On this episode of 'The Village,' Willie Wideman invites mental-health
counselor; Faith Escudero to encourage the listeners to prioritize
maintaining psychological well-being and to increase their self-awareness.
Taking care of mental-health can help individuals become better
decision-makers and can aid when trying to understand the world around them.
Faith Escudero explores the fairly new and leading-edge science of psychology
and highlights the importance of building resilience.
WBCA Podcasts
The Village
On this episode of 'The Village,' Willie Wideman invites mental-healthcounselor; Faith Escudero to encourage the listeners to prioritizemaintaining psychological well-being and to increase their self-awareness.Taking care of mental-health can help individuals become betterdecision-makers and can aid when trying to understand the world around them.Faith Escudero explores the fairly new and leading-edge science of psychologyand highlights the importance of building resilience.
- Broadcast on:
- 11 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
[MUSIC] You're in the studio with Willie P. We are WBCA LP 102.9 FM Boston Community Radio. And you're listening to New Edition One Love, because that's what we have in the village. [MUSIC] Hello, Boston. We have a licensed mental health counselor on my show today. And we're going to talk about mental health and how to understand the signs of mental health. And give people some tips on that. So I want to introduce my guests. I have a special guest. She agreed to come on my show, and her name is Faith Escadidro. But I said it wrong. Help me out. That's okay, Willie. It's Escadero. Escadero. Faith Escadero. So thank you for coming on and sharing some information with the listening audience here. And I think this is such a great topic to have on the radio. So first, we want to know a little bit about you. So share some information about you and how you got into this counseling business. Hi, Willie. Hi, Boston. I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you for inviting me, Willie. And it's so interesting, the song that you played one love, because the more a person cultivates mental health inside, that's what happens. One love just naturally starts happening within a person's life, within their home, within their community. And so I find that song that you played so fitting. A little bit about myself. I am a licensed mental health counselor. As you had already said, I'm in private practice. I'm here to help educate on leading edge mental health facts that have been uncovered. I also have I've earned licenses in school psychology, special education and elementary education. So talk about how do you find yourself involved in this kind of business? What drove you to becoming a mental health counselor? I love being of service to people. And I love understanding people and assisting them to understand themselves at greater levels in areas that are really important in their life. Mental health is basically the foundation of a human being's life. And that's something that's really important to understand at greater levels. So but you as a young person really wanted to really help people as you started out your career. Like so many young people, I understood things could be better inside within my family, within my community. I grew up in a community, a blue collar community, where it wasn't unusual, honestly, to see a student go out on a gurney from an overdose. So it was what I grew up with inside of myself, what I was confused about, what I was struggling with, and also what I was witnessing within my family and my community that led me to want to understand mental health much more. And over time, learning about it inside of myself and inside of others, it's really become a passion for your work. Yes. So currently, what is the understanding of mental health currently? What's the understanding? So it's interesting you bring that up because the approach I specialize in is very leading edge science. It's all based on facts, which a lot of psychology has been based on theory. It's actually a very young science. And so we're still really finding our way with this science. One of the important things to really understand that we're uncovering at greater levels is that you can basically break a human being down into two parts. One part biology, which is their living matter, what you can see, taste, touch, smell, through the biological senses. The other major part of a human being is their psychology. Their psychology is their invisible part of themselves. Thoughts, feelings, perspectives, decisions, learning, and behavior. And it comes from our power inside, which is also invisible. But we actually use our mental health to even understand our biology when we're well, when we're sick, how to take care of ourselves. And in doing that, that mental health, people, I know that people still find seeking help through their trauma. What does that look like? What is that picture of a person who needs mental health? What does that look like for that picture? If we were looking at someone who needed it, what would some of the emotional changes we would see? So I'm going to try to keep it super simple so it's really relatable. Mental health begins first understanding it inside of yourself. The more you understand your mental health and how it works, then you're more just more naturally to able to understand it in other human beings. So to understand your own mental health, it's really being aware of increasing awareness of how often the duration, the intensity of the stress you experience inside, or the insecurity or the distress you experience inside. That can include worry. That can include anxiety or fears. That can include emotional reactions such as anger. It also could be how busy your mind is, how much you get into your head. It could also be how personally you take things or maybe things that have happened in your past that have really affected you and how easily or how often does that keep coming up in present time? How much do you keep reacting to that in present time? So yeah, there's a lot. Is that is your question? No, I keep going. This is interesting. This is interesting because I think people sometimes can get really stressed and they don't know how to handle it or don't deal with it. That's when it becomes overwhelming. Just for my own personal feeling, sometimes when I get too much on my plate, I can get overwhelmed and it stops you in your tracks. It really stops and how you deal with it. That's the issue of I can kind of deal with it. I go in a corner and I sit, but people who are having these emotions, that's what we were talking about, identifying those, what's too much. So understanding the feeling you're living in is part of self-awareness. That's being educated more how you work inside psychologically and it's unlimited how much you can understand that. Also what we're uncovering, leading edge, essential mental health facts, the way our power is built inside. We have these capabilities that are just a part of us and it's all about being educated in them. It's all about understanding at greater levels of consciousness when I'm feeling stressed. How do I self-com? And it's actually called resilience. That's the technical word. The thing is, is we are built to self-com. We just have to understand at greater levels how to do that. It's about being educated and that's really what about leading it. Mental health counseling is about based in these leading edge facts about mental health is I spend a great deal of time with my clients helping them to understand more how to respond to these signals of using our power in less conscious ways such as being overwhelmed such as going into fear or anxiety or anger. These are signals. They're indicators. They're communicators that there's more to understand about oneself and access those capabilities that are already inside. I'll give you a quick example and I'm keeping it simple because we only have 30 minutes here. No, do you think? When a baby is crying, when an infant is crying, there is this tendency for the caretaker to go over and start comforting through potentially rocking the baby. From a lower level of awareness, we can think it's the rocking that's calming the baby. It's actually in those moments, the baby is going into a state of psychological listening, observing and noticing the movement that's happening within their body. And as they observe and notice their mind clears of the fearful thoughts of the angry thoughts of the emotional thoughts. And so it's this natural clearing of the mind that the baby goes into a resilient grounded state. And so these are leading edge mental health facts that I could be helping you to understand or anybody understand at greater levels. And then you're able to more easily self-com or self-soothe in those moments when you're experiencing distressing thoughts or feelings. It's when I'm thinking about triggers because there are some triggers that happen when you because because it happens usually around trauma and people have these traumas in their life and I'm thinking about things that they trigger. So are you helping them to identify those as part of the treatment or you're counseling? How does that work? So more my language is we can go into these conditioned habitual responses that we develop with our power inside mind. And what it is is, it's because we haven't been educated how to use our mind the way nature developed. And so what I do is I spend time understanding how a person responds. These are conditioned habits with how they've come to use their mind. And then I assist them to have more awareness about it. And then I assist them to have greater levels of awareness about the steps to self-com and self-soothe in those moments to go into a resilient state. What and you're talking about the latest things that have been uncovered about mental health. That's that's what we are talking about. You're in the village with Willy P. You're listening to WBC, A-L-P-102.9 FM Community Radio. The proceeding commentary does not reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA or the Boston neighborhood network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to the Boston neighborhood network at 3025 Washington Street Boston Mass. 0-2-1-1-9. Attention WBCA-L-P-102.9 FM. If you would like to arrange a time for your own commentary, call WBCA at 617-708-3241 or email us at radio@bnntv.org. You're in the village with Willy P and I'm talking to Faith Escadero and she's in the studio with me and we're talking about mental health. She's a mental health council. She's a licensed mental health counselor and we are talking about, you know, identifying some of the signs of mental health and how you can identify them and maybe help someone else get help when they having to deal with trauma because I think a lot of this and and and Faith you can tell me if I'm wrong, a lot of this is brought on by trauma or for some type of trauma that's happening in their life. So one of the things I want to make clear is that mental health has literally nothing to do with level of academic education, level of socioeconomic status, any demographic factor such as race, such as religion, mental health is something inside of us in every single human being and it's unlimited how much mental health any human being can cultivate and the more a person invests in cultivating more mental health and being educated in their mental health. They're going to live their best life. They're going to understand their true self, their authentic self at more purely more clearly and that in itself can be very healing. So so one of the reasons there can be so much trauma out there is that a child growing up in a family where they haven't healed from whatever they've been through and they innocently keep using their mind in that from those from those unhealed experiences and they they don't realize it but they're responding and seeing that child from those unhealed experiences and it's it's not intentional but the way they're seeing the child and responding to the child can then pass on their trauma to the child. So sometimes mental health within a community can be something that's been experienced in the culture some time ago that hasn't been healed. It can be something that's been experienced in the family that hasn't been healed and has passed on. There's a lot of ways that trauma can happen but with this new leading edge mental health facts we're uncovering that trauma can be healed at greater levels than we've understood before that it's the healing that can happen inside is actually very unlimited. So there's there's a lot more hope for the human spirit regardless one's background or what they've been through it's really about understanding inside and listening to that inner knowing. It's time for me to reach out for for assistance to heal inside to cultivate more mental health and I really encourage the listeners out there to do it. There has been a myth that you're weak or you're crazy if you reach out for help and I'm saying to you from mental health facts it's actually wise it's courageous. When my clients come to me I know they're listening to something inside of themselves that is so important and they're wise and they're courageous when they're doing it. So yeah I I encourage the listeners one way you can learn more about this is your greatest assets.substack.com and what I'm talking to you about is very leading edge science. The name we've been calling it is Three Principles Psychology. You're not necessarily going to find any of this in conventional psychology or conventional mental health counseling so I wanted to give you a heads up about that. Right. How do you how do a family member encourage other people and what would be one of the I probably want to know what's one technique that you use when people come to you what's just one of those techniques that you would do for first time people that come to you. One of the things we all need to get better at is listening, listening, listening. A lot has been uncovered about listening and the power of listening. When we just observe and notice through any one of our senses when we're really interested in what another human being is saying and we ask questions until it clicks in our head what they're saying and we experience clarity that that is real that's what we're really connecting and understanding with another human being. So this is one of the important things that I do is I really spend a lot of time listening asking questions until I experience clicks on my head clarity. What is actually going on with that with that client and I'm really focusing on understanding the source of the emotional reactions, the source of the the psychological pain inside and the focus of my approach is really about healing the source of it rather than the symptoms and the symptoms can be the anxiety, the symptoms can be the depression, the symptoms can be the anger, but it's understanding where that's coming from, the origin of that. That's where it moves mental health counseling into a whole other realm of healing and I'm listening to it and I'm thinking to myself and I'm like I remember going to when I had a trauma with my health that the doctor said I'm not going to give you any medicine. I want you to learn how to deal with every time that emotion clicks in. Learn how to deal with that emotion that you're feeling and I'm so glad he did do that not give me medicine but make me learn how to deal with that emotion or whatever that trigger was and I can get you know I can get in my head and I think just you know I think I'm pretty normal but but you're right we what's normal what's normal you know in the realm of things I think everyone thinks that they are kind of normal I don't need to have that but you really do need when you can't get past that trigger that and I like the way you you're saying you know listening we need to listen and find out what the underlining and I think that's so important how do you how do you get them to get there when when you're talking it's a one-on-one case. So healing can be biological healing can be psychological and and so it's it's one of the things that I do is not only am am I really listening when I'm when I'm talking about listening I'm talking about listening to understand really being interested in what the authentically interested in what the other person is saying and ask questions until it clicks until we experience clarity inside um I'm sorry could you say your question and I just got a little lost no it's fine you're you're exactly right you're you're you're you answered it I just want to we got a couple more minutes and I just want you to give more information where we can um find more information can you give that one more time sure um it's your greatest assets.substack.com and you're you're you're you're located in the Boston area yes you're located in the Boston area yes I am located in the Boston area and and um I I think this is wonderful I think this is a great opportunity for people to listen to um a licensed mental health council and and just hearing from you and hearing this episode will help them think that you know I'm not you know there's nothing wrong with reaching out for help here's the last thing I'd like to say we're all at a place in our life whoever we are we're all at a place in our life to appreciate that place we're in to honor that place we're in and to spend time understanding it more um this is the human condition so to not judge it to not um be hard on oneself but to really um appreciate this is where I'm at right now and to really spend time understanding it and then um listening to that inner knowing what are best next steps for the place I'm at we're no matter what age we are we are learning creatures and the more we invest in learning whatever we need to learn we're going to get to that best neck place in our life that we're meant to go to so um it's really not about comparing yourself with other human beings where you're at um when we start comparing ourselves with other human beings that can lead to poor mental health because we're all individuals we all have our own um purposes in life and abilities and backgrounds and it's really just appreciating that and understanding that at greater levels faith escadero thank you for coming on my show I think I know for a fact whoever listens to this podcast or radio they're going to be more educated about sharing this kind of information with other people and saying you know there's nothing wrong with you you just need a little help greater understanding of oneself self-awareness. Willie it's been an absolute pleasure thank you so much for inviting me I am passionate about speaking this in the case anyone out there wants to invite me to speak more about it please please contact me um I can give you my email address uh whatever is best yes thank you okay thank you for coming on my pleasure yes you know mental health and emotional well beings are not luxuries they are essential for living a healthy and fulfilling life yes by prioritizing our mental and emotional health we are investing in our overall wellness we owe it to ourselves to make mental and emotional well wellness a top priority yes we are in the village want you to have an emotional wellness so until next time you are listening to WBCALP 102.9 FM Boston community radio and you're listening to Sunday morning Wally Ali and we will see you next time see ya