“Offer yourself love.”
Dr. Ayanna Abrams helps people deeply connect with themselves and others with authenticity and compassion; with renewed confidence and clarity. She is the daughter of parents who emigrated from the Caribbean to the US and has a lifetime of experience navigating issues of cultural difference, transition and identity. These experiences fueled her interest in the formal study of behavior across & within people and cultures; more specifically–creating opportunities for health in historically underserved communities. She pursued degrees in psychology and African American studies and geared her education towards diverse cultural settings. She has a doctorate from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (Chicago campus) and completed her pre-doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship training at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. She is a Co-Founder of Not So Strong, a mental health platform curated for black women to strengthen their sense of self and connection to others through use of vulnerable storytelling. She is very engaged in the Atlanta community at large and can oftentimes be found supporting local and national initiatives focused on growth, improved health outcomes and amplifying voices that tend to go unheard.
In this episode, Dr. Ayanna and Koya talk about setting healthy boundaries in home and work life, the cycle of becoming a people pleaser and destigmatizing anxiety and humanness. Dr. Ayanna shares her tips for improving self-care, having a routine and offering yourself love.
- Setting healthy boundaries 1:15
- Racism based trauma 3:22
- Immigrant family roots 4:50
- People pleasing 5:50
- “It’s not people’s responsibility to guess what your needs are.” 10:00
- Saying yes when you want to say no. 11:40
- Investment in therapy 14:23
- Destigmatizing anxiety and humanness 17:05
- What self-care looks like 21:48
- Work boundaries 27:00
- Daily routine 29:30
- Offer yourself love 40:45
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Order Koya’s book Let Your Fears Make You Fierce
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