Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Ep 128: Coming home to a changed self with Kindall Tyson
What happens to your identity when you return to a place that once felt like home but now feels foreign? In this profound conversation, therapist Kindall Tyson opens up about her journey of repatriation after spending six years building a life and career in Beijing, China.
Kindall shares raw, vulnerable insights into the unexpected challenges of coming home—from the financial shock of American healthcare and housing costs to deeper questions about identity and belonging. "Success is equated with education. I have that. Money? I'm doing that financially. But I'm still single. I don't have children. I don't have a home," she reflects, highlighting how cultural expectations around success can feel suffocating after experiencing freedom abroad.
The conversation evolves beyond personal experience into a deeper exploration on cultural responsiveness in therapy. Both clinicians explore how our cultural backgrounds permeate everything we do and how we perceive others unless we consciously examine our biases. "I can't extrapolate race and gender from my experience as a Black woman," Kindall explains. "That informs literally every interaction that I have with people, intended or unintended."
This episode offers wisdom for anyone navigating cultural transitions, identity shifts, or seeking to deepen their cultural responsiveness as clinicians. Kindall reminds us that cultural awareness isn't a destination but "an ongoing decision" requiring continuous curiosity and compassion—for others and ourselves. Whether you're an expatriate, a therapist working with diverse populations, or simply someone navigating life's transitions, this conversation offers validation and a roadmap for finding yourself when everything feels foreign.
Check out Kindall's work at aspirecounselingwell.com and follow her on Instagram at @aspire_counselingwell to learn about her upcoming support groups for educators and affirmation cards for travelers.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
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www.bethtrammell.com
All right, listener, welcome back. I'm your host, dr Beth Trammell. I'm glad you're here today. I am back with my most wonderful, most amazing guests that I just look forward to seeing, and y'all. I should have pushed record at the very beginning because it would have been so fun to just hear like the excitement from our just initial first 10 minutes. But Kendall Tyson is back again and I'm so grateful.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I'm always always so grateful that clinicians take time out of their schedules to be here and, Kindall, you're one that I just, I'm just so grateful you're here. So we are. We have so many topics that we always love to talk about, but today in particular, we are going to tackle a topic that I think probably we needed to talk about a long time ago and not we like you and I, but just as a training director for me, I think this is a conversation that's starting to happen, I think, more often, but probably needed to happen when I was in training and when my mentors were in training, and so I'm really excited about this conversation. So, kindall, thank you for saying yes to being here. If you could introduce yourself to listeners and then, as always, tell us one fun thing about you, yes.
Kindall Tyson:Well, one thank you for having me again. I always love being able to connect and commune and chat and catch up and talk mental health with you. I'm Kendall Tyson. I am the owner of Aspired Counseling and Wellness Center, a therapy and consulting practice.
Kindall Tyson:I am an education advocate, mental health advocate and I'll say many other things, but we have a time limit. I'll say my fun fact I have recently been repatriated back to the US for 10 months and two days, and it has been a journey that I absolutely need to write about. You know, following conversations that we've had before, I've shared that I lived in Beijing, China, for six years doing mental health work out there, school counseling work out there, and so making the decision to come back to the United States was a big one and that's a fun fact about me. The repatriation struggle.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:So you're saying words that I probably would have to Google. So could you describe what repatriating means, both by definition, but then also maybe even just share a little bit about what this process has been for you? Because I know every time we kind of connect or chat you always have this little itch in you to sort of be back abroad, and so I know this really is a process for you. So break it down for us.
Kindall Tyson:Yeah, so repatriation is essentially when an expat or expatriate someone I'm a United States citizen, I lived in Beijing for six years, so I'm an expatriate outside of the US living Repatriation is the return to one person's home country or, you know, passport country, and so, returning to the United States, repatriation. You know, as a clinician, I much of a journey, spiritually, identity-wise, life-meaning-wise it was going to be. I've been graciously staying with my parents at my big age of 43. Thank you, mom and dad. Um, so I'm I'm super grateful for them, right, that that was like a burden relieved, that relieved for me not having to come back because rent is astronomical, but that's a whole other conversation you know, I can go on many tangents.
Kindall Tyson:It is ridiculous. And so I think one of the big shockers for me was being in beijing. I really everything was covered, like transportation, my housing, my insurance, you know and then I had more leisure time to spend things on, you know, self-care and you know, traveling and saving money and massages weekly because that's just something that I need. And so, coming back, it has been a huge shock to my system that I'm having to pay $2,200 in rent and my private insurance no, my insurance through the marketplace as a private practice owner is $500. And I got a new car. I haven't driven a car in like six years and it's just a lot.
Kindall Tyson:It was a lot to come back to and I found myself wholly overwhelmed, like most days I literally have commandeered my parents' dining room because I'm moving in two weeks to a new city and it's my office space. My nieces come visit and they're like Titi, why is this place so junky? I'm like y'all. This is like six years of stuff that's accumulated. But I say all that to say there have been many days like I'm really proud of myself because I was terribly afraid of coming back, not knowing who I would be to myself. Right, such a huge part of my identity is wrapped up in Kendall the international traveler, the international educator, the international speaker, the one that people follow on Facebook when I'm in Bali, and I let them see where I am right and I really had to kind of think about myself in terms of my identity hasn't shifted. I'm just in a different space, because freedom matters so much to me.
Kindall Tyson:There are many days when my parents who've not seen breakdowns in a while I would be in here like typing, and I just I'd be so overwhelmed I just start crying and they're shook because they're not used to seeing me in that space of what do I do now? I don't know what to do. I'm kind of stuck because there's so many things that I could do and I struggle with starting Once I'm in the flow. I'm in the flow, it's just the starting that kind of gets me, but it's a journey, one that I'm glad I'm in the flow. It's just the starting that kind of gets me, but it's a journey, one that I'm glad I'm taking, one that I'm learning a lot from, and I feel like I've just scratched the surface.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Honestly, this isn't even what we came on to talk about, but I just I think there's so much to relate to in that and I am always so grateful that you're in such a vulnerable place to be able to share, like, yeah, it's a real struggle, I mean, I think there's always this temptation for, I think, for a lot of people. But I think, as therapists, we sometimes, I mean, I just think sometimes it's hard to be vulnerable with the things we're struggling with, because people are like well, why would I, you know, come to see you if you can't even keep it together? You know, but therapists are humans too, and so I just I'm so grateful and I I love this conversation or this, this sort of pondering around when we put ourselves in, you know, situations that stretch us right. So you lived in Beijing for six years and while that was its own stretch, it sounds like there is even more stretching, or maybe not more, maybe just additional stretching. That happens when you come back, and I'm curious about how you find support with that.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I think about my own life, right, when I've come back, and they've been shorter trips and I still have some of this sort of like culture shock. So what you're kind of talking about is like just kind of an extended version of culture shock, because you're you're sort of gone longer, Right, I don't know if I'm probably maybe not saying it as beautifully as you do, but, um, you come home and you have this culture shock, but the people around you are like, well, you're Beth again, Right. So like you're just Beth and you just came home and, even though you've been gone, you're just Beth and how do you like, how have you been able to, like communicate with people about that?
Kindall Tyson:yeah, oh, that's a really good question. I can feel like my emotions like creeping up. Um, I've noticed like my parents have made, you know, time to sit and listen Um, that's been the biggest thing. And my sister, who, uh, is used to travel. My sister is like a retired professional athlete who's traveled the world since she was in middle school running track, so she has a perspective and an understanding and she makes time to listen to me when I need to like process or just vent. My best friend, who we've been best friends since college, she and we intentionally stay connected while I was abroad. Um, I think the biggest thing that I've noticed is I have been trying to be really intentional about staying connected to my friends abroad because they've seen me like they know a whole, nother version of me. They know me, yeah.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:In a different context. Yes.
Kindall Tyson:And I would say they know me in a context of feeling more free. They know me in a context of being a bit more healed and a bit more of a risk taker. I never saw myself as those things like as a risk taker, and then I really had to think about it. Girl, you move clearly to a whole nother continent across the world. You're absolutely a risk taker, right. And so, coming back, I think one of the biggest things that I noticed was nobody's lives paused just because pause, just because you know I left and everyone else's life is still progressing.
Kindall Tyson:Even though I returned and sometimes, you know, at 43, there are, you know, things that I'd like in my life, and even though I've been able to travel the world so many different places, meet so many people you know, advocate and educate about mental health in multiple countries, different cultures, I still felt a sense of inadequacy when I returned, that my life didn't mirror those of the people in my generation that everyone considers to be successful. I'm a Black, southern woman. Success is equated with education. I have that, you know, money. I'm doing that financially, but I'm I'm still single. I don't have children, um, I don't have a home. I'm a millennial. We're in the generation that's been through how many recessions? Um, so it's really just a shift in understanding that some people get it and some people don't.
Kindall Tyson:And giving myself grace to work with professionals psychological professionals that have an understanding of like this shift in how I care for myself, now that I'm back in the States and I was like I'm heavily politically active, right, and so just with the turn of things it's been a lot. It's just I don't even know how else to articulate it. It is literally a day by day thing, because one day I'll be good, the next day I'll be longing, the next day I'm looking up flights. I can do like six months in Spain, you know, with the Shenzhen visa I can find something. I know people everywhere in the world, and so then it's like I reel myself back because when I'm in that headspace I feel like I'm running from something that's difficult here, and so I just have to make a lot of space for myself to sit with my feelings and sit with the urge to run and address. I have to address what comes up. So I don't even know if I answered the question. It's just so many things.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I just I love it because I think I, just I. I love it because I think I think you're talking about the real things. You know that people experience but probably hardly ever talk. I just think we, we just are like how was your trip? Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're home. It's probably great to be home and I know you're living with your parents, but I'm sure it's great because you're going to be saving up and you're going to move into your own place. And I mean people just that's just that's just how people interact and it's like, yeah, that's great and lovely and people are excited to see you, but it's like it is such a deep, it is a deep transformation from what you're describing that it's not just like, oh, yeah, hippity, hop on a plane and come back and you're just like the same person you were six years ago.
Kindall Tyson:Absolutely One of the things. Like I would consider it a failure if I were to come back to Texas after six years and still be in the same space headspace perspective that I was six years and still be in the same space headspace perspective that I was six years ago. Like that to me would be an absolute failure. And I know, like going abroad, I had to grow up. I chose to do things that were going to help me to. I mean, I've always been independent.
Kindall Tyson:But it's just different when you're really fending for yourself on a whole nother country, building community, building a business. You know, um, I'm having to connect with people to build a sense of belonging, not just for yourself but other people. Um, but, yeah, coming back, uh, people, I think some people try to understand, um, but I'm absolutely not the same person. I am a more evolved version. I love myself more. I think I understand myself more and there's been an emergence of, I think, with not necessarily being in so much survival mode and there were things that I experienced that put me in survival mode abroad, because everything wasn't perfect, but I did have time and space to kind of relax into myself and through that, you know, still working with, you know, my therapist. Just things that happened to me over the years before I left for, you know, college in China kind of reemerged in my consciousness and so I've been having to process and work through those things which really shift um and inform how I'm connecting with people here now. But yeah, I definitely say I'm, I'm more, I'm definitely more evolved, I've, I think I'm in more alignment with what I want for myself in my life.
Kindall Tyson:There are days when I'm absolutely confused Do I settle for the thing that the world tells me I need to have at being a successful Black woman at 43? Or do I lean more into the thing that makes sense for me and for me that centers around my partnership and children? I'm going to be successful business-wise Like that's not for me and for me that centers around my partnership and children. I'm going to be successful business-wise Like that's not an issue.
Kindall Tyson:I think I've just become more in alignment with the fact that the things that work for me are outside of the norm for other people in the space that I grew up and honestly, I feel like I've always been like that. I've always been outside the norm and I'm learning to be comfortable with that and just living abroad, traipsing around China, flying to Shanghai, hanging out in Dubai, walking through the park in Singapore, educating people in Bali. Just my mind is just so much more like. The aperture of my understanding is just so much more wider, learning how to contain it so that I don't feel so overwhelmed so often, because I find myself overwhelmed so often with what next and what now and how do I aspire to something bigger and better in the context of being in the US and with everything that's happening, and I don't have an answer to that.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Well, I mean that, first of all, I'm just like so inspired hearing you talk. I'm just like, just keep going, I don't even need to be here, just insert anything else. You just have so many things to say. But, as you're, you know, describing this like this freedom and this bigness that you know you were experiencing there. And then you actually were like, and then I have to confine all of that here and you know, I think that's so fascinating to kind of think about that process of how do I take what you're saying, like, how do I take this thing that I kind of know that I am and then have to like fit it into some sort of box or fit it into some sort of like set of expectations. And you know, if you're listening and you're like, oh, nobody has to fit into any kind of box, you know, I just like I'm I'm listening, I'm hearing voices of people who are like the naysayers of the thing right, but that's not truth.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Like the truth is not. You can be whatever you want to be, kendall, I mean, that's like that's so barf in my mouth, it's utopian right, it's not real.
Kindall Tyson:No, no, because there's somebody telling me that I like growing up I was told that, but then you know being a precocious and I, and so I I say all that to say it centers back to like the original conversation of like cultural responsiveness. I can't extrapolate like race and gender. From my experience as a black woman, that informs literally every interaction that I have with people, intended or unintended. And so with that there's this expectation, especially in the city that I'm from and the parents that I have and I like just the things that I've wanted for myself, that, yes, you can aspire to be the things that align with you. You want to be also understanding that there are constructs outside of your control that some may allow it, some may not. And then how do you pivot, how do you? How do you manage that disappointment, expectation, um, reality, um, interpretation, reality, yeah, that's not real.
Kindall Tyson:And even being abroad, in the schools that I worked in, with the organizations that I worked in, I often found myself being the only Black woman in those spaces, in leadership spaces, in the schools, and that's a lot for a lot of people to process. You know, culturally and understanding-wise, and I am heavy into being a culturally responsive clinician, educator, creating spaces of belonging. That is foundational to all the work that I do in an educational setting and in a clinical setting. And for people to really have to and myself included take a look at themselves and assess, come to terms with and choose to make some changes. That's a lot, that's asking a lot of people, that some people are ready to do until it hurts and some people are like, nope, and how do you manage that? So yeah, the confines of others I have found to be pretty restrictive, and then I've noticed my desire for acceptance and understanding. I think I've restricted myself as well, cause being like an outlier feels very lonely sometimes when you're trying to wonder why, oh why don't I just sit?
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:why can't I just sit, yeah, I hear my mother in my head right now.
Kindall Tyson:You were never born to sit. You were always the one to stand out, I'm like, but why, yeah? Um, so yeah, I think it's that internal, my own desire for acceptance and understanding of others, for others to accept and understand me as I am, as I'm still trying to figure out who that person is, even at 43. It's a lot. I feel like I've just said a whole lot of stuff and I love that this is always our.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I mean, this is just always how the conversation goes right, where it's like we kind of come in with like this broad idea. But this is always the thread, this is always the thread for you, right. That, I think, is always so beautiful that, as a profession, the thing that I can't shout enough and I'm grateful that you, you know, just say it so eloquently that when we are learning to be culturally responsive, it is forever that you are constantly seeking, reflecting, learning, educating, seeking, reflecting, educating. I mean it is constant. And I'm not sure you know we're taught and this is how we were going to, this is how we kind of started, right, that, like, we're all taught this biopsychosocial model of wellness, right, and so as clinicians, we should be understanding a person's sort of biology or like kind of their physical makeup. We want to think about the psychological aspect of things and then, obviously, the social aspect of every person. And I think the thread that you always weave beautifully is that cultural responsiveness should overlay all of those things, right, because, to what you said, like you can't separate your experience with race and gender, to like to any experience you ever have in like the whole world every day right, and so it's not. They're not two separate constructs. If I'm trying to understand a person's physical makeup, I have to be able to thread it through the lens of culture. And I think you know, and the head, because of my own culture, and whether that is my whiteness, whether it's my gender, whether it's my marital status, whether it's, you know, my family and how I was raised as a child, like that culture permeates me and it influences everything I do, unless I pause to stop it from permeating everything I do.
Kindall Tyson:Yeah, and can you Like? Can you even do that? I think you can be aware, yeah. Because it's not always going to be like that. I think in most cases, it's not an unhelpful experience or influence. I think there are some times when our cultural understanding can be unhelpful, yeah, but in the most part it's what's helped us to get to this point the traditions, the understandings, how we care for ourselves, how we connect, how we bond, um, how we move through the world, um.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:But yeah, I don't even know if I don't even know what that would look like, to do that I don't either, except like I find moments where I'm pausing judgment, or like things I'm going to say about a judgment that I have that I'm like actually that's not real, like that's just my own culture that's telling me that that's true, but that's not actually true here, right, doesn't this? This particular situation isn't bad or wrong, though my experience because I think everything that happened to me is right, even though clearly it wasn't right, but it's like that's our natural default is my way is right. Thus everything else is wrong. And stepping away from that dichotomy and thinking like right or wrong, I think is a really hard thing. I think we're really trained to be like well, there's a right way and a wrong way and there's nothing in between.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:And I think it's the real work of therapy for us a lot to be like. Well, things can be true at one time yeah, that part.
Kindall Tyson:I literally find myself saying that in every therapy session that.
Kindall Tyson:I have, um, and you know, even with myself, you know, as we're reflecting back on like repatriation, that I can be absolutely excited about being back. I'm not even okay, being honest, well, I'm always honest. I am not necessarily excited about being back. I'm not even okay, being honest, well, I'm always honest, I am not necessarily excited about being back in the United States. I think it is a crapshoot right now for a variety of reasons. But I am wholly excited about being able to reconnect with my family.
Kindall Tyson:See my nieces grow, attend all their birthdays just buy them stuff like crazy. See my best friend just, you know, life evolves and I'm still having this intense desire to be on a beach reading a book in, you know, madrid, because I feel safer, I feel more like myself outside of the contiguous United States. I can be like grieving this experience that I know I need to feel like myself and be excited about the things that are happening and evolving for me and other people now that I'm back in the US. So, yeah, having people to understand that dueling reality is essentially where we live, like the gray, getting used to the gray and comfortable with the gray, is a must.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:But it's the hardest thing, probably the hardest thing.
Kindall Tyson:Like how are these opposing realities? How do they exist peaceably? Well, I don't even know if peaceably, depending on the situation. Is that if? Is that even a goal, or is it more of an awareness and accept it?
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:yeah, I mean because, to your point, like, can we even do that? It is almost like I just have to have that awareness, accept that that's, and then I have to just like continue into the next moment. You know, I think that that's the part that I heard as you were just describing, you know your experience of like grieving, you know some of the experiences that you're still sort of craving, and also the excitement, and so it's like I think one of the things we talk about in therapy a lot is helping folks recognize that emotions are fleeting, right. So grief is a process that can be lifelong.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:So I'm not saying like well, grief happens and 45 seconds later you're over it, but it's like I think sometimes we just forget that like the emotion itself isn't meant to stay with us forever.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:It's supposed to kind of come, teach us something, bring awareness to something, and then it's it sort of passes and then it it may come back again, but emotions by themselves are, are meant to be fleeting, because from an evolutionary perspective, we can't hold emotions for that long and still remain Right. I mean, we just can't live that way. So I don't know, I just think about that as we're kind of talking about this, yeah, this whole thing. I just there's so many places my brain wants to go, but I know we have like 10 minutes left and so we only just talked about like the main idea that we wanted to talk about. And so I'm like, okay, do I want to take Kindle back to that, or do we want to just like? I think these things are all related to what we're talking about in terms of this biopsychosocial model, but maybe not as directly as you thought you were going to say when you first came into this episode.
Kindall Tyson:I know right, I know. I think like, if I'm looking at it from like, a clinician perspective, any therapist that I work with you don't necessarily have to have lived abroad. There has to be space to understand the shift, like, how big of a shift it is for those of us who make the decision to leave family, leave the comfort of home and that comfort is different for everyone and forge, like, our own path. I feel like I've always been a trailblazer, like in my life period. I tend to create my own path in most cases, which can be filled with many cuts as you journey, something that nobody that you know has done before. And I related back, like to like I guess I could say the biopsychosocial model, to know that you're having to like recreate a life for yourself in so many other ways. And so the life that you, I think of it. Okay, I promise, obviously it's gonna make sense. I think of it. It's like second language learners. Uh, used to be an english teacher. So when, when a student is learning English right, when they have a strong command of their native language, it makes it easier for them to acquire English right. And so I say that, to say that when there's a strong foundation from your like family of origin or where you're.
Kindall Tyson:You know moving from. You have a good understanding of yourself. Your motivations are more of I'm moving towards, something that I'm running from, something I'm not trying to escape. You are skilled at connecting and building community, putting putting yourself out there. I feel like when you have a healthy foundation and those skills and those soft skills and then you move somewhere else, you become an expatriate in another country, another culture. You have a foundation, so it's easier. It's not easy. Yeah, yeah, easier. You have a foundation, so it's easier. It's not easy, but it's easier to adopt and to be able to do those things because you have an understanding of what that looks like in a safe space, and so in this big expansive world it's less frightening. And so then, socially, you know how to connect with people. You know where to go to get your needs met, psychologically and physically. You know like exercise is important. You know how to connect with communities. You know where to go to get your needs met. Psychologically and physically, you know like exercise is important. You know how to connect with communities. In that regard, you know how to stay connected to your family of origin so that you're, you are still able to process and continue relationships, um, and it's just all the intersectionality of it all. It's kind of like when you remove one thing, something else is going to be impacted and that feels overwhelming.
Kindall Tyson:And I think that as clinicians we definitely have to do we need better training on cultural responsiveness and grad programs and our supervision things. As a supervisor, I'm trying to learn to be better at embedding those types of skills hard skills, soft skills into the work that I'm doing with associates and other school counselors, especially where we are in the world right now, there's just so much happening. I'm getting clients daily that are like what do I do? What do I do?
Kindall Tyson:And as a clinician, it's like what you're experiencing and I don't tell them this, obviously, but what you're experiencing, like the fears and frustrations that you have, we have those too. In addition to kind of helping you through yours, we have to work through them ourselves and hopefully with support. So like everything just connects and if we don't know how to see the human humanness, the humanity, the empathetic, the understanding, unpack our own biases, because we all have them, and just learn more about the communities that we serve. We do the role of disservice. We do our clients a disservice. We do ourselves a disservice. I hope that made sense.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Definitely did. I loved your sort of conversation around like if we have this foundation, then it does make it easier wherever you sort of replant right. So if you're going to go somewhere else or be somewhere else or, you know, live in a different community or go to a different job, like when you have this foundation within this biopsychosocial model, you know the things you have to do to physically be well, to psychologically be well, to socially be well. It just takes a rebuilding. But if the foundation is still strong, then you know how you build the structure around. Whatever you know your next sort of confined space might look like that matters.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I think the thing I hear also is becoming and continually practicing cultural responsivity just is an ongoing like like this curiosity.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I mean I know that you just like exude curiosity all the time and so my detriment.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:Sometimes I, girl, I am right there like and you know both of us and our big dreams, and you know we're gonna talk about your big dreams coming up here in just a second but, um, yeah, I mean it takes this curious mindset to be like okay, so then how does this person's culture impact these things?
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:How does my culture impact the way I see this person in front of me, the way I see, see their response, the way I see you know their decisions, the way I kind of feel in relationship with them, is all impacted by culture, yeah, and is ever changing. I mean, I think that's the part that you were saying earlier is like, you know, you don't want to be the same person you were six years ago and it would certainly be a fail if you came back from being abroad. You know kind of the same person and so I think the other thing you said was you know we've got people trying to figure us out and how they could respond to us in a culturally responsive way, when I'm still figuring out kind of who I am as a cultural being, right.
Kindall Tyson:Absolutely Right.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:How do we unpack that?
Kindall Tyson:in the last two minutes of the episode, oh, my goodness. Well, of course we're going to meet again, because we are, we just have to. Yeah, it's ongoing, if, if I can say anything that resonates with people listening, it is an ongoing decision. I love that word. Right, it's a choice, because you can choose to be mired in, you know your own belief and construct, and I think that does harm when we aren't culturally curious as clinicians because we don't know who's going to walk through the door and what their experience is going to be we may be like phenotypically the same.
Kindall Tyson:we may come from, like the same neighborhoods, but our experiences are going to be vastly different because of things that have occurred in our lives and the subcultures that we belong you know a part of and so doing the work, being open, being curious, being empathetic and giving yourself grace, being self-compassionate. As you recognize, unlearn and relearn is really important, and don't resist the unlearning part, like acknowledging that you know some things that we may have been taught and experienced may have been useful for us in certain periods in our lives, but it's like my, my Angela, said when you know better, you do better. So the more you know, be open to learning and evolving. Yeah, we can ask our clients to grow and change and choose to be healthier and not do it as professional.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I just, I have so many things that I just want to keep talking about. Okay, so because people are going to be curious about you and all the work you do and all the letters behind your name, because I'm, I just love, I just love your, I just love your whole soul. So how can people find you? And what cool things do you have kind of on the simmering pot right now?
Kindall Tyson:Okay, well, you can, you know, go to my website, join our newsletter aspire counseling wellcom. I'm definitely doing better with, you know, putting information content out there. You can follow us on Instagram at aspire underscore counseling Well. I am on Facebook Same business name aspire counseling Well. And LinkedIn as well, if you want to connect professionally. And YouTube same handle aspire underscore counseling Well.
Kindall Tyson:Some things that have simmering lots of things, because that's just how my brain works. I have simmering lots of things, because that's just how my brain works, I think, right now, because we're at such, especially where I am in Texas, we're at such an inflection point as it relates to equitable education and we're one of the worst states for mental health access. So that's always a thing for me. I'm at the intersection of education and mental health and so, having been an educator before, I'm really focusing on providing mental health support to educators nationwide, but specifically, for sure, in the state of Texas, and I'm still trying to decide, you know, do I want homogenous groups? Do I want more, you know, mixed groups, probably more homogenous, so that we can create safety and community in that regard. So I'll be offering some support groups in the coming weeks.
Kindall Tyson:I think my first one is later to begin, in June, if I'm not mistaken, and I am a writer, am a writer, so I've created, like this, deck of affirmation cards for world travelers, you know, aspiring travelers, anyone that likes to get out of their community, that can be traveling to the next state, the next city, move right, see something different, um, to help us expand our minds, to help us to recognize that the world is big and we belong in it, and to help reframe our thinking. So those are, I think, right now, two of the things that I'm really looking forward to putting out in the world.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I look forward to seeing the things you're putting out in the world and promoting it in whatever way I can, because I think the work you're doing is incredible, and I'm just grateful that you're doing the work, but also grateful that I get to share space with you every so often.
Kindall Tyson:I'm going to send you a card deck.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I would love that, and I was just recording an episode with my the editor. Actually, he came on to talk about how to create a podcast and he was talking about you know how much I talk about my kids?
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:And I'm like, oh, this is perfect Because I'm gonna just use this with my children and they're gonna love me and just need more therapy because I'm their mother and I lunch and they were like, mom, what questions are you going to ask us now? To just therapy eyes us and I'm like, I just want to know, like your whole heart and soul mom, what questions are you going? To ask us now to just therapy eyes us and I'm like, I just want to know, like your whole heart and soul oh, I love it, I love it. I love it.
Kindall Tyson:We're kids, kendall, I don't even know, I'm just going to send them to you. Send them on, send them on. Send them on, please.
Dr. Beth Trammell, PhD, HSPP:I need another good person to take them. Anyway, listen, listen, I appreciate you so much for saying yes and I can't wait until the next time when you come back and, um, listener, I'm great for you. All grateful for you also. Um, the work that we get to do is to hopefully help listeners like you that you're here. So, candle, thank you, and it's always a pleasure, and until next time, stay safe, stay well, ciao friends.
