Video: Black Religion and Mental Health Symposium Closing Keynote: Dr. Charmain Jackman

Dr. Charmain Jackman (she/her), founder and CEO of InnoPsych, delivered the closing keynote at the Black Religion and Mental Health Symposium.

Professor Ahmad Greene-Hayes (Harvard Divinity School) and Professor George Aumoithe (FAS, History and African and African American Studies) proposed this two-day interdisciplinary symposium, integrating mind, brain, and behavior insights into the exploration of Black religious practices and their impact on mental health. They questioned how Black religious spaces can enhance mental health outcomes, considering their dual role as sanctuaries and potential impediments to open discourse. The symposium brought together experts from history, public health, psychiatry, African American studies, religious studies, and civic society, focusing on understanding the neurobiological and socio-behavioral dynamics contributing to mental health stigmatization within Black communities.

The symposium aimed to illuminate how societal stressors, such as racism, influence brain function and behavior, thereby affecting mental health, while also exploring resilience mechanisms among Black religious communities. This project aligns with the Harvard Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative’s mission of facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration to address complex issues, contributing to a broader understanding of the interplay between mind, brain, and behavior in the context of Black mental health.

This event took place on March 1, 2024.

SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.

SPEAKER 2: Black Religion and Mental Health Symposium Closing Keynote. March 1, 2024.

GEORGE AUMOITHE: So we're going to resume our community keynote session. So happy to have had two fantastic plenary discussions that have really fed into one another very seamlessly. And we are going to end with a Charmain Jackman

Charmain Jackman is an award-winning licensed psychologist with 25 years in the mental health field. She is the founder and CEO of InnoPsych, a Black woman-owned mental health tech company and an industry leader providing inclusive mental health solutions to individuals, companies, and communities.

InnoPsych offers an online platform that connects people of color to therapists of color and provides programming on topics, such as racial trauma, burnout, mental health stigma, and emotional well-being that empowers leaders to cultivate emotionally safe work cultures.

She has extensive experience working with people experiencing mental health crises, children, youth and families, visual and performing artists, and people exposed to various types of trauma, including racial and identity-based trauma. Charmain is deeply invested in sharing tools that foster healing and thriving.

She is the creator of my time to thrive card deck, which provides tools for reducing stress and fostering healthy coping patterns. Charmain has won several awards for her impactful work, including the Boston Business Journal 2022 Power 50 Movement Makers, 2022 Charles River Chamber of Commerce Business Leaders of Color, 2021 American Psychological Association's Citizen Psychologist Award, and City of Boston's 2021 Innovator of the Year Award.

Jackman has been featured on national media outlets such as the New York Times, NPR, PBS, Oprah Daily, Essence, Black Enterprise, and the Boston Globe. She is an appointed member of the Massachusetts 988 commission representing the NAACP Boston chapter. Please join me in warmly welcoming Charmain Jackman to the stage.

[APPLAUSE]

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Good afternoon.

AUDIENCE: Good afternoon.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: All right, let me hear that again. Good afternoon.

AUDIENCE: Good afternoon.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Thank you for the warm introduction and for the invitation to be here. I have just been in awe and inspired by our panelists and our keynote that we've heard over the last day and a half. And I feel like I have a really big job to pull us together, but I am up for the challenge.

So I want to just start by doing a couple things. So the way I'm going to frame our conversation, I'm going to share a little bit about my own personal story around religion and mental health, how those intersect, but really the focus will be on having you talk with each other.

You've been listening a lot, you've been taking a lot in, and we really want to get you to a place where you can digest it and also think about action. What are you going to do when you leave here? So this is a great to come and listen. But we're not going to stay in the listening and learning mode, we really want to take that into action. So that is my charge for today.

So I want to invite us to take a pause and it's great when good practices are aligned I'm like, yo, that's what I'm going to do. So I'm going to invite you to just turn your gaze inward. You can close your eyes, you can avert your gaze downward, you can find a spot in the room, whatever feels most comfortable for you.

And I just want you to pause. We've been taking in a lot of information, some of it might have been triggering, some of it might have been affirming. There are many places where we've gone over these conversations in the last day and a half.

I invite you when you're ready to take a breath in through your nose on a count of three and release that through your mouth on a count of five. Just trying to let the exhale be as slow and long as possible. Taking another breath in and releasing that through your mouth.

As you continue to focus on your breath, you might notice in your body, you might notice any places that are tense or tight. And feel free to massage those, release those, stretch, turn your neck, massage those shoulders, the back, whatever feels tight or tense, just allow that space to release.

And continue to focus on those slow, deep breathing, slow breaths. And I invite you in this moment to think about a word, an intention word, a word you want to feel the end of our time together today. Because you have that word, try to embody that. How might your face look when you feel that word? How might it feel in your body? Just try to embody that word.

And now focusing, again, on your breath, breathing in through your nose, and releasing that slow breath through your mouth. Another inhale and exhale. And when you're ready, you can come back to the room with soft eyes.

Today, I invite you to talk with each other. And so as a way to practice that I'm going to invite you to turn to someone near you in your vicinity and share the word that you-- your intention word.

[LAUGHTER]

So take about 30 more seconds to wrap up. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So I invite you to come back to the front. Did everyone get to share their word? Great. Any volunteers? Anyone want to share their word?

AUDIENCE: Thank you for this. My word was whole and it came from the back of my neck as I was rolling around and you said, what is your word? And it was whole and that's how I feel now. Of course, I'm nervous every time I talk and coming here there's like, oh, this is a big stage and it's recorded.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: It's OK.

AUDIENCE: Right. But the way that all of this was set up that we got to meet each other and spend time together, breaking bread at dinner, I just felt instead of being nervous when I got on stage I felt like I was part of something and I thought look at the nerve of us. And so I feel whole and that's the word. Thank you.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Thank you so much. Anyone else? We have Celeste.

AUDIENCE: My word was peace. It came up with all the heaviness that we have been listening to. I've just been thinking about the importance of still just embracing peace.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Thank you.

AUDIENCE: My word was do, D-O. And I want to be motivated enough to do more in my life and just action, action. That's what the world needs. So yeah, and my friends here was rest.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: And you guys were up here together. I love it.

AUDIENCE: We had a similar pairing, mine was commitment. That was a collection of the energy and the motivation to action. And our organizers was release and rest. And we had love as well.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Nice. Awesome, thank you. One last one? I didn't do it. So sometimes when you're in on the facilitation, it's like I don't even think about it. But if I had to think about it, accomplished. But I feel affirmed in this space already similar to what you're saying, Stephanie.

I wanted to do one other thing before. As we get started, I wanted to get a sense of who is in the room. So who are the mental health professionals? You can just raise your hand, give a thumbs up. Who are the men to help? And raise it high then if you're a mental health professional. I want to see you. So we have two others, three, four in the room, OK.

Who are the historians, religious? So historians, OK, three-ish. Religious studies? OK, and some people are double dipping, which is OK. What else? Students? Some students? Advocates in some way? Advocates? Great. Anyone didn't get to raise a hand? Who did I miss? Religious professionals, yes, members of clergy or faith? OK, great. Thank you, thank you.

It's always good to know who's in the room as we do this, as we do this. So I invite you to take on all your roles, bring all those roles in this conversation. So I wanted to include a quote. And I know Bell Hooks has made it into the room already today. But I love this quote because it reminds us why we're having this conversation and it reminds me of why I do the work that I do in mental health.

But within white supremacist patriarchal culture, Black people are not supposed to be well. This culture makes wellness a luxury. And so I love the conversations that we've been having today because it is about turning that on its side, on its head.

So a little bit about my story and then we'll get into some of the community conversations. So I grew up on this small island called Barbados. And from a religious perspective, my family, my grandmother was Seventh Day Adventist and so was my mother and so was passed down to me. But as I reflected on my own journey, my mom was at a place when she was going to-- my grandmother died when I was about 10.

So when I was going to church I was actually going to church alone because my mom would send me because it was important for her to have me raise in our tradition, but she was in a different place in her life. So I remember I was like-- and I did not like going to church on Saturdays. It was not cool as a teenager to be in church on Saturdays. And the SDAs, they go to church for a long time. So you're there all day. So it was not really cool.

So it was something that I went and I did, but I didn't really own it. And so actually when I met my husband who was raised I was sharing this with someone who was raised Catholic, when we came together having a faith practice was important for us, but we didn't feel tied to how we were raised. And so we went on this journey trying to find the church that would fit us.

And I think, Monica, you were talking about the idea of the pluralism and religious. And I think that really fit. I really connected that because, yeah, that makes sense. We believe, but it can be expensive. And so we ended up going to Myrtle Baptist Church.

We explored a number of churches, a number of faiths and we landed at Myrtle Baptist Church, which is a historically Black church in Newton, which was founded by freed slaves. And so Reverend Pastor Crowley is the senior pastor there.

My journey continues because I am also now attending another church and this is public now. And coming out of COVID we really wanted to make sure our children were raised in a faith and we were struggling to have a child, a groundswell of children at our church. So we ended up starting going to Pentecostal Tabernacle in Cambridge, which has a very vibrant children's ministry.

And so our children are involved. They go to the teen Bible quiz and they love it. These are things that didn't necessarily have at our other church. So I continued to be committed to both congregations. I lead a healing circle for some women at Myrtle. And actually at Myrtle is where I started to blend my faith and mental health.

So when I graduated in 2001, I had gone through most of my education for psychology with not really addressing religion. I think back then bringing religion into the therapy room was a no, no. And there was one Professor I had who was actually studying religiosity, but there was no actual practice about how to do this in our clinical practice.

And I remember getting out of graduating and actually going through a pastoral counseling program at Trinity Boston, which was helping clinicians to integrate religion and faith into their practice. So that started on my journey. And then in 2017, I led our first mental health fair at Myrtle, which was really well received.

And actually during that time it was actually during Mental Health Awareness Month and Pastor Crowley did a sermon around mental health and we actually did a tag team sermon, which was really cool. And we've done that since we did another conversation on suicide, I think that was in 2020 it was during COVID. I was really called to address the impact of suicide particularly during COVID in our communities because it's something we didn't talk about.

And what else? I want to highlight the Haiti piece. So as I mentioned my husband-- I may not have mentioned it, my husband's Haitian and in 2014 I went on an immersion service trip to Haiti. And it was actually during that trip that I really got enlightened or really turned on learned and relearned the importance of voodoo in the Haitian Revolution.

They actually made me have more respect for voodoo and the impact that has for Black people in community, but also in activism and revolution. And so I'm on this journey also about really calling attention to the importance of voodoo and really calling out how people demonize voodoo and really again call into call in the importance of voodoo in our freedom and liberation journey.

And then in 2019, I started a company called InnoPsych, which is focused on mental health and healing and providing access to mental health resources for communities of color. And so that's brought me into a number of spaces talking about mental health. We've done a lot of work with churches, with clergy, and we continue to just be in all spaces talking about mental health because I think that is our charge.

So that's a little bit about my story and the work that we're doing with InnoPsych. The other thing I want to share is just some research that we've been doing. So when we started InnoPsych in 2019, as a psychologist, data is important. So we started a survey that asked people about their experiences about mental health.

We really wanted to get to, what are some of the messages that people are raised around therapy and mental health? We hear it, but there's not a lot of data about what that actually looks like. So I'm going to share some data with you, but I'm going to do it like a quiz show. So when we think about when people go to therapy and actually I should say when people of color go to therapy, who do they tell?

AUDIENCE: I said nobody.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Nobody. Any other?

AUDIENCE: Sister, friend.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Sister, friend, OK. So here is the data and I was actually quite surprised. And I would have to say, so we collected about 400 respondents and we end up analyzing about 230 and we only looked at people of color. So I would say, I have to say the lens here is people are coming to our website. So that's already I would say a different type of person. So I do make that caveat.

But we found that almost 49% of people told friends and family. We were really surprised at that. But again, this is an audience that's already probably more open to therapy. I'm excited to do this work in some lab with someone and really have a wider reach. So if anyone out there is looking to do some research, holler.

About 26% only told friends not family. 4% told family, not friends. So a lot of people aren't necessarily telling family. And then about 20% didn't tell anybody. So I was actually surprised because I thought the numbers of people didn't tell anyone would be actually higher. And so there is some openness, again, with the population that completed the survey about being open about their journey and I think we see that a lot in our pop culture.

I'm going to hail Celeste, a therapist who has a podcast and does a lot of work around talking about mental health and as a therapist. And so we've seen that more openness to people's journey. How about this question, what percentage of people of color want a therapist from a similar background?

AUDIENCE: 80%.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: We have 80%.

AUDIENCE: 90.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: 90, all right. And 88, so right in there. And again, that was not surprising at all. From my conversations with folks just anecdotal data, we see that a lot. People want therapist. I think people want choice is actually and that's one of the things that we're advocating for is around choice. What is the average age that a person of color will see their first therapist?

AUDIENCE: Not mandated.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Not mandated, good. See, I'm going to be nuanced when I answer that question next time. Not mandated. 30s?

AUDIENCE: 35.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: 35. He's like I'm going to get specific.

AUDIENCE: 25.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: 25, OK. So it is in the 20s. So about 40% see their therapists in the 20s. And I think if you-- to the last point, I think that might be a little bit lower if it was maybe mandated. And then most people the therapist was White. 42% their first therapist was a White therapist. And I think, George, when you introduced yesterday, it feels like we've been here for longer, I'm going to say last week, you talked about some of the data.

So 15% of psychologists or psychologists of color, social workers about 22%, licensed mental health counselors, that data is always harder for me to find, but it is around the 15% to 18%. So there are not a lot of therapists of color to begin with. Our numbers are really small. So this data makes sense.

And then this is some really interesting data that also came out. We asked people, what were the messages that you received about therapy? And then we actually were able to create these categories based on the data that we receive. So supportive, silence, mix, and judgment, which of these do you think had the highest number? You think mix was the highest?

AUDIENCE: Judgement.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Judgment. You love this game. And any other takers?

AUDIENCE: Mix.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Mix, so you got a few for mixed judgment. He's definitely going to say supportive, all right. So the highest was actually judgment and usually unhelpful messages. Then supportive about 20-- well, sorry, silence, so we don't even talk about therapy. It's like Bruno, we don't talk about it. And then supportive and then mix.

So I think that is some highlights. We also have a few other things, but I think that was the highlight I wanted to share, particularly in our conversation. This data makes sense, yeah. Yeah, cool. Any questions about that so far? I want to just pause.

AUDIENCE: I thought it was interesting that Middle Eastern was on there and the responses because it's usually White, Black, in Latinx and sometimes you'll get Native American. But I was interested in particularly in these times to see Middle Eastern as a respondent of the therapists. I thought that was interesting. That's what happens when you ask open questions and stuff.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, she's talking about the identification of the therapists. Any other comments or questions?

AUDIENCE: I was thinking about the family piece and because it's a broad, family is broad. But I noticed a lot of people will struggle telling their parents out of judgment or what they would say. But I wonder if it's like cousins or siblings, but not parents, which is huge I think.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Yeah, and we didn't ask specifically, so really great point when we do this study again to think about that, yeah. I was going to say somewhere I lost the train of thought. Yeah, well, thank you. So let me shift to the next piece.

But I think what I wanted to say for this is that there is not a lot of data about mental health and experiences of mental health and messages about mental health in our communities. And so this is important we think about students in the audience, this is definitely a field of study that we need more data on. We go on a lot of assumptions.

Yesterday after your keynote, we talked about understanding some of those historical linkages to the stigma that exist today and filling in those gaps because we hear the stories of today, but we don't have a lot of context from the past. So I think the more that we can do data and get more research from our stories will be really important.

So what I want to do in this next section is to think about how do you think together about some of the themes and highlights from our conversation today and yesterday. So we've learned a lot. We've taken in quite a bit.

And so one is a bit to digest some of that, pull out some themes, and think about, what are the things that you've learned? What are the new things you've learned? What are things you're unlearning? What are the shifts in thinking or the challenges you have to think about what you thought you knew?

And then the real learning is, what is a reminder that you've had? So I'm going to invite you to be in groups of three or four. And we'll have roles, timekeeper, spokesperson, and note taker. And I'll give you-- we'll do this for 15 minutes and then we'll come back and share out your findings. So again, find a partner three or four.

And again, this is really trying to pull it out some of the themes, the through lines that we've had heard from our keynote yesterday and our plenary sessions today. All right, 10 more seconds. Wrap up your thoughts.

AUDIENCE: [CHATTER]

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: You guys got a lot of notes. All right, so how were your conversations? Thumbs up, in the middle, thumbs down? Good conversations? All right, so what we can do, we'll have each group do a report out. Try to keep it within I'd say like a 90-second, share your highlights.

And as we go through, I'm sure as we go along there may be similarities, so if someone has shared something you already have, you can skip over that. So who wants to be the first? Who wants to share out first? Celeste is ready to go. Love it.

AUDIENCE: So we weren't here for the first one, but one person talked about just learning the rich tradition of self-care and how people coped. I found out this on YouTube, so I'm going to watch it, but I didn't realize how much-- I thought only church was a part of our self-care back in that time, I didn't realize there was other practices.

And then we also talked about learning about for me the Black churches response to immigration and homelessness from this piano. And well, it's like action or what I'm thinking about as I listened to this is just learning about how to go to where people are between Yolo and [INAUDIBLE], sorry, I don't know his name. But everyone else talking about how they're bringing their work to the community, I think that was powerful for me to hear.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Great, thank you. So we can-- yeah.

AUDIENCE: Our group talked about-- I'm reading Judith's handwriting, so I'm going to try. Let's see. We've all been basking in the incredible work that everyone is doing insofar as we're bearing witness to catastrophic crises, intersecting crises. I think we collectively feel encouraged that there are such wonderful leaders who are doing this work.

We also were talking about the deep interconnection of the mental, the spiritual, and the physical. And actually you cannot talk about any of the things that are in the realm of Black religion without thinking across those different intersections.

Margaret Garner's story, I think the piece about, the Black woman the contemporary case that Savannah cited, but just thinking about the historical and present continuum and mirroring between those cases and how the damaging of property that of the slave or slave children or of a car are more important than Black life. It's still a continuum of that idea.

And the other piece we talked about was needing to unlearn this idea that the Black church is the center of Black political and social life. When in fact, when you bear witness to these crises, as Cathy Cohen says, Black churches are often willing to lead, but not to serve.

So there's a sense of running to the front to the mic, to the podium, to the pulpit. But when it's time to meet those who are houseless or who are in crisis, largely Black churches are absent. And so how do we reevaluate this narrative that keeps getting rehashed and think about who is actually doing the work, who's showing up, and how when we pay attention to who's showing up, we see the plurality of Black religious responses to crisis? So thank you, yeah.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: I mean, reading and bearing the cross, which chronicles Martin Luther King's journey into civil rights. And it's interesting he had a lot of hesitation in the servant piece of it. Yes.

AUDIENCE: I will try to summarize this. So the first thing that we were talking about we learned is I just never-- personally as a psychologist I just have not thought about religion and behavioral health at that intersection. And then we were just also talking about this whole notion of religious excitement as a framework for us to really think about some of these issues that we're seeing today and using that to understand.

The other thing that came up too was about grant making and just the role that we were talking about specifically like some of the smaller organizations, so where I work we're a massive nonprofit. And we don't need any money for the most part, but it's easy for us to get money. But those groups that are doing a lot of the grassroot work on the ground. To Yolo's point, they're not getting that money, they don't often have the infrastructure.

The way the system is set up, it's set up for these large wealthy institutions like Harvard.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: And Black institutions.

AUDIENCE: You said what?

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: I said Black institutions?

AUDIENCE: That too with board members who are connected and that's how the money operates. So these private foundations even the work that we're doing. It's not by happenstance, it's I wish there would have been a small group that got the money to do what we're doing. But the reality is they came to us because of their networks.

And so how do we make making more equitable to get to those groups and organizations that are doing that work on the ground to the churches to the mosques to the community-based organizations that are doing that? Yeah, that was the high level I forget anything. Good, OK.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Thank you.

AUDIENCE: Behind you.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: OK.

AUDIENCE: Hello. So when we talk about learned, we spoke about the divide within the homeless and the minority communities regarding people who are already here and people who are coming here.

And a big part of that was bringing up in 2023-2022 when we saw the issues with South America and at the border what US policy did towards those migrant populations, which was instead of helping and instead of allowing them to enter was to divide and segregate even more and take the immigrants who are already here and force them out as well. So that's what we talked about for learn.

And I think for unlearn I think we started mentioning not necessarily us, but I guess minority communities as a whole unlearning that therapy is a privilege and not a right. So access to mental health, being a privilege. I remember my mother telling me that you're lucky now because when I was growing up, her mother, my grandmother told her that mental health is a white person's disease because we can't afford for you to have medications, we can't afford for you to go see a therapist every week.

And even now even with progressive programs it's still expensive and seeing someone who doesn't understand what it means to be part of your community and what that narrative is and what that colloquialism is. So when we also talk about the infographics where we see about there's only 22% of people therapists of color in this specific region or in this specific area of psychiatry, we note that that's not enough.

But we also note that there is a progressive move not only towards getting more therapy in psychiatry of color, but also towards people being more accepting of the fact that mental health is within our communities and is needed for our communities.

Family, and generational racial history is something else we also talked about, just noting that we I guess didn't realize the impact that your history has on not only your mental health, but also your physical well-being as well. I think something that we bring up is that generational behaviors and how that occurs as well.

So I cannot remember her name, but she speaks about how behaviors pass through generations. So for example, a mother during slave times, a Black mother during slave times would downplay her child's success and smartness because she didn't want her child to be sold. And her child would then do the same thing their mother did to them and it would continue generationally.

And now we have family structures where you see Black and Brown children want to do better, but also grow up in households where they feel like they don't or can't do better not because their parent didn't necessarily support them, but not in the way that they need it. And we talk about these behavioral approaches that continue throughout history and transcend race.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Thanks. When I do a lot of my work on entrepreneurship there is this humility that we have and it gets in the way sometimes in our career advancement. Counter juxtapose with you got to work twice as hard, but you can't talk about your accomplishments. Part of that standing out could be cause for you to be targeted. So thank you. Who do we have left? These two here.

AUDIENCE: Some of the things we shared have been shared so I won't reshare them, we did talk about thinking about the way-- we're learning about how psychiatric institution malpractices have last several generations that they're historic, but also ongoing or some of the learnings about who-- one of the ones we talked about was the learning that kids, that children under five are the most numerous of those who are unhoused and that was not what-- at least I know that was my learning.

That was not what I thought. I really would have-- if you'd asked me, I would have guessed something very different. And of grounding of that connection with the earth being a form of healing was one of our learnings.

And I think some other things that were fun that we have here are being really-- knowing intellectually, but really feeling in new ways the power of interdisciplinarity that's in the room and coming at these from so many different methodological and disciplinary angles theoretically, academically as activists and how they're overlapping.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: [INAUDIBLE], right?

AUDIENCE: Right. And I assume that one of mine I said, I was like, I relearned how Black people are the shit. We are just really great and not just making bricks without straw, but in the midst of these things that are just very painful and hard and violent, being creative, and healing, and nurturing and just doing amazing work in the world.

AUDIENCE: So we talked a lot, but we didn't write anything down. So I don't know here.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: That was one group.

AUDIENCE: That was us.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: It's all good, it's all good.

AUDIENCE: So I think one of the things that we did talk about in all honesty is, again, the great depth of knowledge that you all have brought here today. And I know that each of US was able to share something from each of the speakers that really spoke to us. And so I think that was really good. I think we feel like there's some good things going on. There's some good things going on the ground level and I think that's where we need it.

Obviously, we need the theoretical stuff, but we need people who are in the field doing the work. So thank you all for doing that. And so we had really good discussion around that. I think we also talked about challenging our view of what religion is, especially in the Black community and there's not one single vision of what religion is and being open to that, especially in the populations that we serve.

And I think relearning just to take care of ourselves, especially in these spaces because, again, we all know that adage that we can't pour from an empty cup. But I think when we come to these kinds of workshops we don't generally come in and do the grounding. We come in and we hear the information. And I was relating the story that one of our speakers shared about a grandparent in prison. And I shared that my uncle went to prison. I never went to see him because I was young, but your story brought me to tears.

And I don't think that we sometimes expect this emotional connection in these professional settings, but I think to be able to ground us in that way to start and then to check in and have those moments. So I think just that reminder that our own self-care is essential in the work that we're doing and especially again in these professional settings to set the stage for that.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: Right, thank you.

[LAUGHTER]

I know we were talking about the healing, if you want to talk about the healing circles as important.

AUDIENCE: One piece we were-- oh, sorry. Another piece that we all talked about was a dreamer and dream. What we're talking about is healing circles and then we came in and talked about this-- one of the things that we've experienced and we offer healing circles as an addition to our training, we do virtual as well as in-person healing circles.

And we've recognized that for a lot of my elders in my community the idea of doing a one on one therapy session feels like a replication of this assessment judgment from white supremacy, it feels like you're judging me, you're going to shame me, you're going to come down on me.

Whereas if you put them in a group and this is not just for my elders, but also a lot of different population younger people too put folks in a group and now all of a sudden it feels more communal and there's a lot more letting the guard down. We partner with the guy on the television show and did a whole series the whole thing on heart circle or heart space healing circle as we call them.

But essentially if you watch there's a couple of episodes where they have healing circles and we actually talk to them about this is what it needs to look like. So we're trying to get them to model it and so other communities can take that on because that feels safer for some people, You know what I mean?

And it's also communal is connected to our culture, the ring circles, the ring shouts, the prayer circles, we have a sense of that. But this one on one you're looking at me thing feels different for folks and sometimes foreign and uncomfortable.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: And I think in that conversation. We also talked about just generational differences, what words and you were intentional in terms of the words you choose sacred paws versus meditation. If I'm talking to my mom about meditation, she ain't having that even though it's like prayer. It's like you go prayer, you go kneel in prayer, and you're centering yourself, it's the same thing. But the words can be triggering for people.

So thank you for that. Anyone, any other comments from what others shared out? Very rich conversations. So what I want to do in this next section is just do a couple highlights just from themes that I've heard over the last day. And a half and then I'm going to invite you to do some individual reflection because this is also about taking care of yourself. And so we don't often have these spaces for that.

One thing I wanted to highlight was this idea of weathering and one of our panelists talked about it, I can't remember which one, but this concept from Arlene Geronimus who does a lot of work in health equity and maternal health, this idea that-- and I always say this we always talk about Black don't crack, Asian don't raisin, and there's some other ones.

But what we're seeing is that on the inside those health determinants, whether it's housing, financial stress, it's wearing away on our internal systems. And we may look younger on the outside than our stated age, but our internal is going through some stuff.

So I wanted to just highlight that because I think it challenges us to-- it forces us to challenge this idea that even we may look good on the outside that everything is all good, and how do we really make sure that we're taking care of ourselves at a deep level? Whether it's through spiritual or well-being.

The other piece I wanted to highlight was we were talking about this yesterday sacred rage. And I think, Stephanie, you brought up that-- I think it was who brought up after our keynote. You're like you're like I'm just sitting with this anger and I was feeling it too.

And this concept from Jennifer Mullin, she's doing a lot of work around decolonizing therapy. I was at a conference with her earlier this month and she shared, sorry, last month, she shared this new book she's working on about sacred rage and this idea that the things that we're feeling. A lot of us might be downplay, we minimize it, we push it down, we stuff it down.

And so it's really about giving space for our emotions and for the range of our emotions, whether it's grief, anger, or joy, or hope, all of it needs space. But the sacred rage really lives in our frustration with our ancestral experiences that intergenerational trauma and we do have to give space for that. And that's part of a lot of the work that we're doing is I think for many of us communities of color we don't talk about our emotions.

We may dance it off or whatever, but there's that real connection around our emotions and that is something that I'm helping to really shift in the work that we're doing, how to get people really connect to their emotions, how to express it, how to-- again, whatever that range of emotion is being able to name it and feel it and live it and not just ignore it or avoid it.

And then the last piece I wanted to highlight was this work by Dr. Manuel Zam-- I can't pronounce his name Zamarripa. So he talked about this idea-- often we talk therapy as being very western, but in our ancestral roots we often went and talked to elders to our chiefs, to our leaders. But it was also in community, it was not in isolation.

And so this idea, how do we take back our talk therapy? So a lot of what I'm learning and unlearning is that a lot of our ancestral and indigenous practices were maligned, but then commodified. And so how do we get into a space where we relearn what those practices were and own those?

I remember I would often make fun of my mom because she has a T for everything. Mom, you might be watching. And so this idea was like we would just make fun of you got a T for this and my husband's about the same thing. And now I'm like I'm owning it because it works.

We were in Ghana last week and we were sick. And she had this cinchona bark. She was like kept drinking it and she had all these things. She was just feeding us and healing us through just natural practices. So as kids we make fun of those, but we have to really reclaim those.

And I think one of the professor's earlier was saying that too in this conversation that we have to go back to those historical or Indigenous practices, we have to do that research, we have to relearn and own because it's healing for us. So that is what I have.

So what I want to do is to invite you to take about given the time let's say about, yeah, five to seven minutes of individual reflection. I have some cards here. Angelique, if you can help me pass these out. They're small, so I apologize. So you have a number of options, you can use the prompts here and I'll pass around these cards. This is the card that I created.

Some people love journaling and can journal and you can also take one of these cards and get some prompts. But these are just some things to keep think about, what childhood experiences impacted how you think about mental health? What is a practice you want to build for yourself? We've talked a lot about practice and building routines. How do you care for yourself as you engage in liberation and abolitionist work? Those are some prompts, there are some prompts on the card.

So you have different options. So I'm going to invite you to take about five to seven minutes. And I also invite you to think about as we leave this conversation today, what actions do you want to take? What are the things-- we learn a lot and can be very overwhelming to leave a space after taking in so much. So what is that one thing, one small step that you want to take towards action? So we'll give you five to seven minutes and then we'll come back and turn it back over.

So those are your personal reflections. You don't have to share it with anyone. But I invite you to think about where that will lead you, how that will help you get on your path or continue your path for action. I want to share just a couple-- I would be remiss if we left this conversation without sharing some more tools around mental health and well being.

So a lot of the work that I lead is around or share with clients is around mental health and well being mindfulness practices, which we started the conversation with using our breath, using slow breathing. It's free medicine. When you control your breath and do practice, it helps to regulate your nervous system and those are things you can use in any setting.

Nobody knows has to know what you're doing. The idea of self-compassion and being present focused around mindset is journaling, which we just did. We're going to do an affirmation at the end, but you also got a great affirmation from Yolo.

Gratitude practices I saw a lot of that just being shared in our space over this last day and a half, appreciation and gratitude for self and each other. And the mind-body connection, we've talked about that as well. So they're not separate things, they're integrated and we have to stop thinking about our mind as something separate from our body.

And using movement, Joshua talked about movement not necessarily exercise because I think we say exercise it comes with a lot of baggage like you have to get a new outfit, a gym membership, you got to go for hours on end right and that becomes a barrier.

But if you move five minutes, what are the small steps that you can take? Move, get up from your desk, walk somewhere, say hi to somebody, come back, using some of those natural breaks that we have. But the thing that I found that's been helpful for me is I have to schedule it in as if it's an appointment and I have to have it earlier in the day.

I'm a night person would love to do everything at night, but if I don't get it done in the morning, the day just gets away. So how do you start to build those routines for yourself? Using art to create. We didn't get to do any art today, but that's something we usually integrate into our workshops, how do you-- whether it's creating, experiencing, art going to museums music all those things.

I love the idea of Tina Turner and her chant. I'm going to look those up because I've been listening to this chantress who has wonderful stuff and it just helps me just regulate. And then being in community, this has been what it's all about. The end of the day, it's doing what makes your soul smile.

One thing it doesn't have to, again, make it bite size, make it accessible. So that's a lot of what we talk about in terms of well-being for our clients that we work with. And in terms of takeaways, I really want us to think about, how do you create a daily routine for yourself for self-care?

And you may have one who has a daily routine there's something you do every day that's intentional. If you don't do it, you're grumpy, you're off. OK, so about half of you. So we got some work to do in this room.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: What did I say? I was supposed to put healthy in that. Coffee is healthy, depends on how much of it you drink and I think you're biased. What is that daily routine? Coffee, maybe it's water, it's taking a walk, it's a meditation, it's your prayer. What is that thing that you do every day to start your day?

I talk a lot about starting your day with gratitude. What are two or three things that you're grateful for? It's a very different way than starting your day thinking about what I have to get done today. Challenging the narrative negatives that we have about our ancestral healing practices. I think that's something I've been taken away in the work that I'm doing and I think this conversation today is really highlighted that as well.

And then how do we cultivate practices for emotional experiences, the range, joy, anger, grief, hope, all of it and many, many more? So I think those are the things I hope you can leave with. And as we end, I ask you, invite you to share out with a person in your group one thing that you want to do from our conversation today. And then after that I have one more affirmation exercise that we'll do together.

But take a minute and just share out, what is the one thing that you want to take away from this conversation, from this symposium that will help change either at your individual level, something you want to do at your institution or in your community? All right, so if we can close out the conversation. I know we're getting on time, so I'm going to be turning over to George in a minute.

So sounds like you guys had some good conversations there and I definitely want to hear those action steps. So check in with me at the end. The last thing I want to do is to close out with an affirmation. And remember those words that you-- your intention words you said at the beginning?

So I'm going to invite you-- if you're able to I'm going to invite you to stand up. We've been sitting for a minute, stand up. And you can choose if you want to say I deserve, you may need to add some vowels and other things in between depending on what your word is. I am worth. So I'm going to count to three and you're going to say I deserve and you're going to fill in your word. You guys ready? Some people are stretching. [LAUGHS] All right, one, two, three, I deserve--

AUDIENCE: I deserve to be [INAUDIBLE].

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: All right, we're going to do that again. We got to be like in unison or something. So I deserve or I'm worth. I deserve?

AUDIENCE: I deserve.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: I am worth?

AUDIENCE: I am worth.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: I deserve?

AUDIENCE: I deserve.

CHARMAIN JACKMAN: All right, thank you so much. And we have lots of resources on the InnoPsych page, so feel free to check us out and follow us, connect with us. Thank you so much for being wonderful, engaging in this conversation. And thank you for this honor.

[APPLAUSE]

AHMAD GREENE-HAYES: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Jackman, for facilitating a really wonderful closing conversation just to help us synthesize and to sit with and to tarry with, I love the word tarry. It's Pentecostal in me. Thank you for that.

As we leave here, we are just wanting to express our gratitude for all of you who felt inclined to spend your day, your Friday thinking about Black religion and mental health just to rehash this emerged out of the interfaculty initiative for mind brain and behavior here at Harvard, which called for proposals from junior faculty to do interdisciplinary work that brings scholars who otherwise wouldn't be in conversation in conversation.

And so we're glad to have historians, theologians, practitioners, and neurobiologists in the same room. And there's just been so much synergy and alignment. I don't know what will come of these connections, but I'm hopeful that we can keep the conversation going in the spirit of honoring capacity.

I don't have capacity to think about another project right now, or a special issue, or any of those things even though I really wish that I did, but perhaps we can think creatively about ways to come together. And so it might not be immediately in the wake of this gathering, but hopefully, maybe in months, or two months, or six months time we might circle back and tap into the resources that are here to find a way to really put a pin in the work that we've started together these past two days.

I also want to thank Zuzu who is in the back over there. Thank you so much for your administrative and logistical support. Zuzu has been holding things down. And so I'm very grateful for her. Also to destiny who's standing there in the back, who's a wonderful MDiv student for her assistance. Ramin who is right here, thank you so much. Ramin is a wonderful graduate assistant.

And to our tech folks in the back, thank you so much for being with us. Amy who's on photographs right now, thank you. We also just want to extend gratitude to Dean Frederick and Harvard Divinity School and also Faculty of Arts and Sciences and I'll turn it over to George.

GEORGE AUMOITHE: Yeah, I mean, comprehensively stated, thank you. Yeah, not much more to be said. I think one of the things that I'm realizing is as we have this breakout model, again, thank you so much, Charmain Jackman, for modeling what it is to decenter the presenter and the lecture-based way of doing this work, we have so much knowledge.

I really like to think sometimes ecologically like when trees are growing their roots are touching and they're communicating with one another when one is hurt one comes to the other's aid. There's a constant awareness of where need is and where community needs to be.

And so every time the chain is broken I feel there's a faith that it will be reconstituted and it doesn't have to be on one person. And someone in our gathering today remarked on being astounded that two assistant professors were organizing this.

So again, shout out to the interfaculty initiative in mind brain behavior for centering the idea that junior faculty can and maybe should be leading new ways and of unexpected intersections that produce really important conversations.

But I also want to take this opportunity to thank our senior scholars for showing up and trusting us with the vision as well. It does go both ways. So yeah, I mean, the one word in my mind is rest. I mean, I think it is OK to rest. We've been using our conscious minds very much and so now is the phase of laying fallow a little bit honoring the season that we're in we're still in the winter y'all.

It's OK to slow down. It's OK to let the message be embodied. It's OK to close your eyes and not rush so much. And whether it's six days, six weeks, six months, or six years I know this work is going to continue I know it will be intersecting with one another one again once again in different combinations and different forums. So let's just keep that faith and leave here feeling empowered. So thank you so much.

AHMAD GREENE-HAYES: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

Well, get home safely. Have a wonderful weekend. And take good care. Thank you.

SPEAKER 1: Copyright 2024, the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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