COVEpod | Carganilla Online Variety Entertainment Podcast | Storytelling, Interviews, Poetry, Music, Arts & Inspiration

Keri Cooper | Mental Health Uncensored | COVE Podcast 28

• Paul Carganilla / Keri Cooper • Season 1 • Episode 28

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This episode welcomes Keri Cooper, a sage in teen counseling, who brings light to the often-overlooked corridors of adolescent minds.  Enticing the best in our children while coping with the aftershocks of a pandemic is no easy feat. This session gravitates towards the heart of this challenge, underscoring the importance of connecting with our kids, now equipped with the vocabulary to express their emotions. Keri's holistic techniques unveil pathways for parents and teens to traverse the rocky terrains of emotional wellbeing together. As we discuss the art of listening and the power of affirmation, listeners will uncover how to foster an environment brimming with understanding and support.

The podcast concludes on a note of reflection and forward-thinking, considering the intricate dance of mental health and the art of parenting. We explore the modern landscape that technology and social media present to our children, recognizing the need for open dialogue and the cultivation of resilience. Drawing wisdom from the poetic musing on life's natural ups and downs, we're reminded that the journey is not about perfection, but about the continuous effort and intention we pour into the lives of our young ones. So join us as we embrace the collective growth of our community and eagerly anticipate the unfolding adventures in the world of parenting and mental health.

OFFICIAL WESITE: www.kericooperholistictherapy.com

EPISODE VIDEOS: www.covetube.com
COVE DIRECTORY: https://linktr.ee/covepod
COVE PATREON: www.patreon/covepodcast
CONTACT: covepod@gmail.com

POETRY PERFORMER: Craig Jackman
POETRY: “Life Is Full Of Up's and Downs" [ Matt Starking ]
VOICE-OVER INTRODUCTION: Malcolm McDowell [ Actor: "A Clockwork Orange" ]
SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM: Craig Jackman, Emily Thatcher, Christina Marie Bielen, Dary Mills, Amanda Benjamin
PATREON CURATORS: Jamie Carganilla, Emily Thatcher, The Faeryns, Charity Swanson, Krista Faith King, Kelsey B Gibson, Angelica Bollschweiler, Anna Giannavola, Gina Dobbs, Merrill Mielke, Susan Kuhn, Josefa Snider
INTRO MUSIC: “Papi Beat” [ KICKTRACKS ]
CREDITS MUSIC: “Fat Banana” [ KICKTRACKS ]
HOST, CREATOR, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, EDITOR: Paul Carganilla

Speaker 2:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the.

Speaker 1:

Cogganilla Online Variety Entertainment Podcast. Here's your host, Paul Cogganilla.

Speaker 2:

Hello everyone and welcome to Cove Podcast. This is the show in which we entertain and try to inspire both our podcast listeners and YouTube viewers with a wide variety of entertainment offerings, including music, poetry, special guest interviews, travel blogs and especially I especially love conversations with authors, which is one that we have today, and before we bring in our special guest, I would like to bring in our producer, producer Craig Jackman. Jump on in here say hello, welcome.

Speaker 3:

Hello everybody. It's great to be with you again.

Speaker 2:

So great to see it. It looks like for anyone watching on YouTube. You've got the Scrooge coming in. What?

Speaker 3:

is this all about. Well, actually, yes, I am going to be auditioning for the role of Scrooge and so I thought I'd get a head start. Now I don't know, but getting a head start on growing the natural facial hair is probably a good idea, because I prefer that when I do a role. I'm sure you know how it feels when you take the hair off of one of your characters with all of the spirit gum. It's like peeling a banana. Only it's not as nice of a feeling. Let's say yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

It's like ripping a band-aid off. There we go. That's what I was looking for, and it hurts when it does that.

Speaker 2:

The funny thing, the ironic thing that happened at Disney whenever I played a character that needed facial hair was we would have to because of Disney's employee cast member dress code. We couldn't have beards, so I would have to shave all of my facial hair off so I could glue or strap a beard on and didn't make a whole lot of sense. But what a transformation it does make. You know and we can explore this on another episode just your hairstyle or your facial hair, how that just can change your character instantly.

Speaker 3:

Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Definitely something I experienced as Furuko, working at Disneyland as a pirate, was just like all right, the beard and the wig come on, and then I'm not Paul anymore. Really, it's really.

Speaker 3:

It is a transformation, and when you can do it that quickly, that's great.

Speaker 2:

All right. Well, we will talk about that at a later date, but today we are here to talk to our special guest I'm very excited to speak with. She's a licensed clinical social worker. Her name is Carrie Cooper. She's the owner of Carrie Cooper Holistic Therapy in Northern New Jersey. In her private practice, she counsels teens and works to give them the tools they need to navigate life.

Speaker 2:

Carrie takes a holistic approach to therapy, looking at the whole person, not just their symptoms. She's the author of Mental Health Uncensored 10 Foundations Every Parent Needs to Know, a book designed to give parents steps on how to improve their child's mental health. She's a speaker and writer who helps educate teens and parents on the topics teens face in everyday life. She's a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and continues to further her education by obtaining additional certifications in her field. One of her favorite pastimes, she's currently working on a follow up book which will be a workbook for teens. And when Carrie isn't busy working with teens, she's busy with her own four children and her flock of chickens. Carrie can also be seen spotted falling on the bunny slopes or soaking up the sun on the lake in her spare time. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Carrie Cooper.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2:

My pleasure. Thank you for making the time to be here. This is actually a really interesting time. We're recording this here. In mid-October. We just came off of our annual mental health walk out here with Nami, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, my daughter. She's nine years old. She, for the past few years, has been one of the top fundraisers for the cause, which is super special. So they asked her to actually speak at the opening ceremony of the walk. Last week the president of the local Nami chapter was talking to her about they want to start rolling out resources and mental health information to elementary schools, which is when I read was reading your bio earlier. It just fits so well into like your focus on young people and you mentioned teens, and so I'm very excited to speak with you today. How's everything out there in on the East Coast?

Speaker 1:

Everything is good. Within the first five minutes, you guys named two of my favorite things like Christmas, Carol and Disney.

Speaker 2:

There we go. You're in the right place.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Perfect, so I warned you in advance. We do an icebreaker challenge with our guests because it's always great to read all the professional accolades in your bio, but we also want to hear what is most important to you, and we do that by inviting you to tell us everything we could possibly know about you in 60 seconds or less. Are you ready for the challenge?

Speaker 1:

I think so.

Speaker 2:

All right, and I'm not going to stop you. So whenever you cross the finish line is when you cross it, but you can begin in three, two, one.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I am obsessed with Disney. Like it's an issue, I need help. I have four children. I do have a flock of chickens. I also have a bunny rabbit, but I have severe allergies, which does not mix well in my house for me. I love to cook, but not normally during the week when the kids are going to a million different activities and I really love the summer and all things warm. I'm trying to think what else there is about me. I don't know. I work a lot.

Speaker 2:

Favorite musical artist.

Speaker 1:

Lady Gaga.

Speaker 2:

Gaga, first concert you ever went to.

Speaker 1:

Lala Pluza.

Speaker 2:

First car you ever owned, cheap.

Speaker 1:

Or white.

Speaker 2:

What's your favorite food to cook?

Speaker 1:

Italian.

Speaker 2:

What's your favorite food to pick up or order out?

Speaker 1:

Indian.

Speaker 2:

Oh, good choices. Yeah, that is a minute right there Kind of like to know a lot about you. So you have severe allergies and bunnies. Do you have any cats or dogs?

Speaker 1:

No, so my allergies were really really bad to animals, so the bunny is like all I could basically tolerate. In my house it's an indoor bunny. Oh yes, oh yes.

Speaker 2:

It's a rescue bunny and we actually promised it would never go outdoors, because apparently that's not great for bunnies.

Speaker 1:

So our bunny has taken over our entire mud room and has quite the castle to live in Nice. What's what's bunny's name?

Speaker 2:

Oreo, and it is my nine year old's bunny actually, but you know the whole family has taken this on Sure, Sure.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm excited to speak with you, as I mentioned, because you know mental health is very important, especially in my household, and I'm excited to be able to talk to you about this. And I'm excited to be able to talk to you about this, and I think mental health is very important, especially in my household, and I'm interested to find out, like, how, how did it all come to be? If we go to the beginning of Carrie's story, how, how did you gain interest in this and how did it grow? How did you decide, when did you decide to dedicate your life to this field?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it was really back in high school. You know, I had a lot of fun in high school and a lot of my friends definitely had some that they were facing and there was really nobody that they felt like they could talk to. And you know, I was watching all this happen, saying like there needs to be an adult who's not going to judge but who's going to be able to listen and to guide. Because, listen, teenagers, they do stupid things, they just do. But if they're able to talk to an adult about what they've done or what they may do without judgment and just to get some guidance, that really helps in those teen years. So I decided from a really early age like that's what I want to do. So went to college, went to graduate school. I was like this is my path, jumped right into it, always working with, you know, children and adolescents.

Speaker 1:

My early years I was working in residential. I was working crisis, you know group homes, like pretty intense stuff, and we had teams of therapists and teams of psychiatrists and you know more therapy than any human could possibly imagine, every single day happening and like they were getting better, but never 100%. And that really bothered me Like why, why can't we get past this? And it wasn't until years later that my own daughter had really severe behavioral issues as a toddler and we realized it was actually a dairy intolerance. And when we removed the dairy, all of a sudden her behavior got like a normal toddler, wow yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I actually went back to school to become a certified health coach because I wanted to see what are we missing? Is food really impacting our mood? Now, food is not always like the magic bullet here, but food does impact our gut and many of our chemicals are actually made in our guts. So I really started diving in into how our entire physical body exercise, food, sleep, water impacts our mental health, and that's when I started my own practice. That's when I really took a very holistic approach and now, many years after, you know what I kind of discovered. Now we're starting to see a lot of the research start coming out saying, oh wow, wait, a second. Food and exercise really crucial to mental health? Yep, it is Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So, now it's kind of all catching up to where I've been for the last, you know, over 10 years.

Speaker 2:

Wow, and that's you know it's, it's such. It seems like such a duh thing. Like everybody right, right and exercise, you'll feel great, but like who knew it was like this literal.

Speaker 1:

It really is and we keep on missing that. You know, and I work with primarily high school and college kids. I do work with, you know, some middle school kids as well. But you know these schools are trying so hard to talk about mental health because we truly are in a mental health crisis. I have never seen it change so much. You know, from 20 years ago when I started my career, to now. Mental health looks completely different in the youth population. So they keep on like trying to bring in all these resources and you know assemblies and speakers and everything and it's great, but you're missing the point. Like they're going to the cafeteria and eating processed sugary food, sugary drinks, like they're not doing anything really helpful in gym class, like we're missing the foundations.

Speaker 2:

That is so interesting. And so what kind of transitions or changes have you seen in the last, in recent years on campus?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so in the last 20 years, you know, when I first started my career, the people who came to seek out mental health it was, you know, attention issues and severe behavioral issues. And then you know, every once in a while, some anxiety, some depression. What I see now is 100%, almost anxiety. I have never seen anxiety like this in these kids and I thought it was about a few years ago. And then we hit COVID and anybody who was hanging on by a thread. That thread broke.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And we are still. We're still not better from it. These kids are still really suffering the impacts of what COVID did to them, and I don't think we talk about it enough that it was a global trauma and I think you need to use the word trauma like all of a sudden, everyone's life was turned upside down.

Speaker 2:

And not just that, but fear. Fear was part of your daily life, Whereas you know you could just be living with your regular stresses, regular traumas of life. But now, on top of it, there's just a whole other layer of living in fear, and what must that have been like for, for young people?

Speaker 1:

Right. There was constant fear and a constant sense of a loss of control. Am I going to get sick? Am I going to get someone else sick? Is my sports going to be canceled? Am I going to be quarantined? Is there going to be toilet paper in the grocery store Like it was one of those things? And that's impacted all of us, but especially our kids, especially our young ones, who didn't have the words to talk about it, but just their life changed so rapidly. So my I know you were talking about your daughter, who's nine. I have a nine year old. My daughter was in kindergarten when the world shut down, so she's really that first school age kid that went through this. Those kindergarteners, and I see a huge difference in her grade. I see them really not being able to cope as well. I see like they just can't handle anything, like everything's like oh my goodness, the world is falling apart because they didn't have the words to process what they went through.

Speaker 2:

Sure, and the regular normal socialization that would happen in kindergarten and first grade will completely went out the window and into a zoom screen.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Are you seeing any improvement or how do you think moving forward, the best way to approach this is with kids that are that age.

Speaker 1:

I think that, although it happened a long time ago, it's okay to bring it up and talk about it Like, hey, remember that time when everything was on zoom? Because now they have more words to talk about it, now they're able to be like yeah, that was really weird, yeah, that was really weird, you know, and to talk about what that means to them now, because some kids there's still this sense of fear what if it happens again, you know? And we need to be able to let them explore that and to process that. So I do think that we do almost have to go backwards and have these conversations in order to heal them to move forward.

Speaker 2:

As far as like connecting with kids, I remember being a kid and when I would speak to an adult, it was always like there's an adult and there's a kid, there's them and then me. What have you found is something that works really well, or what tools do you use to connect with children in a sense of, you know, being a peer? I work for a police department, I'm the public information officer, but I'm also on the peer support team and a lot of times, because I'm a civilian and I'm not a police officer, it can be a challenge to get an officer to open up to me about what they're dealing with, because I don't wear a badge and I don't go out there in the field and I kind of think it's kind of the same way. There's kind of the same gap between childhood and adults. What tools have you found have been successful in helping you connect with them and help them to open up to you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what I always say and this is the advice I always give parents listen more, speak less the moment you speak and give them kind of advice or almost what seems to be judgment they're going to shut down, so to be able to sit back and reflect more upon them like, oh yeah, I'm hearing that was really hard for you and I think that's the best way to connect with these kids. I mean, yes, there's always times when you have to kind of give advice and parent, but there's also times when you just have to listen and I always tell parents bite your tongue, bite your tongue. They're talking to you about something really important. Just listen and let them talk a lot until they're kind of like talked out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was in a training recently, a peer support training, and I found it really interesting that the gentleman who was providing the course, he would pause, he would make a point and he would pause and then he'd say so what did you hear me say, as opposed to what did I just say, or what information did I just give you? Put it in your own words, what did you hear me say? And I thought that was very interesting.

Speaker 1:

That's really great because, yes, one of the biggest things I always hear are parents telling me I said this to them and the kids telling me they said this to me, and it's like two different conversations we're taking place, because we all come to conversations with our own stuff, so we hear things based on our own stuff. If we're a kid that doesn't feel confident in school, that feels like we're not really smart, and we have a parent saying, when we bring home a test, that's not great, oh well, you could have studied more they hear I'm stupid and you don't think I studied. And the parents are like, well, no, they're saying it because, well, I know, they only spent 10 minutes studying it. They spent 20, they would have been fine. But they hear it all differently.

Speaker 2:

Such an important point Now as I read your bio. Obviously it wasn't updated. You have your teen workbook out now.

Speaker 1:

I do.

Speaker 2:

You've got your mental health uncensored, which is 10 foundations every parent needs to know. And then you also have the follow up teen workbook. So is that something that parents would hand to a teen, or you sit down together with and go through it?

Speaker 1:

Yes, so the first book, mental Health Uncensored 10 Foundations Every Parent Needs to Know, actually came out during the COVID timeframe because it was so bad. I was completely booked, couldn't have fit anyone else in. Every therapist friend of mine was completely booked. We had parents calling constantly, crying, trying to get their kids seen. So I thought I need to put information out into the parents' hands now that they can start working through and being able to help their kids immediately. And then I did the teen workbook because when the kids are especially in high school and in college, they don't necessarily want to hear it from their parents as much. So it's kind of like one of those things you throw the book on their bed and they'll page through it and let them do them and they'll actually be able to get all the tools without you having to kind of you know they would feel you know, try to dictate to them what to do, like they're able to do it on their own.

Speaker 2:

That's great because they can make their own discoveries and kind of feel like and realize that they can work through it, not just with you know, on their own, but with help and guidance. And do you find that there is a general strong trust between parents and students, or parents and their children when they're working through these kind of issues together?

Speaker 1:

I do, I do. I think that you know, when you take away the anger and the frustration and the hurt feelings and all of that, the kids really do want their parents there for support and guidance and they love them. And I always tell the parents listen, your kids just went through a really stressful day at school. When they come home and maybe they're not nice or maybe you get the eye rolls, don't take it so personal. Like, don't start a fight over this. Sometimes the kids come home to their safe place and that's where they dump and that's okay. As a parent, it's okay to be their safe place.

Speaker 2:

That old cliche everyone's fighting their own battles. And it's true. I mean, how many just remember being a kid and going to school? And how many stressors and battles do kids face in the school years when they're separated from their parents and maybe they feel like their parents don't even understand, couldn't even comprehend or understand.

Speaker 1:

Right and imagine. So I don't know how old you are, but imagine the stress that you went when you had when you went to school.

Speaker 1:

Imagine it now, with the social media and everything being able to be recorded. You know, like you have a bad day, you slip and fall in school. Everyone kind of laughs for a few minutes and then they move on. Now somebody videoed that. Now it's gonna be out on social media. It's like this constant fear of who's gonna judge me. You know how am I gonna be judged? Who's gonna say something about me? And it's not just like you know talking in school, it's now all over social media.

Speaker 2:

That is an interesting point that you bring up and I'd love to dig into that because I have heard it said that, like you know, growing up with social media is complete. Like I mean, it puts a whole different angle and viewer filter on these kids and how they're growing up and how they view success. Can you touch on the importance of the amount of followers or what popularity means and how much more pressure there is to be liked and to be followed nowadays?

Speaker 1:

I mean, the amount of pressure on these kids is really just unbelievable. They are glued to their phones. It's like who followed me? Does this person like me? Did this person swipe up on my story? Who posted for my birthday? Oh my gosh, I would be anxious on a day if I had to deal with that. I mean, we're adults, so it's different for us. But these kids, I mean in your childhood years, popularity being within a group, that is important. It's that time period developmentally when you're moving away from your family life into more of a social life. This is all completely normal. But when we were growing up, if a bunch of our friends were hanging out, we didn't necessarily know we weren't there. We especially weren't seeing it on SnapMap, we especially weren't seeing them post altogether on TikTok and in our face, you were left out.

Speaker 2:

I've thought about that too, because I just remember having crushes in school, Like once Friday ended like, oh, it was a bummer because I had to wait till Monday to see them again. Nowadays it's like you can just check your phone and find out where they are and what they're doing and who they're hanging out with. And that's gotta be really tough, especially, like you just mentioned, if you're not included in that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's also about that instant gratification. Like you know everything immediately. So these kids now have not developed any type of skill to be able to wait, to be able to wait for something good, to be able to process something bad that's happened. It's all just like flying at them, and we see kids getting into so much trouble with this in terms of they see something they don't like and instead of being able to process that for a second, it's like immediately they're able to respond, and their immediate responses are normally not good because their brains are not fully developed.

Speaker 2:

Sure, and it'll stick with you. We've seen it with you. Know people, professional adults nowadays that were kids, dumb kids I wanna say dumb kids, but I'm not insulting anybody with a phone in their hand and Twitter and that they made a tweet X amount of years ago. And now it comes back to Biden professionally, when they're trying to build a life and a family and a career.

Speaker 1:

Right. I am so happy we did not have social media when I was growing up. I am so happy all of my poorly thought out behavior at times was not captured for life Because, again, like their brains are not developed, they're not gonna act always in a responsible manner. Like that's just asking the impossible from them. They're children.

Speaker 2:

I think there's probably another aspect of it which is like not imposter syndrome, but you try to project this image of yourself that isn't you really and what you think everybody else wants to see. And that's gotta be a crazy hurdle when you're in your developmental stages of life, when you're trying to live two different lives your social media life and who you actually are.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. And then you're also comparing yourself to everybody else's fake life on social media and it's like, oh, but look at the vacation they took. And oh, look at, you know what they're achieving. And you're seeing again only their best, filtered moments. And even as adults we get into this when we're seeing like, oh, look at that family and you know how lovely their vacation is. Meanwhile, right after that picture's taken, somebody probably was melting down for that family photo. You know photo shoots, but you don't see that. So all you're seeing is everybody's best moment and then it makes our life not look that great and you can't compete with something that's fake.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Before I run up against the time wall here, is there any excerpts and I can edit this part out behind the scenes, but are there any excerpts from your book that you can share or that you wanna share with our listeners?

Speaker 1:

I actually really would love to share what the chapters are actually titled, because I think that really gives a great view as to what this is.

Speaker 2:

So mental health. Let me just I'm gonna do in the editing a little break here and then. So can you tell us a little bit about your book Mental Health Uncensored? And I don't know if you can give away the 10 foundations or if you can tease them for us or listeners to pick up the book.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. Mental Health Uncensored 10 foundations every parent needs to know. It's broken into 10 foundations, so the first five are physical and I'm gonna give you what the five are. It's water, sleep, food, exercise and meditation. And then there's five more mental health principles that I really jump into. And it's saying no, teaching our children that they're not responsible for other people's feelings, which is a really important one. You could still be a really good human being, but not have responsibility of somebody else's feelings and reactions. Wow, Letting go and building confidence. Parents need to start letting go. We have way too many helicopter parents and it's creating an issue Letting your children be able to deal with disappointment. And the final chapter is learning to teach your child responsibility that I can't wait till my book arrives.

Speaker 2:

I tried to order all of my guest's books, so they're here so I can hold them up on the show. Yours is arriving today and I kept trying to get my doorstep. But I mean, those all sound amazing. A couple that grabbed my attention were was it a chapter five meditation?

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

That is amazing because that's something if listeners regular listeners to the show know that I it is one of my biggest fallacies in that that I recognize is that I don't spend enough peaceful times and let my head just clear long enough to actually help my mental health. But every time that I do meditate and have meditated I've had a positive experience and I just don't do it enough. It's like exercise. How, how young do you think individuals should start meditating?

Speaker 1:

Oh, as early as you can get them to start meditating. I love a good family meditation. Everyone live and let you lie down in the living room, let's throw in a meditation and listen to it. Even just you know 10 minutes is fantastic. And I also talk about other ways to kind of meditate. I mean the point of meditations to be in the present moment, to calm down your nervous system. You could do that in other ways, especially with young children. Take a mindful walk and just like what do you see, what do you smell, what?

Speaker 1:

do you hear it's about coming back to the moment, wow.

Speaker 2:

That's so important. I haven't even thought about starting out with my kids my kids are five and nine but it sounds like that is something we should. I mean, I haven't had a hard enough time getting myself to do it, but maybe if I, you know, put the the responsibility of my children first, we can all do it together. I love that idea, especially the mindful walk. That is something that I think they would love.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love a mindful walk, especially in the woods, and brings you back to nature and it's so peaceful and we also. Research is showing if you are in nature, you know you have less anxiety. So let's get them outside into nature.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, Absolutely. And what was it? Chapter seven you're not responsible for other people's feelings.

Speaker 1:

That's a really hard one for this current generation to really understand and it puts so much pressure on them. Listen, always be a good person. I tell everybody that all the time. Come from a place of kindness. Conduct yourself how it feels good for you to be a good human being, but at the end of the day you are not responsible for another person's feelings. If that's an impossible task to put on these children, Love that.

Speaker 2:

What is out of the 10? Do you have a top three?

Speaker 1:

My top three is probably food, sleep and letting go and building confidence.

Speaker 2:

That's I mean. I can't wait to dig into all of them, but my mom she's in the live chat right now and she will agree with you on sleep. She's always telling me to get more sleep.

Speaker 1:

It's crucial, absolutely crucial. I mean think of how cranky we are when we don't get a good night's sleep. Now imagine you're still deprived of child trying to handle everyday stress. It's not going to work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and speaking of my mom, she asks in the live chat here Carrie, how do you feel about EFT Parentheses tapping for younger ones?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love it. It is something I don't know if everyone's familiar with it that EFT is like this, this tapping. I've read into it. I have not started practicing it, but I do know other people who do and some people are really loving it. So it's one of those things that you can just kind of Google and find out how to do it. It's very, very simple.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Now, before we let you go, is there any advice? I mean, I'm sure your book is just every page is full of advice or what you would say to parents that are raising teens that might be going through it, or even if they're not going through it Any. It's like going to the gym right, practicing good mental health, and something you need to incorporate every day, even if they seem like they're in turmoil or dealing with trauma or not. What is the biggest takeaway that you give parents when you speak, when you do your speaking engagements?

Speaker 1:

I think one of the things I always kind of like to end with to remind them is that no one has this figured out. Nobody is perfect, and if you're a parent who is trying every single day, that's all you can do. Do not expect yourself to be perfect. You are human as well.

Speaker 2:

Love it. She is Carrie Cooper, author of Mental Health Uncensored 10 Foundations Every Parent Needs to Know. Pick it up, check it out if you are a parent or an expecting parent. And, Carrie, thank you so much for spending time with us in the cove and it was great to meet you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. It was great to meet you as well.

Speaker 2:

Well, what a great conversation that was, and especially with you know the emphasis on mental health that has really developed recently, Talking to somebody who is focused on our children and our kids I mentioned it during our conversation with her. But, like, it's been really interesting to see because I am part of the peer support team at work and you know that's connecting with police officers who have been through the academy and out on the streets and now you're asking them to open up and talk about their feelings to kids who are, you know, in elementary school, and this is a whole new world, all these different new levels of anxiety and pressure on these kids that we didn't have to deal with. And it was just a really great conversation, a really great eyeopener to the ways, different ways we can connect with kids and start to develop their mental health, strong mental health, from a young age.

Speaker 3:

And I think it's especially with technology and like you were bringing up. I mean, what a perfect opportunity to bring up how social media affects not just us as an adult but our kids, and how, ok, this is the next generation and OK, maybe we could have kept things in before, but now we need to be open with how we feel and that life does have ups and downs and that we just need to understand that we're going to go through a phase. Or Jim Rohn, a unique individual who's a mentor, talks about the seasons we have in our lifetime we go through a spring, a summer, a winter and a fall, and it's kind of interesting when, ok, everything seems to be great and then all of a sudden something happens. Right, how do we respond to that?

Speaker 3:

And I found this poem from a gentleman that actually I think we've heard from before, matt Starrking, and it's called Life is Full of Ups and Downs, Because when you think about the, mental health is OK. Yes, we all want to be positive and happy, but the human experience is not just about positive and happy. It's about how we deal with some of the not so positive and the not so happy things and how we get through them, and maybe it's just as simple as just letting it happen, acknowledging that it happens and moving on being a river, like some people do say. You know, be the river. Yes, there may be a rock in the middle, but do you have to fight that rock or can you go around the rock?

Speaker 3:

That is in the middle. So Matt Starrking, from Africa, is quite the poet and kind of the basic idea of his creative work is to free mankind from like racism, political lies, religious superstition and illusion, but, more importantly, living with a positive attitude towards each other and unifying, reforming and transforming the human race. So I found this poem to be quite unique and quite perfect for this topic of today's podcast.

Speaker 2:

Excited to hear it. Ladies and gentlemen, here is Life is Full of Ups and Downs. By Matt Starrking, as interpreted by Craig Jackman.

Speaker 3:

Life is full of ups and downs, like a roller coaster ride, times of joy and times of frowns through which we must abide. Sometimes we reach the highest peak and life appears so grand, but then we plummet fast and bleak and just can't understand. But just like on that roller coaster, we must hold tight and ride, for after every dip there's an ascent and our spirits will soon revive. So when life seems to be crashing down and we just can't seem to find the strength to pick ourselves back up, let hope and resilience be our guide, for ups and downs will always come, but how we choose to cope will determine our happiness and help us thrive and cope.

Speaker 2:

If you're up to date with the podcast and listening this week, I want to say happy new year. It is the first week of 2024 and 2023 was great. We launched this podcast and got season one rolling. Can't wait to see everything that unfolds in 2024 as we end season one and what lies ahead in season two. Make sure you're up to date with us in our Cove Patreon community at patreoncom slash Cove podcast. I want to welcome our brand new Cove Patreon members my mom, sandra Carganilla, and our friend, kathy Balcom. Thank you so much for joining. I can't wait to share all the exclusive Cove Patreon perks with you and I just appreciate you so much for helping this show continue to go and continue to grow into 2024. Love you all. Can't wait to see you very, very soon. Great week.

Speaker 1:

I put the coat on her.

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Paul Carganilla

Host