Radically Genuine Counseling

Feel Good. Do Good. Spotlight! 💡💡

This week we’re spotlighting GRO Community Cincinnati! 🧡

https://grocommunity.org/cincinnati

I love organizations that understand healing does not happen in isolation.

Mental health care is not just about sitting in a room and talking about your feelings, although, obviously, big fan of that too. It’s also about safety, access, culture, community, housing, employment, family support, reentry, and having people who actually understand the context of your life.

That’s where GRO Community Cincinnati comes in.

Who is GRO Community Cincinnati??

GRO Community provides culturally grounded, trauma-informed mental health support for Black and Brown boys and men. Their Cincinnati work focuses on community-based care for people navigating trauma, stress, incarceration, depression, family stress, and other real-life challenges.

Their work is rooted in the belief that mental health is whole health, and that care should meet people where they are: in homes, schools, neighborhoods, and communities.

What do they do??

🧡 Offer individual and group therapy
🧡 Provide culturally grounded support for Black and Brown boys and men
🧡 Offer case management support around needs like housing, work, healthcare, and resources
🧡 Support fathers, caregivers, loved ones, and families
🧡 Provide reentry support, mentorship, job readiness, and life skills programming
🧡 Partner with case managers, parole officers, nonprofits, and grassroots organizations
🧡 Create community-based care that understands trauma, culture, and lived experience

This kind of work matters because people are not problems to be fixed. People are whole humans living inside families, systems, communities, histories, stressors, and survival strategies.

And care works better when it actually understands that.

If you want to help, here’s what you can do:

👉 Donate
👉 Share GRO Community with someone who may benefit from their services
👉 Refer clients, loved ones, or community members who may need culturally grounded support
👉 Connect with them as a community partner
👉 Learn more about their work in Cincinnati
👉 Follow and share their programming
👉 Finally, go vote for them to receive RGC’s donation this month!

As always, I’m grateful for organizations like GRO Community existing in our community. This is the kind of work that can change lives, families, and entire support systems. 🧡

Black Mental Health Care in Cincinnati | GRO Community Serving Black and Brown boys and men in Cincinnati with culturally grounded, community-based mental health care.

My hot take: Wise Mind edition
For context- I began being trained in DBT in my internship while I was getting my master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I was more formally and extensively trained later on in my career, but I was raised in DBT, so to speak.

Learning about Reasonable Mind, Emotion Mind, and Wise Mind was helpful initially for me to start to conceptualize the different ways I show up, given the context of the different situations I’ve been in.

It was still hard, though, because it felt like I had a million facets of Emotion Mind that all show up differently, so having just one name for them felt… limiting.

That’s when doing a training in ego state therapy as part of my EMDR journey realllllyyyy helped me clarify things.

I realized that each emotion state was a different part of me.

Each part has its own:
🧠Thought processes
🌊Emotions
⚡Body sensations
🌀Urges
💥Behaviors
😧Even facial expressions, tone of voice, body posture!

So when my sad part came up, I felt, thought, looked, and acted differently than when my angry part showed up.

And my sad part and angry part look different than my happy part.

And so on and so on.

Opening up Emotion Mind to be more of an umbrella that encompassed many things really reallllly helped me start to understand and conceptualize these parts.

These parts weren’t bad. They usually had a reason for showing up. But because they were mood-dependent, they didn’t always help me act in ways that served me.

Then comes in Wise Mind.

In ego state language, we call Wise Mind “our most adult self”.

Realistically, they overlap a lot.

It’s the part of me that intuitively knows how to act, even when it’s hard.

Learning how to access that bish was hard, lemme tell ya.

But the more I thought back on times I made “good adult decisions,” I paid attention to what I felt in my body, how I knew what needed to be done, how I got myself to act on that.

It was that reflection that helped me get a “feel for” what it’s like to be in my Wise Mind.

The more familiar I got with it, the easier it became to find, even when my emotions are high.

And that’s when something really cool happened.

As my Wise Mind became more familiar to me and I could find it even when my emotions were running high, I started to trust myself more.

I could trust myself to have my own back even when s**t hit the fan because I could take care of myself. I had fewer and fewer moments of “oh s**t, why did I do that?” and more experiences feeling proud of myself for how I handled s**t.

That was empowering as all heck.

So here we are, being a good grown-up, managing stressors left and right, and doing my best to navigate life in a way that gives me the best chance for happiness and success, even when it’s really hard.

Wise Mind didn’t make life easy.
It made me trust myself to handle hard things.

Challenge of the Week: Wise Mind Edition 🌿

This week, we’re practicing getting into Wise Mind.

Not perfect mind.
Not “I have no feelings” mind.
Not “let me overthink this until I find the exact right answer” mind.

Wise Mind.

The grounded part of you that can notice what you’re feeling, look at the facts, and make a choice that actually lines up with your values.

Sometimes Wise Mind feels calm and clear.
Sometimes it feels like a quiet little gut knowing.
Sometimes it’s the part of you that says, “I don’t want to do this, but I know I need to.”

So this week, practice pausing and asking:

“What does my Emotion Mind want?”
“What does my Reasonable Mind say?”
“What does my Wise Mind know?”

Try it with something small first. Please do not start with the biggest life decision you’ve ever had to make. We are practicing, not launching ourselves directly into emotional CrossFit. 😂

Start small. Notice what comes up. Build the muscle.

Mindset Minute Monday 🍃

Some feelings get louder when we’re tired.

Not because they’re more true.
Not because we’re “too sensitive.”
Not because we’re failing at coping.

Sometimes our brains are just running on fumes, and everything feels heavier when we’re under-rested.

Rest does not solve every problem, but it can change the intensity of what we’re carrying.

So before you decide everything is terrible, you’re doing everything wrong, or you need to overhaul your entire life… maybe try resting first.

Your tired brain does not get to be the only narrator.

Wise Mind is one of those DBT concepts that sounds simple… until you actually try to use it while you’re upset, overwhelmed, activated, avoidant, anxious, angry, people-pleasing, spiraling, etc. 🙃

And this is where I think parts work and Wise Mind fit together so beautifully.

Because sometimes the problem isn’t that you “don’t know better.”

Sometimes a younger, scared, angry, protective, anxious, shut-down, or people-pleasing part of you has grabbed the steering wheel.

And listen. That part probably has a reason for showing up.

It might be trying to protect you.
It might be trying to prevent pain.
It might be trying to keep you connected.
It might be trying to make sure something bad doesn’t happen again.

The goal is not to shame that part, fight that part, or shove that part into a metaphorical closet.

The goal is to notice it with curiosity and compassion, and then see if you can access the part of you that is more grounded, connected, values-led, and wise.

That’s Wise Mind.

Not emotionless.
Not perfectly logical.
Not always easy.

Wise Mind is the part of you that can hold both:
“What am I feeling?”
and
“What do I know?”

And then choose what actually serves you.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how to access it. 🌿

feel good. do good. — BIPOC Mental Health Month edition 🧡

July is BIPOC Mental Health Month, also known as Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, and this month’s donation vote is all about supporting organizations working to make mental health care more accessible, culturally responsive, and rooted in real community care.

At Radically Genuine Counseling Services, we believe mental health care should not be one-size-fits-all. People deserve support that considers their culture, identity, lived experience, community, and the very real barriers that can get in the way of accessing care in the first place.

Because healing is not just about “getting help.”

It’s also about being able to find help that actually gets you.

So! The July feel good. do good. vote is officially open. 🎉🎉

React to this post to vote for the organization you’d like Radically Genuine Counseling Services to donate to this month:

❤️ GRO Community Cincinnati — https://grocommunity.org/cincinnati
Providing culturally grounded, trauma-informed mental health support, therapy, case management, and community care for Black and Brown men in Cincinnati.

🥰 Community Engagement Collective — https://www.cec-cincy.org/bipoc-mh-provider-directory
Helping increase access to care through Cincinnati’s BIPOC Mental and Behavioral Health Provider Directory and community-centered mental health initiatives.

👍 NAMI Southwest Ohio — https://namiswoh.org/
Offering free mental health support, education, advocacy, and programs like Sharing Hope, which creates space for mental wellness conversations in Black and African Ancestry communities.

Voting will stay open through the month.

And as always, if there’s another BIPOC mental health organization you love, bonus points if it’s local to Cincinnati or Ohio, drop it in the comments so people can vote for it there too.

Feel good. Do good. Vote below. 🧡✨

🌈 Pride Month feel good. do good. results are in! 🌈

Thank you to everyone who voted in this month’s poll and helped choose where Radically Genuine Counseling would donate for Pride Month.

Because of your votes, this month’s donation went to PFLAG Cincinnati! 🫶

PFLAG Cincinnati provides support, education, and advocacy for LGBTQ+ people, their families, and allies. Their work helps create safer, more informed, and more affirming communities — which feels especially important during Pride Month and, let’s be real, every other month too.

The whole point of feel good. do good. is simple: small actions can still matter.

A vote.
A share.
A conversation.
A donation.
A moment of learning something new.

Thank you for being part of this with me and helping RGC send a little more support toward the people and organizations doing meaningful work in our community. 💛

And if you want to learn more about PFLAG Cincinnati or support their work directly, you can check them out here:

PFLAG Cincinnati | LGBTQ Resources | 103 William Howard Taft Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45219 PFLAG Cincinnati provides LGBTQ+ resources that build on a foundation of loving families united with LGBTQ+ people and allies who support one another and to educate ourselves and our communities to speak up as advocates until all hearts and minds respect, value and affirm LGBTQ+ people.

Feel Good. Do Good. Spotlight! 💡💡

This week we’re spotlighting Community Engagement Collective! 🧡

https://www.cec-cincy.org/bipoc-mh-provider-directory

One of the hardest parts of getting mental health support is not always deciding you need help.

Sometimes the hardest part is finding someone.

And then finding someone with openings.

And then finding someone who takes your insurance or fits your budget.

And then finding someone who understands your identity, culture, lived experience, and community enough that you do not have to spend half your therapy explaining the context before you can even get to the thing you came in for.

That’s why resources like Community Engagement Collective’s BIPOC Mental and Behavioral Health Provider Directory matter so much.

Who is Community Engagement Collective??

Community Engagement Collective is a Cincinnati nonprofit focused on fostering connection through community-centered work, events, research, and resource development.

In 2021, they launched Cincinnati’s first BIPOC Mental and Behavioral Health Provider Directory to help address the lack of local mental health resources specifically connecting people with providers who self-identify as BIPOC.

What do they do??

🧡 Created Cincinnati’s first BIPOC Mental and Behavioral Health Provider Directory
🧡 Help connect BIPOC community members with BIPOC mental and behavioral health providers
🧡 Help reduce barriers to finding culturally relevant mental health care
🧡 Support community-centered conversations around access, care, and mental health
🧡 Work with BIPOC providers and community members to update and improve the directory
🧡 Create opportunities for community involvement and collaboration
🧡 Help make it easier for people to find care that may feel safer, more affirming, and more understood

This kind of work matters because “just go to therapy” is not always simple.

Access matters.

Representation matters.

Culturally responsive care matters.

And having a resource that makes the search even a little less overwhelming can be a really big deal.

If you want to help, here’s what you can do:

👉 Share the BIPOC Mental and Behavioral Health Provider Directory
👉 Send it to someone who has been trying to find a therapist
👉 Share it with community organizations, schools, providers, and support networks
👉 Donate
👉 Get involved with Community Engagement Collective’s work
👉 If you’re a BIPOC mental or behavioral health provider, learn more about being part of the directory
👉 Finally, go vote for them to receive RGC’s donation this month!

As always, I’m grateful for organizations creating resources that make it easier for people to find support that actually fits. Community care is care. 🧡

BIPOC MH Provider Directory — Community Engagement Collective Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities lack exclusive mental and behavioral health resources. No local initiative included providers that self-identified as BIPOC in Cincinnati. We addressed this community need by launching the first BIPOC Mental and Behavioral Health Directory wit...

💫 My hot take on Behavior Chain Analysis 💫

I’m a huge fan of tools like this from DBT because I’ve been there.

I’ve sat with the discomfort, embarrassment, shame, confusion, frustration, sadness, fear, etc. that can come up when looking back on things I’ve said or done that I was not proud of.

And that’s the sticky part.

For a long time, there was a part of me that thought sitting in those emotions was helping.

Like, if I could get mad at myself enough, embarrassed enough, ashamed enough, then surely I’d stop doing The Thing™.

Except that’s not really how it works.

Or at least, that’s not how real, sustainable change works.

Shame usually leads to shutdown, avoidance, or drastic change that only lasts as long as we can maintain that same level of shame.

And maintaining that much shame costs a lot.

Emotionally.
Physically.
Mentally.

So then we have to recover from the shame spiral itself, and for many of us, that means falling right back into the same familiar patterns.

A fun lil cycle I’ve caught myself in too many times to count.

And that’s where BCAs came in.

Behavior Chain Analysis helped me create space for the dialectical balance of:

“I don’t like this behavior and I want it to change”

without turning it into:

“I am bad and I should hate myself into being different.”

OR

"This is so big and confusing, idk where to even start. I'm just gonna keep ignoring it."

A BCA gave me the perspective, language, framework, and information I needed to understand my behavior more nonjudgmentally and find real ways to work toward change.

It also gave me a way to reevaluate what works and what doesn’t without spiraling into shame.

Because realistically, especially when it comes to really ingrained, automatic habits, change can take a while.

We might have to troubleshoot several ideas before finding what actually works.

And if I’m spiraling into shame, I don’t get there.

I don’t make the changes I want to see.

I don’t grow.

But when I use the BCA framework and assess what’s happening, I can:

✨ Learn more about the context prompting the behavior
✨ Create space and distance to respond more nonjudgmentally
✨ Find the decision points where change is possible
✨ Consider different ways to solve the problem
✨ Troubleshoot and reevaluate as needed

And that’s the game changer.

Not shame.

Not self-punishment.

Not replaying the situation until I feel terrible enough to “learn my lesson.”

Information.

Context.

Options.

That’s where real change starts.

And I hope it’s a skill you consider trying for yourself.

🏆 Employee of the Month: June Edition 🏆

This month’s Employee of the Month is…

Me.

Listen, I know this may seem biased since I own the place, run the place, make the posts, answer the emails, do the admin, make the decisions, clean the office, overthink everything, and then still have to be the one to give myself the award…

But honestly? June Maria earned it.

This month was a big one for Radically Genuine Counseling.

We celebrated our 1-year anniversary, which still feels wild to say. One whole year of this little practice existing in the world. One whole year of building something meaningful, terrifying, exciting, exhausting, and deeply aligned.

In practice news:
- I also finally got my NPI number sorted out- you would not believe the headache involved in this 🥲
- I got to meet a few new clinicians in the field and flex my networking muscle a lil here and there. It's always nice to make new friends 🥰
- I watched a few trainings that were recorded from the EMDRIA Summit I attended a couple of months ago and I'm integrating that knowledge into my practice everyday. 🧠
- Operations, processes, and other admin things have continued to be managed and worked through. They're annoying and unglamorous lol but 1,000% necessary to run a smooth practice! 💪

And perhaps most shocking of all…

I made every single social media post I had planned for the month.

For the first time in a year 😂😂

Someone please start a slow clap 👏

It's fitting that this month, the month marking one full year of existence as a practice, felt the most balance in growth personally, professionally, and as a business owner. It really feels like things are coming together more and more and I'm loving all the amazing things I'm learning about myself as I go!!

So congratulations to me, June’s Employee of the Month. 🏆🎉