Understand Yourself to Heal Yourself with Dr. Ayanna Abrams
— EPISODE 47 —
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What does it mean to understand yourself and “live in your truth”? How do narratives and belief systems impact our perception of worthiness? This week’s guest has a fascinating perspective to share with you about these inquiries…
Today’s Unconditionally Worthy guest is Dr. Ayanna Abrams, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Georgia and CEO and Founder of Ascension Behavioral Health.
In her practice, Dr. Ayanna works with individuals, couples, and groups to assist with mental health functioning and overall relationship satisfaction and wellness. She’s also the co-founder of Not So Strong, an initiative to improve the mental health and relationship functioning of Black women through use of vulnerable storytelling.
In this episode, Dr. Ayanna and I talk about why understanding yourself is the key to healing yourself. We explore ways to conceptualize self-worth while addressing the intersectionality of self-worth, relationships, and navigating belief systems we were raised with. She also shares her thoughts on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for African-American couples and why it’s important for therapists to do their own work.
What narratives and stories are you telling yourself about yourself?
What’s motivating you to say “yes” to certain opportunities and “no” to others?
How do you talk to yourself each day?
These are a few powerful questions that may help you find your TRUTH and fully live in it. But what does that even mean?
With so many different cultures, religions, and belief systems in the world, we’ve been constantly bombarded by messages of “truth” that we then have to choose to believe or not believe. Therapy can be used as a space to unpack the beliefs you have about your self-worth and the messages you’ve received from society throughout your life.
Dr. Ayanna believes that a lot of work regarding self-worth is about discernment and curiosity, rather than judgment and criticism. Having the curiosity to explore and discern whether certain beliefs and ideas are your own is a powerful part of connecting to your unconditional worthiness. This creates space for you to curate and develop your own empowering life narratives and values. Then, you can make decisions from a space of worthiness and empowerment, rather than scarcity, reactivity, and overwhelm.
Dr. Ayanna, how do you conceptualize self-worth?
Dr. Ayanna understands self-worth as a home base. “What is your own understanding, insight, [and] awareness about your worthiness in the world and worthiness as it relates to different aspects of your life?” she asks. Whether it be in your career, friendships, or romantic relationships, we may connect our self-worth to external factors, like productivity. But who are you without all the roles and all the doing? How would you describe who and how you are? It’s not an easy practice. Your mind might go to “I am a daughter” or “I am a student”, but that’s not what we’re going after.
As black women, it can often feel like a luxury to just be and we’re often socialized into doing, doing, doing for other people. There isn’t that much room for vulnerability and acknowledging the pain we experience. So, it’s necessary that we create space in our communities, at home, and in therapy for us to rethink vulnerability, empowerment and to fully feel our feelings. This is what Dr. Ayanna and her co-founder are doing through their initiative, Not So Strong.
Self-worth & Relationships:
Without a clear understanding of how you view yourself and your values, you’ll have difficulty in evaluating your feelings in various relationships. For example, if you don’t know that you’re worthy of being treated differently than your partner is treating you, you won’t be able to name your feelings and set the boundaries needed to have a healthy relationship (or get out of an unhealthy relationship all together). If you’ve never been taught that you’re worthy of peace, safety, respect, and love, you’ll grow up thinking you need to work for those. You’ll then be dependent on other people to make you feel worthy. See how that can be dangerous?
These ideas and practices lead to greater understanding and insight, but also help couples discern with more love and intimacy.
So, let’s revisit those first few questions as a way to discover our TRUTH and connect with our unconditional self-worth…
What narratives and stories are you telling yourself about yourself?
What’s motivating you to say “yes” to certain opportunities and “no” to others?
How do you talk to yourself each day?
I’d love to hear your thoughts, so I invite you to DM me on Instagram and share your answers!
About Dr. Ayanna Abrams:
Dr. Abrams is a licensed clinical psychologist in Georgia and CEO/Founder of Ascension Behavioral Health. She enjoys providing culturally relevant mental health consultation and creating training/workshops for organizations, schools, churches, hospitals, & other media who look to improve how they understand and talk about mental health and wellness. In her practice, she works with individuals, couples and groups to assist with mental health functioning and overall relationship satisfaction and wellness. Dr. Abrams has been featured in The New York Times, Essence, Allure and MindBodyGreen, as well as AfroPunk, Peace of Mind with Taraji (on Facebook Watch), Therapy for Black Girls and Silence the Shame. She is the co-founder of Not So Strong, an initiative to improve the mental health and relationship functioning of Black women through use of vulnerable storytelling.
To connect further with Dr. Ayanna Abrams:
Visit her website: https://www.AscensionBehavioralHealth.com
Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_ayanna_a
Connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AscensionBehavioralHealth
Watch the full video interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Wmno8MxDKkI
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