193. Gaining Wisdom & Weathering Grief in Your Twenties feat. Yasmine Cheyenne
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Today's guest is Yasmine Cheyenne— an author, TED TALK Motivational speaker, Air Force Veteran, and self-healing workshop leader who works to help people heal through traumatic situations. Through her work, she has guided corporate giants, including Google, NAMI, and Skillshare, and created The Sugar Jar Community to further give a space for others to offer guidance in the healing process.
In this episode, we discuss:
+ Ways you can best show up to support your loved ones
+ The importance of implementing boundaries & avoiding burnout
+ Why acceptance & community play such crucial roles in the grieving process
+ How grief can show up in break-ups and other life changes
+ What compassionate honesty is & why we can all benefit from it
+ How her experience in the Air Force taught her to build wisdom & self-trust
+ Three steps you can take to boost your wisdom in unfamiliar situations
+ The power of using affirmations in your daily life
+ Coping mechanisms to try when you're struggling with your mental health
+ Advice for those experiencing loss in their lives
+ Using social media in positive ways for our mental health
+ so much more!
Yasmin's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yasminecheyenne/
Mentioned In The Episode…
SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC
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About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)
After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.
a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!
Yasmine: I think even right now a lot of people are going through things that no one's been through before.
You get to this particular space where you think, well nobody has the experience, so how will I make it through this? Right. And I think the exercise that we all can kind of take ourselves through is, I may not have experience for what I'm going through right now, but I know I've had a situation in which I was starting from scratch, whether it was college, whether it was tryouts for a team, whatever it is,
right. But I was able to learn and I was able to curate a way of feeling comfortable enough to move forward
Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of She Persisted. I'm so excited you're here today. We have a really incredible individual on the podcast today, Yasmin Cheyenne. She is the author of The Sugar Jar and Wisdom of the Path, which has just come out. She is also a motivational speaker and a self healing workshop leader, and this was just such an incredible conversation.
We touched on so many different things. We talked about navigating grief, how you can lean into your own wisdom inside yourself. We talk about just the general healing journey, and this was a really inspiring and incredible conversation that I know you will have a lot of great takeaways from, so with that, let's dive in.
Sadie: \Thank you so much for joining me today on She Persisted. I am so, so excited to have you on the show and share your journey and your books and your work with the She Persisted audience.
Yasmine: I'm so excited to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Sadie: Of course! Well, to get things started, people have heard your official bio, but I would love to get your journey and your background and your words. Obviously today you're an advocate, you have multiple books out, you host a podcast as well, you've done all this incredible work, but to kind of rewind and go back to the beginning, how did you end up in the mental health space, and doing this work?
Yasmine: My mental health journey started when I was on active duty in the military. I got the opportunity to serve as a victim advocate when I was serving in the Air Force. And I think working with victims of domestic violence, working with victims of crime, it just became really curious about, okay, what happens to them experience.
And I think it opened up my own healing journey to realizing I have a capacity to hold space for really hard experiences. And I wonder you know, how I can begin to hold space for myself while I'm holding space for these other people. So. That was kind of the initial starting point 15 plus years ago when I decided I really wanted to learn more about how what we go through affects our mental health
Sadie: I think holding space for other people is something that people either, like, I know how to do this, I'm good at this, or they're like, that makes me uncomfortable, so I'm going to avoid it, and when you're like, how can I be better at this, they're sometimes like, okay, well, validate, Use eye contact, like these very basic things, but for people who want to show up more effectively and, , as a better friend or family member in their relationships and kind of improve that ability to hold space for people because it is really one of the most incredible traits to have and one of the greatest gifts you can give someone else.
Do you have any advice or tips that were helpful, especially in those early days before you did all the internal work and got really good about speaking about your own experiences?
Yasmine: I will be honest and say that I think it's something that I've always been able to do, but I don't think that I was doing a good job of it in the past because I think I was more concerned about what they would think about what I was doing versus actually holding space for them and being present to what they needed.
I think it's a natural response as well. Like, Oh my God, are they going to be okay? Am I, you know, like, am I doing all the things right? , But I think we really forget how amazing presence is and just listening to someone, not necessarily trying to solve their problems, not necessarily having the answers, but asking them, what do you need?
What do you think? How are you feeling? A lot of times people just want to talk. They don't really want to hear your thoughts. They don't want to hear your opinion. And whether you have any tools or not, listening is something that I think we can all do better.
Sadie: Yeah, no, it's, it's funny because I've been thinking about that a lot recently because I feel like that's one of the biggest relationship or like networking or however you want to spin it.
It's like one of those big skills that people will tell you. , But I think there's this interesting balance of when you've struggled to be vulnerable or that's been more uncomfortable.
It's almost like doing the work and sitting in that discomfort, which is the key to so many things, is being more vulnerable or talking about yourself or sharing those things so you allow people to get to know you. And then on the flip side, it's like when you are in relationships and supporting other people, that's really important.
That skill of just listening and not sharing those personal anecdotes or not being like, I've been through this too. Here's exactly how I solve this is also so powerful. So it's like these very opposite sides of the spectrum, but both are really, really important to navigate and refine and become effective at.
Yasmine: Absolutely. And I think it's so important sometimes just to ask people, how can I be here for you? Do you want to hear what my thoughts are? Do you want me to listen? I don't, we, I think we think that we have to have the answer and show up perfectly when asking someone what they need. And they'll say, you know what, I really just want to talk, or yes, I would love to hear what you have to say.
What do you mean? You know, like then that opens the door and respecting people's boundaries. It's as simple as asking that question can help us show up for people how they, they need us to.
Sadie: Yeah, and it's not a weakness. I sometimes think internally, I'm like, well, I should know what they want in this situation, or I should just be able to understand, and when people, like, care enough to actually ask and, and want to be as, effective and helpful to you as possible, that they're even like, what can I do in this situation?
I think that really does show that you care and, and value that relationship, and it's not like, how dare you not know exactly what I want, even though I haven't told you.
Yasmine: Absolutely, I agree.
Sadie: So, I want to talk about your first book before we dive into your new book that just came out. You have this idea of the sugar jar, which is a way that people can really look back on their overall growth and see all the progress that they've made.
And I think this is something people might be somewhat familiar with, but it's a really important concept and element. And your podcast is also called The Jar. So, I would love to hear. How you came up with this like metaphor, I guess you could call it, how that applied to your own journey, and also how listeners can apply that in their own lives because it is such an important concept.
Yasmine: Yeah, thank you. Well, the sugar jar is really an opportunity for us to check in with our boundaries, right? Because the jar represents us. Even if we are parents, friends, family, we only have one jar because there's only one of us. The sugar in the jar represents our energy, our time, our resources, anything people want from us, anything people want to take, give.
And the lid represents our boundaries. Because in order for people to get to the sweet parts of us, we have to say yes and take the lid off. But most of us are walking around with no lid on our jar. People are just walking in and out of our lives, taking the energy, taking our car, taking our money, taking our everything.
And often we say to ourselves, They're using me. They're taking advantage of me. They are, you know, they are taking from me and part of that is probably true but the other part is how are they able to have access to you and the that answer is because We don't have boundaries. And so the sugar jar is an opportunity to check in and say Do I have enough energy for what they're asking me for?
Do I want to help you move? Can I actually help you with that project? You know, do I want to, am I available to date right now? It's a check in with ourselves. And I think for many of us, myself, for sure, when I, when this concept came to me. I thought I was doing a good job. I had been healing for a long time.
I had been teaching this work for a long time, but I was exhausted. I was overwhelmed. And even the good stuff felt like too much. Like I would get a party invitation. I'd be like, Oh my God, there's another birthday. Like I cannot do anything else. And it wasn't that I didn't want to celebrate my friends.
It wasn't that I didn't want to go to the events. It was that I was saying yes to so many things. That wasn't, that wasn't no. That I didn't even have enough energy, enough sugar, enough sweet parts of me for myself. And so the invitation in the sugar jar is to ask yourself how you can begin to say yes to yourself first.
Have a full jar so that you can have the sweet parts of yourself for you. And then show up with the people and places and things that you want to be with full, not resentful, angry, and tired, but your best self.
Sadie: Yeah, I think about this a lot, especially when it's like during the school year, or it's around finals, or things are just really busy and overwhelming, and it feels like I have less, like, bandwidth is always what I'm, referring to it as.
And I think about, like, If I'm saying yes to things or making commitments, I'm like, am I bringing a net positive or a net negative to this situation? And a lot of the times, it's like, okay, maybe it's a little bit positive, but I'm also tired and not at full energy, but I know that it's so important to invest in these relationships, and I like seeing my friends, and I can at least like, hang out and be light hearted even if it's not some ground breaking discussion.
But there's also some people I'll be around and I'll pick. I know that there's like something going on internally or we have something to work through and I'm also low energy and don't have any sugar left at that point. So me going and showing up in that interaction isn't going to bring any good to them, even if it's the commitment or like we've said we were going to get dinner, being like, Hey, let's do a couple days from now or let's do next week.
Will actually be a more positive experience instead of. bringing some negativity into their life. And I think that's a challenging thing to decide for yourself and to be honest and be like, I am not at my best right now and I, I want to be able to bring my best version of myself to my relationships.
This is the best thing I can do is say no and adjust this or reschedule or set that boundary. And I think that's been a really important lesson because I think Especially as young adults, we're taught that, you make commitments, you keep them, you show up, you, you schedule these things, and I think giving yourself and other people grace and, like, you can take a rain check and you can reschedule, and especially if they're good friends and they, they care about you, they're not going to be, completely upset.
The friendship's not going to be derailed over being like, can we do this tomorrow instead? And so I really love that idea and that concept and thinking you out. What value you're actually providing beyond just showing up for the sake of showing up.
Yasmine: Absolutely, and I also think that the concept of the sugar jar is not just Yes, we can reschedule when we need to, but hopefully we get to a place where we're not saying yes to things and needing to reschedule. We're just saying yes when we have space. And in the beginning we're saying, actually, I already know I'm gonna be busy because I have finals. So let's do next week like in the beginning we're checking in with ourselves before that comes things come up and of course and we have to reschedule but that's the intention.
Sadie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the most challenging aspects of mental health is like knowing what you should do but not knowing how to do it. And one of the biggest game changers or things that made that more accessible was, you know, having past experiences as evidence that I was able to do that thing and so even if it's like Saying no to something where there's not really any stakes it's like you get an email and it's like optional event Or here's an after school extra study session You're not individually being invited, but you're like I am so busy and stressed I'm not going to commit to that and then the next time when someone's like, hey, I'm going to this thing Thing.
Do you also wanna go being okay? Well, I, I made, didn't make the commitment when I was initially asked that first time, so I know I can say no and it'll be okay. And having that as past evidence and I think having that physical metaphor of like, I've put that the top on the jar before I can do it again.
It's happened. Everything was okay. Life continued to go on, I think is really helpful for that to be top of mind and for people to remember and have more trust in themselves as well.
Yasmine: Yeah, agreed, agreed.
Sadie: I would love to shift gears a little bit and talk about grief because this is something that you cover in your books and in your own experience and I think it's something that people either have no idea how to navigate if they've never experienced a loss before or they are suddenly presented with a loss and they are just Also, like, I have never been through this before, so I don't have the skills, and I think the approach I try to take with everything mental health wise is, why wouldn't you equip yourself with the skills before you actually need them?
Like, why not learn how to breathe through anxiety? Why not learn how to advocate for yourself? Or, set a boundary, or validate someone else, or whatever these skills are, so that when you're in that situation, like, I absolutely need to know how to navigate this. You can, and you've at least practiced the skills, even if it's in a less intense situation.
So can you speak a little bit to your experience there, , then we'll dive into what was helpful and what you recommend and all those things.
Yasmine: Yeah, I would, I say, I talk about, , experience I had with grief and my new book, Wisdom of the Path. , it was the loss of my grandmother. And, , it was in my twenties.
And I would say that grief was the first experience I had where no matter what tools I had, none of them actually matter.
Sadie: Yeah.
Yasmine: I mean, being honest, I'm not trying to be like, Oh no, there's no tool. There are so many tools I'm going to share a minute, but I do think it's important that I share that because.
There's a misconception sometimes I know for me. was like, okay, I've been doing therapy a long time. I have the tools I teach this. If grief happens, everything will be fine. I'll be able to move through it and it's like, it's it's like, And so through my life apart, like everything just fell apart, I almost feel like you go through an experience of having to figure out who you are after losing someone or losing something that is really, really important to you.
That even though you know, everyone's going to die one day and everything's going to change, it still just shocks you to your core. The biggest piece that I learned in grief is acceptance. It was really hard for me to, sometimes it's hard to accept things that you feel like there's no answer to it.
There's no reason like she just passed away. She was older. And I was like, well, but why? and, you know, trying to find a sense of understanding that can help me feel, I guess more comfortable with the circumstances when really the acceptance was this sucks This is the hardest thing that i've ever gone through and I really just need to be there for myself as i'm moving through it And it took me a while.
I I wanted to power through I wanted to try to like Distract myself with work and really just being present to how hard it was, was really what I needed to do. , the second piece is the tools that helped me be able to be present. The biggest tool was community. I can't stress how much I needed to be around friends, around family, people who were going to be low stress and no drama.
Like people I knew I was going to have a good time with, people who I knew I could just like, we could buy pizza, we could wear pajamas for two days, like people that were going to be easeful and easy. I would say that's the biggest tool that I had and the second one was therapy. knowing that my friends could not always hold space for the big feelings that I was having.
So having a mental health provider be able to help me navigate those feelings, I don't think that I would have been able to make it through grief on our own. And I don't think that we should be trying to make it through grief on our own.
Sadie: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really such an interesting concept and something that has really debilitating impacts.
There was this whole, I, I think I read it in Yo's, , lost Connections book, and he talks about the environmental causes of depression and anxiety and like these different things that lead to us feeling this way. And he was talking about the DSM and how, Hmm. A diagnosis of depression is in a lot of ways synonymous with grief, and yet that is sometimes like, okay, if someone has had a recent loss, they may not be depressed, they may just be grieving.
And yet, it's like the same emotional and physical and mental experience as this really overwhelming and complicated and intense experience that is depression. And it's also the question of like, okay, how long, like, Are you grieving for before you're like, I need additional support and help and like you were saying, I need professional support and what I'm trying and the tools that I thought would work in this situation aren't working.
So what can I do differently? And I did. , another interview recently where we talk, we're talking about how Breakups when you're in your 20s is the biggest precursor for depression because for a lot of people that's their first loss or grieving experience that they have if they haven't lost a loved one or a family member that experience of someone being gone from real life and Not being able to move forward in that and so it is a really debilitating experience and like you're saying you might think maybe these skills might work, or I, I know how to distract myself, or I know that in the past I've pushed through this experience, but grief can really turn all that on its head and really change that, lens and how you view your mental health and identity in a really big way, like you mentioned.
Yasmine: Absolutely. And I think it's such a good point that you mentioned in terms of breakups, you know, we often think about grief as just death as grief is lost in terms of breakups. Grief is failing a class. Sometimes we have grief from something people may think, Oh, that's so simple. No, for a lot of people, that's a huge thing.
It's a huge impact on your life, depending on what the circumstances are. Grief can be even in the positive grief, like when you have a child, like it's a beautiful thing, but the loss of who you were before you had it. , child or before you had a husband or before you moved. And so I think when we're thinking about those losses that we experienced, especially like when we're in our, in our twenties, my first grief was probably a breakup.
The key thing that was hard for me in that situation, I think I see it in. All of the different types of clients and workshops I've been in where people are experiencing grief. The acceptance piece is so hard, like accepting that it's over accepting wide ended or accepting that I have to move on or accepting that this is what life is going to be like now, or getting used to what it's like that, because who wants to imagine life without someone who made them happy at one point, even if that is no more.
And. Giving ourselves grace and learning to be gentle with ourselves is really the work when it comes to grief. sometimes even beat ourselves up and we're like, why is it taking me this long? And grief takes as long as it takes. Hopefully building that community around you that can be supportive and, really understand what you're going through is going to be key, I think, to getting on the other side of it.
Sadie: You mentioned acceptance, which is key in so many things, , in the, in the mental health context. And I, I really love , the message of your newer book because it's so aligned with DBT and dialectical behavioral therapy, which is what I went through. And one of the biggest core concepts is your wise mind and leaning into that wisdom and balancing like the emotional and the rational, which is acceptance in a lot of ways, because we experience all these emotions when Things change.
And then, like you mentioned, it was really challenging not to have an explanation or a reason why something happened, but it's still needing to have that emotional path forward where you're accepting and moving on without being like, and this is why this happened. And so it makes sense. And then we keep going one foot after another.
Can you speak to. Um, how wisdom kind of ties into that acceptance piece and also anything that was helpful in your experience because it's again you know what to do, but you don't know how to do it. It's like, yes, I need to accept this, but the actual acceptance piece can be so, so challenging.
Yasmine: Absolutely. I think the key to the wisdom that I'm talking about in this book is compassionate honesty. I call it compassionate honesty because we Pretty much know how to be brutally honest. I think our society at this point Understands clearly how to be brutally honest and I think a lot of us even talk to ourselves in that way Like oh my god, I can't believe you did that like the other day I was running late for something and I was like, how could you know, I was like tearing myself apart inside But compassionate honesty is the complete opposite of that.
It's Yes, you're running late and you're human and it's going to be okay. And, you know, you can apologize and, , it's giving yourself the grace and understanding that things are going to go wrong sometimes. And I think that's the wisdom that most of us are cultivating. It's as we grow, that we realize, Wow.
Life really does throw some things our way that I'm not going to be able to be prepared for in my 20s and in our 20s and in our teens. , and sometimes even in our 30s, we think I can prepare for this and I can kind of build a life that allows me to not really have. a lot of mishaps or things go awry.
And that false sense of control is hard to surrender to. It's hard to say, actually I can do the best that I can, but there's going to be moments in my life where I'm not going to be able to control anything. So that compassionate honesty comes in and says, okay, I did the best I could to create this life for myself that is going this direction.
I'm, you know, maybe I'm going to be a lawyer or maybe I'm, Raising a family or maybe I'm building a business and on the way, maybe I get a diagnosis or I break up with a boyfriend or, , I lose my job or something great happens. I get pregnant with twins, but that wasn't what I was planning. So now, you know, there's all of these things that happen.
And when we ask ourselves with curiosity, with gentle curiosity, What do I need? How can I be present to what's happening in this moment? And in my book I'm sharing what have I already went through that reminds me that I can get through this tough moment. I have the tools, I have the lessons, I have the muscle memory for lack of a better term that can remind me that As much as I feel completely dysregulated in this moment, I actually know how to get through this.
It may not be the same experience, but my body knows how to be in discomfort and arrive on the other side stronger, better, clearer, braver, right? Maybe, With a loss of something or with a gain of something that's new with a change, but I can do this. And I think that's the wisdom that we're cultivating as we move through life.
It's not necessarily, I have the exact advice to give you, which sometimes we do. Like if you're buying a house, I can say, Oh, exactly. This is what you need to look for. Right. Because I know. And then. I might go through a house buying process next time. I'm like, Oh my God, this is completely different. I think that's what life is.
It's like, every time we have an experience where we think I've gone through this, I should know life shows us actually, you do know within your body, but you may not know these particular circumstances, but that doesn't mean that you can't , make it across. So I hope that when people think about wisdom, They don't necessarily attribute it to their age, they don't attribute it to their education level, they don't attribute it to where they came from, they attribute it to the past that they are no longer in, and even with the circumstances where they didn't make quote unquote the right choice.
How they still arrived in a better situation than when they were. Because I do believe for most of us, even people who had circumstances that were really tough, like myself, I share my book, I feel like I'm in a better place than I was. And I couldn't have planned this possibly for myself. I just had to take one step after the other and arrive.
Sadie: Yeah. I love this idea that wisdom is really this innate knowing and, trust in yourself even and it's not tied to a certain accomplishment or an age that you reach or an experience that you go through. Do you have any exercises or experiences that you could share that were helpful in your own journey to tap into that wisdom?
To have that trust in yourself and to remind yourself of those experiences that you could lean on and say, I've done this before, I've been through this, because I think it's again that idea of like, you know how you should feel and you know that you should be able to call on those experiences, but truly tapping into that wisdom and having that trust can be really, really challenging.
Yasmine: It's incredibly challenging. I think, you know, since we talked about it a little bit, , we can talk about when I got out of the military. , I got out of the military in 2011. , I don't know how old you are, but I would imagine you were younger than me at the time. , we were in a recession, you know, there were no jobs, we're in the housing crisis.
And that was most definitely something that I hadn't been through before. What was also interesting about that was, because it was such a unique experience, nobody I knew, even my parents, no one had been through it before. So I think it's an interesting thing to share because I think even right now a lot of people are going through things that no one's been through before.
You get to this particular space where you think, well nobody has the experience, so how will I make it through this? Right. And I had to remind myself that, and I think the exercise that we all can kind of take ourselves through is, I may not have experience for what I'm going through right now, but I know I've had a situation in which I was starting from scratch, whether it was college, whether it was tryouts for a team, whether, whatever it is, I've had a moment where I arrived someplace and I had no reference point for what I was going to be doing.
Right. But I was able to learn and I was able to curate a way of feeling comfortable enough to move forward. And I like to check in with myself and ask myself in those moments, like, okay, I know that I'm starting again. I know, I don't know what I need to do. Who do I need? What do I need? And how can I give it to myself?
. Who do I need? Is there someone that I've connected with a friend, a coach, you know, whoever that I can talk to that can help me point me in the right direction. I think this is important so that we remember, I don't have to do it alone. What do I need?
For the next step, not for five years down the line. I think five year plans are great, but I think a lot of us get so caught up in them that we kind of limit ourselves from being able to have things derail. So what do I need right now to get to the next step? And how can I allow myself while I'm asking myself these questions and while I'm at this place of change and starting fresh to Be a beginner again and not have to know all of the answers.
I think it's incredibly important. , everything that I'm sharing in terms of like a checklist or rules or anything like that for myself as a recovering perfectionist, trust me guys, like I would love to have the ABC step, but this was the closest that I can find because in life there really is no checklist and having questions that I can always ask myself that I can kind of memorize.
Is the checklist I've created in moments where I know I'm uncomfortable because I'm going to have to surrender to the fact that I have no idea what's about to happen here. And it did work out in terms of me being able to figure out what to do next and find a job and get myself situated. But it took years for me to get settled.
And I think that's the last piece that I'll share around the tool, the patience to know that it may not be resolved when you want it to like, it's really hard to let go. And allow things to unfold when you're young. A lot of times you have parents or people putting you on a direct path, like, Oh, you're going to be in college for this amount of time.
You've graduated this time. And then you, after that it's off to the races and you kind of just have to allow life to be what it is. And yes, you can take action and have direction and drive, but it doesn't mean that you'll be able to control every aspect of your life. And so that surrender piece, that letting go, That patience is something that I think we have to cultivate as well.
It's incredibly hard and I can't share that. It gets easier. I just think that it gets more familiar and just like the wisdom I'm talking about, you know, I'm just in one of those zones again. Okay. I got this. You know what I mean?
Sadie: Yeah, going back to the aspect of compassion that's so integral to this wisdom and this approach that you're taking and giving yourself more grace.
One thing that you shared that was really helpful in your journey is affirmations, which I think is something that a lot of people can relate to that is similar to asking yourself those questions, but these mantras and things that you have on repeat to continue on that path and give yourself more grace and support in those new foreign experiences where you're like, I do.
I don't know exactly what the next step will be. I can't plan this all out. Can you speak a little bit to that and, and how that was helpful and how you still use affirmations today, whether it's, , at a different stage of your journey, in addition to like the early days of healing and navigating and working through those stronger emotions?
Yasmine: Oh my goodness. Yes. I would say I use affirmations more today than I did before, just because I think I was harder on myself before and was less likely to pull toward affirmations. I was more likely to be like, what do I need to do? , Okay. Affirmations changed my life because when I'm in the middle of a crisis or change or discomfort that I don't know what to do, I can just automatically pull to, but I have everything that I need.
And I'm going to make it and everything's going to be okay. And how do I know everything? You know, like that other voice might say, how do you know everything's going to be okay? There's like a hundred voices, , that play inside of us sometimes that sound just like us and sound like they are literally telling the truth.
And then I'll counter it and say, I know it because blah, blah, blah. So I'm saying that to say that sometimes my affirmations will help me lead to the questions that I was just sharing. Because that alternate voice will pop up with it's shame or it's guilt or it's fear. And then it leads me to, well, I have the evidence that I did this before, so I know I can do this.
I've got, I've got this. I also just want to share that in moments where affirmations may not be working, because a lot of people will say to me, I did the affirmations. I still feel terrible. , the phone a friend is my favorite. Like I will phone a friend when I do not believe in myself who will remind me of, you know, how badass I am, how I, you know, I can make it.
And I think that is more important sometimes. In those moments of crisis, especially to have someone who can remind you, but I have affirmations on my mirror. I have affirmations on my computer. I have affirmations on my phone and my notes app. I keep them everywhere so that even if I'm in a moment where I can't remember that I can go to them easily.
And I share affirmations all the time on Instagram too. And I think if you are someone who's looking to create more positivity in your life, following myself, following people like me or accounts like me, that when you wake up in the morning, if you do find yourself on social media first thing or around the first time that you're starting your day, at least you're getting something positive in you that you can use and carry with you.
, and I even save them as my on my phone as well.
Sadie: Yeah. No, I love that. And I think that's one of the biggest things I'm always repeating because that's one of the biggest questions, especially parents have. It's like, how does social media fit into the equation of, Gen Z mental health, and doesn't it make things worse?
And is it even possible for it to be a positive interaction? And I think, like you're saying, you have so much power to be a critical consumer and make that a positive space. And like, I always say, , mainstream explore page is Taylor Swift and dogs. And I love it. It's great. It's all positive things.
Nothing negative is happening on there. And so if you can be intentional and add those people to your following list and just listen to what those emotions are saying. And anytime something makes you laugh or smile, sprinkling those things in, because it is a significant part of our daily routine.
And like you're saying, when you wake up, if you can have those more positive aspects, and you don't have to do the work of seeking them out, they're coming to you, which I think is really incredible and important. And. I really loved what you said about how people will come to you and say, What did the affirmations and nothing worked or nothing changed?
And I think this is such an interesting aspect of mental health, where if you don't have that self compassion and that, I don't even know if positive is the right way to describe it, but that Like more supportive and giving yourself more grace and speaking to yourself in a kinder way. If you don't have that, you'll never get to that outcome of the mental health that you want.
Mm-Hmm. and just changing the way you speak to yourself isn't going to get you there either, but it's completely necessary to have those kind interactions with yourself and give yourself grace and give yourself that support to get to the other side of things, because it is such an integral part of mental health.
The behavioral changes are also so important, and so that's why I love that you mentioned these other aspects, like community and leaning on others for support, , and looking back on those past experience is to really reinforce that aspect of resilience, but I completely agree that that affirmation piece is really important and huge, and especially in the maintenance phase of things, when you're continuing to just maintain your mental health where it's at and continue to have that dialogue of grace and kindness and support with yourself.
Yasmine: Absolutely. And I think, you know, if you're listening to this and affirmations may not have worked for you in the past, say to yourself, okay, I'm saying the affirmations and they're not working. So what do I need? Allow yourself to need something else. We think like, oh, affirmations was supposed to be it. I was supposed to do the affirmations and everything was supposed to be perfect.
Allow there to be other options for you. Okay. Affirmations didn't work. I'll call a friend, a friend didn't work or they're not available. I'll journal. Journaling's not available. I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to play with my dog. Like, allow yourself to be curious about what you need and how cool it is to be able to just give yourself what you need and not have to force yourself to do something that's not working in that moment.
Sadie: Absolutely. If someone is listening that is really struggling, they're going through a loss, they're grieving, they're struggling to find that wisdom in their life, they're not succeeding in these boundaries that they want to set, or they're really just at a low point, and they really relate to these aspects of your story that you, you mentioned in this conversation, what would your advice be?
Be to them. What can they apply today in their life to kind of begin that journey, which never ends, but it's especially challenging when we're in those low points.
Yasmine: Yeah. The first thing that I would say is what I wish I had known about then was a grief support group. There's so many grief support groups now where people are meeting up and talking about it.
And it's so amazing to be in a room full of people who are grieving when you're grieving because you don't have to pretend, you don't have to say everything's okay. And I think as much as we need community who makes us feel great, we also need communities where we don't have to pretend everything's okay.
So that's the first thing that I would say to someone who's grieving right now and resonates with this. And the other thing that I would say that I wish someone had said to me is nothing's wrong. I had never seen anyone grieve in the way that I felt where, you know, for a while, I felt like I just can't even get out of bed.
Like, I can't. I don't want to do anything. I'm fine with being here all day. , and My husband was really good with this, but you know, having someone say like, this is okay and not necessarily that this is normal, but your experience of grief is normal and you don't have to be grieving in the way someone else is, you know, sometimes people grieve and they just go back to work and everything is fine.
And I, we don't actually know if they're fine inside. We just see what they're portraying to us. And so, yeah. Being really careful about what we take in and our comparison, you know, this is the other side of social media. We may see somebody on social media who appears to have everything going for them and everything is great, even though they just had a loss and we start to compare ourselves.
Really allow yourself to just be where you are and take it day by day. Cause I feel like grief makes you more present than anything else. You don't, you don't have any other option than to take it day by day. So allow yourself to be in that slow space. And the last thing I'll say, I know it's been a lot of things before, but you will get out of this.
There will be a moment where you think about this person or this experience and you think, I cannot, I can't. Believe that I'm at the place where I'm at now, where I don't feel like how I felt when I think about this anymore. And there's grief in that you even feel like, Oh my God, I don't feel sad anymore.
And we have these moments of reassuring ourselves that I still miss them. I still love them or good riddance, but I'm, I still can't believe I'm where I'm at. And the wisdom is in all of that. I think it's such an. exciting moment when you realize that you're on the other side of it, but also allow yourself to go back there when those moments come up.
Because I feel like even when you get on the other side of grief, there's still those moments where it reminds you of how hard it was the first time.
Sadie: I love that. Well, this was so powerful and I know it's going to help so many people. If people want to buy both your books or listen to your podcast or follow along on Instagram, where can they do that?
Yasmine: Yeah, so Wisdom of the Path is my new book. This book is a journey , of love and, , also sharing really tough stories like grief, , that I've been through. But the other side of it and how we can live in our peace. So you can find that anywhere books are sold, Amazon, Target, , Barnes and Noble and all the indie bookstores too.
The Sugar Jar is a book that is great for boundaries. So if you're looking to refresh or start your healing journey, that's the perfect book to start with. And it's also available anywhere books are sold. And you can follow along with my affirmations and my prompts and questions on Instagram, Yasmin Cheyenne.
Sadie: Thank you so much. This was absolutely incredible. Thank you so much.
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