Hey, and welcome back to Resilience, Unravelled. And today there's a beaming smile, a beaming face, a beaming person. Generally someone beaming sitting in front of me, and it's Dr. Charryse Johnson. So, hello, beaming person. How are you doing?
Charryse:Hello, sir. I'm doing well. How are you?
Russell:I'm good. I can tell by the accent that are not of these shores. So where in the world are you?
Charryse:I am not of these shores. I am currently located in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is in the southeast of the US.
Russell:We've just come back from there. We were in Charleston and Savannah.
Charryse:Oh, nice. My son, my 21-year old son goes to college in Charleston and my sister lives in Savannah. So, you've been near all my people.
Russell:I could have dropped in. Fantastic. Well, tell us a little bit about what it is that you do.
Charryse:Yeah, it's so funny. That's such a hard question. I do a million things.
Russell:Everyone would agree to write them all down.
Charryse:Write them all down, starting now. Wife, mother, those are two of the most important things to me. My husband and I will celebrate 25 years of marriage next month. Super excited about that. Have two kids. But aside from all of that, I'm a consultant on integrative mental health, author, speaker, and a mindfulness practitioner. So, I do a lot of somatic work. I'm yoga certified and a lot of meditation, and I love every bit of it.
Russell:Fantastic. Okay, then. So, let's put all that nonsense aside. No, that's interesting. You peak my curiosity. Integrative mental health. Tell me what that means.
Charryse:Yeah, so a lot of times when people feel like they don't feel well in terms of emotionally, they think, well, tell me how to make this one thing stop. How do I stop being anxious? And integrative mental health goes, we need to look at you as an entire system, so let's look at what's happening in your mind and your body. But specifically, I will look at all life domains. So. what's happening for you spiritually if that's something that is a part of your health house physically, financially, socially, and emotionally, because those are all integrative areas. Because I want people to recognise your system, and what's happening for you here may be part of it. So. you're not a sitcom. We can't solve you in 30 minutes.
Russell:That's interesting you say that, because it's been my experience as a psychologist, I've become more and more interested in the integrative side and, for example, nutrition. And I don't think we spend enough time thinking holistically about issues. You'll often find a sort of Freudian approach to analytical psychology, looking back to mental problems generated by your mother or your father or something, or it's attachment theory or it's this or that, but actually just discover the person's not sleeping because they're not eating well.
Charryse:One of my primary specialties is eating disorders. So that is well within where I always take a person. Because what we eat often runs parallel to how we feel in terms of the changes of our appetite or not recognising that there are sometimes things that we take in and we don't realise how that's impacting us emotionally. So, I love for people to explore that and get that information.
Charryse:And you often find people conflate things like self-esteem and obesity. Now, we know that we experience obesity in the sense that we experience anxiety. We are not anxious; we're not defined by the label of a condition we're experiencing. And I think the sort of current work around mental health and sort of distancing the condition from the cognitive aspect of the person is really important, isn't it? Because actually, if you're going to do somatic work and the mindfulness and all that sort of stuff, it's important to realise that these conditions are conditions which we experience, not to be defined by them.
Charryse:Right? And what I love about the way that you coin it is I often tell people you're not broken. That can be a concept. They can feel like they've been dealing with a condition so long that it becomes a part of their identity. And I try to get them to conceptualise it more like a piece of baggage that you're carrying so that you can recognise that it is something that you can pull things out and eventually let down the bag. But that separation is crucial. And one of the things that I try to help people understand is we all have the capacity to change, to shift and to grow. It just takes work.
Russell:That's important, isn't it? And I know you kind of talk a little bit later about your book and this idea that we have mental patterns, cognitive rhythms and all that sort of stuff which have worked for us for a period of time, and they've been there to keep us safe and they're just not working for us anymore. And it's that point about how do we move forward; how do we sort of forgive yourself or be grateful for the past? Because I think part of the problem with self-esteem is that we've used all these strategies to get where we are. And a lot of therapists have this approach that you have to be cruel to yourself to be able to move forward. And that doesn't make any sense to me.
Charryse:Yeah, no, it doesn't make sense to me that you have to be cruel. But it is important for us to not hold ourselves to our current information. Like, I see so many people who feel bad and get caught in shame and regret and low self-esteem, like you just mentioned, because they're thinking, well, why didn't I do that ten years ago? Well, you didn't have that information. You didn't have that insight; you didn't have that knowledge. So, forgive yourself. For who you needed to be or become in order to survive and then know that you can move forward and you don't need to pay penance.
Russell:Yeah, that's it. You see, I think paying penance is a form of guilt, isn't it? So, it is a form of emotional self-abuse, isn't it? And I think a lot of people, therapy practice people are coming with their own scripts which are a product from your childhood. But there comes a point, doesn't there, as a human being or an adult with the right insight, the right skills that you have to become that adult person and redefine yourself not as a victim of your childhood, but as actually the sort of active participant in your adult life.
Charryse:Yeah, but there are so many people that I believe don't view it as a victim. They view it more as just a fact, an absolute, and don't recognise you trying to do the same thing over and over that is no longer working, is self-punishment in a way. And although it's scary because you don't have a picture of what it now means to operate as your adult self, on the other side of that fear is a really powerful experience, a very unique experience. And it just starts with you may not be able to rewrite the entire narrative, but just exchange a few words to start do something a little bit different than you would normally do and find your way there.
Russell:Yes, interesting. Yeah, very interesting. So obviously I heard you mentioning mindfulness such like and meditation and some of those things. Is this based on a sort of spiritual path or Buddhist tradition? Or is it more of a sort of physical use of the toolkits? Or do you have to have that spiritual approach linked to be able to use those things?
Charryse:Yeah, you don't have to have the spiritual path linked in to use those things. So, I always start at the core with the physical embodiment practice of knowing what it means to just allow yourself to be present and sitting with non-judgment. What does that look like? How can I be curious about what I'm experienced versus judging it? And then that's what's unique and beautiful about mindfulness and the practice of mindfulness. Then each person can decide, is the physical embodiment of this in slowing my neurotransmitters in my brain down enough for me? Or do I want to connect it to my preferred form of spirituality? And so that's where it becomes individualised.
Russell:Yeah, it is interesting that the role of belief is huge. Well, yes, I was trying to think of the right word. I wasn't quite sure it's rejuvenated. I think that was the word I was thinking. And I wonder if you had any views on that because I just wonder whether it's actually spiritual practice, which is actually rejuvenated some of those things. I'm not talking about organised religion; I'm talking about spirituality.
Charryse:I definitely feel like belief is necessary and can be rejuvenating. But then, if I'm honest, connecting it to spiritual practice will really depend on the experience of each person. Because I also come across people that some of the beliefs, they have the shame and the guilt and the harm that they experience has been under organized practices of religion. So, it's helping people also go, how do we deconstruct what you believe in the ways that have been harmful for you? And the rejuvenation, from my vantage point, comes from you taking the autonomy to reconstruct a new version and you can keep the pieces that you identify with and then you can fill in the blanks where you need more room.
Russell:So you're extremely erudite and you've got it's interesting the way that you discourse and build your narratives. But my understanding is that you didn't always have a voice. What does that mean on your website.
Charryse:When I say, yeah, always didn't have a voice? I grew up in the south as a young black woman and lived in predominantly white areas where it wasn't what's the word? Accepted to talk anyway as a child. But then definitely not one that was of the minority nature. I think specifically of not a random a very unique story. I had a teacher in second grade, and I will never forget her name. She is no longer alive. Her name was Miss Moon. And I got in so much trouble for helping other students or correcting something that she may have written on the board by accident that was spelt wrong. And it was seen as indignant. It was seen as wrong. And that was a time where you could still spank. Spankings were allowed in school. So, she takes me out into the hall and she goes, I am going to give you a spanking because you have been annoyance in the classroom.
Charryse:And I'm seven, mind you, and I'm not proud of this, but it's me. And I just looked at her in the eyes and said, you will not spank me. My mother does not spank me. Nothing that I did was wrong by helping another student who was sitting and crying because you were too busy. But long story short, the rest of the year when I didn't have work to do, I had to go sit in their principal's office because the only way that the teacher would continue to stay at the school is if she only had to, quote, unquote, deal with me when I wasn't there. So that's a big message, right? With no grace and yeah, people don't always love direct conversations or just clear dialogue from someone. No.
Russell:And it's a fascinating conundrum, isn't it? Because at the moment, what we're facing, I don't know if you find this in your therapeutic world, we're facing a massive problem with parenting skills. Certainly, we've got a steady stream of work for the next 5,000 years given the parenting skills that we do. Whoa. That's it. COVID wasn't a conspiracy of the healthiness. It was the mental health practitioners getting very ready to have work forever. But joking aside, but it's interesting how education has moved backwards, and forwards and children have become the victim of lots of different fads and such like. I mean, we're seeing what's going on at the moment, watching the horror in the states of what's going on in some of your American schools at the moment, rewriting history and such like, and what's going on there, and diversity and inclusion. It's quite bizarre how the politicisation of education is such that it's a challenge, isn't it?
Russell:It's like, how do kids learn? How do you build spirituality? How do you build resilience in children who've effectively been almost exposed to a form of cultism in their educational practice, isn't it?
Charryse:It's extremely challenging, and it's so intricate, we could probably talk a whole another show for hours about it. It's interesting. It's sad. There's a balance to being respectful. But we've also gone through this season of I believe we're now seeing the child centred parenting kind of let them do what they want and not understanding that they are also living out of an impulsive brain. And the question you asked is, how do they learn? I don't believe that many of us know how to learn, even as adults. One of the most basic questions that I continue to get from people when I might share about moving through a situation is but how we're so used to being given information or told what to do or culticised into just let me follow under this, that we don't know how to make decisions. We don't know how to analyse information.
Russell:We're easily manipulated. So, it's extremely challenging.
Charryse:I think it's even deeper than learning. I don't think we know how to think. I think we've lost the rigor. I mean, decision sciences used to be a subject, and now it's not. In this country. We used to have a fine tradition of debating, and one of the things about debating that was so powerful is that you used to get a subject to work on. Yeah. And you didn't know which side you were on, so you had to prepare both. You had to see both sides of the argument, and that doesn't happen anymore. And the very nature of social media and the way that cesspit works now in certain ways is that we're just indoctrinating kids. So how do we build that resilience in kids? How do we build, and do we actually have to wait until they're adults so they can sort of see the light for themselves?
Russell:Almost?
Charryse:Yeah. So, I'll say two things. One, I definitely don't believe that we can wait until we're adults, because those early formative years are crucial now. If we didn't get it, then it's helpful to still work on that process. I have a probably completely counterculture concept around resilience. I understand the concept of resilience. But I also don't necessarily believe in resilience because I also think there's a lot of individuals who have a situational form of what appears to be resilience, which means they know how to navigate a chaotic dynamic and seem like they are resilient against it. But what's happening on the outside and what's happening on the inside are two different things. Or if we think about the concept of those that are marginalized for multiple different reasons, they have a forced sense of resilience that really is more oppression than it is resilience. They've just had toughen up in order to survive all of these spaces that have not acknowledged them for their differences.
Charryse:So I think it's one of those words that we have to look at with different nuances. But if we can teach that, yes, while our children are young, it allows them to get back to thinking, to separating, to not comparing, to looking at things from two different angles. And I believe keeping them off of social media as much as possible is a big part of that because it's overwhelming.
Russell:You see, I think everything you've just described there is resilience because it's all part of it. Because, yes, there's a sort of traditional thing. It's about weathering the storm and coping, and it's also about when you fall apart, you can come back. But in order to do those things, you've got to have accountability. You've got to learn, you got to build self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-worth. You've got to have that for the journey. And I think the challenge here is that in organisational terms, the organisation is constructed to get people to burn out. And what they do is they come to people like me, probably you, and say, get our people to be more resilient. And I'll start off by saying, no, you fix your processes first because that's the thing that's wearing what's the point in building them up to resilient?
Russell:And you're actually testing it every day. Change your organisation because that's the problem. And of course, once you say that, it's quite a shocker for a lot of people because there's a lot of leaders. Managers don't think they're people. They think there's something else, and they don't seem to realise that there is. Isn't it peculiar? The sales director who runs an eight-hour sales meeting and everyone's board stiff, but the sales director who has a lovely time? You're the problem. I mean, every single organisation I've ever worked with when I had the leadership team hires me. It's always the leadership team that's the problem. I bet you find the same thing.
Charryse:Oh, I find it all the time. About 50% of the work that I do is in corporations and non-profits and organisations looking at their processes and struggle structures to go. Are you truly willing to change the processes and the way things are systemically designed so that the people who work for you, that you want to keep around don't have to be resilient in order to stay? Ideally, we don't want to go through life and feel like we have to constantly be forming skills in order to navigate it. To me, one of the most basic definitions of healing or health is living a life that I don't have to escape, whether that's personally or professionally.
Russell:Now, that's interesting, you see, because you definitely have or you appear, if I may be so bold, to see it, to see resilience as a sort of a negative thing. And I would say that the old idea, Chamanowski's idea of flow is part of resilience. That's that thing where you're at your level of capability right against the edge, and you're really maximising your potential and you're having a really brilliant time. That for me, is resilience. That's what it feels like. Now, what we know is that you can't sustain that. That's the problem. It's like everything's like stress, isn't it? Stress is a normal natural function, which actually it goes from you stress to distress. And that's the point, isn't it? It's knowing your own tipping point. And that's the problem where organisational processes go wrong because we have this sort of hero culture, especially for women, I think these days there's this implication that you can't just be yourselves, you've somehow got to be many men.
Russell:So for me, obviously, I like resilience, and we may be arguing about semantics, and it doesn't really matter, but I do think everything you're saying is a positive endorsement of resilience at the same time going, I'm not sure about it.
Charryse:No, definitely it's not.
Russell:I'm going to take it as a win.
Charryse:I'm just saying, yes, you can take it. Yeah, no, it's totally fine. It's not so much that I think resilience is negative. I think the way resilience is often semantically, conceptualised, doesn't look at the group of people who are forced to be resilient or the level of trauma that they experience while developing it. Right. Like there's elements of resilience that I'll use myself that I have had to develop in order to survive, that has also come at a cost of and here's all of these traumas that you have to continue to heal from, to flow. And I don't often hear that in the conversation, or it makes resilience seem like this beautiful thing, but doesn't look at the cost of fighting for that flow. And those who are given the space to flow easily and those who have to flow over rocks and through crevices and through tributaries in order to get to open waters.
Russell:Someone should write a book about that process. That's my new book. Having segued neatly from my new book to your new book. Tell us a little bit about your new book.
Charryse:Yeah, so Expired Mindsets, releasing patterns that no longer serve you well really speaks so much of what we're talking about, how to look at where there's been different parts of our life, and we have operated off of certain belief systems, thoughts and patterns. And now we've hit a place that we realise this is no longer working the way it once did. And how do I create new language? How do I create new patterns? And how do I choose to release the parts of me that are still attached to my old ways?
Russell:You probably notice that I'm slightly distracted because I'm just on Amazon looking at 102, almost universally, five star reviews. My goodness. What's going on? You've got some publicity machine or it's a really brilliant book. I'm going to have to buy this one now.
Charryse:Yeah. I hope it's because it's a really brilliant book. It is definitely not a textbook. It is very, I feel like, engaging and inclusive. I tried to make it where everyone could see themselves in it. It includes mindfulness, it includes opportunities to reflect. And it talks about just what you said, rewriting your narrative, and how do you change the language and words that fit your country, your geographic location, how you would speak to yourself. I'm not a big proponent of say these words because those words may not fit your story.
Russell:Fascinating. Okay, so it's Expired Mindsets, releasing patterns that no longer serve you well. I've just said it's available on Amazon. Where else is it available?
Charryse:Yeah. So Amazon Barnes and Noble. Audible. I actually did the voice part for the book myself, so that's also an option for people who don't want a physical book. And of course, there's an ebook and all the good things. Or you can go to my website, which is drcharryse.com, and find out about it and all the other tools and resources available there.
Russell:Are you with social media?
Charryse:I am. So, I am most active on Instagram. So that's Doctor Charryse J. And Charysse is spelled C-H-A-R-R-Y-S-E. But I will warn everyone, if you come to my Instagram page, be ready, because I am not your run in the mill person. I am very fun and open and direct and educational and a little bit of everything. So, it's quite an experience.
Russell:I'm just looking.
Charryse:Yeah, take a look. You'll be like, okay.
Russell:You might be saying I'm a man, I shouldn't be multitasking. But.
Charryse:I'm impressed.
Russell:There's a huge pause as I sort of consider what I'm saying in front of me. That's brilliant. Well, look absolutely fantastic. Lovely to talk to you today. Expired Mindsets is the book. Dr. Charryse, C-H-A-R-R-Y-S-E is the website and all that sort of jazz. And it's been an absolute joy to talk to you today. And all I can do is wish you good resilience of the positive version.
Charryse:It has been a pleasure having me. Thank you so much. I will continue to work on my flow. I will accept that part of resilience you take care.