Mental Health America founded Mental Health Awareness Month back in 1949. Listen to my conversation with America Paredes on MHA’s new book.

You don't have set resolutions that will stress you out and you don't have to spend all your disposable income on self-care products if they aren't going to help you. On this episode, Amy Keller Laird, the founder of Mental, walks us through the expertly vetted products that may fit into your mental health toolkit and how to vet these products in the first place.

Traveling alone is one of my favorite things I’ve learned to do in my twenties. The experience of getting on a plane, landing in a new town, and learning my way around has become a healing, fulfilling practice. But, like any habit you want to build, it does take practice and some forethought.

I’ve been off the pill for almost a full year (this October) and there are so many things I wish I would have known before coming off. Unfortunately, wellness and women’s health in general are such hard topics to find information about on the Internet. I read a really great article in the New York Times this week that outlined just how poorly the healthcare system treats women and ways that anyone (but especially those who are oftentimes mistreated by the healthcare system) can advocate for themselves more forcefully.

As humans we’re amazing at one very specific thing, convincing ourselves that we are the only ones in the world going through any very specific thing. The experience doesn’t matter — it can be full on heartbreak or giddy blissful joy — we’ll exist in a vacuum all the same. It’s comfortable there, we get to process, enjoy, or suffer through those feelings without having to contend with others’ opinions on them.

I started a podcast last May just as Mental Health Awareness Month kicked off. It is one of the most fun projects I am currently a part of. On each episode I get to talk to experts, authors, creators, and coaches (most of them friends or people I’ve admired in the space forever) for an hour and then share that conversation with you.

This August my priority is about embracing and uncovering more of the parts of myself that had to go dormant through the pandemic. I want to fold them in with the parts of myself that I’ve recently discovered. I want to see what the hodgepodge of a Vivian who likes working out looks like when she goes on solo trips. I want to know how the part of me who has a deeper appreciation for storytelling and lyricism shows up when she’s going to a small Nashville writer’s round.

This feels like a Jay-Z, “allow me to reintroduce myself” kind of moment. I realized that while I have built a career around talking about mental health, I don’t regularly check-in about how my own journey with anxiety is going. If you’re new around here, I have been going to therapy since the end of 2013 and it was there that I realized that a lot of the “feelings” I had (and have had since I was a child) were actually anxiety.

Rebecca Alvarez Story is a sexologist and the founder of Bloomi, a destination for clean intimate care products and tips. We recorded this episode at the end of May way before Roe v Wade was overturned. In considering putting out this episode or not, I decided now was actually the perfect time to put it out. In addition to questions around parenthood and how limited many are after the overturning of Roe v Wade, I think it also attempts to close the scope on how sexually active (and how much pleasure) woman can be. I believe that sexual pleasure is an act of rebellion and establishing our own agency over our bodies best we can right now. I’m excited for you to meet Rebecca and hear how she explains pleasure, desire, libido, masturbation, and how to talk to your partner about sex.

David Kessler and I have come together a handful of times now to talk about grief. It’s an honor because when I was first truly diving into my own grief learning his were words that I turned to. He’s written books with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, like Life Lessons and On Grief and Grieving, and on his own, like Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. He also leads grief.com and brings together a community of grievers who are all looking for the same thing — a sense of being understood. Throughout our conversation, I think we end up offering up a great primer on grief whether you’re on day 24 or year 24.

Financial literacy wasn’t as prevalent in my teens and early twenties as it is now. Whether I’m swiping through TikTok or scrolling on Medium, I’ll happen upon more than one writer or creator talking about financial freedom, generational wealth, budgeting, or getting paid what you’re worth. It’s amazing, but for someone who struggles with money anxiety (ehem) it can feel like a mountain you’ll never be able to climb.

This was a short week, after a long weekend in New Haven for a friend’s wedding. I was able to kickstart my summer challenge — I’ll be visiting 17 bookstores in 13 weeks — with a visit to Atticus Bookstore. Most of my week was spent getting caught up on work, after having had COVID the last few weeks. I’m really looking forward to resting and resetting some more this weekend. I’m at the door of a lot of big life and career decisions and this time around I’m trying to pace myself as I think through what’s next. It’s anxiety inducing, but necessary.

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist, the New York Times bestselling author of “Maybe You Should Talk To Someone,” and the co-host of “Dear Therapists.” Our episode feels like the prequel to a really good therapy session. She sheds light on what you should expect from a therapist, how to engage your past and future without hurting your present self, and shares maybe my favorite podcast quote yet, “We always like to say: before diagnosing someone with depression, make sure they aren’t surrounded by assholes…”

I’m a very empathetic person and this is especially true whenever I learn about someone’s grief. Someone else losing a loved one tends to take me back to losing my own mom and it brings up this knot in my throat kind of feeling. Learning about the passing of 19 children and 2 adults in Uvalde, Texas this week has been really hard to start processing. Right now, those who weren’t personally impacted by the loss of life in Uvalde are experiencing something called collective grief.

Self-discovery is a life-long process, Vanessa Villela, star of Selling Sunset, advocates for doing that work. Between losing her sister and navigating grief to figuring what life in a reality show in real time, Villela has turned to the power of her mindset even more. In this episode she speaks to what she’s learned, what she hopes to pass along, and how she wants to use her platform.

Liz Hernandez is the founder of Wordaful, a community builder, and a wonderful friend. In her life pre-Wordaful, Liz was a radio host and entertainment reporter for Access Hollywood, E! News, and MTV. She’s an Emmy-nominated television personality and journalist. Now, she spends her days creating video content and hosting live events that focus on the power of words and how we use them with ourselves and others.

I’m knee-deep in prep for the launch of my new podcast, Happy To Be Here, and all that Mental Health Awareness Month will bring with it. It’s an exciting time, but a really stressful time for anyone who works in the mental wellness space. It’s actually quite ironic because in the month that’s dedicated to giving a platform to taking care our mental health, I find it the hardest to keep up with my own mental health routines.