Oct. 15, 2025
From Brokenness to Boundaries: Stephanie Almond on Faith-Fueled Mental Health and Community Change
Send us a text What if your hardest season could become the raw material for a stronger, kinder you? We sit down with counselor and coach Stephanie Almond—founder of Refined Lives LLC and co‑founder of the Never Alone Foundation—to unpack how faith, practical tools, and community support can turn pain into purpose. Stephanie shares her personal journey from a turbulent childhood to building a counseling practice that blends evidence‑informed strategies with biblical wisdom, helping clients st...
What if your hardest season could become the raw material for a stronger, kinder you? We sit down with counselor and coach Stephanie Almond—founder of Refined Lives LLC and co‑founder of the Never Alone Foundation—to unpack how faith, practical tools, and community support can turn pain into purpose. Stephanie shares her personal journey from a turbulent childhood to building a counseling practice that blends evidence‑informed strategies with biblical wisdom, helping clients strengthen resilience, set healthier boundaries, and reclaim a steady sense of worth.
We dig into the idea of refinement—why real growth often arrives through pressure—and outline simple, repeatable habits that build self‑awareness without overwhelm. Stephanie offers a clear framework for boundaries as calibrated access, shows how self‑forgiveness unlocks forward motion, and explains why “not every thought is a fact” is the mindset shift that calms emotions and changes behavior. She also spotlights the Never Alone Foundation’s mission to bridge mental health and community through counseling scholarships, free workshops on emotional resilience and stress management, and church‑based mental health coaching that provides peer‑to‑peer, strength‑based support.
You’ll come away with practical steps for moving from surviving to thriving: assessing relationships for reciprocity, scheduling mental health check‑ins, finding affordable care, and anchoring identity in a deeper source of value. We close with a look at Stephanie’s book, Divine Worth: Transforming Our Mind and Walking Tall in Christ, which weaves testimony, counseling exercises, and Scripture to help readers pause, reflect, and act on who they are becoming.
If this conversation encourages you, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Your voice helps this community grow.
Connect with Stephanie Almond
email: stephaniealmond@refinedlivesllc.com
website: www.refinedlivesllc.com
Home | Never Alone Foundation (neveralonefoundationcorp.com)
Facebook: Refined Lives LLC | Facebook
Instagram: @refinedlivesllc
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website: Bee Seen Social Media and Marketing
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Stay tuned for the next episode of Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson. Subscribe - Follow and Like Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson
00:00 - Welcome & Guest Introduction
04:09 - Stephanie’s Early Life & Calling
10:30 - Faith, Resilience, and Refinement
14:25 - Sponsor Message: Be Seen Social Media
15:30 - Forgiveness, Self-Awareness, and Boundaries
22:28 - A Client’s Transformation Story
25:06 - Never Alone Foundation: Mission & Programs
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Welcome to Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson.
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This is where ideas spark, connections grow, and collaborations fuse success.
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Tune in for inspiring stories, expert insights, and game-changing conversations.
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Let's build, connect, and thrive together.
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Remember, collaboration is the key to success.
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Welcome, welcome to the ReadySet Collaborate Podcast with Wanda Pearson, where collaboration is the key to success.
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I'm your host, Wanda Pearson, and today I'm excited to introduce a remarkable guest who is making an incredible impact in both coaching and community.
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Our guest, Stephanie Almond, founder of Refined Lives LLC, where she provides counseling and coaching that blends practical tools with faith-based encouragement.
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Stephanie is passionate about helping people build resilience, establish healthy boundaries, and discover their true worth.
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She also serves as a co-founder of Never Alone Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to bridging the gap between mental health and the community.
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Her mission is rooted in crafting safe spaces for healing, growth, and empowerment.
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So get ready to be inspired as we dive into her journey, her purpose, and her powerful work helping others refine their lives.
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Welcome, Stephanie.
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Say hello to the audience.
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Hello, everyone.
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I'm so glad to be here.
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Thank you so much for inviting me.
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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I'm so glad that we met.
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We met at a branding, getting our photos taken.
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I know, looking all fancy.
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Yeah, glamorous.
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And we just click because what we do, we just love helping people in the communities.
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But I want to I appreciate you coming onto my podcast, spreading your word, spreading the news, see how you can actually help people as well.
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But thank you for coming.
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So let me read your bio that you sent me here.
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Let's see.
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Stephanie Amman is a compassionate leader, counselor, and mental health advocate, and dedicated to empowering individuals and communities towards emotional healing and lasting wellness.
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She is the founder of Refined Lives LLC, where she provides counseling and coaching that blends practical tools with faith-based encouragement, helping clients build resilience, establish healthy boundaries, and discover their true worth.
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She also serves as the co-founder of the Never Alone Foundation, a nonprofit committed to bridging the gap between mental health and the community.
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Through the foundation, Stephanie works to make counseling accessible by offering financial assistance, training compassionate, training passionate individuals as certified mental health coaches and hosting workshops and events that promote mental health wellness for all.
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With the gift of creating safe, encouraging spaces, Stephanie combines her professional expertise with her personal compassion for seeing lives transform.
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I love that.
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Her heart is to remind people that they are never alone in their journey, that healing, growth, and restorations are always possible.
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I'm so inspired by this, Stephanie, and I'm so happy that this is what you're doing because we need more people like you, because it really does.
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That's what I do.
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I actually I'm an unnatural on social worker anyway.
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So I did corporate, but also what you're doing.
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I really love what you're doing here.
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And I actually help I meant to as well.
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Thank you for coming on the show.
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You're welcome.
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Um yeah, like what you're just saying, is definitely much needed in today's society, uh, especially with the recent events that have happened on in the community and in the world.
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A lot of shooting's been going on, but and that carries a lot of weight, and not to mention just our daily lives.
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We got families, work, kids with social media and technology.
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There's just a lot of heaviness.
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And I think if people can just have good mental health tools in their toolbox to help them navigate through stuff, it really goes a long way.
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Oh, absolutely.
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And listen to that as well.
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You can have it, but you want to listen to it.
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And that that compassion that we carry, we just want, I don't know.
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I just said we just all can't we just all get along, right?
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Yeah, it almost seems too easy and simple.
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And that's what we gotta ask God, Lord, help us.
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We need help, we need your help to bring some peace and serenity.
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Serenity.
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That's when that's where serenity into this world here.
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Yeah.
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Let me ask you a couple questions about your journey.
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Stephanie, can you share a little about your personal journey and what inspired you to create Refined Lives LLC?
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Yeah, just a little bit of my background is I didn't have both parents growing up.
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My dad, he was in prison all the way up until I was 18.
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That was 17 years.
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My mom was in and out of our lives.
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She did drugs, chased men.
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When she was coming back into our lives, she still did drugs and which led to physical abuse, some sexual abuse.
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And we lived with my grandparents, but they weren't the cookie-cutter grandparents of come sit in my lap.
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There is a lot of just things there that I don't really want to share too much on the podcast, but it's definitely in my book because it's a little too personal.
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But there's just some things there, a lot of like things behind closed doors.
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And I was always spoken into that.
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I would never mount up to anything.
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I was gonna end up like my parents, especially my mom, chasing men, doing drugs, wind up 16 and pregnant, and just a lot of negativity spoken over me as a child.
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And it's instead of you looking into my life and seeing the situation that I got dealt in that I was raised in, why wouldn't you be the light in that person's life?
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Instead of saying that they're never amounted to anything and they're gonna end up like their parents, why don't you be a mentor, be a coach?
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Why don't you speak into that person's life to help them not end up that way?
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And that's like the trajectory of where I am now because I want to be that light in people's lives, especially the youth.
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I specialize in youth and young adults to pour into them and let them know it doesn't matter your home life, it doesn't matter the situation that you're getting brought up in.
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You are who God says you are, and you can become something and somebody because we are all chosen in God's eyes.
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And I just really want to be that light in someone's life.
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And I love that God can use brokenness and make something beautiful out of it.
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And if we allow them to, I was able to use my past and how I was raised to become who I am today.
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And a lot of people can't say they love who they are today, but I'm thankful.
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I love who I am today.
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I love who God keeps developing me into because we can always grow, we'll never mount up, never max out, you know, who we will be.
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But I love who God is creating me to be.
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I am proud of you because you're telling my story in some ways.
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I had a stepfather, the same thing.
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You're not gonna be anything, you're never gonna be anything.
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I had you're gonna go to college, you're gonna get pregnant.
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Because they told that to us, we said, no, we're gonna do better than what they said we're gonna be.
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I am proud of you, who've you've become and how you're helping.
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And that was funny because I was actually 10 years old, and the social worker came to our house, and I said, I'm gonna be a social worker.
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I didn't know what this, I just know the lady was nice and she was helping us here, and that's what God had me become a social worker, helping other people, and then to be able to, and that's what we build up our confidence, right?
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And our self-esteem.
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And that was the biggest thing.
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Me, my confidence, and I'm sure probably you, how you built it up and what you're doing with the girls is great.
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And like I was telling you, I'm a mentor, I meant to a middle school girl.
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That is that's a blessing because God already knew what his plans were for us.
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Yeah.
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What role did faith and resilience play in shaping your path as a counselor and coach?
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Yeah, I think a lot of people don't know, especially in today's society, about resilience.
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The Bible is very clear that we are gonna go through trials, we're gonna go through situations and hardship, but it's building that grit, the perseverance of learning to navigate through that.
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That is what builds our character.
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And the reason why I named my LLC Refined Lives is because, like a diamond, it has to be under pressure before it turns into a diamond.
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We've got to go through hard things in order for us to know truly who we are.
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And allowing God to keep refining us, to peel back these layers of our flesh and of our fleshly desires and our old bad habits and everything that we've just accumulated, sometimes our fault, sometimes not our fault.
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Um, and just allowing God to work in us, that's really what paves the way of being able to have resilience and just discovering new selves about yourself.
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Becoming self-aware is very important.
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And you don't know that until you try new things or go through hard things, and you're like, I can do this.
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This episode is powered by Be Seen Social Media, the marketing secret behind Wanda Pearson's standout online presence.
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Download their free biooptimizer guide and set up a scroll stopping social media bio in seconds.
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Unforgiveness is a huge one, and really just again, self-awareness is another huge one because I think once people can discover who they are, it can help them create healthy boundaries because boundaries isn't a bad thing, it's just helping us protect our emotional health.
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I would say what I oftentimes see really for my youth clients, it would be self-awareness and self-discovery.
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But in some of my older women, it is unforgiveness and boundaries.
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That is true, because that's actually my next book about forgiveness, walking in walking in freedom through God's grace.
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Yeah, so that's gonna be so good.
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Yeah, because it is it's something that it's funny how we said we forgave somebody, but then when something comes up, it comes back, it's like you're relieving it all over again.
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Forgiving yourself is the first step.
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Yes, and it took me a long time to realize that why do I have to forgive myself?
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But it made sense because we beat ourselves up about what somebody else says about it, but really they're gone about their business, they don't care what they've done.
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Forgiving yourself so God can give you grace and give you peace and your blessings is what I did.
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But no, I love that.
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Can you share a story without names, of course, where you saw someone transform through the work you do?
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Oh, there's been uh quite a few people, thankfully.
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Yeah, this one lady in particular, she's a little bit older than me.
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She was married for 20 years.
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She like just caught on really quickly.
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She really allowed the tools that I was giving her and really allowed she really allowed God to work in her heart of not because oftentimes when people go to whether counseling, mentoring, coaching, just to get advice, everyone wants to change the other person.
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But we can't look at it that way.
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Yes, the other person may need to change a little bit, but also we do have a part to play in that and looking inwardly.
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And she did a lot of self-discovery, a lot of looking inward of how she could be her full healthy self in order to help the situation to the best of her ability.
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And she was having marriage problems, her emotional roller coaster was always going up and down.
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And normally, people about a year and a half in, you can finally start seeing like progress and everything.
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But she, like eight months in, she really just clicked.
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And then we were able just to take it down to every other week to once a month, then just to have like mental health check-ins, which is very important that a lot of people need to do.
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Just like how you have checkups at your doctor's, having mental health checkups is very important because I don't care who you are, we'll always go through seasons where we just need to have a mental health day.
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We need to have mental health check-in just to do some self-evaluation.
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How am I truly doing?
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That's really just important as physical health.
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But yeah, I would say that one lady, she just just within eight months, she and it was all because she did her work within herself and not try to fix the situation.
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Absolutely.
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That's great.
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It's great when you can see the transformation, right?
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Or somebody says, Yeah, okay, it's working.
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I remember when I was actually doing social work in the job core, and I said, if I can just get through two of these girls, and it was the two toughest girls that I got through to, that just makes your heart swell.
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They just say, Wow, I did something here.
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That is awesome.
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Tell us about the Never Alone Foundation.
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What inspired you to co-found it and what's the mission?
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Yeah, so my husband and I, we both founded it.
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That makes me the co-founder.
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But our mission is to bridge the gap between mental wellness, mental health in the community.
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We have multiple programs.
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We help provide scholarships for people that can't afford counseling services.
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We host workshops within the community, mostly oftentimes they're free workshops about emotional resilience, anger management, stress management.
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You name the topic, we'll cover it.
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But really, it's all because we want to help break down the barriers for people that really need mental health.
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But sometimes counselors are expensive.
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Oftentimes, especially parents, they put their PTO time towards their kids and they don't have time to take off for themselves.
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And we really try to help break down the barriers for people to be able to have access to mental health services.
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We partner with churches.
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We put mint if the church wants a mental wellness ministry, we have a whole program for that where we train people to become certified mental health coaches.
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And that is a peer-to-peer strength-based support system.
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It just really helps instead of someone going to their girlfriend that's been married like five times and trying to give relationship advice.
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Oh, girl, you just need to leave him.
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We're not giving good sound advice.
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Like these people are like certified and trained, and they're like the first aid responders to really help bridge the gap between people that can't afford counseling services or like their pastor, maybe their workloads really maxed out.
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It's a peer-to-peer strength-based support system.
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And then also we had the scholarships to help people be able to provide funding for people that can't afford counseling services, along with some of our other programs and everything.
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Wow, that's awesome.
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I I really love what you all are doing.
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And I definitely would love to, I would love to come and let's collaborate.
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Okay.
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Because I would love to come speak about that too.
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That would be great.
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How do people move from surviving to thriving, especially those who feel stuck or hopeless?
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Yeah, I think putting in the work, because what the situation you've gone through, it's real and it, I'm sure it I know it is very hurtful, but we can't stay in that hurt.
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We've got to, we've got to know that God has a greater purpose and that there is a good support team out there that will help you navigate through that.
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I could have easily allowed the things that I went through to keep me down, but I want to thrive.
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I want to use what I've gone through to help other people.
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I want to share my story and help other people.
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And not everyone is called to help other like people like me and you, but everyone does have to put in the work to heal themselves as well.
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And to be successful, to start thriving, is really just to kind of start putting in the work and allowing healing to happen because it is possible.
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Absolutely.
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I love that you said that.
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So why do you believe boundaries as uh are such an essential part of mental health and what are some first steps people can take to create them?
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I think knowing what stresses you out and why you're putting the boundaries up in the first place, you don't want to give someone so much access to your mental health if they're only if you give them level 10 access to yourself and they only show up at level one, and then there's a whole bunch of this gray area.
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You really need to assess like, is this person worth my mental health?
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If I'm bending over backwards, if I'm doing this, if I'm doing that, and then they're just gonna, you know, whether whatever the case may be and the context may be, but if they're not gonna show up almost in the same level, then you really do need to adjust your boundaries of, okay, I'm gonna help this person, but I'm not going to do it five days out of the week.
00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:31.200
Or I want this person to come over for dinner, but it's not gonna be every single night, whatever the context may be.
00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:43.279
But you just really need to assess the situation and just see if they're worth your level 10 where they have full access to you, full access to your mental health, or whatever you adjust the level where it needs to be at.
00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:45.039
That yeah, that that makes sense.
00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:46.320
That makes sense as far as that.
00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:51.759
So, what advice would you give to someone who wants help but feels they can't afford counseling or don't know where to start?
00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:54.799
And I think you mentioned about the programs that you all have with that.
00:16:55.120 --> 00:17:01.919
Yeah, I think just reaching out, whether to our nonprofit, some churches do have pastoral counseling for free.
00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:04.160
I know there's some other organizations.
00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:08.640
My thing is just reach out for help and then just keep reaching out for help.
00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:12.240
And sometimes counselors, it's almost like doctors.
00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:17.440
You may find a counselor right offhand that you mesh with and will really help you.
00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:20.640
And sometimes it may take it's not a one size fits all.
00:17:20.880 --> 00:17:21.440
Don't give up.
00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:39.039
Just like with a primary care doctor or whatever the case may be, you just gotta find someone that one will keep you accountable, two will give you the tools that really help you grow and get through your pro get through the problems and situations, but just don't give up and make sure you just ask for help.
00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:40.240
Absolutely.
00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:40.960
Absolutely.
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:41.839
I love that.
00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:48.319
So, what role does faith play in your own personal wellness journey and how does it shape the way you serve others?
00:17:48.480 --> 00:17:51.279
And I think you mentioned a lot about that as far as that.
00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:52.079
Oh, yeah.
00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:55.839
Everything I do is I'm a biblical counselor.
00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:02.480
Everything I do is solely based off of God's word because he's the only one that can provide true healing.
00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:17.920
And not that someone can't get help with that without being believing in Jesus, but but really to have the full healing and not having still that missing peace, because oftentimes still unbelievers still have that missing peace.
00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:20.000
Jesus brings the full healing.
00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:39.359
I know, like God from tragedy to beauty, and that's actually my next book that I'm writing is gracefully broken from ashes to beauty, and it's gonna be a collective story of people's like testimonies of just how God has helped them overcome the trials in their lives and who they've become.
00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:45.680
But really, God is just is everything, and that's all I have to say about that.
00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:46.559
I love it.
00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:52.720
Yeah, no, it is true, but some people may not believe that it's true, yeah.
00:18:52.880 --> 00:19:01.039
And that's where your faith comes into play because a lot of fear, a lot of people are fearful of what's ahead instead of having that face.
00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:03.200
I I love what you're saying as far as that.
00:19:03.359 --> 00:19:07.680
What are some of the key programs or niches that you're most excited about right now?
00:19:08.319 --> 00:19:09.279
Yeah, really.
00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:22.319
I love our mentor mental health initiative, is where people become certified mental health coaches, really just help people in the community instead of them having to go four, eight, twelve years to become like a counselor or something.
00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:24.240
This is like their boots on the ground.
00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:32.799
This is like their first aid responders because oftentimes people turn to the church for a lot of things, natural disaster, food banks, recovery.
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:34.720
Mental health should be one of those.
00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:38.720
Sometimes the church can have a bad name of are you sure you're not praying more?
00:19:38.880 --> 00:19:40.160
Do you believe in God enough?
00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:41.359
And that's not the case.
00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:43.839
We are we live in this fallen, broken world.
00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:46.240
We have some chemical imbalances and everything.
00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:49.200
And sometimes people just go through a hard season.
00:19:49.279 --> 00:19:56.480
And I love referencing back to Moses when the Israelites was facing the Amekites, I think.
00:19:56.559 --> 00:20:02.079
But his hands were lifted up and he had to have his two friends to help leave keep his hands lifted up.
00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:07.200
And that just is a beautiful picture of we can't do this life alone and we can't do things by ourselves.
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:11.920
When Moses' arms were going down, they started it the Israelites started losing.
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