speaker-0: Binye Oshibodo Onyali, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.

speaker-1: What inspired you to get into the mental health field?

speaker-0: Well, when I was in my early 20s, I went through a whole lot of transitions. I was a wife of a, my husband is a retired Canadian, but I think he was active duty, so he was in and out all the time. We had just bought a house, moved to a new city, brand new baby, and I was going through the worst postpartum depression. I had no idea what I was going through. ⁓ I was of the impression that when you have a baby, you're supposed to be happy. everything's supposed to be sunshine and rainbows, but ⁓ didn't turn out that way for me. I was really, really struggling. Did not tell anyone because I felt a lot of shame. thought people would think something's wrong with me if I said that I was sad and crying and just going through all of these struggles. And so I went on the internet, as you do when you are in your 20s. And I don't know if I was looking for a solution or just looking for some understanding. And I found something called marriage and family therapy. And I learned that therapists can really help you with your mental health. And in that moment, I was like, this is what I need and I don't just need this personally, but I need to be able to help people who are struggling because there was somebody who was very near and dear to my heart and she had been just really struggling with her mental health for years. And it appeared that nobody really could see her. And I wanted to be that one who's really there. can see people and walk them out of their mental health challenges.

speaker-1: What is it like for you to be helping people?

speaker-0: ⁓ my goodness. To me, it's such an honor, right? The fact that someone will trust me, a total stranger, because it's not like they know me, right? They just, know my internet presence. They know my website or, you know, an interview I've been on. And so for someone to invite me into their story and to trust me, to give them tools, to walk them out of their struggles, it's such an honor. I'm telling you, Michael, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing because when people come in, have this thing where I can see the way out. It's like my mind already can see the sequence that we need to take for them to get out of the tunnel and see the light there. And so it's just me holding hope for them, me helping them remove any kind of shame, because most people feel shame when they struggle. Me giving them tools, giving them voice, giving them a place to put their emotions, giving them a place to talk about trauma, to heal through trauma, to work past the anxieties and the fear. to build relationships, it just almost feels like helping people pull out the potential that's already in them. So I love it. can't, I can't state that anymore. I love it so much.

speaker-1: My father-in-law was, ⁓ he retired colonel in the army, but my wife always talks about how they had to move all the time and it was tough on her. So what were some of the challenges you were facing during that time?

speaker-0: ⁓ my goodness, trying to find community is so hard when you're in a new community, right? Like, cause I remember at the time, you know, I was young as my early twenties, just had a baby first time mom. knew nothing about kids, literally. I knew nothing about kids. I knew nothing about the community around me. And it's just opening up yourself to other people. And to be honest, military spouses are just... so gracious and so loving and they really do wrap their arms around you and that was what I experienced. So there are people who really just adopted me as their own and really helped me because they could see how much I was struggling even though I wasn't vocalizing what I was experiencing. In hindsight I can see that they could see. So it's just really about opening yourself up to new people and allowing them to love you and connect with you. So that's if you could do that then you'll do well.

speaker-1: And I was doing my research and I saw you do a lot for women and talking to them. What are some of the tips or advice you would you give women as they go on their journey?

speaker-0: Most women, when they come to me, they're juggling way too many things, too many things. And their expectations for themselves way too high. One of the main things that I tell women is function at 80%. And they're like, what? What do you mean function at 80 %? Because you're doing everything. Women often do not ask for help. At least the ones who come to see me, they do not ask for help. They only come to me when they are literally at the edge of burnout or they've already burned out. They're on medical leave and they can't do it anymore. So I say, number one is function at 80 % of your capacity. Cause most of them who work with me, their 80 % is most people's 100%. So if you could do that, don't be a perfectionist. It's better to do something excellently than trying to be perfect and give yourself a break. Cut yourself some slack. You're going to have good days. You're going to have bad days and it's okay. We can't function at the standard of perfection. It doesn't work for anyone.

speaker-1: Have you seen your clients confidence level rise as they go through the process?

speaker-0: Yes, you know, they come in, some of them like, you know, in shame, they're like, I can't even believe that I'm here. Sometimes people are trying to convince me that they're not crazy. And I'm like, you don't have to convince me that you're crazy. You're not crazy. If you were crazy, you wouldn't be with me. You wouldn't be here. You know, you're just a woman who's going through some difficult times. You've experienced some hard things in your life and it's okay. And they come in just feeling like, just can't do this. So whether it is their job, I just don't think I can do this. I just don't think I'm good enough. Or real fears, right? Because I deal with trauma a lot. So let's say someone got into a car accident, they feel like I can't drive anymore. I can't possibly do this. Or someone who's going through grief and loss. I can't go on without my loved one. And as we work through You hear them, I love it when they say it themselves, like, ⁓ my gosh, I think I can drive again, or I think I can live again. I think I can make friends again. I think I can work on my marriage again. I think I can try this motherhood thing again. And there's always that light bulb moment when they realize that they've always had it in them. They just needed someone to show them that it was possible. Everybody has it in them. We just have to find the right words so that people can really connect to that place again.

speaker-1: I mean, you said it a little bit, but you work with couples. How is it getting, I mean, no matter if you've been with the person long time, getting two people on the same page, how do you do it?

speaker-0: I remind them why they came together in the first place. Because what I see is when couples have been together a long time, they start to take each other for granted. They stop being friends. They stop asking questions to get to know each other. Because when couples are dating, I find that they're always seeking information. They want to get to know each other better. But there's something that happens after marriage, after a long-term marriage, after a few years where... They don't ask each other questions. They barely even look each other in the eye. Everybody's staring at their phones. Everybody's busy. Their focus is elsewhere. And so I just remind them, why did you come together? Why do you love each other? And what was your idea of marriage in the first place? And if we can focus on that, right, instead of focusing on what I want, what do we want as a couple? What unites us? And if we could do that, and then it's really just learning some really good communication skills. I say that love is an art and a science. It's an art and a science. And I say this and I'm so confident about this. Give me any two people who are willing. I could make it work. And I genuinely believe that.

speaker-1: And I live with bipolar disorder too. And my wife is basically helps me and thank God she's around and all that. But I always think she's my ⁓ support system, but who's her support system? And I always want to be there first. So how important is it for support systems to have their own support system?

speaker-0: very important. Most of the women that I work with, they are the backbone of their family or the backbone of their friend group or the backbone of the work environment that they're in. And they are the one who they're super responsible. They're very high performing. They have the answers quickly. If they can't figure out how to do something, they'll figure it out. If nobody else can figure it out, they're the go-to. So they are so kind, so warm, so genuine, and they don't have anyone, which is why they get to a point of breakdown and that's where I come in. So one thing I help them do is really to live again, to breathe again, to discover who they are again. Sometimes women tend to get lost in their love because women love so deeply. So they'll get lost in the love for their spouses or the love for their work or their friends or their family members, their community, wherever it is that they're spending their time. So we go back to what did you imagine your life was gonna be like 10 years ago or 20 years ago? What's stopping you from doing those things that you wish you could do? Let's go back to that place. And then we really talk about boundary setting. How can you say no? Of course, in the kindest of ways, I don't believe that we have to be mean because we're setting boundaries. I think we can be kind, but we can also be clear in our boundaries. So, and even helping them check in with themselves. know, when somebody's asking for help, Do you have the space and the bandwidth to help in this moment? Sometimes you're tired and you should probably be going to bed instead of on that phone call with that person whom you love very much. And when we are always the one who's there for people, ask the people around you, know, can you check in on me every once in a while? Because sometimes I'm not okay. Normalize that for your loved ones to say, I'm not always okay. And that is okay to not always be okay.

speaker-1: And you talked about how you help people that, you know, try talk therapy and nothing's working. So what are your methods that help people that have no more ideas?

speaker-0: Yes, sometimes by the time people get to me, they've been through multiple therapists. They've cried many nights on their pillow. They don't want to talk about what happened because sometimes the trauma is so big. They're having nightmares. They don't want to talk about what's going on in their nightmares. And I definitely understand that. And so a few years ago, I started incorporating something called brain spotting. It's a specialized training. So not every therapist knows what this even is. It's a specialized training that we have to do. Well, you don't have to do it, but I chose to do it. And it's really a way of gaining access in your brain because what the brain does is it has different centers that stores different things. So when we go through trauma, when we're having big emotions, when we're having anxiety and fear, it kind of just stores it in a specific place, but doesn't really do much with that information. And that's why we have the nightmares and we begin to avoid certain things. And then we're crying. We're angry one day, we're irritable the next day, we're sad the next day. Cause your body hasn't really processed that trauma, right? And in the past, we used to think that the best way to treat trauma is you literally make the person talk about the event over and over and over and over again. And that's what I used to do before, cause that's what I knew. And I was like, this, I don't know. It's not working for a lot of my clients. It almost feels like it's re traumatizing that because I don't know about you, Michael, but if you went through something really difficult, would you want to be talking about it? Like in detail over and over. No! to do that. So brain spotting, we don't even do a whole lot of talking, at least I don't do a lot of talking. The idea behind brain spotting is where you look affects how you feel because our eyes are embedded in our brain. So to access the brain, we can access it through our eyes. And so by using a pointer and actually have it right here, this is what it looks like. Nothing scary. It just goes up down. I can move it left to right by looking at a specific spot and then bringing up some of the trauma that happened. your brain can now open up that door where the trauma has been held. It can then begin to process it. It can digest it. And once your brain has digested that trauma, then it doesn't need to be bringing up all those memories through nightmares and all of those thoughts that try and intrude on your day all day. And then after a few times of brain spotting, people really just feel like the fear, the tension, the sadness, the pain that they feel. just starts to go away. So it's a gentler way of actually healing your brain. That's why love it.

speaker-1: And you do something else with incorporating faith into some of your practices. So how does faith converge with mental health?

speaker-0: and mental health is everything. So I'm a Christian personally and I started integrating faith because you know I started getting a lot of calls where people are like can you include the Bible in my head? I was like can we do that? I didn't even know what the rules were like are we allowed to do that? Yes we indeed are allowed to do that. I don't force this on clients so I do it if clients ask but it's not something that's for everyone. The Bible does talk a lot about mental health actually like I often say that if you've ever read the Psalms David is crying a lot. He's depressed a lot. He's really struggling a lot. So mental health is very important because think about that. Christians believe that we have a soul and a soul is made up of your mind, your will and your emotions. That's exactly what we talk about in therapy. We talk about your mind, we talk about your will, your behaviors and we talk about your emotions, how you feel. And so what I do is depending on what people are going through, I don't pull out different scriptures that speak to that emotion or to that behavior or that circumstance. I don't interpret scripture for people because that's a pastor's job, but I say, well, you know, this kind of reminds me of this Psalm or this, you you read it and see if it speaks to you. And a lot of times they're like, ⁓ my goodness, I never realized that there was someone in the Bible who went through what I was going through. the Bible does speak about anxiety or the Bible does speak about making friends. The Bible does speak about marriage and community and being your brother's keeper, a lot of things that my clients are struggling with. The Bible talks about rest and they're like, I did not know all of these things were there. And so they already have this faith tradition and I'm just pulling out what that faith tradition says about their circumstances. So they really do feel like they have spiritual support as well as emotional support.

speaker-1: What do you do to help your own mental health?

speaker-0: I like to sleep. I gotta be honest with you. ⁓

speaker-1: love Teresa too, yeah.

speaker-0: I'm so basic, Michael. I like to sleep. I need at least eight hours of sleep, ideally nine. That's my thing. That's my basic. I like to make sure that I'm getting nutritious meals in, very important. I work out regularly because I believe it's mind, body, soul. I read my Bible. I pray. I have people in my life that I can go to about the most difficult things. I've had many seasons when I've been in therapy, both couples therapy, individual therapy, coaching as well. because it's very important as a therapist because I'm the one who's supporting people and I'm aware that when you're supporting people, you definitely need support as well. So I'm not one who's shy to tell people I'm struggling, help me, let's talk. I'm very much an introvert so I don't need a huge circle but I do have a very small group of very trusted people that I can go to ⁓ for all the things. I like to eat so I do like to find out new different restaurants. I'm in Houston and Houston is a great place for food. ⁓ I do a lot. Sometimes I'll journal, sometimes I'll color, all types of things I do.

speaker-1: What are some of the things you've learned from your family?

speaker-0: ⁓ So I've learned from my family that it's important to be assertive because sometimes family can love you to the point of anxiety. Because again, I mentioned I'm an introvert, so I don't necessarily want to be around people all of the time. ⁓ I've learned that, at least in my family, that if the chips are down, they'll be there for you. I've learned that that's how my family typically operates. really lucky. if life is really hard, if anybody's going through a struggle, Doesn't matter how busy everybody is, we are not all in the same location, but we will gather, we will rally, we will brainstorm, have a, like, we literally will have a family meeting over the phone and say, this person's struggling with this, what can you do? How can we help them? I've learned that it's very important to have a village around you. You cannot do life alone. And that's why I was struggling so difficultly with postpartum because Here I was at home with a baby that wouldn't stop crying and I was just by myself in my 20s. I had no idea what I was doing. So I've learned that everybody needs family. And I'm aware that not everybody has a supportive family, not everybody has blood relatives, but we can also create family. Your friends can quickly become your family. Your neighbors can quickly become your family. So it's about finding safe people. I underline safe. because family is not always safe. Sometimes family is the reason for our trauma and I'm very aware of that. So I'm all about putting safe people around you and how do you know who's safe? Safe people allow you to be who you are. Safe people will listen. Safe people will be kind. Safe people love you without expecting anything in return. And we feel rejuvenated when we've been around safe people. When we've been around people who are more unsafe. We feel exhausted, we feel sad, we feel ashamed, we might cry. We just feel kind of icky.

speaker-1: And you do so much to help others, but where do you want to see your mission in the next few years?

speaker-0: ⁓ I would like, honestly, to live in a world where people are not ashamed to say that they're in therapy. And I really want to make this very clear that therapy is not for crazy people. I can't stand that word crazy because there's no such thing, right? Therapy is for humans. Humans struggle. Humans go through hard times and I want to see a place where everybody can have access to treating their anxiety and treating their trauma. And insomnia, that's another thing that I do. I do cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. It's a very quick treatment for insomnia. ⁓ People can sleep well. People can have healthy relationships. Couples are yearning to love one another. They just don't know how to speak the same language. So a world where people can be supported in their relationships. so that we can actually fulfill our potential. And I would love to maybe do even like more speaking and conferences and group classes so that I can actually create a village right there in front of.

speaker-1: I like what you said with ⁓ insomnia, not like what you said, but it was interesting of what you said. ⁓ So how does insomnia affect when you're awake?

speaker-0: ⁓ my goodness. So when you have not slept, your body is exhausted, right? You feel foggy. You can barely think. That makes you irritable. That is affecting everybody around you. You go to work, you're feeling very exhausted. You're very short tempered. You're messing up on the job. They're wanting to fire you. At home, you don't want to smile. You're grumpy constantly. That's going to cause friction with the people that you live with. It makes you very isolated because you're too tired to even hang out with friends or volunteer or just do the things that you used to do. People who struggle with insomnia, they often don't want to work out. They don't want to eat, right? Because you're not in the mood. You're like, I'm just tired. And insomnia often will lead to feelings of anxiety and depression. And it makes sense. There's almost this anxiety about sleep. Am I going to sleep tonight? Is tonight going to be a good night? How many nights am I going to get? How many hours will I get tomorrow? Is my bed going to be comfortable? It's this overarching thought that just consumes their day all day. It also creates a fear of sleep and a fear of the bedroom because the bedroom just represents just an awful place of torture. And it feels really horrible when the people around you are actually sleeping lovely. So let's say you have a brother, your brother's like, ⁓ I got 12 hours of sleep last night. And you're like, I barely got three.

speaker-1: Right.

speaker-0: It's very awful, but most people don't know. And actually most therapists don't know. You know, I tend to do the things that therapists don't know exist. They don't know that therapists can actually treat insomnia. So now we can't treat it if it's like a physical cause because some people struggle with insomnia because there's an imbalance in hormones. Of course I can't treat your hormones, right? Or if, let's say, they just had a surgery and so they're in pain and then that becomes a thing, or they're taking certain medications. I can't prescribe medications, I'm not a nurse or a physician. But once we've ruled all that out, because typically I'll have the person go to their primary care to rule out physical causes, then we'll now look at the emotional causes and the environmental causes of insomnia. And just take that fear away about sleeping and It's literally only five sessions. It's very short actually. And actually the VA is a real champion for cognitive behavioral therapy for insomniac. It's done really great things for our servicemen and women.

speaker-1: How can people reach out to you and learn more?

speaker-0: So they can go to my website. It's theziniapractice.com. Zinia is Z-I-N-N-I-A, practice.com. I'm also all over the socials. You can look for me on TikTok. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Facebook at The Zinnia Practice. And no, my name is not Zinnia. Zinnia is a flower. Many people like to call me Zinnia. I'm like, nope, just the name of my practice.