Episode 1 Transcript: I Believe in Cozy & Compassionate Mental Health Advocacy
Good morning y buenos dias! To my lovely friends all over the world, welcome to the Noggin Podcast, a cozy mental health advocacy podcast with me, Kyarra Keele. It genuinely means so much to me that you’re here.
On this podcast we provide a safe, loving space advocating for diverse mental health dialogue in the community for people of color, educating about marginalized mental illnesses, and providing resources for mental health recovery. If that's what you’re looking for, welcome home!
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Hey, it’s Kyarra. I’m so excited to say that...we did it! The Noggin Podcast is here for you! Today I just want to give you a warm welcome home, share a bit about why I care so profoundly about empowering my community through genuine mental health dialogues and recovery resources, and celebrate this gentle space that represents my commitment to actively reshaping and progressing compassionate mental health advocacy. This podcast release has been in the works for several years, but finally, here we are. December 2019.
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I believe this is a noteworthy step towards my calling of a life-long journey of mental health advocacy work. I’m finally challenging myself to take the leap to share the educational, uplifting, and realistic perspectives and resources to help maybe ignite or reignite hope for you or for other lovely humans all over the world who live with and understand the sometimes harsh realities of living with a mental illness. This is not only a resource for the individual living with mental health challenges, but also for their friends, family, or partners who wish to better understand and support them with love and patience.
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Through blending both scientific research and personal lessons learned from my own trials and tribulations, I hope to help someone walking down a similar path avoid some of the most painful mental health experiences that I have gone through and help someone more efficiently work towards healing, stability, and genuine happiness most of all.
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Many of you may already be loyal supporters of mine who have rallied around me for the last 6 years for my past blog or perhaps you’re a lovely friend or family member of mine; I appreciate all of you. But if you’ve never stumbled across me before, again I’m Kyarra Keele. I’m a 4-time published author, I was a healthy lifestyle blogger for 6 years, and I’m an aspiring polyglot currently learning 4 languages, Spanish being my second language, American Sign Language being my third and I’m also slowly learning French and Arabic. I’m also a mental health ambassador, which means I work as a liaison between the community and my local health center to educate and support more individuals working through mental health challenges while progressing the mental health dialogue. I’ve been navigating the mental health system for about a decade now and I’m extremely passionate about mental health service and advocacy because I believe that no one deserves to be hurting and no one deserves to be feeling alone in this universe. I hope will cheer you along on your good days and offer a cozy and supportive haven for you on your more difficult days.
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By the way, if you enjoy this podcast and value the cozy comforting space it provides and the love and passion I put into this for you can support the noggin podcast by becoming one of my beautiful Patreon supporters at patreon.com/thenogginpodcast or you can donate through anchor.fm/thenogginpodcast/support. I deeply appreciate any support no matter the donation amount. You really, truly help me to have the flexibility to continue creating cozy and empowering mental health advocacy content for you and for those who need it most in this swirling universe, so thank you so much. Even if you can’t donate, please send someone the link to this podcast or share it on your social media if you feel open to helping me progress compassionate mental health dialogues. Anything you can do to share the love and offer resources to any struggling absolutely means the world to me.
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This podcast is truly the culmination of research, observation of the experiences of many precious individuals in my life who struggle with mental illness, and my own personal experience navigating the mental health system. Out of curiosity and passion, I’ve been writing research essays about the mental health care system throughout most of my education, the earliest essay I can remember being probably in 8th or 9th grade even though I ended up studying to earn my Bachelor's degree in Finance and my other Bachelor's in Spanish Studies.
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Regardless, all of these things led me to a better understanding of the fact that there was and remains a significant void in cozy mental health spaces that are genuinely uplifting, raw, and authentic for those struggling with mental health challenges, and instead, there are so many spaces that build upon mental health stereotypes and cliches or resources that feel cold and robotic and end up hurting more than helping. I wanted to do my part to cultivate my own version of such a cozy place even if it could only be a virtual version for now.
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Since this is our first episode, I also wanted to start our tradition of the Noggin Nurturing Segment where we take a quick break from the episode to do one thing to nurture and invest in ourselves. As a plant collector, I’ve learned that much like plants, our minds need gentle encouragement. So, for example, you might use this pause to motivate yourself to get out of bed, drink a cup of water or make yourself a warm cup of tea, take a relaxing shower, make a phone call to someone you love, make a brave call to make your first or next counseling appointment, journal, make your to-do list for the day, plan out a healthy breakfast. You can dance with me or take a short 10-minute walk if you’re able, or if you’re on medication, you can use this time to take your meds. If you’re in the car or bus commuting you can still participate! I’d like you to make a pledge to yourself of what you’ll do to nurture yourself as soon as you finish your commute journey. I understand that sometimes even the most simple tasks can feel like climbing a mountain so please pick a task that’s gentle and kind to your body and mind. For myself, today I’ll spend the Noggin Nurturing segment by pledging to practice some of the languages I love for 30 minutes. To all of my listeners, I’m curious to know what languages you speak and where you’re listening from. Comment below so we can all see the diversity that is represented here and also comment to share how you’ll spend the break for the Noggin Nurturing Segment.
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The Noggin Podcast is brought to you today by Anchor. A service I actually use. The anchor app is the easiest way to make a podcast, ever. It's the only app that lets you record a high-quality podcast, and distribute it everywhere (including Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts) – all in one place. No fancy equipment or podcasting experience necessary, and even better than all of that, it’s 100% free! I’ve tried plenty of other podcast editing apps that make it a headache to import and export your audio files but Anchor’s intuitive platform makes it nice and easy.
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Okay, welcome back y bienvenidos!
So to wrap up and keep this episode short and sweet, whether you’re new to the mental health system, or you’re a bit more established here and you know your way around and you’re just looking for the right support, I hope this podcast offers you some hope and acknowledgment in this universe.
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If you’re looking for transcripts to follow along and read while you listen to future episodes, especially for my lovely deaf and hard of hearing community: I do provide transcripts for all episodes on the Noggin Podcast website.
And again, if you enjoyed and valued this cozy episode and would love to support me in creating more empowering mental health content, you can help me spread compassion and reach more people in need by donating to patreon.com/thenogginpodcast OR anchor.fm/thenogginpodcast/support. Thank you so much.
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If you made here to the conclusion of this episode, I’d like to say thank you so much. Muchisimas gracias. If you’re interested in learning more information about The Noggin Podcast you can visit our website and subscribe to be a part of our cozy home with new episode releases every other Monday morning. See you in the next episode! Nos vemos en el próximo episodio.
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