not be the same. So we really take on many different things from trauma. I didn't really go into depth details. Me personally, it was my mind, so everything was blank. So you gotta think it was an impact on my mental health, it was a physical manifestation. Basically, use healing, healing using expression. That was one of the most important first steps to me in healing is basically speaking up. Like I realized that so many women out here they fear speaking up, and it doesn't matter how long it took you to say something, this is a recurring issue. You don't know the courage, you don't know the strength, you don't know what this woman's weaknesses are. Maybe speaking with her weaknesses from some of these things, because if you say something, then I'll tell everybody you lying, and they already don't believe you anyway. All the games, I mean, even if someone ever said, I'll do something to your mother.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

What amazes me about that is I was in a room and we were discussing these things just about the probability of exploitation, sexual assault, neglect amongst communities that are disabled, and how that probability rate goes up because you're dealing with nonverbal people. One in four women stood out to me, have been sexually assaulted, but those one in four women is gonna look at you and make you feel bad because they haven't faced their healing. And it's usually people who look like us who are making us feel bad for things that's happened to us. They're enabling or not saying anything, being aware, and like we do in families, just brush that stuff under the rug. We private, what happens in this house stays in this house. The list can go on of toxic mindsets that goes on in our families that we pass down to our children telling us things like this. Women looked at me and told me I was lying. The women that looked at me and told me negative things, and I'm like, but you're a woman too. Now that I'm older, I'm like, how is you as a woman can look at another woman and then put her in these situations and make her feel bad, honey? There are so many of us who are living silently with trauma. I know for a fact that I didn't share my trauma with my parents until I was like 17. The perpetrator who victimized me and my sister passed away. I ain't gonna say passed away. He got murdered. Let's just say that. He got shot in the head. But anyway, I just remember what I was feeling. And then to be older in my 20s and finding out that the same thing happened to my sister. Well, when it came out, this happened. The first thing they were like, oh, well, she's lying. And I was so blown away that, you know, me and my sister going through the same experiences unknowingly to each other. We couldn't even be a support system to each other. And we were going through the same thing at the same time. And why? Why is it that I couldn't go to my sister or my sister couldn't go to my mother because of that fear of judgment and opinions and being told the rejection. Having your perpetrator that did this to you find out now you're worried about how they're gonna respond. Is it gonna be worse for me? It's amazing to me that we are walking amongst each other. And there are so many people having similar experiences. I want to thank you for sharing. I can see how that origin story, how your testimony plays a big part in what you're doing today. And you never know how our life story can play a part in helping someone whose story is similar. So know that something happened, but that's not something that has to control you, your life, your story going forward. It was a chapter. You are truly a dope soul who has transformed their pain and experience and trauma into purpose. Bless you, sis. In this current chapter of your life, what are you currently doing? If you had a mission statement for your life right now, what would it be? What's the vision moving forward in this new chapter of your life?

SPEAKER_03 23:10

I wouldn't say I've worked on a mission statement for my life. One of the things that I tend to leave with everyone is imagine feeling like the weight of the world is crushing down on you and you suffocate, and that's where I found myself battling a severe depression. Society often paints suicide as a selfish, self-centered act. But the truth is that it's a desperate cry from a relief of a relentless mental illness. So when you've been through things like this, and I say for me it's working very well, but being able to go against the stigma and work hard, advocate for things that you need to stand up for. That is one of my biggest motives right now. I notice that God really, He's already made my plate. And I say that I know that's right. Favorite famous words to say. I tell people like this do you want your food hot or do you want it cold where you gotta come back and heal it?

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Girl, that is such a good analogy. I don't taste the same. You want your eggs hot or you want your eggs cold? I want them right out the children. Look, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Yes, exactly. That is something important, also, that you mentioned just about suicide, suicidal thoughts, idealizations. People, that's the first thing they want to talk about, is just being weak-minded or selfish. You're not thinking about the people who love you and you nothing to do with it at all. Nothing at all. Because the times that I attempted to take myself out of this world, honey, it was just pain. I was tired of being living in, dealing with pain, mental, emotional pain that manifested itself physically in my body. Stress, hair falling out, gaining weight, uh, doing unhealthy things, drinking, smoking. I didn't care about my life. The self-talk, the negative self-talk that was going on, it has nothing to do with anything. It's mental. Everything is mental health. Start facing that, that's when we can start moving this conversation forward, when we can accept the fact that mental health is a big issue. But when it comes to us in the melanated community, we've seen how mental health has been used as a smokescreen for a lot of our Caucasian peers. Every time something happened, you will see on the news, oh, he had a mental health breakdown. The reason, the rationale, they made mental health seem like it was an excuse for the behavior, a symptom that had a correlation between what they were doing, how they were behaving, why they killed, they sensationalize it on TV. You see on oxygen shows where they deep dive into why people kill, and it really paints them in a different light. You don't see stories like that with black people. I've never really seen, you know, multiple consistent stories about mental health and black people. When it comes to us, to the melanated community, we just angry, violent. We got everything else but mental health issues, and we start to believe it too.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

What I was gonna say. I paid attention to it for years. And me being able to want to make, create, and be the chain in my family in generational curses. I realized that they always say, oh no, this person, they need to be sentenced X, Y, and Z amount of time where you got white American people where they commit the same crime, and it's almost like a person was mentally unsafe. They've had this history of where they've been in different behavioral pursuit. Right, different things like that. An American whose parents just didn't believe in that, or whose parents didn't allow their kids to or didn't even have access to those services.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

The barriers. Right. That's a barrier. I don't care what nobody says. The only system created for melanated people was the criminal justice system. Specifically, the health system wasn't created for us, the education system wasn't created for us. It was nothing created for us except the criminal justice system. Post-slavery, as we know, morphed and turned into the criminal justice system, which we deal with now, which is a whole nother topic. Runaway slaves were actually, what was it, diagnosed with a mental health condition. If you were a slave who ran away, it was a mental health condition that you wanted to run away from your enslavement was a mental health condition. So that lets you know right there, mental health, the awareness is so important. And it's a big barrier to why the melanated community, who needs the most help, experiences PTSD on a daily basis. People are living with PTSD and don't even realize it. They're constantly being traumatized over and over and over again in their communities and especially our young people.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

I think the issue with PTSD runs through a long narrative of what they used to say way back when.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

You go 20 minutes out your way, not to go that way. You pass that way, or you don't want to go through that intersection, or we try to avoid these things, trash, part of the present.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

These things could play a major role in someone having PTSD. But I think one of the things that kind of helped me was correlated it to when people who use and abuse drugs and alcohol, they can't be around that. So what I done for my trauma was I took myself back to some of these childhood places where these events had happened. And I was trying to find a sense of healing. So when it comes to me and my transition from helplessness to optimism, that served as an example of the strength of faith and persevance. To me, depression might cause diffusion in our mind, but it can't make our inner light disappear. Right, right. We can't let the stigma stop us from overcoming our obstacles. Right. It can't make our inner light disappear. Right. We can't let the stigma stop us from overcoming our obstacles. And we have to remember that there is always a chance for divine healing, even in the most hopeless circumstances. God is a great remedy. And I can say I don't just take my problems to God.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

I also use therapists, psychologists. Start journaling, start reading things that build you up. You have to take your mind off of those things.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

And the reason why I had to take my mind off of them, because the more I thought about it, the more I beat myself down. It wasn't until I learned about change talk and self-motivation and starting to look up different motivational speakers, I started finding the confidence to believe more in myself. And then I started speaking a lot of these things to myself. So the change talk versus what I heard when I was growing up, you ain't gonna be nothing, you won't amount to anything, you're gonna be dumb just like your daddy. All those evil things that people said to me, that's why it wasn't but a year ago when I started telling myself, I said, you know what? All of these negative words that they have spoken to me, and I had to just be quiet. If I said something, I was being disrespectful because I was a child. Yeah, it was okay for me to replay all of those negative words that have been said. And I know that everybody always says the words don't hurt, words don't hurt, word causes bruises, they cause scars, they cause pain. Because when people believe those words that have been spoken to them, it causes insecurity.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Speak life over yourself, speak life over your mind, speak life over your body. That goes back to many things that I can draw parallel to in my childhood that had a direct reflection on my image of myself and how that was superimposed. Other people's image was superimposed over my own, and it blurred it. I couldn't see me at all. And the things that I were seeing were manufactured, they were lies that I were repeating, telling myself. And it played a part in how I thought other people looked at me. It played a part in how I allowed people to look at me, treat me, talk to me. It's so important to figure out because that's what's going to elevate you to the next level, figuring out exactly the barrier that's keeping you from doing. But at the end of the day, it's you. That's the barrier. You're the first barrier. The most important barrier is yourself.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Regardless of how anybody sees us, internally, we have a light that's made to shine. So once you find your purpose and you start walking in your purpose, it's time for you to teach women, men, whoever, that have similar stories to what you are going through or what you've been through.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

And once you get the courage to speak up, speak out, and stand on what you believe in, not what someone has created or you to do. We don't want to do plagiarism. Everything that's meant for us to have, we create it and we lay out the blueprint to help someone else.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Exactly. It's a whole pay it for it system. And your blueprint, as I say, you can always go back to the blueprint, tailor it, okay? Cherry pick everything that you've heard. You may feel like you need. You cherry pick those gems, you pick up those gems, start tailor-making the build. You see somebody real, what does it say at the bottom? Use this template. Well, do I want it to look exactly like their template? No, no, I just want the foundation. I want the foundational template to work with and then build upon it with my Brook Flair drip. Let me put my spin on it. My life may mirror yours in a lot of different ways, but it's relative. And I may not need that over there. I may need this over here. So, like you said, listen, find people of like mind, like experiences who've been through things that you are going through currently or have been through, or just to simply understand more about something. Listen to those people because they're coming from an organic place of healing. And if you want a better world to live in for yourself and for your children, you can't gatekeep knowledge, keep these things to yourself and then expect the world to change, to cry foul when things happen in the world and it affects you personally and touches you personally. That's the first thing I think about in our community on gun violence. Now you see a mothers getting together who sons and daughters were victims of gun violence. But where were you? Where were you before they were a victim? Don't wait for circumstances to occur before it activates you. See where you can apply your gifts, your talents, testimony. See a light for somebody else. Don't find the way out and then close the trapdoor on everybody else. You stay there, you help reach your hand back, help somebody else up that ladder over that wall. You needed that light. You wished you had somebody like you talking to you. That's why when I monologue on my podcast, I have to create avatars in my mind. I'm talking to that little girl inside me, talking to that teenage girl, that young adult girl, that middle age girl. And I'm growing. I can't talk to the 50-year-old me. I'm not there yet. I can listen to my mother, listen to people who are older than me, who've made it there, who can tell you about this stage of life, what to expect. So definitely you have to be cognizant of who you have in your ear, what you're listening to, what you're reading, what you're watching, and how all of those things can reinforce belief systems, behaviors, the way that you talk, walk, act. You don't realize we call things just entertainment. That entertainment is downloading a thought process, a mindset into our head is vitally important to connect with people. And I appreciate you for sharing part of your testimony because you just never know how you can help reach somebody else and bring them up out that oily dark gate of depression and just all those ugly, toxic, negative things that you talk to yourself about. At the end of the day, it wasn't them who was telling you those things, it was you telling yourself those things too. Be thinking about what you're thinking about. Because what you're thinking about is gonna manifest itself and how you move your emotion in life. Ebony just recently wrote a book, something we had not discussed yet. Tell me about your book, what it's about, why you decided to write it, who should read it? I want to know all about it.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

First book that I wrote, Embracing Mental Freedom. In this book, I realized that I have spent so much of my life just working for people who really didn't care about me. If I was to get sick, they still wanted me to be at work.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 37:12

So one thing I realized was what kind of strategies could I give someone, or what type of help could I give people who are experiencing exhaustion from their job? I'm not saying just up and quit your job, no. But there are steps that if we continue to make our minds believe that we need that nine to five night and day, day and night, it kind of takes away from you and that version of you is like, you know what, riding this bike for three weeks, still keep falling off. So it takes away your strength and courage and confidence, but you want to push to gain the strength to be like, yay, I got it. And then when you get it, you don't just stop, you keep going, and you find other ways to maneuver. You know, as you graduate, there are some kids who like to do their little tricks on bikes. So what are you learning new with your experience from riding the bike? Me as a motivational speaker, my tricks will be to continue to get out here and get the game from my mentors and my coaches, because I have more than one coach, and continue to listen and gain more knowledge because knowledge is power. So being able to gain that knowledge to pull those tricks out the bag. So when I get before my audience, my audience can see, know, and understand not only what I'm saying, what I'm speaking, but go home and use that same motivation because motivation is what helped me. So use that same motivation and understand that you have to embrace your mental freedom.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

That sounds like an amazing book that I think everybody that I know in my life, especially my mama, that's one of the hardest working ladies I know. When it comes to working and exhaustion, a lot of people feel like they're just put on this earth to work. The average lifespan doesn't even match up with your retirement. Who knows if Social Security, retirement, disabilities, how long those programs don't be here? 401k. There's so much financial literacy when it comes to that. I'm a big believer that a man that don't work don't eat, but at the same time, I work smart, not hard, is definitely vitally important. Find different ways to free up your time. Learn about financial literacy, things that you can do to invest, to save, to make it so you don't have to work hard as you do. What am I doing now where I don't have to? Don't stay in that struggle mindset where you have to struggle. You're gonna struggle eventually. Struggle comes and it builds, but to think like they have to go through the struggle in order to become successful, that's just toxic thinking. That's a mindset that we need to do away from.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

For me, I'm gonna always embrace mental freedom freedom over being exhausted. Yes. Because you gotta think operating around the clock is very harmful to your general health. Face a great deal on your hands right now. You gotta really look into it that when you want to embrace mental freedom, you're gonna give it all. And if you see something and everybody is doing it, that means it's too easy to be had. I have just a few classes left before I walk across, you know, that stage. And every bit of me has been like, oh man, I'm tired of writing newspapers, I'm tired of these projects, I'm tired of all of this reading. You gotta think like this. If it was so easy for everybody to get out here and get a bachelor's degree, everybody would be doing it. I have to continue to be different, face adversity head on, and get everything that it is that I want. Taking these social work classes is not just only for me to be a social worker. These social work classes are also for me to be able to help other people in the community, which goes a long way with my role in leadership.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Right. And understand that, yes, there's gonna be times where you have to work hard for a period of time, but like school, this is a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. That's the point. It should be for a short time, not a long time. If you have to struggle, let it be for a short time, not a long time. Not saying don't work hard now. We're not saying take the easy road because the easy road don't get you the same results, okay? There's no quality in those easy results. There's no lasting in those easy results. Do the difficult work now so that you can live easily so you don't have to struggle, so that you don't have to work as hard, so that you can take off when you want to, when your vacation time is time for it to roll over, and you got all your vacation days because you ain't got the money to go nowhere. People won't take their vacation because they can't afford to be off work. Find out the need. Where is this need in your life? Because when you work yourself to the point of exhaustion, not only does that manifest itself physically in your body, it manifests itself in its relationships, how you treat people, how you talk to people. The less time you have to put in that quality connection with your friends, with your family, because you're too tired to do anything else, too tired to cook for your family, to get up and wash your butt, to go walking or do things that are self-care to help your health. You don't have time for anything but work. Why? Because you have to work. These bills don't get paid by themselves. Money don't grow on trees. You know, I have to work hard to do X, Y, and Z. Well, no, you don't have to. There are things you can do different. If you don't want to work so hard, get your education so that you can put yourself in arenas where you can find jobs with better pay, better benefits, where you can go to the doctor and afford to go to the doctor. You don't think about that too. They're gonna work you to death, they're gonna replace you that same day and moving on. What are you gonna do when you can no longer work that hard because your body has shut down or your immune system is messed up? And so now you're more susceptible to illnesses. And it gets to a point where you might accidentally hurt yourself or something. What are you gonna do then when you can't work? We know as women, we make stuff shake. We're gonna find a way. Rent still gonna get paid, some kind of way. We're gonna find Feed the family, whether it's a big meal or a small meal. Po folks meal is the best meal, my mama used to say. Honey, stop rationalizing why certain things are okay and some things aren't. Because if you're tired of working so hard, then you need to be creating ways where you don't. The real question is why? Why? Because it's too hard? Because it takes sacrifice? Because you ain't got time. I mean, the things you tell yourself why you can't do, but it's amazing the things you do when you ain't got no choice. When you ain't got no choice, it's amazing what you can do then. It's amazing what you can do, yes. I agree, I agree. Don't don't put yourself in a position where you have to make good choices.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

I mean, you don't want to you don't want to continue to keep training your body to need that. And you train your body to need it when you can't get it, or like you said, let's say you get hurt, or you have a situation where you have to get disability and you stretching, making ends meet from the disability. Because you trained your mind all these years to work three, four, five jobs, four or five jobs, but you know, it's like even in the process, you didn't think to save or invest in yourself. Right. And find something that you really enjoy doing. I think for me, that was the biggest part of my mindset. I had to find something that I can enjoy doing for free. Right. So what I enjoy doing for free was helping people. Not only helping people, but I enjoy teaching people. I'm not one of those people that's gonna say, Hey, figure it out. I had to invest my money.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Right. I had to do it. I had to work hard to do it, you know. Why can't you? Ugly mindset too.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

It is, and I think we should all, you know, help someone out because when you figure out that you had to pay all this large amount of money, even if you were to charge someone to gain the knowledge that you gain, it doesn't have to be extravagant, it doesn't have to be they can give you a token of appreciation. Right. But at the end of the day, it's do you want to live in greed and not help other people out and be selfish? Because that's not a healthy mindset. If you only set out to help people to gain financial stability for yourself, then it's an all-in-void. You don't have to charge what the universities are charging. You don't have to charge what some of these multi-million, multi-billion dollar people are charging. Right. When you start starting off, you know, see how effective your work is, how effective you are at doing what you're doing. Right. And how many people can you impact off? You gotta think of the numbers and what you're really doing. So, how effective are these numbers going to be?

SPEAKER_00 47:01

When you change your perspective, a change perspective gives you a new outlook on something. When you can look at something from a different perspective, that gives you a different view of it. And then you can start operating from a different point of view if you're willing to look at it from a different perspective. Now, if you kept the perspective that, oh, I hate this class, you know, and I'm saying, why I gotta take this class, and it's gonna reflect itself in the quality of your work that you produce, the amount of work that you put into the class, it affects a lot of different things because now you're approaching it with apathy and with a lack of daisio attitude with nonchalance. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Always tell people, like you were just speaking. Basically, what you were just speaking, I define that as a domino effect. And I really picture a set of dominoes where you set them all on the table and you smack the very first one, you'd have made a letter or whatever you done made out of these domino, smacked it, and it hit every single last one until it got to the last one. Ripples. If you want to make a domino effect of something positive, you got to do positive things. If I speak positive things over my life, I will continue to have that domino effect, and I'm knocking over one step at a time every generational curse that was set out for me not to touch, not to hit, not to break.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

I'm going to get there.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

Right. That goes back to something you said earlier, just about the power of words. And it brought to mind, like in elementary school, you would hear, especially in the 80s, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words, they'll never hurt me. We hear about it in the spiritual sense in church. You hear about the power of the tongue. Those outside the church, they call it manifestation. It don't matter because at the same time, it's the same thing. For example, discernment is instinct. The church, they call it discernment in science, they call it energy. In the world, we call it instinct. It all means the same vibes, energy. If you call a rose a different name, it's not gonna change how it smells. At the end of the day, we need to understand that yes, words hold power, words can kill, words can build up nations, words can tear down nations. You have Hitler, he used his words for harm, and look what his words did. You have Martin Luther King, look what his words did. They activated people. When you use your words and you use them in a way for good, and you're speaking these things out into existence, those things are gonna gravitate right back to you because energy is everything. So the energy that you're putting out there into the world with your word choice, if you go out there and you say, you know what, you wake up out the bed this morning, your mindset is, uh, I don't want to get up out this bed. Ugh, it's ugly, it's raining outside. It's just, uh, this day I just wanted to be over with already. Well, guess what? That's how you're approaching your day. Those things are going to be magnified. Interactions that are negative or things that happen. You know, it just seemed like things keep happening back to back to back to back. Every time I turn around, something is something new. Every time I turn around, I can't seem to catch my breath, getting hit left and right. You come to expect those hits, right? You start living just like a child. You go to hug somebody, they shy away, or they flinch, you know, because they're scared you're about to hurt them or you're about to hit them. Well, that's how you're gonna be approaching your day. You're looking for those hits, you're gonna find them. Think about what you're thinking about once again. Think about the words that you're saying. For know how you use your words and how effective be this conversation that we're having, that people will be tuning into and listening to. We don't know how our words are gonna affect those people. That's why it's important to pay attention once again to the people that you're listening to. If they're not teaching you anything, it's just filler and it's filling you with nothing of substance. Make sure the word choice is quality, make sure that it's positive, make sure that it's affirming, make sure that you're intentional. Start intentionally speaking. I'm in a season and working on is just being intentional, period. Especially in my word choice, how I talk to myself, how I talk to my children. That was the first. Embracing mental freedom. What is your second book?

SPEAKER_03 51:43

The second book, I am still in the process of getting done. Okay. I've had several titles come to mind, several subtitles. Um, for the most part, I'm gonna go with you can move on and find redemption for the title. And then the subtitle being navigating mental health trauma and social work through faith.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Okay. Okay. What can we expect from your upcoming book and when are you? Do you have a target date for its release?

SPEAKER_03 52:14

Yes, I have a target date. The target date that I'm pushing for right now is September the 11th. Reason why a very tragic event happened on that day. That's also my grandmother's birthday with who encouraged me since I was a child when I spoke these things, telling her that I would one day be an author. I was just saying it as a kid. Exactly. But that is her birthday, and then finally, I had experienced so many tragic events in my life. So I feel like this date to me is very personal. On many levels. Okay. Okay. So it's this is my life story that I'm working on now. And when I was growing up, when I was speaking to myself, every time I walked past the mirror, I said hateful things to myself about things that I went through that were out of my control. I all the circumstances that made me place blame on myself, made me feel guilt, made me that built insecurities. It turned into, hey, now I'm isolating myself from the world because I don't know how to tell this story. And I want to learn how to tell this story.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 54:07

Which caused more depression and a suicide attempt. But throughout the process of that suicide attempt, we go into, hey, I went to work, I I met one of God's earthly angels who helped me seek that help to begin to fight all of my battles. So now you're gonna see me every time I walk past a mirror, I'm gonna tell myself, you are enough. You are beautiful, yeah, you are courageous. Yes. So many words that I tell myself when I walk past that mirror because I no longer have a reason to be disgusted, ashamed, right? Take that power away saying, Yes, that we're out of my control. Right. So continuing to do that, I realize that I have to love and protect and care for myself, which is what we call self-love. Right. You got to give yourself that self-love that is needed.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Yes, because if you don't love you, no one else can. Right. And nobody else will know how to. They don't know how to love you. I mean, that love comes from within. You know, we all know how we feel we need to be loved. What we when we want to experience that from the world, from other people, our friends, our family, our partners, romantic relationships. We know how we function, what we need to function in those relationships. Well, those people won't know if you don't know. Take that mirror. That's I love that. It's something I discussed in my first introduction. Let me reintroduce myself in that episode. I talk about that shadow work, that mirror work where I couldn't even look in the mirror. I never looked in mirrors. I didn't look in the mirror to brush my teeth. I would avert my eyes every time I caught my gaze in the mirror. That's how much I hated myself. The self-hate, the really deep-seated, toxic relationship that I had with myself. The things that I told myself were horrible. I hated my image. I couldn't even look at myself. Now, through much shadow work, mirror work as you talk about, and reevaluating, I can look at myself head to toe, fully naked, being able to look at yourself in the eyes and being open and honest about exactly who you are, whatever that is, your flaws, the things that make you beautiful and the things that make you great. Speak life over yourself, speak life over your mind, speak life over your body.

SPEAKER_03 56:39

Gotta give yourself that self-love. I'm trying to get the actual physical copies to get out. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:48

Hey, look, like you said, we look for people, other people who are self-published, connect with other like minds. That's how you build. You build with people. That's the point of connection, making those connections. How though? How do we make those connections is important, especially in the virtual realm post-COVID, how isolated we become and just how we interact more and more online. Eventually, that's what it's all gonna look like. We have to know how to weed through the garbage. You have to look and you have to dig deep, but it doesn't have to be difficult. Take for example, me and you. We literally just spoke. I hope you found our conversation today to be just as comfortable as it was Easter night. When you operate from a place of authenticity, being organic in your purpose, finding other people who can help you with that purpose, honey, it's like add water and stir. It shouldn't be difficult at all. But we know we can't do that with everybody. Everybody ain't me and everybody ain't you. So it pays to pay attention to the people that you're following. It pays to pay attention to the people that you're connecting with every day. Because what's the point of building these connections if you can't actually, you know, work with these people, collaborate with these people, network with these people, build with these people. What does that look like? And it starts with like minds, mindset. Make sure that you are surrounding yourself with people who are doing things that you are doing, with people who are moving and operating in ways that you would like to. These are the people that you should be looking to and following and listening to. But you have to weed through all the garbage. It's oversaturated with garbage that it makes finding people like you and me hard, but it's not. If you're listening, if you're looking, and if you're watching, approaching your social media experience with the purpose of connection. These people are going to elevate you in some way, shape, or form. Our connection today, if it don't do anything, it's elevated me. It's elevated me mentally, it's elevated me spiritually, and it's elevated me emotionally. We have gone through a roller coaster of emotion. And at the end of it, I'm feeling good, I'm feeling great, I'm feeling inspired. There's things you're talking about writing a book. Hey, that's something I've been talking about forever. I am so thankful for you and would love to have you as a guest again, especially when your new book comes out, because I definitely want to read it. And I'd love to have you come on and talk about it or just come talk about whatever anytime. If you got something that you feel that you want to say and you want to share, hopefully by the end of this, you know that it's a safe space because there's so many bag ladies out here, so many bag gentlemen out here that's carrying a lot of weight that they need to unpack. And I want to be able to be a place for people to be able to do that. Let's get here, let's unpack these issues, let's talk about them in a real way, a way that actually helps. That's just not out here sensationalizing affirmations and toxic positives, mindset, mindset. Everybody want to talk about. They don't tell you how though. They don't tell you what it looks like, they don't tell you the hard part. All you see is the end result, but you don't see the process. I want to show the process, and I appreciate you for being here and doing that and showing me your process. And yeah, I definitely gotta have you back. Share your insight and light with the world because I know I don't have to know to know that you are a dope soul out here, honey.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

So is that a yes? Will you come back? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Ebony, I really appreciate you for chopping it up with me today. Do me a favor, tell me and everyone where they can find you on social media, where they can purchase your book, how you know you can be reached, whether it's for speaking engagements, coaching, let us know.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:56

Facebook, I do have two pages. The first page, which is the main page that I actually use, is Johnson Ebony. On that picture, I have the positive wording on the picture where it says don't let fair be good reasons you give up. Okay. And then the other Facebook page would be the encouraging minds page. Okay. So that has a picture of my actual logo. You'll see a brain with a crown over top of it and angel wings outside of the brain, and it had the words encouraging minds in yellow and purple.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

I love that. I don't think I'm following that page. So I gotta be sure that I get off of here that I go do that immediately. And of course, those links will be provided in the show notes, those direct links to be able to follow Miss Ebony Johnson. Just look below and you will find all her handles, social media links, any associated links with her work, how to find your book, and which is where, where can we find and purchase your book?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

On Amazon.com. The book will be it'll upload to Kindle, Embracing Mental Freedom. And then once this book is finished, this I'm trying to get the physical copies to get out.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

That's it. I'll let you take us away. Is there uh anything you'd like to leave us with before you go? I'll let you have the floor.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:20

One thing that I leave with each and every person that I speak into is that we all have amazing potential that is brought before us. And thinking back on all the personal experiences that I've had to overcome, and just realize how resilient and strong the human spirit really is. Gaining that priceless knowledge about the value of integrity, the necessities of speaking up for what's right, whether it's you or someone else that you see going through something that you feel like that you should be standing up for. Face the hardships head on, keep speaking your truth. Those experiences is what will create the courage and hope for you to create a better future for tomorrow. Also, share your story because sharing your story will encourage and empower you to embrace your own resilience and maintain integrity. So look for help when you need it. Each and every single last one of us possess the ability to overcome the fortitude to endure and the bravery to turn hardship into victory.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

Yes, that's a word for you right there. Thank you. Thank you for leaving it with me. Because look, that's definitely something that I needed to hear. And I know somebody out there needed to hear as well. Once again, Miss Ebony, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for tuning in and just being a part of the Mambaron Unfiltered Podcast today. I truly hope your day is nothing less than pleasant, sis.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:05

Yes, yes, ma'am. Thank you. You too.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

Thank you. Well, kings and queens, here we are on the other side. How are you doing? I know that today's conversation included some heavy topics, some that may have been hard to digest mentally, that is. I pray that this episode was impactful, that it helped someone feel less alone in this world. We are all humans living the human experience on different levels and to different degrees. Just because my testimony does not look like yours does not minimize my experience. And neither does mine minimize yours. Don't you just love the expression? And I quote, it could be worse. End quote. Get the get out of here with that noise. What's understood don't need to be said. We all know things can be worse. Some of you listening now may live in an alternate reality where colonization, corruption, economic disparity, war, starvation, second or even third world conditions are your reality on top of living the human experience. It is a spectrum. Polar opposites do exist. It's all relative. This caste system we find ourselves existing in. I don't expect from you no more than I expect from anyone else to understand or even relate to my plight. I only ask for empathy. Not sympathy, empathy. But how can one have empathy? Empathy, understanding if they cannot relate. I believe it begins with the foundational knowledge that we are all humans, and humans have emotions. We all collectively feel hope, greed, hate, jealousy, anger, sadness, enjoyment, rage, happiness, love. On and on and on the list of emotions can go. No matter your race, gender, nationality, station in life, we are all the same in that respect. When we can understand that, we can begin to have empathy for our fellow brother, our fellow sister, for humankind, and begin to work together for change. Change in our communities, change in our governments, in our world. After all of that, I hope you get the point of it all. And if you don't, well, I got some work to do. I got to find a better way. I am not going to hold you. I have so much to say, but I'll save it for another episode. I know listening to anyone for any length of time can wear you down. So I pride myself on delivering you higher vibrational content that activates and elevates so much so that you haven't realized you've been down rabbit holes with your girl for well over an hour. And that's if you took this ride in one go. I don't ever want any of you to feel like you've been on this ride for too long. By offering you an authentic and traditional podcast experience, you can take me anywhere and listen to me anytime. You can turn me on or off at will. Knowing that one can press play and pick up right where they left off is kind of dope to me. So believe me when I say I am truly thankful for your time, attention, and all the love you show Mombaran and Filter. Big love for today's dope soul, Miss Ebony Johnson. She played no games with your girl. Ebony, with no real prepping from me, jumped down the rabbit hole and shed a much needed light on the importance of mental health awareness and treatment. She shared a profound and powerful testimony that I declare will help inspire and motivate those with an ear to hear and a desire for change. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to connect and chop it up with her. If you love the gems she was dropping, be sure to check out those show notes and click her links. Those links will take you directly to her social media and also to Amazon.com where you can purchase and download her ebook, Embracing Mental Freedom, a great read for anyone dealing with workplace and life exhaustion. I will be getting my copy, along with her new book with Titles in the Works by September 11th of this year. Are you following Mambaran Unfiltered? If not, now's your chance. Look below and click links to every one of Mambaron Unfiltered social media. Take time and do all of that free stuff to support your favorite girl by following, liking, sharing, subscribing, downloading Mambaran Unfiltered on all of the places you listen and stream your favorite music and podcasts. Reviews are highly appreciated. They ensure that this podcast becomes and stays relevant. You can do that by rating the show. Give a girl a five-star review because hey, I'm a five-star chick. But seriously, take the time to rate my baron and filter. If ever for whatever reason you feel away about the content I produce, holla at me. But come correct. My email and WhatsApp number has been provided for exactly that reason. With that said, kings and queens, your girl is gonna hop off the mic and get back to work on that next episode. Wait for me. Until then, you know the vibes. Be good, be safe, stay healthy, and drink your water. Water is life. Peace. Oh, before I forget, stay tuned for an important message. It is important to remember that mental health conditions, abuse, suicide, and trauma are serious issues that require professional help and support. If you or someone you know is struggling with any of these challenges, please seek help immediately. There are resources available to provide assistance and guidance during difficult times. You can reach out to the following organizations for help. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-TALK. That is 1-800-8255-4-247 Confidential Support for individuals in distress or crisis. National Domestic Violence Hotline. Call 1-800-799-SAFER. That's 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support information resources related to domestic violence. National Alliance on Mental Illness. Visit www.nami.org or call one-eight hundred-nine five zero NAMI or six two six four for information, support, and resources related to mental health conditions. RAIN that stands for rape abuse and incest national network. Call 1-800-656-HO. Once again, that's 1-800-656-4673. Call them for confidential support and resources for survivors of sexual assault. Remember, you are not alone, and there are people who care about you and want to help. Please do not hesitate to reach out for support when you need it. Peace, love, and light.