Welcome to the black Marriage and Family Therapy matters podcast where we connect black families to black therapist. On Mondays, you will receive direct therapeutic support from a licensed therapist or professional connected to the mental health field. They will provide therapeutic and educational resources to help you have a healthier relationship with your family members. On Wednesdays, you will receive direct tips and resources to help you get through the stuck places that prevent many people from having relationships with their families and significant others that they desire. On Fridays, we want you to visit our blog which can be found at WWW dot black MFT matters.com which holds additional resources and action steps that you can begin implementing immediately to improve your relationships. This is necessary because we love that you are listening. But we want you to take action to while you are there. Please grab our A to Z relationship bootcamp and be provided with the skills you need to immediately communicate better within your relationships. Please note that while the therapists on podcasts are therapists, they do not serve as your therapist unless you have signed a confidential agreement with them confirming that relationship. Thank you in advance for listening. And we hope you are inspired. All right. It’s time for the show. Here is your host, Dr. Connie Omari.
Dr. Connie Omari
Hey, hey, hey, and welcome to the black Marriage and Family Therapy matters podcast where we connect black families to black therapist. Today’s guest is Janisha Mickens Ingram. Hi Janisha!
Janisha Mickens
Hey, how are ya?
Dr. Connie Omari
I’m good. How are you?
Janisha Mickens
I’m blessed. Blessed can’t complain what good well to do anyway, right there you good? What good would it do?
Dr. Connie Omari
Exactly. Listen, I’m going to introduce you to our guest today. Is that okay?
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
Absolutely. Let’s go.
Dr. Connie Omari
Awesome. Janisha Mickens Ingram, also known as Nish was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and resides in Compton, California. Tanisha graduated from Crenshaw High and shortly married at the early age of 21, and has two beautiful children. Tanisha has been in the mental health field for over 16 years. She is currently working her own private practice and leads at a Wellness Center as a therapist, but most importantly as a human, her ability to connect and relate with almost any one no matter their race, gender, culture, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or age. Tanisha specializes in assisting those who suffer from lack of self esteem, codependency, attachment or detachment issues, decrease of self worth, depression, anxiety and all around fear of success. Her main focus is breaking generational patterns with empowerment, perseverance, and igniting resiliency. She is a firm believer that therapy is a place where you can be transparent with no judgment, a safe place where you can be your authentic self, I’d like to introduce to you Janisha Mickens Ingram.
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
Hi. Oh my god, this is awesome. Yo, yo, you just fired me all the way? Yeah, like, oh, that’s me.
Dr. Connie Omari
That is you that is you content. Awesome. come through, come through. Well, before we begin, we’ve heard all a lot of stories about in California. I myself have never I’ve never even been to the West Coast. Can you believe that?
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
Oh, wow. Well, because we don’t we don’t travel that much either. And I live in California since a lot of places I haven’t been.
Dr. Connie Omari
But I have to say, you know, from what the media has heard of concert, and what we hear the mere fact that you are a professional, and the fact that you are doing your thing to inspire this community is so awesome. So can you tell me a little bit about how you were able to just work through some of the barriers and in being a counselor today?
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
One of the main reasons why I chose to work at my community is because a lot of individuals choose not to go to therapy or go seek assistance because they don’t have anyone that looks like them. It’s important to be able to see someone in the mirror that not only can you know relate in race and culture, but also understand that the trials and errors and possible conflicts of living in an environment that we live in, in our society, urban at They societies are environments. So that was my goal. Yes, I can go work anywhere. As a therapist, right or financially, it will be more gainful. So to do so, however, if we all choose to go for the where the money resides, you know, hello.
Janisha Mickens
How are we gonna heal our community? And not saying that? No, I don’t want money, yes, I want financial gains, too. But it’s so many different ways that we can do that within our community. And with the work we do. So I work in the Wilson Center, that is literally five minutes away. And my private practice is solely me, but I’m contracted and that office is in Santa Monica. So I’m still in, you know, the rural areas, but also, I’m available to anyone because I work from home as a private practice, individual, I can work with anyone, right most, most, a lot of my clients are not even African American. Wow, at the Wellness Center, they are in that community, but my private practice is very, you know, it’s not exclusive to just one culture, One Race, One sexuality, one gender, I have a platform full of individuals that are amazing, despite if they look like me or not.
Dr. Connie Omari
Fantastic. Well, thank you, thank you very much for that. So, you know, just hearing what you say, some of this, you know, we have the service people this podcast is heard, I’m actually really pleased. And I was looking at our data we see that we have, we’re all over the United States, we have reached into the United Kingdom, and we are also being heard in Africa. So in all of those communities, whether it’s content, or whether it’s, you know, Crenshaw, you know, wherever people are coming from very disadvantaged, you know, it could be like a village in, in South Africa, or it can be a small, you know, overlooked community, in the United Kingdom, having come from a place where there’s a lot of maybe crying, lower income, etc, racism, all that stuff, having to break out of that.
Unknown Speaker
I like to say, I wasn’t aware of my private key growing up. I was, you know, taken care of very well by my grandmother, my grandmother raised me, my mother and father, my mother was more so part of my life, but my dad was more of the, if no, pop in pop off type of father. Yes, he brought me Jordans just, you know, you know, those typical father things that have financial gains, like I was able to get those things from him, but not it wasn’t consistent, right. And so my grandmother never showed me that, you know, you don’t have it was more like, you buy what you need, and you don’t buy it because other people have. So I never looked at it as the perception, perception of wow, I don’t have this and I don’t have that. I was okay with whatever I had, I adapt very well. And going to Crenshaw, I didn’t notice any difference between education, right? attention to it until you start getting older and probably loving to upgrade and you’re like, Okay, SATs scores, you know, was I prepare for this are, you know, why are these other schools, track teams a lot more structured aren’t, you know, just different things that you start to realize as you get older? So I think that, me breaking the cycle, and resiliency is because not because of the environment I was in, but because of the upbringing being raised by my grandmother made me see that I didn’t want to repeat the same cycle that my parents repeated, and how do I break that cycle, because that ultimately creates the environment that we live?
Dr. Connie Omari
Well, I love what you’re saying about that. And that’s a nice transition to go into our topic for today, which is breaking generational patterns, which you have clearly done, I Hill, it salute you, my queen, you’d have done this. Now I need you to speak to how we can help other people to do that as well members of our community and I say that because human behavior. I mean, we talk about that and the things that we study like you repeat what you see positive reinforcement, you get rewarded for a certain behavior based upon the responses that you get, and you do it over and over and over again. How do you recognize when something is not working, and do something different?
Unknown Speaker
Here’s the thing we know when something’s not working, we just become complacent with the fact that it doesn’t make make us as uncomfortable as change. And, and that’s something that myself, I still struggle with that right? Everyone struggles with it. But you can struggle, but still aim for change. And in our community, being brought up in single family homes, the fathers are present, but they’re not present. So they’re there, but they’re not interacting. They’re not socializing, the mothers are there, but we’re not being emotionally attached to our children. We’re more more focused on this is me personally just out my, my livelihood. So I’m being very transparent. Absolutely. The focus are, you know, right now I need to pass this exam. So my kids were neglected to emotional support as far as Okay, personal time, we didn’t have too much personal time, because I was going for something else. But finding harmony between that was like, okay, I can study these hours because they’re at school. And then when they’re off school, I’m all there. So if they say, Hey, I want to do that, it’s like, drop what you’re doing and do what they want to do, because they don’t ask for much. So it’s important for us to realize that we don’t have to become our parents story. And you didn’t get attention from your parents are you to have a good bond with your parents, that doesn’t mean that you should continue to stay in pattern because you can see how that has affected you. And so the detachment of that is, it’s hard because you’re so accustomed to not being emotionally attached to someone that is so uncomfortable, that say, Hey, I love you, or give me a hug, give me a kiss. So those are the types of things that you bring up in the beginning, like, what are your family structures? Like? What is your genogram? How does your family interact with one another? And what is it that you want to see? Do you want to see change? Because some people will say, No, I’m comfortable with what it is. But they’re there for a reason we’re coming for therapy are coming for counsel for something. And so initially, when we come for therapy, it’s not really what we come for. It’s really a family dynamic issue.
Dr. Connie Omari
I love that. I love that. So what do you do when people come for the identified client, which is sometimes the kid who’s getting expelled from school, but they’re getting expelled from school because gab has beaten mom up last night, and they’re depressed? And don’t have anybody to talk to about it?
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
Absolutely. And like I said, I’m very transparent, usually when we get children, and I’ve had several clients that come in, and they’re saying, My kid is tantrum and they need help. And eventually I say, No, you need help. happening is the children are becoming the adults are being an adult business. And they’re not differentiated. So there is no hierarchy, or the hierarchy is just transformed all over the place in your asking your children to choose sides, right? And so it becomes complicated, because now, instead of the child, being able to talk to mom and dad, they’re talking in tantrums into behaviors in school to say, helped me my parents are effed up, right? Right? Or not going right? And you can notice that in any time in your personal relationships. Say, for instance, you and your partner gets upset with each other kids feel that tension, right? And so once they feel that, they become a triangle, and we triangulate like, maybe you’re cuddling more with your your kid, or maybe you’re working a little more than you usually do, because you don’t want to address the real elephant in the room. And it feels so much better to be like, Okay, I’m being productive. And this is something I’ve done several times. So I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen to therapists, right? I’m just thinking what it really is. And once you identify, Okay, you’re doing this because you don’t want to address something. So I reflect and I go address it. Is it going to be uncomfortable? Absolutely. But who cares? I’m not going to inhale all this stuff for four years a month, and then when something small happens, it just bust up and mess up the whole family dynamic. Got it?
Dr. Connie Omari
Got it. What do you what’s one thing that you wish black families knew about their ability to break generational patterns?
Unknown Speaker
I think one of the things that are community needs to realize is that chasing the back, financial game does not give you emotional game. Yes, help, help gains, relationship gains, everything outside of something physical, you can’t take those things with you. And people only are left with memories, and relationships. And because we are so deprived financially, most of the times our focal is so off track, you know, we’re all about looking good for the ground, looking good. The to perceive that was something else I was listening to at a motivational speaker, and he was like, everyone talks about that you want to get more money, you want to get more money? What are you going to get more money for? Doing the same shit you been doing? Right, right. Like that’s it like, and yes, I like nice things, I love nice things. But I’m not gonna sacrifice savings, where I’m not gonna be able to do something that is going to give my kids experiences over me looking good for one day, right? Like, and that’s what our community needs to understand is that you don’t have to have this look to represent that you have money. Because if you look at the most wealthiest people they are in, you know, they probably have name brand stuff. But you will never know it because they were the same stuff. They look dingy or whatever. It’s the perception that they give. And I just want our community to know that the folk house is not what you can give your kids variances in the relationships that we are supposed to build with one another.
Dr. Connie Omari
Well, one is I wish I had exact statistics in front of me. But one of the biggest things that I that I know is that we’re amongst the biggest consumers in the country blacks, but yet we have the highest poverty rate.
Unknown Speaker
So we can think about it, if you look at it just off of the pandemic, right. And this is a real thing here. Everyone that add every body did a PPP, right? And if you don’t know what that is, it’s getting unemployment when you really don’t need it, right? Are you getting deserve it? Or you’re applying for these loans? That’s a lump sum. And you don’t have a smart business, right? And so not saying or judging anybody, but what did you do with the money? What did you do? What did you do with it?
Dr. Connie Omari
Right? Right.
Unknown Speaker
That’s thing yourself. Did you bring up a new business? Did you you know, are Did you are you living in a project and you’re still wearing the feeling that Gucci and hey, you ain’t got to get a house. You don’t have to buy a house. You don’t have to have your own condo. I’m not saying that. But what I’m saying is how did you elevate yourself and your family other than keeping it look and you ain’t gotta die afterwards? Selling your shit back. Right that part?
Dr. Connie Omari
I want to buy it if you sell it this is this is money to two things just one of them real quickly. I have multiple streams of income that’s a flex but I do yeah. To Be Smart with it, I try to be smart with your humble with it.
Unknown Speaker
Embrace that.
Dr. Connie Omari
So that that over Okay, excuse me in my for one of my forms of multiple streams of income. I have a cleaning business. And you know, I basically dispatch cleaning jobs to residential commercial facilities. And I just had this cleaner who just like just didn’t show up to work and I know exactly what it was it was February I think that was around the second or third stimulus check which was you know, I was like so and I ended up firing her and I put the bigger picture was I said I’m contessa you’re going to not show up to this job that you need, mind you. Because you’re getting what I think she had like eight kids. So she got she got quite a bit. You got a good chunk, not a good chunk, but I can assure you it’s gone by now. Like I’m certain. Okay, that she’s back. Okay. Yeah. And I was like, why don’t you do that? You know, in the meantime, this is something that I’ve worked hard to build, you know, I invest in it. It takes resources for you to find a recruit these clients anyway, so you can have an income. And this is the things that you’re giving me, you know, and so I just terminated her but I just it just goes to speak to what you’re saying. And my second point was A very similar issue. I have a cousin who spends a lot, it doesn’t make a lot of money. And they spend a lot of money on things like Jordans and tins. And all of this, of course, my kids are still into, like Paw Patrol, you know, a pig, some will be wheat JPY. So we buy those little cheap things, but they enjoy it. It’s fine, but it’s not cheap. It’s really not cheap when you think of not. But the more important thing is that they like it. They like if like, they don’t eat these kids don’t even know who Michael Jordan is, you know?
Janisha Mickens
You what? Right? Right. I love the fact that you brought that up because I grew up with one of my brothers. And I saw my brother was into like, the name the brand, because it was a boy he was in the streets, you know? Yeah, we get to me, on the other hand, I’ll say okay, you take your pair of Jordans and Granny take me to pay less and I can get five for one right? And I’m still low key that type of girl you can you can afford the low buttons, but they not cut the bow. Off grandparent and I’m gonna walk right. It’s all about experience like my son. He don’t care about matter that he has all these tennis shoes. Not that I brought some of them donate it because I take him down.
Dr. Connie Omari
That’s exactly what I was gonna say with my cousin. I sure I took them take me down. So I was like, yeah, now my kid’s gonna have one and I ain’t got to pay for stuff like that in our community. I don’t take me down. But I do I do.
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
I will gladly accept them. Right. Can I go buy these things? Absolutely. Right. But guess what, my pride is not going to overwhelm me like, right he loves he wears the same shoes all the time he wears these Radley Nauticus shoes that I paid $16 for he wears his crocs. Though those are the three students that he rotates in. He presses the issue if we make him put on any other kind of shoes Foamposites all these other shoes? He’s like, No, ma’am. No, sir. Match? Uh, well, I’m gonna, I’m okay with that right? Now him to be him. His authentic self is so much important. Because in this world, when I’m not here, is he gonna have to adjust to everybody else? Perception? No, he’s gonna be the kid like my daughter, like, no, just because you got it, I don’t want it.
Dr. Connie Omari
Oh, now this will be really, really important for me to make sure that I see clarity on because I know this is also important. That’s easy for us to say, when we are grown, when we’re adults, when we have been, you know, through these things, but as a child, you know, back then we didn’t have Facebook, Instagram, you know, all this stuff these kids got today. Right? So what do we say? How do we? How do we support families, when they do have children who are young, and you know, will get bullied and T’s? You know, on the one hand, you don’t want to enable that mentality, like you need that designer clothes to be poor, but you also don’t want your kid getting bullied at school. So, I mean, are there ways and strategies that you would recommend for something like that?
Unknown Speaker
So I’m a strong believer, as on it starts at home, right? So I wasn’t a branded type of person, I think I’m more into certain things like I like something and I’ll get it like, this is a certain brand that I like, I’ll continue to do it. But I’m more so like, Okay, let’s go to target, let’s go to Walmart, you want to get some shirts and stuff like that. So it starts at home. And you build that self esteem because I have a lot of clientele. A few clients that suffer from low self esteem, and social media is very detrimental to their mental health. And so what I have to bring to the forefront is, you know, personal experiences within their family. So I’ll say so pulling your family that you know, rocks, these things, and how have their relationship with their parents are, you know, how do they really act off the social media? And then I say, Okay, well imagine everyone else who’s posting. They’re depressed. They’re sad. They’re wearing a well face lie. You know, they’re showing this perception that they’re okay, but after they get off of Facebook, they’re like, Oh my God, but this is their cry to say, look, look at me, I’m fine. I’m look good for the attention that they’re not getting it at home. So it takes us a long time to get to that process. But it gets there because you have to bring real life back Ask overfilling, right? Because I look, I look at Beyonce, and I’d be looking at Taraji P. Henson. Probably more relatable, right? She could she talks to her authentic self, but she was like, Oh, here’s my Gucci here, oh, girl, not a Hayden perspective, but it’s like, Okay, now, this is another individual that deserves all of this. But now the people who can’t get it, are now trying to, you know, implement everything that she has going, but not doing the work to get there. And that may love it does, because
Dr. Connie Omari
it makes a lot of sense. Um, What can Black families learn from it, even our generational system of poverty, like, when you look when we look back and realize that our grandparents were, you know, in Jim Crow, or some of our parents or in Jim Crow, and didn’t have a lot of resources? And before that there was slavery, like, what can we learn from that today?
Unknown Speaker
So don’t be closed minded to other options, right? So for instance, we all want to buy in at the black right? By black by black, sometimes, by a black may not be it. Right? That’s just like, once a therapy, I want someone that looks like me. Absolutely. I’m a gulf. I’m a go getter for that one. But sometimes people like me, can I help you? There are some great clinicians, despite the color, the culture shock, or whatever, that can help you get to where you need. So one of the things that I want individuals to know is that be open minded to multiple options, right? Yes, go to your first option, black lives matter, black business does matter. But don’t stop your growth, because someone in your community can’t provide you the services. Right. And that makes us so complacent, where it can be two ways like most people go downtown and spend their money with agents and Hispanics. But then you have someone that you just linked up with that does the same thing. The answer price might be two, five cents more, but you think about it, they don’t have the resources that these communities have. So be open minded, that because you’re supporting my black business, that you’re paying him because I don’t have the resources that the Asian community have. I don’t have the resources that the Hispanic staff, I don’t have the linkage. So I actually every month I pay, I spend my money with a black business, right? And I don’t care what it is, I’m spending my money with them. Because I know me myself having a black business of crafting. I have to pay more money for my product.
Dr. Connie Omari
Absolutely. Absolutely. Right.
Unknown Speaker
So open minded to knowing why you’re, you’re doing this for your community and don’t pick and choose because Oh, you don’t want to pay the extra $5 from Chantal, and then you go to, then, because it’s $5 shorter, because she has, you know, Korea sending all her stuff. Like that’s just not cool.
Dr. Connie Omari
Yes. And not only that, I mean, I want to go so far as because, you know, I’ve had multiple entrepreneurship journeys, and I found myself in hot water, because I wanted to employ my people. Okay. And there was this perspective, that black businesses are not, you know, the stereotypes we have like finances. And because of that, you know, I was my black kids, this is performed that way, but I’m like, But wait, I’m defying on your, I’m relying on your labor, like, I need your support, you know, you are the face of it, but the actual work is being conducted from you. So you can’t in one breath, say black businesses don’t pay on time, or black businesses don’t have resources or black businesses don’t care. When you’re the person performing this work. And you’re the you’re the ones doing it. You know, so I think that’s very important, too. We have to understand this. But wait, just because we’re business owners just because we’re therapists just because we have advanced education. We’re not immune from the same racial injustice that you all experienced. So if you were going to be working together, let’s work together here.
Janisha Mickens
You know, exactly. And that’s a lot of time for girl. You know, I gotta go get my okay. But if you was working for corporate America,
Dr. Connie Omari
Would you be doing on that?
Unknown Speaker
We’ll be doing that? No. So you can’t it’s bats and fillers and at the Wellness Center that I work at. I have the biller she always calls me the facts of Billings grew rule because I always say, okay, take away the fillings. You can have that. But what’s the facts? The facts are, this needs to be done, this needs to be done. And that’s not your job. Right? So if you’re coming to work for me, or you’re getting service from a black, individual, African American, best American use of pulses still require great customer service, great employment services, benefits, whatever the facts are those needs to stay the facts you have in your kids. That’s your business. That’s your fire that has nothing to do with me. You still are supposed to show up on time. If not, that’s the consequence. Because if you’re working for Marriott, and you decided to not show up, guess what they’re gonna say, all right, peace. Deuces. You figure it out. Your kids have nothing to do with the facts of my business. Absolutely. Or whatever they the issue is not saying that I’m not that I’m not sensitive to that.
Dr. Connie Omari
Well, but there’s an expectation, I think that we like you said, why would we expect you to be any more sensitive than we would the manager at the Marriott? You know what I’m saying? Like, for some reason, I think that we say, Okay, well, this person looks like me. So she should understand that I didn’t handle babysitter, we might understand that. That doesn’t mean, you know, from a business perspective, that we can tolerate that.
Janisha Mickens
Absolutely. And that’s where the mindset change has to be a mindset thing, because we’re so complacent with Alright, the homie got my bag, or, you know, look like me, so I’m gonna be able to get away with this. And that. No, sir. No, ma’am. No, I need you to be here on time. Because if not, somebody else will want to be here. Fr. And if they don’t look like you don’t blame me. Look at the underlying issues of that, because I’ve had this conversations with my grandmother like, yeah, like, you know, try to stick with them in your community. yatta yatta yatta? Absolutely. I will try. But, for instance, when I was looking for when we were looking for this house, I was like, I want that to look, black people just want black people, right. And I was like, okay, and I was talking to my realtor, and she’s black. And it’s another black relative. So it was a dual team. And I was telling us, I just want that black team, a whole black, I’m gonna try to get you the all black. The white people might have some Tibetan free. So what you want to do, okay, I’ll go with whoever can help me, forever can help me is what I need. So that’s where the mindset changed. Did you want to be out of this bubble? Or do you want to stay in a bubble of you only have a minimal selection? Because you want to stick with your culture? And that’s part of racism, right?
Dr. Connie Omari
Absolutely. We don’t want it done to us or against us. But then we get that mindset into how we make in our choices.
Janisha Mickens
Absolutely. So you’re, you’re part of the problem, if you feel like you can’t support other people’s businesses, because that white person, or that Asian person may still experience the same property experiences that you have experienced. Yeah. Family that. And guess what, they still want to help your black self. Because it’s gonna help them feed their family?
Dr. Connie Omari
Absolutely, absolutely. And in return, if you have a house that you’re comfortable in, and you can do your work and still inspire the communities that are important to you, like it’s a reciprocal thing you got taken care of, so that you can give the gifts that God has created for you.
Janisha Mickens
So when you when you move into a white neighborhood, and you’re black and Hispanic yourself is in that white neighborhood, you are part of the change in that community. You’re showing them we too, can do this and do this.
Dr. Connie Omari
Absolutely. Absolutely. I love your perspective. Thank you for that. Are there any resources that you think might be helpful to help the black families break these generational curses?
Janisha Mickens
There are tons of resources in your community. A lot of times we say we don’t know. And one number that I can tell everybody to online, if you ever have any questions of any me if you just doubt for one or two, I’ve never heard of two or one. So 211 is the number here. I think it’s nationally but in California for sure. You can call and you can say hey, I need a mental health worker or can you that is person or I’m having issue with being not being able to find a free dental provider, whatever. Also, go go. Everybody I’m sure that part two media for everything else. And for everything else. It does. It’s not hard to find resources. Not every community there is a Wellness Center. And every community there is the hospital. And every community, there’s a liquor store, right? So every community has the resources. You just have to be lazy and just pick up the phone or use it. Absolutely. And everyone knows somebody, if you don’t know, pick up the phone and ask your favorite cousin.
Dr. Connie Omari
No. Yes. Uh huh. All right. Have you read or listened to anything recently? Or any suggestions in general for things that the black family could get connected to? To inspire them to break generational curses that way?
Janisha Mickens
I love et Eric Thomas. He’s great. I love the book. Yes. Yes. By Shonda Rhimes. All right, amazing. That that is where I got to just drop what you’re doing in work on. Like, if your kid comes to you, the year vs. You’re not turning down anything for that whole year. Okay. And a lot of times, I like to tell people, people can motivate you all the way. But if your mindset is still complacent, and you still are not active, and action driven, that motivation will do nothing for you. Because I feel like I’m wanting to beat everybody every day. Like that’s what I do. My energy is just naturally all high all the time. And my clients I’m putting into action. I’m like, yo, what am I here for? Right? Absolutely. Like, I’m your cheerleader, and you’re still sitting on a bed. Like, Bro, can you give me a you know, an outlet for yourself? Because I can’t work harder than you’re working for yourself. And so listening to like podcasting is amazing, because you get some great diamonds clubhouse actually is a new platform that that yes, I mean, it has a lot of BS. But once you find your zone and the clubs that you want to join, it’s definitely educational is definitely inspiring. But without any action. Inspiration is nothing, nothing. Got it. So I suggest everyone to create their Tito’s, I think it’s 80 on one of his things, your reasons why. So I have this vision board. That’s why I looked up in here. board and I haven’t done a vision board since I was little. And then my brother came and he had a vision board. And I was like, Whoa, he had a vision board. It took me a minute to get outside of myself like okay. And every so often I go over there and I read my 10 commandments to myself to support my reasons why. And if you don’t have anything to push you to get there, you need to reevaluate yourself. Find those reasons. And that fighter because going to a nine to five, everyday can be easy. But guess what you can do when you ignite who you are and thrive and what you want to do. Were to let that the limit is limitless, right? You know, your job has limits on you. A nine to five has limits on you, you only don’t get paid what they think you’re worth.
Dr. Connie Omari
Absolutely, absolutely. Give me one myth that you wish the black community could debunk about the generational curse of poverty.
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
It’s our parents fault.
Dr. Connie Omari
That Bart, tell me more.
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
But how long are we gonna blame our parents?
Dr. Connie Omari
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we were all born with the ability to choose, right? Absolutely. You can take our circumstances or we can let our target circumstances take us.
Unknown Speaker
And I think I would like to add to that therapy is not for black and brown people there. Yeah, they’re definitely for us, especially when you have adult there. It’s like me.
Dr. Connie Omari
Love that. Well, hopefully we’re going to let a lot of people get more exposure to you through this. And hopefully, we’ll get we’ll get a little bit more about your practice as well to see how people can work with you. Okay. At this time, I want to go into a segment of the show we call it what’s good, what’s good. Its place in the show where we give a hypothetical situation and we’d like to solicit your advice for how to deal with it. Okay, you ready? All right. Make sure me, Sinead is the oldest of two children and has grown up in an inner city private community that is primarily African American. Within this community, She’s smart. She makes good grades. She has a lot of friends, but she’s very poor. Her friends tease her because she doesn’t have name brand clothing. She wants to do well and fit in, but she also is weak. I’m extremely discouraged by the amount of teasing and a bullying that she is experienced. She recently found a pair of pants that were namebrand. But they were too small. So she cut the tag out and put it on another pair of pants. She knew that she now had one pair of pants that she could wear that were namebrand. But she couldn’t wear those every day, or she’d get teased about that as well. How would you advise shanique?
Janisha Mickens
First, I will kind of explore things that she likes. And our closet like, what are some of your favorite outfits without other opinions, right? And then I was floored with this friendships look look like? How? How does? Do these friendships really affect your life? Are these people that are really there for you despite, you know, what you have or what you don’t? And what do you think friendships are supposed to be built on? Right? So, no, I will not encourage her to go buy clothes. Right? I will not discourage that. If she was to say hypothetically, oh, I know someone who does dupes. Okay, is that something you liked? Do you like it? Because you like it? Or did you like it? Because of the brand? Right? So we will explore those things? If she likes a certain look, I will say okay, well, what about you saving enough to buy, you know, that are if I can’t afford it? Okay, so what can you afford? Are you comfortable in your own skin without others opinions. So this is a self esteem issue. This is not necessarily about financially, I can’t afford it. And this affected me and because other people’s fire is becoming her fire, and we’re not going for that. So ultimately, we’re gonna be like, eff those people, they are not your friends, here, he got it. But friends don’t judge you for who you are. So it will literally be me exploring all these things. And at the end, coming up with her sense of self and being differentiated, saying like, I’m so smart, I’m brilliant. I’m going to school with people that they could say I don’t, I don’t belong with, right. So in actuality, you’re better than them, because you made it against it. So it’s not about the strategic, you know, mindset because your mindset is now reflected on other people. And you’re way too smart for that. So I love it. That’s what I would do. Like, that’s the process.
Dr. Connie Omari
I love that. I love that so much. Well, this has been a pleasure to interview you. Today, I know that I love your energy. I love your perspective. And I know that’s going to be very encouraging to people who are listening to you. So let’s give them a little bit information about how they can find you if they want to work with you or just follow you on social media.
Janisha Mickens
Well, you can find me at your you are underscore happy therapists on Instagram. And I also have a Facebook group called study right LMFT study right on Facebook. And that’s where I encourage future clinician to joy our study right group where I help them pass exam the first time.
Dr. Connie Omari
Love it. Love it. Yes, yes, yes. Well, in your practice if they want to your I guess the one.
Unknown Speaker
So I have psychiatry, so I have Psychology Today. And then I have that happy therapist website. But I prefer you guys to go to Psychology Today. You can get the full scope of who I am and directly linked to me if you want services. My fees range from $50 all the way to $150. I provide a sliding scale. At the moment I only I am only taking on private pay clients. Okay? That means that I’m already booked up for all my panel. Insurance panel.
Dr. Connie Omari
Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today. We are very grateful to be able to to be inspired for you. You have so much wisdom and I know that you are going to be very, very successful in what you do. And thank you for sharing that with our audience today.
Janisha Mickens-Ingram
Pleasure, Dr. Connie. Yeah, it was a pleasure. This was amazing.
Dr. Connie Omari
Awesome. We have a wonderful day. Take care. You too. All right. Bye. Bye.