MentalHappy: Tamar Blue’s Mission to Make Mental Health Available to All

Introducing Tamar Blue and Mental Happy

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Anne. Today we're sitting down with a woman who's reimagining mental health from the inside out, Tamara Blue, the founder and CEO of Mental Happy, a HIPAA-compliant digital platform making expert-led support groups safe, affordable, and stigma-free for all. She turned panic into purpose and a whisper for help into a movement that's helped thousands feel seen, heard, and healed. Her work with Mental Happy has appeared in major publications such as NASDAQ, TechCrunch, and Silicon Valley Business Journal. She earned her MBA after graduating from Florida State University with a dual degree in sociology and economics. As a first-generation Haitian American, she's battled anxiety and panic attacks and silence, because in her world, mental health wasn't discussed, let alone treated. So what did she do? She built what she needed: a community of support, compassion, and healing. From starting a peer group in high school that earned White House recognition, by the way, Tamar didn't wait for permission. She created space. Mental Happy is a health platform that offers people of all backgrounds a safe, secure space to address their emotional health and daily challenges. Through free mental health resources and expert-led support groups, they ensure everyone can access the emotional support that they deserve, free from financial or physical barriers. So grab your journal, maybe a cup of tea caffeine-free if you're channeling tomorrow, and let's get real. First of all, I want to thank you so much for being on the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

I appreciate it. And thank you so much to the listeners for having me. I'm happy to be here with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

You know, I've been on your website, I watched some of your videos, and I actually joined. And I think anxiety is one of society's biggest problems. And the stigma of mental health is a real thing. And people look away, and others feel ashamed, and others feel so alone. Also, our kids today, this is probably an epidemic. And you started your first peer support program in high school, safety ambassadors, and it, like we said, was recognized by the White House. Could we please talk about your story and what brought you to even wanting to start mental happy?

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I've I've probably always been a pretty empathetic person. So feel things really deeply. And yeah, it just in some societies and some cultural backgrounds, it's just you don't really have the space. And oftentimes you don't have the language, right? Like I don't think um in my language we even had a term for like mental health that was a positive one anyway. Um a lot of it is like, you know, you're crazy, or it's a weakness, or you know, it's just, it's just really kind of shunned away. The first peer led support group that I started in high school was really empowering. And we had an overwhelming amount of people putting in, you know, anonymous requests and people kind of coming in and getting help. So it made me realize, like, okay, we're I'm not the only person who's ever experienced this, and we are we were doing something really positive. Fast forward to all of my life experiences, you know, graduating college, working a career, and really still encountering people. I worked in staffing and they're technically uh your employee as the staffer, but they work out at other corporations, kind of like temp services, if I think anybody's ever heard that term before. So I was managing maybe like 200 something people working in the field. And wow definitely common was just like people had life stuff, you know, people that come into work because this life thing happened to them. And I just found myself like listening um to people's hardships more than anything. And when I left that career, I really wanted to leverage something using technology, something that I was passionate about. And I remembered

The Birth of Support Groups

SPEAKER_02 4:14

that I really loved this work and support groups, even like through the churches I was a part of. There were um group networks and I was a volunteer in the church, like groups like for homelessness or uh for women with like who've been victims of domestic violence. So I I had been doing this type of like group work with people for a long time. I realized the challenge with groups, and even when I was looking for, you know, some type of support group is that they're really hard to find. If you're not part of a church or a church doesn't find you, uh, you're not in a school or university system where you know support groups are often pretty common, or maybe you didn't go through acute care in a hospital. Hospitals oftentimes have support groups, but they're run by volunteers and you have to like call or email to get it. It's just like all this brokenness in support groups. It was like really overlooked, other than what it's wildly popularly known for, which is Alcoholics Anonymous, which has been around for 80 plus something years, has high level of you know effectiveness. People recognize uh the brand and and how they've changed people's lives. But I really thought about how support groups can really meet that gap for all of the life events that people may experience and all of the life transitions that people may experience, whether it's recovery or maybe you are, you know, an adult and you're now aging, right? Like there's on our platform, there's a a a golden, I think it's called like golden aging or aging gracefully, something like that. Um that I've seen on our platform, like you know, people who, you know, 50 and older, or people coming from military and back to civilian life, or people who um are caregivers and they're caring for someone who has like a long-term disability. So it just it made me realize like there should be a support group for everyone for everything, not just anxiety or depression, or and that space just really didn't exist in a way that was really affordable, accessible, and had really good representation on the different types of people it served, right? Whether that's an LGBTQ community, whether that's, you know, single mom community or whatever it looks like, you can find a group leader that has either been there, has the clinical knowledge, or um looks like you.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

I mean, this is absolutely genius. And what I love too is that you've taken your pain and you've turned it into purpose and you have done something, and this was is a movement because mental health can be debilitating.

unknown 6:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

And it is probably one of our most ignored, you know, and that is so sad. People really do look the other way a lot of times, instead of just reach out a helping hand to somebody who really needs it. And you are doing that.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

It's oftentimes just one modality for finding mental health. People just think, oh, a therapist, but then they think, well, it's not gonna buy my insurance, you know, to go see a therapist. And therapists are doing really great work, or you know, it's it's expensive, is oftentimes what we hear from people because you have to come up with a hundred and fifty, two hundred something dollars for 50 minutes. Absolutely. And it's oftentimes really hard for people to maybe squeeze it in their schedule, right? Because it's like it's Monday, it's like going to the dentist, which is so hard. So it's just it be it becomes like very difficult to kind of fit it in your life. But what oftentimes people don't realize with any type of health care, whether it's like physical or mental care, mental health care, something that's like not an emergency, right? Like you have to be rushed to the hospital, is that people who live in rural areas and people who have children also have like barriers to health. It when we think about health care barriers, we sometimes think of it's just financial, but it could be you live in a rural area and there's no bus line to get back to the city. You don't have a car to get back to like a metropolitan area, or let's say you are a caregiver of, you know, maybe uh your aging parents and you also have children. You're like in those middle, you're what's considered those middle-year adults, right? And you have to get your parents some help, right?

Making Mental Health Accessible

SPEAKER_02 8:36

But you also have to think about childcare. And that could be a limitation for even you going out to get help for your mental health treatment because you have these, you know, social barriers, these responsibilities that are not just necessarily financial.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I mean, you were speaking my language because you know, I adopted five kids. Uh I have two older, I have two young, three younger, and th my three youngers are autistic, many, many needs. And uh, it is very hard to, and I'm the last person that I think of, right? I mean, that's what we do, that we're the last people that we think of. And it's really easy in the evening to get on, watch your videos, or do some things like that, that, or wake up in the morning and that's the first thing that I do.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Our philosophy at Mental Happy is that yes, one-on-one care is absolutely important. Uh, and groups are a good way to either be a supplement to that, like a complement to that, or if you do have all of these limitations, maybe cost, maybe distance, you know, things like that, then groups are a good option because it's great to go to the doctor and you know, learn a lot about, you know, your diagnosis and get treatment and get help, or go to a behavioral outpatient program and get help. But the community aspect of it is absolutely aids in the healing. And that's what the support groups in Mental Happy can provide, where you can chat with people who are living the real life experience that you're experiencing, but you it's also led by some type of professional expert. So there is some trust that you can have in the information that you're receiving, and just like the real-time motivation, encouragement, and support that you get from that community is just like really unbeatable. And I'd say like 99% of the support groups on the platform are virtual. So, like you said, if you got a lot going on during the day, maybe you have some time during your lunch, you know, you can transparently see what times your group is meeting for a virtual session. Maybe if you missed it, you can still get involved in like chat and communication on the platform through the mobile apps. So it's it's like all that helpfulness, like right in your pocket.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

I also love that you can log on anonymously. I mean, some of us, and I know that me going in and sitting, you know, in a group sometimes isn't really where I am in my space. You know, I'm just not there. But I could log in to a group on a computer, and that just, you know, that really frees that up for me because I've had people, oh, you have so much going on. I'll tell you what, if and I'm also autistic, so it really makes a big difference. You've created a space for people neurodivergent that would never normally walk into a building.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

And you've made it accessible to everyone. What exactly is everything that you offer on the platform? Because there's a lot more than just the the group.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Yeah, absolutely. So um you touched on something that's pretty near and dear to my heart. We when we started out, there was just um, there was a lot of information on the internet at the at the time, kind of starting to really talk about like destigmatizing mental health, opening up, you know, going, you know, encouraging people to go to therapy. But we still kind of with our community that we were growing, um, really on Facebook at the time. And we just we felt like there needed to just be tangible, real things that um people can kind of get their hands on. And I really love flight practicing gratitude and journaling and stuff like that. And we started creating these tools, we call them on our um website, uh, they're free downloadables. And it's just different five to ten minute tools that people can digest quickly. And it's a quick dial um downloadable form that you can take with you, you can share it, teach it to your kids, you know, have really good prompts for encountering life things. Maybe you're having a tough time expressing your boundaries. We talk about what that looks like, give you examples on what to say, different audience that you may have to say. So just different life things, maybe shifting little um negative intrusive thoughts throughout the day to replacing them with positive things. Um, positive self-talk is like a big theme of a lot of those downloadables. So and people love them. And we realize like while people have the information and they hear a lot of stuff on social media, it's amazing that people actually want to do the work and do like the small um practices, but we do it in a way that doesn't overstimulate people. So it's not like you need to play a game on our app or you know, you need to like constantly be on the phone. It's just it's something that you can download and do in your own time. And it's and it gives you this really cool one sheet that you can print out, you can carry with you, you know, you can read it and it and it's not something that takes up too much of your day. The other part, other than the actual um support groups, is that, you know, as I mentioned, we don't want to overstimulate people. So we don't, we don't connect with any other social media platforms because we just don't want any noise or distraction. People are very keen about like privacy and security. So the chat feature is only available on mobile so that um we disable any like screen um shotting or anything like that. We monitor screenshots are for people to screenshot like what anybody said or messaging. Um we don't allow recordings of the virtual video sessions. So when your group needs virtually, it's not it's not recorded for any reason, for any purposes, not even for training purposes um internally, because we just we really want to be sensitive with your data and the things that you're um openly sharing. It often it has a lot to offer on the platform. And as I mentioned before, with the places that you would normally find support groups, maybe in a church, maybe in a hospital, it's just they those places are fantastic and it's great that they offer them. But what I found in my experience in building support groups and even joining them myself is that let's say you you do have you had some acute care event at a hospital and and they do have support groups, or maybe like grief, right? And sometimes it's run by a volunteer. That volunteer isn't always available because you know they're it it's their free time and you have to email this person or you have to call this number to the hospital and they have to, you know, forward your information to the volunteer, and the volunteer will reach out. Well, if you think about like the tough time that you're going through for anything, like maybe you're just diagnosed with something, maybe you're going through grief, you know, maybe you're just like struggling. So to have to jump through all these hoops to get to a group is just one of the things that we wanted to eliminate and on the platform. So it's just a quick you sign up, you tell us a little bit about what you're experiencing, nothing sensitive, nothing judgmental on the information. We just want to know what types of groups you're looking for so that we can suggest some. And then you can search through all the groups that we have available on the platform to really find your match. And then as you saw and on the platform, it gives you full description on what the group is about. Some groups also tell you what they're not about so that there's no confusion. And then if the group has any triggers, right? Like if there are any sensitive words that maybe you're not ready to experience, then it the group on the on the front page will give you a trigger warning so that you don't join and you're jarred and you see it on the back end. If there's any price for the group, if the group is free, is it if it's accepting donations, if there's a monthly fee, if there's a one-time fee, all of those things you know up front so that it's not this weird, creepy thing that you're going into because again, you are going into you want to feel like it's a safe space. And the only way we can make it feel like a safe space for people is to be fully transparent with the information up front.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

You have thought of everything, it sounds like. I mean, you've tried.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

And like you said, community helps me come up with ideas too. Like we've gotten we've gotten a lot of great support and ideas from what people want.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Okay, well, you're listening, and that is really important. And you did talk about the specific evidence-based group therapy that you have, and uh you've talked about grief and stress and trauma and some of those other things. Do you have like a a list of some of the other ones that you provide?

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Yeah, I even seen like a an adult, an adult like adoption support group. So I I mean, I've seen like everything on the platform. Like literally yesterday, I was looking at a couple of new psychedelic, like psychedelic support groups that have come up. So I've seen really everything on the platform. Really surprised. And we even have like faith-based groups on the platform that focus on like recovery and stuff like that. And it's not just um like therapists that use the platform, it's like um therapists and they do non-clinical work on the platform. So I just want to make that very clear. Okay. They just provide like psychoeducational support groups, and we've seen, I've even seen like doctors teaching things in the support groups, survivors is a big community, like

Self-Management and Healthcare Burden

SPEAKER_02 18:05

people who've like lived experience and have been advocating for the space for a long time. But because all of that uh content and what the groups are about are led from their perspective is why we have such a wide range of different support groups that people can find. If for some chance that you come onto the platform and something niche that you're looking for is not available, people can put in a suggestion. Okay. And then we collect those suggestions. And then when someone comes onto the platform, maybe they want to lead a group and are not entirely sure, we'll say, okay, well, 20 people, you know, had expressed their interested in this particular topic if you have knowledge on it. And then that's how like a new group will um spawn up. I wish I could say, like, I'm the one who like thought of like all these people. My team is the one like thought of all these different categories. We thought of like 30, I think, main categories. And then like once we launched, like people just kind of blew that 30 up to just thousands of different things that we we would have never thought of that people would need.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yeah, it sounds like as soon as somebody thinks of something else, you make it available. We make it available, yeah. Yeah, I know that you have um been looking for health professionals and things like that. Anybody that is willing to come on and be a professional. Am I right?

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Yeah. So we're we're always welcoming support group leaders on the platform. What's really great is that you run it as your own business. You don't, you know, you're not like a 1099 or an employee of ours. You just use our platform to run your community, whether it's uh we have nonprofits on the platform. We even have like really small behavioral health hospitals that run virtual support and outpatient things. We have, as I mentioned, survivors that have been doing the work for a long time. Just people who have maybe been running support groups in different places that have been hard for them to manage. Or um, the biggest one that we hear oftentimes is that they're running support groups, like kind of like in their local town, local city, but it's very difficult to um really fill up those groups just because, again, they're like in person, people would have to drive in. Um, but with this platform, is that it allows them to, you know, 10x grow their group uh more so than they would on their own. Because again, people are coming specifically to look for support groups on our platform. And because we don't have those same barriers and limitation on like driving somewhere, and there's really no, like let's say someone is a licensed therapist, there's really no like legal regulations that they couldn't run a psychoeducational group and you know, you're based in Connecticut and you're you have participants in your group from all over the United States.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Uh, you also talk about your mission to serve everyone. And I think that that's amazing because there are so many gaps in our healthcare. And regardless of income, race, or background, you are closing those gaps. Can you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yeah, that was really hard in the beginning because um I'm obviously a person of color, and there was just a lot of niche at the time in mental health that we noticed. It was just like uh rich white woman syndrome, where it's just it was like these mental health groups for rich white women, and then there was, you know, mental health groups for um just just LGBTQ people, and it was just like all these small or just people of color, and there wasn't, and there were all these like small platforms that just catered to a particular type of person, type of demographic, lifestyle. And I just I got a lot of pushback in the beginning to be very niche, um, to maybe just focus on people of color, maybe just focus on women. And I just thought like the problem is, and and I knew this from just personal experience is that when someone is looking For a support group, it is very difficult to find those niche spaces. There really isn't one inclusive platform that's like, you know, a directory, a Wikipedia, you know, like it's its own Google search, it's like its own platform to find all of these things, right? Like if you were looking to uh rent a home, you would go to rentals.com. I don't know if that's a real website, but you know, you'd go to like, you know, if you were looking to buy a car, there's cars.com for like any car you want to buy, really anywhere. And there just wasn't this all-inclusive space like that for support groups. And um, those niche places had very, very slim pickings in terms of availability. Maybe you don't, you know, you don't fit the niche or the demographic, or you uh you you can't meet the times. So there just really aren't a lot of options on times. So I really pushed hard, like really, really hard, on um just really getting finding investors and and people and customers and users that really kind of saw this vision and this alignment of like, yeah, there's there should be a platform for everyone for every type of support group, and people should be able to find it pretty easily in one app.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

There really are a lot of people that are not getting the help that they need, and healthcare is one of the biggest problems. It is so difficult for people to even get the mental health help that they need through the health care that we provide in this country. But you talk about self-activated care and preventative care and self-care practice. So if you could talk more about this, because this is really intriguing to me.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah. So um self-management and self-activated care is really important. And people don't sometimes, I think we've romanticized it in our society as like self-care is doing your hair, it's getting a massage, it's you know, it's getting your nails done, or um, those things romanticize it in a way that also excludes like half the population because men maybe not necessarily want to like get their nails, you know what I mean? So, what does self-care look like for men, you know? Um, and that's something we were also very keen about on the platform is um making sure that men had like a lot of spaces. So I had to do a lot of recruiting to go out and find leaders that were also men to bring men's groups to the platform. But um for self, the self-management piece of it, people don't realize how much it actually declogs our overall healthcare system because what happens is, and I I volunteered in a hospital for a little while in high school. So I um, and then also a little bit clerical, doing admin clerical work, like in college. And what I realized working in the ER is that people weren't just coming into the ER because they broke a leg or they got into a car accident or they're bleeding or they passed out. Like some people were rushing into the ER because they were suffering from a broken heart. Like literally, I remember this man coming in and he was like in crisis because his wife was divorcing him, and he thought he was having a heart attack, but it was really just emotional heartache that he was experiencing. So, and then people who are experiencing like um psychosis. We had a family member who had uh an issue with like just like a mental like breakdown, like it was just a full psychotic like breakdown. And he was rushing to the hospital, and the hospital's like, Well, we don't handle that. And it's just like, well, where do you take? And it took a while for them to find somewhere, some behavioral health center that would agree to take the person. So what we don't realize is that mental health issues that don't have like a streamline on where to go clog up the healthcare system. So, you know, when we're talking about like fixing the gaps in healthcare, we need to talk about like unburdening the people who are doing the important work in the hospitals, you know, in acute care, in medical centers, because they're also kind of also having to take on, um, if there's no behavioral health center with, you know, within a short mile radius around them, they're also taking on mental health issues. And, you know, if someone is, let's say they do have an acute care issue, but they also have a mental health issue on top of that. It's just very difficult for like a nurse or a doctor to encounter that because that's not what they went to school for. Um, and it adds extra to their workload. And what people don't realize is um hospital readmissions are very high. So people go to the hospital for an acute care um issue, right? Let's say they just found out they were diagnosed, stage something. That's like devastating. That changes their world. They leave the hospital, they, you know, leave all those tests. And sometimes they come right back into the hospital because of now they're not taking care of themselves. Now they have depression, now they have anxiety. And the hospital's like, well, we just can talk to you about your medications, your treatment plan, and stuff like that. And it's just like, well, what do you do for all the other things that the person um is experiencing? So these things where people are able to have some tools to manage their care, their emotional care from home virtually, where yes, you were maybe diagnosed with something chronic, you know, you now something life-changing happened to you. But then now you have this supplemental support group to help you navigate all of the social, environmental, and life-changing things that, you know, your amazing, amazing doctor, oncologist, whatever in a hospital system is just not some they do great work sometimes and they do try to help, but they oftentimes don't have the capacity to because of just all the backlog of patients that they have to see and they have to keep re-seeing because patients are coming in for the wrong things that you know the hospital is just not built for.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yeah, I uh

Breaking the Cycle of Negative Self-Talk

SPEAKER_01 28:16

personally know a child who has been from acute center to acute center, and it's really hard to get them into a regular residential facility, which is where they're going to be going, but the beds are full across the country for kids. Right. And I mean, I don't know what's happening in our country, but I can tell you something is happening that the mental health facilities for kids is full.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Right. And then the other, the other breakdown of that um piece of self-management is just that we I I can't say enough about caregivers. It's it's it makes up such a huge um population on our platform in terms of roots for caregivers, is that yes, people are getting the treatment, but then the language and support in their own family systems is very difficult. And the strain and stress on the people who now have to help provide that care, maintain that care, support it. So um the all these things, all these like self-activated, self-management type tools where people can have the support, build resilience, focus on their coping is really important. And I just can't stress enough how much burden a support group, like every professional I've talked to, every type of doctor under the sun, every type of therapist under the sun, it's like, you know, you're not taking anything away from the work that we're doing. You're actually taking a piece of it that we just we're just not built to manage. Um, and people should have something else once they they leave that doctor's office. I was talking to a doctor that he focuses on, you know, diabetic care. And he was like, it's not just me giving them a shot, a pill, you know, talking to them about their treatment resume on managing and reducing their diabetes, but it's also like the nuanced things. It's just like finding that community that, you know, is going to hold you accountable to your diet, that's going to be able to talk to you on the tough days, right? Is going to be able to share really fun recipes with each other. He was like, it's all those little things that I can't provide in the, you know, sometimes 20-minute doctor's appointment. It's like he's like, I know these things, I just don't have time to really teach them. So he took it upon himself to start a support group and he he runs his um diabetic support group on our platform for um his patient. And that's just doing an extra thing on top of everything that he has to do as running a practice, being a medical professional, and things of that nature. So we need more um people who um want to be kind of like on the front lines of support groups, uh, because support group leaders are very much, you know, frontline workers.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

They can just contact the website and say, this is what I do, this is my knowledge, whatever, turn in everything and then yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

So on mentalhappy.com, they just click um read the website and see what the see what the things are, FAQ and all that. And then if you feel like it fits you and what what you want to do, just click get started. There's a small form where you can fill out what your group description will be about. You can always edit it and change it later if you want to change your group dynamic. But we review it, we review all groups that come onto the platform because we want to ensure you're a real person. And we want to also ensure nowadays I mean, in a world of bots and everything like we just want to make sure we keep the platform safe. And we also review what you're going to be bringing to the platform. It really has to be in the compounds of like physical health, mental health, wellness. It could even be like, uh, I think we've even stretched it to like spirituality, meditation, and um colleges, universities. So as long as it's like within the realm of like overarching wellness. And then once your group is approved, then you know, our team will show you how to use the platform, and then you can start running your group pretty immediately.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

When you first log in, you know, and I went on the video, you talk about 11 mental health practices. I don't even call your video self-help because I think that that's too cliche. I don't know. I mean, there's just so many of them out there, and I think that it's at a different level because you're so personal and they are you and they are transparent. And when pain and passion meet, you have purpose. And I feel that that's what you have done. And it's also about connection because connection is where people grow and heal, and you've created that space. Connection allows people to be who they are with the people they feel comfortable with without judgment.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

So can you talk more about that? Yeah, absolutely. Um, I I've just seen from personal experience. So I did mention early on we started mental happy, our the overarching mental happy community on a social media platform. And I you would think like with something like mental health and people kind of talking about their problems and things that they're going, you would think like no one would bully someone and pick on someone who's like going through a tough time, like kicking someone when they're down. But we seen firsthand, like on social media sites, people would make like negative comments, they'd make off-color comments. Unbelievable. Um, and it was just a lot of, and then not just that, it's just people were also being mean to themselves, you know, like the negative self-venting. Yeah. So the judgment is not just what we pride ourselves at mental happy is that the judgment we want people to realize it's not just coming from the outside. We want you to also learn to not judge yourself, and that's really important. So, yes, in our journey, we were like, we want to not only prevent bullying from other people, but we also want to help people understand how to be kind and less judgmental to themselves. That's the that's the whole reason why some of the most of like the free resources talk so much about like positive self-talk and really changing that inner narrative. Because if you can change your inner world, your inner narrative, you can really change your life. I heard um uh I follow someone that I really love. Her name is Esther Hicks, and I was reading in one of her books, she was just saying, like, you know, we own things that we don't necessarily need to own emotionally, like in our mind. And it was something like changing your words from, you know, I have XYZ disease to I'm healing from XYZ disease. And then that that change from like I have, meaning like I'm gonna be with this thing forever, versus like this is just a journey I'm passing through, right? Like I'm healing through it, it makes a big difference on um your mood. And your mood impacts how obviously how you feel overall mentally and physically, and when you feel good mentally, your body chemically and on a physiological level really starts to shift as well.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

It I don't think people realize how much our mental affects our physical being. So I mean, you're really providing a space that can help our entire being.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

Yeah. Yeah, we and we do that through um what the what the groups, what I really hope the groups are achieving and and what we try to coach the group facilitators through is like you're giving people education about like life and nuanced things that maybe no one's ever really taken the time to teach them. And it's certainly nothing we learn in school, right? On on, you know, you know a lot about Ulysses S. Grant, but you don't really know a lot about like your actual mind and how that impacts the physicalness of your body, how it impacts your cells, your organs, and you know, how the body stores trauma and things like that, where you need that. I mean, it's great to know history, but I mean, what's more important than knowing thyself?

SPEAKER_01 36:08

You just made me think of so I mean, that is just so important. I mean, why don't we introduce this in the younger years?

SPEAKER_02 36:17

Yeah, we're working on it. I would love that. It's like my biggest dream is to um really, you know, really pilot this um in the schools and maybe even have like a group for um the like guardians and parents, and then have groups for um the younger, um, like K through 12 as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I think part of it, and I don't know, but I I think a lot of it can be that mental health, anything, mental health therapy, uh, it's looked at as a weakness or a stigma. I mean, you touched on that a little bit, you know, with your family and how they looked at it. I mean, how did you break through that?

SPEAKER_02 36:55

I think it was just like going away to college. I I really encountered uh different people and um different ideas, different cultures, different languages. So I I think just the experience of like moving away really opened my world up. Um, but when I but my specific experience when I was having like these weird panic attacks, which felt like kind of out of nowhere for no reason in my 20s, I was able to, I saw one doctor and it was just a little bit of a weird interaction between him and I. And then I saw someone else. He definitely didn't know why. And he was like, I could prescribe you something, but I think you should see a colleague of mine. He wasn't eager to give me medication first for it, right? So he was just like, hey, you should go see this person. And that person he sent me to, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I can never remember if she was like a dietitian or a nutritionalist. Um, but she was like a doctor, maybe like doctor dietitian. And she talked about how food, you know, triggers things in the mind, and the mind triggers like the body. And um, she really got me to ship, I mean, you're you know, just a 20-year-old junky diet, like fast food and very little vegetables and berries and antibiotics and stuff. I mean, not antibiotics, uh, antioxidants, which are very helpful for easing anxiety. Okay. Yeah. So she just taught me a lot about like how all those holistic things are tied together. And she taught me how, you know, the mind really does impact the body. And she was like one of the first people that taught me about like, you know, stored trauma. And sometimes panic attacks could be trauma that's like stored in your body from when you were a child. Things that happen to you that you may not even really remember, but your body remembers it. And it's like bringing and things and things trigger it, like, you know, having too much sugar, have having not enough adequate water, like these things trigger these traumas to like kind of hit you. And and for me, they were like night terrors. It would just happen to me in the middle of the night. And she was just like, it could be something. So she talked a lot about like moving your body and yoga and stuff like that. And I took a lot of that education that I learned from her, and I told the team, I was like, I told my co-founder at the time, I was like, I think I want to write this like 11, 12, like mental happy guide thing. Like, cause those were like the 10 principles that she had, I think maybe she had shared like seven or eight principles. I've I since added a few to them, but they were just like core principles that I'm like, no one ever taught me these things. And I'm pretty sure that no one ever taught anybody else. And someone said something like, oh, we should turn it into a book and sell it. And I was just like, no, I just want to give it away. So um the the mental happy guide is is free on our website, and it just has like these, you know, I can't even remember now, 11, 12 things that no one really taught you about, like just living life and how your life could be better if you just did a few small changes. See, that could be a class.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

It could be a class for kids. I really do think so. Right. And yeah, you know, you shared in a blog post because I I did some deep digging here with you, and you did talk about the severity of your anxiety and your therapist asked you to start journaling, and you were really surprised, and you did touch on this a little bit, but how you talked to yourself and your negative thoughts in general. Your mantra back then was I will never be able to do this. And this is not going to happen for me, you know, those types of things. And, you know, we just normally I interview with by myself or Tina and I talk together. We do banter back and forth or whatever. But I did one recently with just myself. I interviewed myself, I guess. I really touch on self-talk, you know, what we think can become action. And if it's negative, you know, it comes out as a negative. I was wondering about manifesting and the positive thoughts turning into action. How important is self-talk? Which you did talk about that in introspection and working on self. And you went from talking completely negative to who you are now. I mean, really?

SPEAKER_02 41:12

I mean, yeah. It's it really works. I mean, I can I can literally I have physical evidence of the things that because when I first started doing the journaling, it was really like negative. You can pinpoint all the negative things with all the negative, like all the negative words with all the negative things that were happening in my life. And then once I started to shift the words, even if the physical world hadn't caught up to the words yet, once I just started shifting the story and just writing a better story for myself, then the things in my life started to get better. And they started to get better and they started to get better. And it was almost like I started like predicting my own future and my own life. So things that I wanted and things that I wanted to see happen. And even like with mental happy, you know, I told you guys in the beginning where, you know, I had this vision and this idea for it to really be this inclusive place. I didn't just want to build a platform that was just for, you know, people of color or, you know, women of color, or you know, just like a niche thing. I really wanted it to be inclusive. I remember like writing that down and then to see it come into fruition, you know, today. And, you know, things like where I wanted to be with my business, things that were where I wanted to see my family go. It's like the more I gave it my positive energy, it's just like it started, you know, even times where I was like ill, you know, or sick or, you know, recovering from something, and I would just work on changing that story. And it's just like the physical world also changed as well. So it's it's it's really important. And I've heard somebody say it this way that it's the best way I can explain it. They were actually talking about like believing in God, and they were just like, it's almost no bad side believing in God, right? It's just like even with like journaling and writing positive, it's just no downside to it. Like even if you don't quite believe it in the beginning, um just doing it is no, there's no downside to it. Like you're only saying good things, and you know, maybe the good things won't happen right away. Maybe they'll take a while, and maybe the good things will blow your mind and happen better than you wrote it down, you know. So that's like the best way I can explain like shifting um your mindset. It is very, very difficult to get started in the beginning. I I 100% living proof of that. Your writings in the beginning will definitely be like scrambled eggs, but it's almost like you kind of need to get all that bad stuff out and then like kind of start, kind of start like washing that away and then transitioning to the good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

It's interesting that taking your thoughts and putting it on paper allowed you to be able to see how you were thinking. And you didn't really think, you didn't notice that before you actually were looking at it.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Right. Yeah. And then you just kind of I you know, for me, I just kind of became disgusted with it. You know, it's just like I didn't wanna I didn't want to continue to be there.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Yeah. And that's why, you know, gratitude is so important. And I think sometimes we do have to force it and maybe really be thankful for whatever the smallest thing is. I'm not really sure. But if we're there in that negative mindset and everything around us appears as if it's not where we want it, then we might have to start journaling in a way where we can start manifesting something bigger and better.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

Right. And I on on like very hard days where it feels like there's like nothing to be grateful for because the thing, the main things you want, you don't have, right? I always tell people, like, just think about well, two things. Like, one, when you don't have anything to be grateful for, just think about oxygen, right? Like, literally, if oxygen was not on this planet, it's like whatever you're worried about, whatever you're nervous about, whatever you're sad that you don't have, or you don't

Daily Practices and Personal Mantras

SPEAKER_02 44:57

you don't look like, you don't feel like, you know, it it just wouldn't even be a thing if there was no oxygen. It just exists so that you can exist. And then in terms of like easing anxiety, I like to tell people, because anxiety is sometimes you're thinking way too much in the future. And I like to tell people, like, well, if you think about how the sun is in perfect proximity to the earth, right? Like that in itself is a major thing that's just worked out in your favor. The sun is in perfect proximity to earth. Like you literally would not live. Nothing would live, nothing you cared about would even exist, nothing you're worried about would exist. You wouldn't even have the opportunity to achieve the thing that it is that you that you want to achieve if the if the sun wasn't in perfect proximity to the earth. So if something that major of a colossal event can happen in the universe and it works out like perfectly, what's that to say about a job that you want? Something that you're wanting to heal from, you know, a a lover or mate that you're hoping for. Like, you know, like everything else that you're hoping and wanting is feels very small compared to this big event that has already worked out in your favor for free.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

You do talk about verbalizing, gave you power. We are in more control than we realize. Than we realize, yeah. Yeah, and we think that people are taking power from us all the time. I think. Yeah. And it could feel that way.

SPEAKER_02 46:17

It really could. This, I mean, this is these are weird times, so definitely could feel that way.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, that's a whole nother episode, I think. But you know, we do, we give, and we give, and we end up with nothing sometimes. And so it's really important that we've talked about in here the self-prioritize and to self-advocate because who else is gonna do it? I mean, we have to.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Yeah, you definitely have to pull yourself up for sure. And um, and there's people that really what I love about Mentopi is there's people that really want to see you win. In a place where it feels like no one wants to see you win, no one wants to see you get up, but you know, I feel like we're creating that uh space for people.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

I would like to close with some fun questions about Tamar. Uh you've eliminated caffeine. You live a holistic lifestyle. And can you talk walk us through your day-to-day practices that you've adopted?

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Yeah, so um I try to walk on like Mondays and Wednesdays. So I live on the West Coast, and it's really hard in Northern California to chase sunshine and warmth. So um, I've been making a habit to go out in nature on the weekends. Um, and that's been amazing because we we just have so much wildlife here and it hasn't been smoky and burning outside, which is nice. Uh, but I also work out a few times a week. Uh, I make drinking water a big priority. I learned that very early on that dehydration really triggers anxiety. It can also trigger depression. Yeah, I try to eat as you know cleanly as I can, but I had five guys' burgers the other day on my treat day, you know. You gotta life life is balanced, right? Yeah. And I gave up alcohol many, many, many years ago. No judgment to anyone who still partakes. I might have some matcha here and there, like very low caffeine. I'm a big, like, go outside in nature person. Like, I really love long walks by myself and dancing and singing, like you know, I was singing at the top of my lungs, uh, dropping my kid off.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

That's awesome. Dropping my kid off the camp. Yeah, I can embarrass my kids sometimes. Yeah, feeling really low. Yeah. So we talked about personal affirmations, mantras, you know, all that stuff. Can you share some of your own mantras that help keep get you through your day?

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Yeah, the best one, my favorite one, um, is everything is working out for me. Okay. Simple as that. And even on my bad days, I mean, I could write that down like 20 times, and then I'll start to feel better. It's just everything is working out for me. And if you don't believe it, you can kind of like look back at your life at things that you were worried about and whether they worked out or not. Often nine times out of ten, they did.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

Mine is trust the process. I love that. And I cannot tell you how many times that goes through my head. And it also works for me as being like a thought stopper. Because when my when my brain wants to go in the negative right away and start going towards the worst case scenario, I'll just stop and say trust the process. And that instantly really does make me start trusting where I am right now.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

And then allow it to just be and sit for a minute before I start taking it down the wrong path. Because, you know, that's what our brains want to do sometimes. Uh, you say chopping vegetables is meditative to you. It is. What is your go-to comfort meal when you're nervous? Besides five guys. But I know.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

I um I love making eggplant lasagna. It's like oh yeah, I love eggplant. Yeah, and I love any type of like legume stew. So just like a lot of kale and spinach, and I always put eggplant in it, and and it's just it takes a long time to cook down, put carrots in it. Sure, sure. Yeah, it's a traditional dish from my culture. And I've I mean, I've I've probably Americanized it to the max, but but um, yeah, it's just it's really meant. It just takes a long time to chop the things down and you know, cook everything down. So it's just by the time you're done two hours later, you just you don't even remember what you you were worried about before.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Okay, yeah, cooking has really helped me. Those types of things help bring me back to center and help me not it. I don't remember any of my problems while I'm doing those things. I think that that's really important, you know, is that we need to always find something that brings us back to center so we're not stuck in that negative and we can remind ourselves why we're going the path that we are.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

Yeah, and life kind of just gives you so much momentum so fast. Like it's just like it's work, it's you know, it's emails, it's I need to call this person back, I need to, you know, buy this from this grocery store. It's just like all the mental load of life, just it just feels like so much fast momentum. And it just it feels like we need to know the details of like how everything is gonna work out because we need to control it. I had a really great business mentor um once upon a time who uh he used to love saying, like, don't get caught in the details. Like whenever he would share like an idea with us or some some new initiative, and and you know, everybody, all the employees were like, Well, what about this and what about that? And that's not gonna work. And you know, we sometimes um talk ourselves out of good things, right? Or we we overwhelm ourselves with like why this is not gonna work out. And he used to always say, like, don't get caught in the details. And sometimes when I when I have an idea about something or you know, I want to change something or achieve something, I will tell myself, like, okay, this is your idea right now. You don't need to get caught in the details of like how and when, and you know, your job is just the what. And and I've already figured out the what, you know. And my other favorite one that I learned from a good friend of mine, her name is Patty. She used to love saying when someone would hit you with like something urgent or it feels urgent and you have to like immediately respond, and or maybe someone upset you. She was just like, you gotta do this thing where you just practice, like just letting it sit in your hair for a little while, you know. And she would also say, like, don't take that call, you know, just because she was just saying, like, sometimes when you just don't respond, life has a way of just the thing goes away. Like it, it just sometimes kind of handles itself with just like a little bit of time, a little bit of breathing room, just letting it sit in your hair. Just don't take that call too fast, you know, and just like letting it simmer for a little bit. Because in staffing, every this is where we met as friends, but in staffing, everything's so urgent. An employee, you know, called out, and you know, this and that. It's just like everybody that calls you, it's like an urgent call, right? And you're getting 50 urgent calls at a time. So she just really learned to like not let other people's panic be your panic.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Oh my gosh, I love that. I think I'm gonna write that down. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that is so good.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

Right. So it just it it gave me this like control of self, right? Like, I'm now not taking on other people, and you can do that in a lot of different scenarios. Like, if someone's if your partner's upset and angry, and then sometimes you find yourself angry and kind of like elevating your voice too because you're just absorbing their energy, and it's just sometimes like not letting other people's things just become your emotion. So that that's very, very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Yes, I have learned that being quiet and allow the other person to just go is sometimes the best thing to do and allow time to resolve it and to walk away because it normally does resolve it. I used to be that person that would engage, but I have learned along the years that, you know, with wisdom or whatever, yeah, not to engage. And it normally does resolve itself. And balance is key. And you've touched on that a little bit, and putting up those boundaries. Boundaries are huge to our mental health, protecting our own peace. And I'm sure as the CEO and you know, of this mental health space that you've had to do that a lot.

SPEAKER_02 54:50

Yeah, yeah. I've I've gotten it really just in the last maybe two years, just like with family, trying to balance family and work. I've just had to really get good at and the way I think about boundaries, boundaries are for us. Like sometimes we think of boundaries as, oh, this is just a barrier I'm putting up so other people don't bother me. But I think we think about it sometimes in the wrong, not necessarily the wrong way, but not in the best perspective, in that boundaries are for you to honor your beliefs and your guiding systems and things that you want to see or you don't want to see. Because to say that you're giving someone a boundary, they would have to know what your belief systems are. And oftentimes people don't know your belief system, right? So, how could you give someone else a boundary?

Closing Thoughts and Mental Happy's Impact

SPEAKER_02 55:38

For me, I had to honor my own boundary and just, you know, my belief system is just really trying to be the master of my time. What I where I realized is like I was crossing my own boundary and like really just being too nice with my time and helping people. And as much as it like pained me when people would reach out and they'd, you know, want help with something, advice with something, I just had to really just brutally be honest. Like, hey, I'm I'm at the top of my bandwidth on what I can give people of my time. Um, and and I realized that it wasn't other people violating that boundary, it was just me not not honoring that belief that I had that, hey, I'm just very limited on time now because of X, Y, Z thing.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

One last question, and then we'll close. What advice would you give to somebody who? I mean, this is obviously pre-mental happy, they haven't pushed that button yet, they haven't gone on yet, and they are completely full of anxiety and they're overwhelmed and they don't even know what to do with that first step. What just talk to them?

SPEAKER_02 56:39

I would say to try to get outdoors. Um, if you can't, if it's the weather's not vibing with you outdoors, just try to turn off like high sensory things, like turn off your phone, turn off any light. I used to find like a corner, like a in a closet. And I used to just like sit. Now I I sit and I put my hand on my heart and I just I just do nothing. Like I don't, and I tell myself, like, I don't have any expectations of myself. And whenever a thought would like come in, I would imagine, like I would physically imagine myself kind of like pushing, gently pushing that thought away. And I think if you can just breathe and and sit for a second, the the idea or the thought or the motivation or the impulse to do the next thing that's best for you will come up.

SPEAKER_01 57:25

That's really good advice. I think just sometimes just one step and then the next will reveal itself. And not even looking past that, being okay with where you are. I mean, that's just for right now. For right now, yeah. Yeah. You don't have to see the whole staircase. Well, Tamar, you are an inspiration. Thank you. You didn't just want to get mentally healthy. You created an entire space for everyone to come with you. And I think that that's amazing that you took people on this journey. You realized a need and you acted on it. You left what you knew and you created something because it was needed. And you are to be commended for what you were accomplishing. People all over do not have access to mental health. They just don't. They are sitting at home alone, or they are even in a room full of people feeling hopeless. And suicide is up, anxiety is up, hurting people are everywhere, judgment of others is up, trust is down, division is up, and it's getting worse all the time. So thank you, Tamar. Thank you, thank you for what you are doing. And I'm going to scream from the rooftops and tell everyone that I know about mental happy and go to mentalhappy.com. And like I said, I am doing it myself, and I'm going to join some of these groups. And, you know, I don't take this lightly. I really do believe in this space. And thank you for giving us that space for people like me and for everyone out there that needs help. Tomorrow and Blue didn't just start a company. She started a movement, a movement for every person who's ever felt unseen, unheard, or they had to carry their own struggles alone. So here's a reminder: mental health is real. It's a real health. Support is strength. And healing is not only possible, it's necessary. So visit mentalhappy.com, join a group, start your journey, be part of something that could change your life or someone else's. Tomorrow, thank you for creating the kind of world we all want to live in, one that makes space for healing, humanity, and hope. And to all of you listening, thank you for showing up for yourselves today. This has been Real Talk with Tina and Anne. And as we always say, there is purpose in the pain and there is hope in the journey. Thank you for joining, and we will see you next time.