Hi, this is Makayla with Honest Talk Radio. Honest Talk Radio is a space where we will be sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly in real, raw conversations to try and do our part to reduce the amount of shame, guilt, and judgment so many of us women face. Our hope is that through these conversations, you will feel supported and encouraged in every aspect of your life. So let's get started.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Honest Talk Radio. I hope you've been feeling inspired and encouraged throughout the weeks and through these raw and honest conversations. It's the third week in December and we're continuing to talk about the importance of mental health, but here's the thing, your mental health, physical health, and emotional health are not separate. Taking care of one component can drastically benefit the others.
Today I'm joined by Priscilla Norris. Priscilla and I met each other in a Facebook group for military-souced mental health professionals. Y'all, I'm so encouraged to see so many people dedicate themselves to getting military members and their families the help they need, and Priscilla is no different. She's located in Jacksonville, North Carolina near one of the largest Marine Corps installations in the country.
In her clinic called Thrive Mind Counseling and Wellness, not only serves the military's holistic health needs, but all of their clinicians are associated with the military as well. Priscilla, I'm really looking forward to our conversation today and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Awesome. So as we get started, I would love for you to tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and why you decided to take the path towards providing holistic health and wellness services to your community. Sure, absolutely. Well, let's see.
What do I begin, right? So I guess I'll begin from the beginning. As a young military spouse and new mom, I struggle a lot. I found myself trying to acclimate this military world, which was not something that I grew up with.
I had a hard time, you know, it's all these new people, all these new places, all these new lifestyles and lots of acronyms to learn. So that was challenging. And then two years into my marriage, I had my daughter and here I am now trying to acclimate to being a mom. You're the large, how do you do a military spouse?
It's a whole thing in and of itself. And now I have to be a mom too at the same time. But no, right. It was just too much.
So at that point in time, I had, we had about to go on a good appointment and had, you know, just things were really picking up, you know, and so I found myself just struggling to find a support that I needed. I had friends that were military spouses, but it's not a lot of them. And I relied on them and lean on them a lot, but at the same time, they couldn't support me with everything, but they had their own support on them. Right.
Right. Then I decided to sit. just to get my worry, seeing those things off my chest. And I fell in love with therapy.
And I had seen a therapist before when I was in college, but it was a short-term thing. So I had a wonderful experience. And I found myself really kind of rediscovering and reimagining not just who I was as a spouse and as a mother, but who I wanted to be. It was a very transformative sort of experience.
And at that point in time, I decided, this was the track for me. I had been wanting to complete my graduate degree anyway. And so I went forward with it. Festival or became a therapist.
But the reason I chose this path of holistic care, it's because I know for me how much that had helped. Therapy only did so much. But I did two things on my own as well, to kind of supplement or compliment my experience working with a therapist. And that's where my fullness and yoga had been.
I had been a yoga practitioner from the consists of the teenager. And I never merged the two things. I did meditation, I went to yoga class. And then I wasn't therapy.
And in my mind, up until a certain point, those were separate things. Until they weren't anymore. Until I realized just how much my mind was practiced. And just taking a few minutes to meditate and be with my thoughts and my feelings and how much that was influencing my work in therapy and vice versa.
And so it started to make sense. And then my yoga practice became a lot less about the pose that I was doing and a lot more about the experience that I was having on the yoga mat. I found myself processing a lot of the typical teas that I had been having with motherhood and the lifestyle, not just in therapy, but on the mat as well. And they all became one for me.
And I became very interested in these other ways that we can take care of our minds and minds and how much that connection was just so strong for me. And then I went out into this rabbit hole and I still haven't come out here in my house. I love that. Yeah, my husband's not retired.
22 years. And my kid's not 12. I had another one. And I'm still in that rabbit hole of looking for that connection.
And that kind of set its own for my career. Well, first of all, thank you to you, Andrew, husband for your service to our great country. And second of all, you said something that really touched me. It was my yoga experience became a lot less about the pose and more about the experience I was having on the mat.
And I think in life in general, we often go about life as if it's compartments. We have our family life. We have our work life. We have our fitness life.
And they're all these separate compartments. But through my education as well, I've realized just how much everything is interconnected. And I know the wheel of life has been circulating on social media and things like that over the years. But it's so true that when one area is off balance, it's off kilter, it's like a domino effect.
And it knocks off everything. And much like yourself, I was in that season of, oh my goodness, what is it mean to be a military spouse? What does it mean to be a mom? And then as my kids grew, what do I do with them now?
What do I do with myself? All these moments of uncertainty and change can be the culprit to knock you out of balance and to knock that one little area that we have to try to compartmentalize off balance, which affects everything else. What through your experience with your practice and combining the yoga and the mindfulness with therapeutic protocols, what are some of the things that you've been able to see in yourself and in your clients? Well, it's really a path that helps you discover who you are, how can I discover yourself?
Now, we all have, regardless of the lifestyle, regardless of the person, we all have parts of ourselves that we have to discover. We have to be intentional too. Maybe it's interactions with other people. Maybe it's within your relationship.
Maybe it's as a parent. We all have those areas and those things change as we go through life. You are in college. It's not the same person that you're going to be when your kids are 10 years old.
We change, we grow. And so how come we continue to do things the same exact way as if whatever the box is, we're not going to continue to fit in it. It's just as it's so we have to adapt. We have to change.
We have to find other things that will help us. Now, when I was 20, I don't know that I was ready to really be authentic and genuine and honest and open with myself. Because at 20, I was worried about making friends and college and fitting in with this room or fitting in with that room or behaving at work so they may have thought, I wasn't necessarily ready to look deep into a while as a person. That comes later in life.
So as we go through phases, as we go through stages of life, we have to find what suits us and what we need. But I think when it comes to being a military spouse, I think that's even more important. Because in my experience, maybe I mean, if your experience might have been similar to a friend by my experience, I have military-wise who are friends. And I have friends who are non-military, non-military.
And I found myself kind of stuck in between the two. I had topics of conversation and issues that I could talk only with one group or another. If I told my non-military friends about how frustrated I was because we were going through the deployment or this or that, and they wouldn't say things like, what should we have to call them? It's like, oh my God.
No, no, no, that's not how that works. And then I had issues that I would talk to my military spouse, friends, about non-military world things that they may not understand, because it wasn't part of their reality. So I found myself finding between the two worlds a lot, not fully being able to find a balance and find that integration. So I think we compartmentalize things.
Well, in this lifestyle, we compartmentalize a lot. We're not really concerned not knowing what's going to happen, not knowing if we're going to have to have persons in December, July. And I'm not knowing where we're going to live. The unknowns are so huge in the military lifestyle that we either find healthy ways to deal with it or we tend to push it out of our minds and pretend it's not there.
I don't have to worry about it. Which, by the way, will be so healthy. So how do you cope? So again, meditation, yoga, those things can kind of help find out.
Find a little bit more of that balance, I think. Yeah, coping. You basically said there's two paths, right? There's two paths to coping.
It's either confronting it and identifying your struggles, sharing your struggles, working through your struggles, or pushing them in the way back and pretending like it's not, I'm not going to worry about that. I'm not going to stress about it. There's nothing I can do. But then I find that in talking to people and as well as through my own experience, that that can build a lot of resentment by not bringing to surface some of the things that we're feeling and thinking and worrying about.
The more you try to push it in the back, the more the resentment comes out. For me, in physical as well as anger. It sneaks up on you. And you might not even know that it's there or why it's happening.
And I think that's why when you talk about mindfulness, and if you're practicing yoga or any working out, whether it's running or lifting weights at the gym, doing things with intention, I think, is how it's all connected. When we do things with intention, it's not, oh, I'm just going to go run and wipe out my mind. Like when you're doing it with an intention, then you get the benefits of it mentally, physically, and emotionally. Would you agree?
I could not agree more. I see a lot of military spouses and also active duty members that I practice. And I cannot tell you how many times I hear this type of compartmentalization as part of suppressing the emotions and saying, oh, you know, it's just I have no idea what's happening in my life in six months. I could be living in a different country.
But I'm not going to worry about it. And I can't worry about it. I can't worry if I think about it too much of an aviation. So I just don't think about it.
You know, and I find myself saying, well, let's think about it. I'm not going to know what to do about it, feeling helpless because it's out of your control. That's one thing. Ignoring how you feel about something, is something else going to be a different.
And we don't have to have control of a situation or have a situation under control to be able to also have our feelings come to light. Both can be true at the same time or not. So living in the uncertainty and the constant change in the constant moving parts of a military lifestyle does not mean you have to conform to a way of thinking that leaves you completely helpless. Right.
Develop a piece of coping with that and say, well, I don't know what's going to happen. Or, you know, there's this change about to happen or whatever the situation is that the person is navigating. And, okay, here's how this makes me feel. Here's, you know, here's what makes me want to do or say.
Here, you know, I retract and I shut down or I become bitter and argumentative with my spouse. Or I become detached and emotionless. And so when you start realizing how that anxiety manifests for you, physically and mentally like you're saying, then you can start doing something about it that is actually going to work for you. Right.
And I think that's one of the beauties of a mindfulness practice because you can actually tailor that to exactly what you need. People talk a lot about coping skills, right? And you can go on Pinterest and find a list of 25 coping skills right now. Correct.
Which is fantastic. You know, the way that people talk about anxiety and mental health in general is getting better and better. But that doesn't mean that those 25 coping skills are going to work for you. Right.
Right. You're all you need. It's not that work. Right.
It's just not that work. It's the way you try to explain it to my clients. It's like following a diet plan for somebody else. Exactly.
May I work for you? Is it seen with these, what I'm hoping skills? Well, if you don't know what the problem is, how can you apply a coping skill to a problem that you don't understand? So first we need to understand the problem.
Right. Yeah, I love that. One of the things that you said made me think about the fact that so often we think we need in order to deal with a problem, we have to know all the answers. We have to know what it looks like in the future or what.
But you know, you talked about maybe a deployment is coming up and you're feeling anxious about it. But you don't want to address it because it's not there yet. So let's just enjoy it. Let's just enjoy the moment.
But then what happens is that it comes. It inevitably shows up and then you're slapped in the face with all these emotions and thoughts and feelings. And whereas if you do a little bit of the prep work beforehand, then you can maneuver and navigate through the circumstances a little bit better. And that, you know, something you said hit it on the head for me.
I remember when my husband would get ready for a deployment, when we knew there were, we've been through multiple deployments. Some know notice, some we've had too much notice in my book. And so I remember like coming up to the wire, we would start arguing, we would start getting mad and angry with each other. And it was almost as if we were trying to purposely create a distance.
So it made it hurt less when we were separated. But in actual fact, that's never helped us. You know, I don't want to spend my last few moments with my husband before he goes on the deployment angry, frustrated, and mad at the world because he has to leave or take it out on him. You know, we want to leave, we want to part in a healthy way.
And so it's funny because if you don't recognize or take time to recognize what it is that's stirring up inside of you, then it does. It manifests in very unhealthy, you know, damaging ways. And so being mindful, kind of being in tune with yourself. And that's something like you said, you weren't ready to do it 20.
You were trying to fit into the world. But I would love to encourage anyone that's listening out there, the earlier you get in tune with yourself as you grow, then the better off you're going to be to help to navigate the uncertain and challenging waters, which we are certainly in right now with all this going on in the world. Oh, tell me about it. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, the third time that you go, can you move your dog boobs away from the front door? Then you can't just, I mean, you can find yourself to get a year to get it about little things a lot that it's time to stop, right? Right. And look at it.
So I just want to mention, I had somebody ask me this question, I actually had two people ask me this question, not recently. How am I supposed to, so tell me about this mindfulness stuff, right? I go, yeah. And so I'm trying to live in the moment.
I'm trying to be in the moment. You try, you know, I'm supposed to live in the moment, but I'm worried about my feelings at the same time, right? So, you know, some combination of that. Question.
So what mindfulness teaches us to do is to be in the present moment, but not in a consequential, impulsive, fun-filled 100% of the time, way. It tells us to be in the present moment, yes, but attuned with how we feel and how we are responding and connected to the present moment. So this idea of being in the present moment means that when the time is stuck in the past, we're grabbing things that we've done, our replaying conversations in our hands, or, you know, you're in the shower washing your hair, and you have no idea if you've already read, because the whole time you're thinking about the argument, it happens to come over day before. You know, not in the moment, you're stuck in the past.
Or we live in the future, which creates anxiety, you know, what's going to happen, what it's going to happen, what it's going to happen, right, that uncertainty about future, which we have going in a control over. So this idea of being in the present moment is not about making any feelings or living in denial. It's about how is this particular situation I'm dealing with, making me feel right now in this moment. What I feel in my body is my stomach tense, is my chest heavy, and my, you know, do I give them less attention?
Or do I feel some joy and lightness? What are some of the emotions that I'm experiencing right now? I'm not even having this conversation, or as I'm receiving this news of a PCS movement, or whatever is going on. And then it's kind of like shining a flashlight, you know, and then you can see it and go, oh, oh, there's anger.
Okay, I'm guessing it's anger. Maybe I need to go to Target for a couple of hours, you know, I don't know. So, right. Right, right, right.
You know, there's so much power in realizing what is going on in the moment. And I brought this up in a couple of episodes about the fact that four months ago, my family and I moved from Rome, Italy to Virginia, where we are now. And I have to admit, our time in Rome was absolutely fantastic, even despite being locked in our apartment for two months or so in the beginning of the pandemic. The time there was amazing.
And so when we moved here, I was a little bit stuck in my past. I was dreaming and thinking of all the things that we did have, and not paying attention to what this space was going to create for me. And so taking that time, one thing that helped me is exactly what you're talking about. It's taking a moment.
And this doesn't have to, obviously, we all have roles and responsibilities that fill up our day. But taking five minutes in the morning or five minutes in the evening to reflect and be thankful for the things that we do have. And to identify those feelings and those thoughts and the behaviors, good or bad, really helps to ground you. Because I love how you brought up how dwelling in the past is not helpful.
But also looking too far in the future, there's goals. Goals are good. Having goals is a great thing. But looking too far in the future and trying to plan for every little thing can just cause that anxiety, stress, and worry to double, if not triple.
And so it's finding that striking that balance between setting goals, being excited about the future, but then also really I like to talk about figuring out how to control the things that are within your control and not worrying about that they exist at art. And so I think too much time has sent on me. I think goals are great to help me. And so I think there's a little bit of delay, sorry.
So Priscilla, I would love to know, as you said, that your husband's now retired, and you have this growing practice, and you're helping so many other spouses and military members alike. What about, let's talk a little bit about retirement. What does that like now that I know there's lots of listeners that, you know, that's maybe the thing that's stressing them out is, well, what about when we get out? What does that like look like?
So if you don't mind sharing a little bit. No, I don't. Well, retirement has been wonderful. So I am very fortunate.
I am very fortunate because not much has changed, to be honest. My husband works as a civilian federal employee on the base doing exactly what he did when he was at Connective to. He even worked with a C.P. So in that sense, our transition was really smooth.
Now, during the first few months after retirement, when he was home, he joined in nuts. But don't turn it out. He was, no, we adjusted, it was fine. And he was looking forward to doing work.
So our transition was great. And I know that I'm not feeling a little bit. I don't know. And I'm not a liar, I guess, situation.
But he and retirement, he's allowed me to open my practice. Because he has a military spouse. I think this is a huge thing in our community. Military spouses oftentimes put their careers on hold, their education on hold, or they'll start and get finished because of moving.
With few semesters of class and you have to move into an athletic school and you have to do. And especially when it comes to mental health and other professions that require you to be licensed to that particular state, then even more complicated, right? Because you're moving here and there. So I, but not, I've always wanted to be in private practice, but it's not something that was feasible.
It wasn't a reality because I don't know, we could move. So retirement finally allowed me to then put my dreams into practice and really kind of materialize this idea of having a holistic practice where I can treat mental health, but I treat a middle person. So my experience is wonderful. It's so good.
But the funny thing is, in my facts life while I was still going to school, I was a, you know, like, at least for the Marine Corps, it's called Transition Red in the seminar, the workshop that Marines and sailors go through when they're either getting out or they're retiring, right? There's like a week long seminar last thing. I was actually in the struggle. I don't know.
Years ago. Yeah, this is, gosh, how many years ago is that now, like eight or nine years ago? And I was part of that initial push that was rolling out the curriculum. They actually started with the Army and then the Navy adopted the curriculum to develop, you know, their own for the years.
So when I was part of the program, there was a lot of new stuff coming out. It was very exciting. So here I am. Now, my job is to have Marines and sailors transition into civilian world.
And I was terrified with thought. I'll have it in, you know, or not to me myself. But, you know, luckily I had a nurse in this transition and I had a kid for a lot of people. That's, it's very, very difficult.
But it's an, whether somebody's getting out or retiring, it's a, it can be a very exciting thing to go through and, and terrifying, yes. But what a world of opportunities that they can open, right? And yeah, it opens a lot of, a lot of different paths and a lot of doors. And we see more and more companies wanting to hire veterans and wanting to hire military spouses.
Yeah. She's fantastic. You know, so just for the military spouses that we listen into this, we're thinking, yeah, I'm feeling a little resentful because I've had to change jobs 17 times. Right.
Just there. Your time will come. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, that is so true, though. And I think with the remote, remote working world, that opening had a ton of doors to be able to pursue a career or pursue a path that, you know, gives you job experience. And things like that, letting you do what you love without it having to be an eater or situation, like either you continue in the military or you get out so I can have my time.
But I think what I'm hearing you say, Priscilla, through our conversation, which I love, because I'm all about prepping for transition, is that when you're mindful and in the moment and reflective and willing to, to go through a phase of self discovery, which needs to happen on more than one occasion. You can't just have one phase of self discovery and be like, okay, I know what I'm, I know who I am now. And then, you know, close the book. I, yeah.
But I think, you know, the way we can handle transitions and uncertainties, the best is to be able to self reflect. And so through your practice of mindfulness and therapy and yoga and integrating the whole person approach, you're able to go down that path of self discovery, healthy, healthy self discovery as opposed to, you know, taking a turn and then being like, wait, what's going on? And, you know, let's, let's plan for it now as opposed to, you know, get those tools in your pocket now so that when things change and, and uncertainty happens, you're not slapped. And so I just, I love the whole person approach.
I just think I, for myself, I've seen so much how it's connected, how your mind, your body, your soul, it's all connected and affects one another. So if you can give our listeners just to wrap it up, that one piece of advice, maybe they're maybe they're worried about going to therapy because they're worried about what it, you know, what it would look like on their medical records or maybe they just feel like they don't have time or whatever that, whatever that stop is. What's one piece of advice you would give someone? Yeah, absolutely.
Well, the first thing is we need to continue talking about mental health because, you know, if you have a cold, you know, or you have a twisted ankle and somebody asks you about it, you wouldn't even hesitate to say something like, oh yeah, I know I fell into his mind, like it's, you know, it's a thing. It's okay. You know, the same way that we take things from work. If we are under the weather, we should be able to take things from work.
If you are going through a very difficult time in your life and you need a whole magic, right. So continuously talking to your family members, to your friends, you know, normalizing this experience, I think is the number one thing that we can all do. So that if a friend comes to you and says, you know, I am really going for a tough time because of this, that reason, then you can be, you're better able to support them and encourage them to get help. That's really important.
It's really not a big deal to get mental health. Because both of them are not different. It's just part of who we are, part of our human existence. So how to find it their best, how was the first step?
I would say the very first thing that one needs to do is look for a therapist who they believe would be a good fit for them. This idea that it would be would get a referral or just go to the first person or whoever's closest drive, that may not be the best approach. The process of therapy is incredibly intimate. And if you're sitting across from somebody and that you do not get absolutely comfortable with, and you don't 100% trust, then you are not going to get what you need out of there.
You might find yourself not sharing. You might find yourself just withholding certain things or feeling embarrassed to share certain things or being afraid of judgment. So that periodical relationship between client and therapist is like, it's a sacred thing. It has to be strong to feel comfortable enough to be able to be almost a vulnerable self.
So if you find a therapist, you get a referral from your doctor or a recommendation from a friend, and you go and you don't click with that person, you get a COVID number, two or three appointments at least. Don't make your judgment based on people that's COVID. But if you're feeling like something is holding you back, here's an opportunity to be honest and to yourself and say, thank you so much for your time. I'm not sure I'm getting what I need.
This is more of I'm looking for over here, not this, could you recommend somebody? And that's okay, the therapist is not gonna be upset and advised because it's not personal. And do this until you find that person that really clicks with you. So that's something I wanted to highlight.
And then the other tip that I'm gonna give is, it can be difficult to sit across from a stranger and tell them things they want to tell yourself. Right, but it gets easier. The first appointment could be nerve-wracking, but it gets easier and it's so helpful and it really pays off. So don't be intimidated by that process.
Just think about going to the doctor or you're going to the dentist. Think about it that way. Here's a professional who's qualified for this issue. That's what they're here for.
They're not here to judge you or anything like that. And trust me, they've heard it all. Probably not the first day, the first time they're gonna hear what your issue is. And give it your best shot.
Be open, be vulnerable. It's okay. It's gonna get better. Yeah, the more open and vulnerable you are, the more powerful the therapy or the coaching can be.
And I wanted to touch it back real quick on what you were talking about, let's normalize the mental health experience. Hopefully that's what we're doing through these conversations on Honest Talk Radial. But also, I had this, you know, in the shower the other day, that's when I somehow do my best thinking, which is so weird. I'm like, darn it, I have no paper.
I have no pen. I can't put this stuff on paper. But anyways, total rabbit trail. But you know, we don't hide the fact when we want to get into shape.
When you want to start a health routine to lose weight or to gain muscle or to train from air thong or whatever the case may be. So let's not hide the fact that you wanna exercise your mind, that you wanna exercise your ability to handle emotions or train yourself in a way to live a more balanced, healthy life, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Because it is a training process. We're oftentimes undoing limiting beliefs and negative mindsets from whatever our experiences are in life.
And so just as much as it took to get there to where you are today, give yourself the opportunity to retrain yourself, to train for a healthier life. Right. So, Priscilla, thank you for this great, Honest Open Conversation. I would love for you to share with the listeners where they can find you.
I saw it on your Facebook that you do offer telehealth as well, I believe. Yeah, yeah, I would do. So, the name of my practice is Thrive Mind, Counseling and Wellness. And of course, it's a post-aproached mental health.
So yes, we have mental health here, good old therapy, but also things like mindfulness, you know, classes and workshops, and I yoga studio here in the office, and the old class is not just for clients, open to the community. And traditional coaching as well, with whatever their best. And the website is www.scribemindwildness.com. We do offer telehealth and COVID, right?
Can't not. Right. And as like I mentioned to you, our entire team is related to the military somehow. And so, you know, one of our wonderful therapists that was here with us, they moved, they'd be blessed, but she's here with us, doing telehealth.
And so, as a business, as an organization, they try to support my team, you know, and we still see a gathering of where you're gonna move to, we can figure this out, you know, have a thing. So, yeah, and we have a, we're on Facebook and on Instagram, just give us a follow. Awesome, thank you so much. I really appreciate you sending the morning with me.
Thank you so much. I really enjoy listening to Honest Thought Radio. It's a lot of fun, very informative, sharing it with everybody. Okay.
So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's show. If you'd like to come on the show and have an honest conversation about connecting, relating, and encouraging women, contact us at hello at honesttalkinternational.com.
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