Merja Paul is the owner and clinical director of Soul Counseling and Consulting. She chose the name Soul because the sun is a daily reminder that we two can rise again from the darkness, that we two can shine our own light. I love that. And before I let Mirrorge to talk, I have to say something. Mirrorge is the sister of Carly, who is our director of operations. Okay, so you all have heard us talk about Carly. Carly is the one that kind of like handles our logistics.
She's helping us set up she forgot to bring the third microphone. Okay, I'm Joe car and Carly is also like my very good friend, like you've seen Carly on the show, helping me out with a lot of my different ventures. But I just want to say this. I
found it very comical. So I'm looking at our emails on the reason A Reasonably Shady Emails and I see this email from our director of operations, Carly to her sister Merga that says, hello, miss Paul, we are I am writing to confirm your appearance on the Reasonably Shady podcast at dot. If you have any questions, please forward them to to me whatever, blah blah blah, sincerely Carly,
the director of operations. And I was like, what, I'm like, this girl is literally talking, literally talking to her sister in a business manner. She takes her director of operations job very seriously. Okay. I was dying like, Okay, if that was me and I was talking about sins, I'd be like, hey, girl, we're gonna see you on Friday at four o'clock. Alright, peace? Like what, Yes, you gotta
keep it professional at all times, But were you like sister? No, I found it very professional, and I was I was very proud of her, like I'm a professional woman. Don't talk to me like I'm some regular chick off the street business. Okay, okay, now what about like couples? I'm so glad. Okay, can I call you answer that question. Let me just say this, Yes, I've been in some major couples therapy, y'all. Don't just say to tell you years and years of couples therapy. Me and that Jamal Bryant,
now listen, it always helped us. Yes, you know he is a is a I think he's trained per his profession to counsel, right, So I always felt like we can't just have a regular conversation if we haven't a problem, because you know all the tricks, so we need to go to somebody else. And and I was always just very happy because you know, he's a black man. He was open to it, but it always did push us to like another level. So I'm an advocate of couples therapy.
I just want to say that, and I'll just share my experience whow why and I were married, or even before we got married, he was like the typical black man that was like, I don't need anyone to tell me how to feel or what to think or what to do. So I think you know a lot of times in a couple of therapy there's a resistance from one partner that just thinks like this cannot help this. They're like, I don't like, what can they tell me that I don't already know. I'm glad you said that,
because no one's telling you how to feel. I feel how you feel. I'm not telling you how to feel. I might be exploring with you what's behind that feeling? Where did that come from? Given just basic communication, right, you think you're speaking the same language, and it's just like that's not what she said. Did you hear what she said? Oh, that's not what he said. So a couple of therapy, it's just like, can you guys please start coming before you're about to? Okay, So I'm just
a little no. I totally agree with that. And I feel like, if you're gonna get married, you should go before you get married. Absolutely, because the whole time y'all been dating, y'all have been talking the same language. Yeah, y'all don't know what you're talking about, y'all. It's always good to get like a third party or like a bird's eye view on the relationship. And I feel like, if you don't do that work in the beginning, you damn sure you're gonna have to do it in the
end or it's just gonna be over. I think you're forced to talk about certain topics. Right. You could be dating somebody for four years. I know him, I know him and met his mama, We went on vacation together, I know how he travels. We talk about everything, and it's just like, but there's that one thing that you're not really comfortable saying because it might rock the boat
or whatever the case. Maybe you come to therapy, and it's kind of like the therapist might just bring it up and you're like, oh, I guess we've gotta talk about it. Right. So I'm definitely an advocate for premarital um. But yeah, I feel like same thing when we're talking about you know, when should people go to therapy, it's like, please don't come when you're at your wits end and your bag is packed and you have one ft out
the door. You're like, you know what the last before I can just check off this box to say I tried everything. Fine, let's go to the therapist when they go. So when do they go? You should again, you should go before you get married, because I am a therapist. I'm like, just go, just go when you don't even have a problem, just go to check in and will be good. We're still good, everything good, You still like me,
I still like you great? And then you move on right, Not saying it has to be weakly, but if you're feeling like, you know, when you can tell something's off right, you're you're not connecting as much. Maybe the intimacy has been affected. You know, there's a lot of change that has happened. Like you know, when you feel a little bit off right. Same thing like with your health, you're like,
you know what, something just not right. So that's when you I would call my doctor and see, like what's going on, Like I feel like, for example, I just went to nutrition. This myself is not right. My blood sure goes up and goes down. I have a headache. I don't like feeling like this anymore. I don't like having a headache every day. I don't know what it is, but maybe you can tell me what's going on. I'm not gonna wait till I'm like I can't get out the bed. I'm crawling to the car, but I gotta
take myself to the doctor. It's like no, like you start feeling like something not right, but we need a little check in. We need to maybe sure this is still good so he can keep going and things don't just fester right, Like how many couples do you know where it's just like, yeah, I've been dealing with this for years and I just didn't know how to say it, or I've said it and this person is not listening to me. It's just like, Wow, I wonder if we had sat down and talked about this five years ago.
Could all of this been right? And and clearly I'm sure the main issue that you see is like the root cause of problems between couples is communication, and so the therapist or the balance coach helps facilitate that communication. Yeah, so that's that's good. You know, I'll keep that in mind. You know, Robin's going to therapy. But I'm just going to tell y'all before they walk down the out for the second time. No, this this is really good. So I feel like so that we're gonna recap a little
bit this. This is what I've learned today. One, you can go through your insurance get this thing paid. So if you can go through your insurance, why wouldn't you do it right? You know what I'm saying. Like, and as you said, it is kind of a no brainer. If you had a sore throat, your nose is running, you're going to the doctor. So if you feel like you you're waking up every morning and you're like in a funk, don't nobody at work when to deal with
your funk. So get it together. And your friends don't want to either. We love our friends, but you don't want to be a burden to your friends either. Because your friends are busy, you know, have their own stuff, right, And a lot of people hesitate to even talk to their friends or their love because they know she's busy. I don't want to bother her, so now, but okay, so let's talk about then the process of finding a therapist.
And then I just want to Okay, yes, we it's covered by insurance, but what about people who don't have insurance too? Are there, like, you know, maybe some sort of community resources that they can find absolute there's always some sort of program in the community for people who don't have insurance, or some sort of sliding scale fee.
You know, there are resources out there, right. So psychology today, for example, has a directory of providers where you can filter by what your insurance is, or filter by if you don't have insurance, or gender, or you know, it's okay to have certain preferences. Therapy for black girls, I think is a good one if you're looking specifically for a therapist of color. What is that They have an
i G page, They have a website. It's basically a provider directory, so you can go on there to say if you if you are a black girl, or if you want to talk to a black girl. You can go on there and locate someone. We hope you enjoyed that reasonably Shady highlight. You can catch the full episode on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your favorite shows and we want to hear from you. Get in touch with us on social media at reasonably Shady or send us an email at What's
Up at reasonably shady dot com. See you next time,