Hi, I'm Jacqueline, your host. Welcome to the Mealya Printer Podcast, a platform where we talk to black, indigenous, and women of color who are entrepreneurs, spirit printers, and creative. We talk all about moving through life transition with courage, confidence, and compassion. If you've been looking for a way to turn your life transition or major life change into a transformation, an inner evolution, this is a podcast for you.
Today we have Gilsa Fort-Mantiness. She's a licensed looking at therapists with over 30 years' experience helping women navigate life transitions, rebuild the confidence, and reconnect with themselves. Over half the women say their mental health at work suffers to the point of burnout. Among women of color, the number gets worse, with the pandemic contributing to high levels of stress and anxiety.
A few things we talk about on this episode, choosing a non-conventional life as a healer, visualization as self-preservation, dealing with shame and guilt of depression, dealing with your emotions when you weren't really taught how to process your feelings. Now on to the episode. And that's a great question, Jacqueline, because for many of us, we find our, or we go towards, like we want to move away from whatever was traumatic. And yet in reality, oftentimes, right, no pain, no gain.
And so for me, I mean, I pretty much knew that I wanted to work within the psychology field and do what I wanted to do, but it took me several times. My parents are Cuban immigrants, and I just had to get the education. I had to have a little piece of paper on the wall. And I couldn't find really my way.
My father, a very charismatic, regarious guy, but very intense. And you had to be a lawyer. That was what he was, and everybody had to be a lawyer. And he had done it again.
He had in the States. So he felt that that's, and it just wasn't my passion. So one time where I really felt lost was there. I was a junior in college, lots of pressure for my parents, my dad, for me to become an attorney.
And I really had to find my own voice at that time and say, no, you know, what I really want to do is psychology. I could see myself, visualize myself in a little office and being able to help people work through these kinds of life transitions. And then a second time, so I did that, I went on. But then I did what a lot of us do as Latina women, as Hispanic women, I got married.
And then I got married. And boy, that was not a good thing. So my really big loss was that marriage when I realized that I had to get divorced and at that point I hadn't quite finished my education. I was finishing it, but I hadn't quite finished it.
And I needed to get rolling. And that relationship, that loss, that there was a great deal of conflict in that loss was left me really, really lost, really almost catatonic. And so the rising from that loss of that relationship to really saying, okay, this is how we get up. This is how we get up and we just kind of put one foot in front of the other.
And part of the journey is figuring it all out. Like I wasn't supposed to know it all at 27, you know? So for me, it was those two pieces, the directing myself in school and then really having to put that into play when I got divorced. One thing that you mentioned is that there was a visualization for you about you sitting in an office and that psychology was really for you.
And another thing that you mentioned was this very strong figure when it comes to your father that making the decisions for you, like you need to be this and that's how you're going to be successful. And then getting married and then going into that and how there's so much pressure about getting married and having that like a representation for women, right? Like I've got married and now through that I have to make this successful because it all kind of falls on me. And then after the relationship feeling catatonic, I'm feeling like I didn't finish school and like now what do I have?
So so many questions circle around that, especially like where did you get that visualization? Because I know a lot of the times when we are in that in between state is where we're so afraid of letting go of that attachment, not knowing that we're attached, right? Like that is just defines us like school defines us our relationship defines us. So if we are not those things and who am I?
Because we don't really know who we are, right? We defined ourselves by everything outside of us. So we're in that in between and for a lot of us, there's a big struggle of letting go of that staying in the in between of nothingness. I have no identity and then moving on to the next thing.
And I feel like that's why we all really get stuck. And then there's trauma in there too that we're having to face clear and heal in order to be this newness of us. So where did that visualization come from? And then also in that in between like really letting women of color know that there are things that are coming up for us.
And how do we like do those things like heal those things without the same time just feeling absolutely lost? I mean, the visualization thing for me came in almost like a self preservation. My again, my parents were very prominent parts of our life in many loving ways and in many, but again being being political refugees because my father died in this country saying that he was a refugee, he was not an immigrant, you know, and so it was very important to him for us to have a direction. I have a younger brother.
And so for me, the visualization was a self preservation. My father wanted to be me to be an attorney and Jacqueline, I promise you, I tried. I tried to do all of that, you know, focus, people, pleasing stuff that a lot of us as Hispanics as Latina, particularly Latina, girl children are raised to do. And I really tried.
And so the visualization was, okay, I got to be very clear on what I want because going up against my dad, my daddy, it wasn't going to be easy. My dad supported me and did okay, me not do whatever you need to do. And your mother and I always have your back, but he rode me hard those first few years until. And so the visualization for me was I could describe to him, you know, Bobby, I'm going to have my own office just like you, but it's not going to be in law, it's going to be in psychology and I'm going to help people.
And look, the walls are going to be less lethal. And so for me, it was very much self preservation to be able to power through because I just knew that I couldn't do the whole law thing with the kind of intensity and really loved that my father had for it. So I had to find my own path there and speak it because again, a lot of us as Hispanic girls, right, what Bobby said was what the family did. I also had one other piece is that I have an incredibly formidable mother, Galita, as we say, right in the background there, but she was, you do what you need to do.
This is okay. Don't worry. I'm going to talk to your father. Oh, this guy can work out.
Okay. So my mother has always been my mother still alive at almost 91 and she is still my constant advocate and cheerleader. So where my father couldn't see it, my mother could visualize it with me kind of helped me bridge that distance, you know, and then definitely when I got divorced, my father was happy. My father didn't like my.
So there my father was happy. My father was like, okay, okay, so self preservation would be the short answer to you. And then just really I have been blessed with a really pretty good support system in my parents and in a really solid group of women friends that I've cultivated over 30 years and that that visualization, I have to tell you, I can show you pictures that was my first office and it looked just the way I had pictured in graduate school. So for the women that you speak with that don't have like I'll use myself as an example, I didn't have that community again.
I mean, for me, it was growing up in domestic violence. I've been on my own since I was 15. So for me, my whole identity was always about survival and figuring it out in hustling and, you know, looking back, I had even though I didn't have my parents, I was in a group home and I actually had amazing counselors that, you know, a lot of them were Latino and I never seen Latinos like them. You know, they were educated, they were activists, you know, they were pushing forward, they were helping the community.
And it was amazing to see that where I grew up in a neighborhood where we never saw people who were college educated and giving back to the community and all of that. So I, but even though I had those experience throughout, I still believe that I was on my own and had to figure it out. And that eventually put me in this depression because I had this shame about not being able to figure it out. And I always figured it out and I didn't realize I was depressed.
So trying to even go to my community, sometimes having my community say things like, you're figuring it out, you're single mom, you got your daughter to college, like why can't you figure it out. Also like you're depressed, that doesn't make sense. So like you're like sad, so like just be happy, you know what I mean? So just like we don't have time to be depressed.
There's no reason for you. Right? And meanwhile, I am losing, I lost my job, I lost my car, I'm losing my apartment, I'm still trying to get it together. I'm still not admitting that things I can't figure it out.
I'm like blacking out at work, you know, all because I just had this guilt and shame, like wait, I always figured it out. I was 15. I was in the apartment, like I raised my daughter, like why can't I make this happen? And it was just very telling me like it's time now, it's time for you to heal you and face all these things.
So for someone that's in that that doesn't have a support system, like how would you say for them to build, visualize, build that community and be able to ask for self for help, excuse me, and like go of so much guilt and shame that we have, right? Definitely, definitely a lot of shame. I would say to you, you know, with the, with a lot of the women that I work with, Jacqueline, I work with both men and women, but primarily women, often women in their, you know, early 30s to early 40s. And what I talk with them a lot about is family sometimes isn't blood, right?
Family is something that we can intentionally purposefully create around us, you know, and when we are at our lowest point, you know, who is it the kind of, you know, like hands as a tissue or opens a door for us or says good morning, you don't know where you can create that. And I encourage people to look for that, you know, to kind of, you know, the picture I was having my head is how much burdensome, what kind of burden shame and guilt does to us. So it's almost like a heavy feeling that has a spacing downward. And so many times I start talking with women, whether friends or clients about, you know, what just, let's just pick up our head, you know, let's just look up and actually turn the head to the right and to the left because we may be amazed at who's there and who is wanting to step into our life.
And because we're not looking at them, they think they, we don't want them. And so I talk with them a lot about just sometimes just raising your head and looking up and paying attention kind of being very in the moment. Because as you were saying, Jacqueline, you know, shame and guilt holds us really grinds us into the past and trying to really be able to live in this moment to pay attention to what's around us. I do believe that there is an evil in the world, but there's a lot more goodness.
We just don't always reach out for that piece. We aren't expecting it. So I think it's women like you that I've worked with over the years, whether in group homes or in community agencies and so forth. I mean, I always felt such a sense of gratitude of being able to walk a few little steps with them in their journey because I mean, 15 on your own.
20 year old barely knows what she does. That's what my daughter says. She's been very sweet about noticing when she has certain milestones and when she's like, Mom, you had a kid in your teens. I can barely get my calendar.
Exactly. Exactly. So those are really strong, you know, I want to say jeans, but I think it's more at a soul level that visualization of there is something beyond that corner, that just one more step and there's something there. And the creating of it, I think, is even more powerful.
The creating of it yourself is even more powerful. How would you say to women, one thing I think for me that just the weight was so heavy is because we are, you know, it's that resilience and moving forward, but I think it's also a lot of like suppression, right? I'm not feeling like, for me, when I was going through this depression, my daughter was gone, which is why I had time for all those feelings, right? Because I couldn't ignore them.
Exactly. And then losing everything. And I was just like, the reason this is like a giant wave and thunderstorm for me is because I never allowed myself to feel sorry for myself or I never allowed myself just to feel bad. Like it was sad that I was on my own.
I was sad of bringing that out. It was really sad that my daughter was leaving. It's normal that my daughter is leaving and she's been with me since I was in my teens. Like we grew up together.
So creating, what would you say for someone to create that safe space and hate them for themselves to feel their feelings so that they don't get to a transition and it's just like a wave of like everything? Well, I think you're right when, you know, the first and foremost is to, you know, remember that any of the feelings that we have are normal, they're part of being the human experience. So when we get hit with what might feel like a tidal wave of feelings and they are like all over the place to just kind of stop for a minute. And I talk a lot with my clients about, okay, just stop where you are.
Sit preferably sit if you can so that in all of that tidal wave, we don't get knocked down, but rather we can intentionally sit and then just really to take a moment because depression is something that happens over a long period of time. So symptoms right are sadness and a real sense of lack of motivation and not interesting things and so forth. But to get really into the depressive piece, there has to be long, you know, more of a pattern of those kinds of feelings and over time. So I really try to tell people, listen, being sad, being disappointed, being frustrated, those are all part of like normal everyday life.
Okay. And so sometimes if we can pay attention to those in the upfront, we help it to not get to the point where it crosses over into the more chronic things, depression, you know. So when people are doing, you know, like what you had to do at 15, 18, you know, 20, I really would have said to you back then would tell somebody struggling with that. Now the the piece about being able to find just one person, one person that you feel that you can admire or kind of hook into in some way so that we can start that little process of creating hope, you know, and many times it is.
I'm sure that you weren't the most trusting, you know, kid in the world and that trust might still be something that's that's a bit challenging for you at times. Right. Well, I honestly, I can own now that learning to trust myself, I wasn't even like trusting other people sometimes a question like, no, you can't trust that person. But the reality was like, I don't really trust myself, you know, to be like, I was very good at my gut, right?
That's why I was able to like really get through a lot of stuff like listening to my gut, which I didn't know was really my intuition back then for survival. Well, getting to a point where it's like, it's okay to trust yourself and to mess up some times. And sometimes you can't control what people do, but you can set up those boundaries real quick and let that person go. You know, but obviously I was not equipped with those things.
I didn't know about boundaries, you know what I mean? I didn't know about any of I didn't really articulate a lot of my feelings, but it was definitely I would say for me was learning to trust me that I will be okay regardless and not judging myself so harshly for other persons actions. Only I can do is like listen at that moment, you know, I had a boundary, there was a red flag there and I didn't I didn't listen for whatever reason and I'm human and this is what I'm going to do next time. So that was something that was definitely big and very life changing to know like I'm not 15 and I was giving these adult things to have to do and how can and I felt very like a lot of guilt and judgment because at 15 I felt like I had to be an adult.
So when I messed up, it was very an adult thing like I'm supposed to be grown, but I'm 15 like the best that I can with what I've been given. Absolutely. And those are two really important points that you make there. One is the idea of, you know, really trusting your gut later.
Like you said, you'll call it instincts, but we all have that little voice inside us that either, you know, leads us down the harmful path or the beneficial path. But we all have that little voice that says, okay, watch out, look, there's fire, don't put your hand in there, you know, and to learn to really trust that. And then the second point that you make, Jack, I'm so important is to is the forgiveness piece, you know, just really the piece of, all right. So that didn't quite work out, you know, hey, I got married and I thought this was it.
He was it. And oh my God, how was I going to tell my parents, my father, my friends that this wasn't working and that it hadn't worked. So really the idea of trusting your instincts and then forgiving yourself when you mess it up, crucial to like people always like to ask me, okay, give me steps. Tell me what are the things I got to do?
Well, these are two big steps with lots of little steps, but those are really important steps. Yeah. So it's interesting that you've figured them out on your own. Yeah, it's definitely been a process and I did seek therapy where I felt, but of course, that there'd be some process I would really say it took, you know, a lot of years and then learning to articulate and really learn to be vulnerable and put myself out there.
It's vulnerable for me very much not. I couldn't be vulnerable. You know, I grew up in domestic violence and worst thing you could be vulnerable and then like kind of letting yourself know like I'm not in that space. I can be vulnerable.
I'm an adult. I have boundaries that, you know, I can I can walk away. So definitely I think shifting that mindset of who you used to be and not being there anymore and understanding in the present moment, I'm a grown ass woman. I can set these boundaries.
I can step away and just kind of like the re-parenting of yourself. So looking at the newness, right, we're in that place, say, you know, you're in that in between space. I've now learned that there was trauma that I had attachments. Now I'm in the space.
I'm putting up boundaries. I've gotten help, but I'm not really sure what that future me, right? I'm still like I've spoken to my aunt. We've had these conversations about her.
My grandmother's still telling her what to do when she's in her 40s, you know, and telling her just have compassion because you have to remember she's a different generation. She wants to be better. Like you know she wants to be better, but she also doesn't have the tools. So getting her the tools and helping her express her emotions and articulate that it's going to take time, you know.
So the reason I say that is because we want to do better, right? But sometimes we don't know what better looks like. And what in that image, it's like, what does a future me look like when I'm still using my old habits and patterns? So when you spoke about visualization for someone that wants to be this other version of themselves, how would you have them embody that?
That word has just come to me so much about embodying being, you know, having this new identity, but remembering not to attach yourself to that identity, always be changing and moving, right? Because I don't want to go back to that place where I'm defined by that identity. What would you say to someone so that they can get closer to their future selves, let go of those old patterns and have it so they start forming new identities? That makes sense.
I felt like I was a lot. Well, I mean, what we're talking about is a lot, you know, because it is really about finding, you know, our voice in many families, as you're saying, you know, having thoughts and feelings that are independent of the group isn't, is not only not allowed, but very violently suppressed. So it really is this process of finding our voice, knowing how to use it, knowing how to effectively share those things. As you said, it encompasses so many different things, of trusting your instincts and then learning how to be able to engage or re-engage with other people.
So I mean, when I'm talking with young women, women about this, and this is like they're starting to just kind of have this little, like they have this little kernel, like I know that there's something more, there's something else happening there for me. I mean, I use some of the tried and true tools that you probably know. I do a lot of old school paper and pencil, for me paper and pencil is very grounding and then it's a reference point and we can go back to it. So a lot of, sometimes it's just list making, sometimes it's pros and cons, sometimes it's an actual, you know, like tell me your story, right?
The autobiography and the kind of cathartic thing about just telling somebody where you come from and all that you have overcome. But for the future then, I really like to play with that. Tell me what you see from the ridiculous to the realistic. From the, I want to be the president of the United States, all the way to, you know what, I would really just love to be able to own a little, what's my recent client wants to have like a little garden shop and wants to just be able to plant things that could also be beautiful, not just food, but for beauty.
So it's really about just kind of expanding, right? Because a lot of our families, as you said, are narrowing in our perspective, sometimes not intentionally. Right? Sometimes it's like I can only give you what I got, right?
So sometimes it's not intentional. But my biggest piece is can we just broaden the perspective? Can we just play with what it could look like? If you could dream anything, what would it be?
And just start to help the idea of stepping into that future. And then maybe we would go into, okay, so how would we get there if we want to have this little garden shop now and let's work our way back and what would that look like? So I use a variety of different kinds of conversations and, again, old school paper and pencil. And I want you to go, you know, take a picture of something for me and bring it, just really kind of concrete things to help them really own it.
What could that future look like? Just because somebody said it couldn't be. So in my office, in my forlorn, it can be anything you want. I love that.
So tell me, what does your handle, tough, love healing? Where does that come from? Well, when I started to really look at this, you know, like I mentioned to you, I come from the pre-social media days. I've been practicing for about 25 years, working with women and couples and so forth.
So before all of that was really prominent, I've never been considered, my clients will tell you that I'm not a very traditional psychotherapist. You know, as a family therapist, I was trained a little bit more in the styles of like the structural or strategic, some of the early family therapists. And those styles are a little bit more active, a little bit more directive. And I have found that for particularly working with our culture of Hispanics, Latinos in Miami, we have quite a diversity of a variety of different Hispanic cultures.
It's a lot more proactive approach that works. And so the tough love healer is that I've had clients who say, no, no, no, if you want somebody who's really going to kind of help you figure out what your path is, you can talk to her, but don't go expecting that she's going to do any kind of sugar coating or anything. She's tough love is what she gives you. And so in those conversations is where that handle kind of came from.
So with everything that you have gone through and after all your experiences, and you know, like you said, you were kind of tonic after a relationship, you visualize, what is what is the one thing that you love that you really, really love and appreciate about yourself? I would say that I have what I love most about myself is that I am determined and I am fiercely loyal. So I'm going to believe in you and I'm going to, you know, kind of hold your hand sometimes and then sometimes I'm going to give you a little push and then sometimes I'm going to give you a kick, you know, but I'm going to stand there like you know that you can reach out to me that you can count on me. My continued piece of growth is always about patience because I can kind of see particularly working with younger women, I can kind of see like where they can end up.
And so I get a bit impatient with them in that sense. But the idea of my determination and my loyalty, I think kind of helps keep me keeps my patients and check my belief that, you know, everybody has another piece, another opportunity, another, you know, way to look at things if they want to. My name is Hilsop Fort Martinez. I'm a marriage and family therapist in Miami, Florida.
And you can find me at Tough Love Healer on Instagram or my website, hilsopfort.com. I am always happy to talk with people if you're local in Miami, reach out to me. I'm happy to help you kind of navigate these life transitions. And if you're outside of Miami and I can do all of the technology based things that we've been into in these past two years.