241. From Depression to Joy: Why We Created Joy Lab (And How You Can Help)
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Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons, and today we want to talk to you a little bit about joy and Joy Lab.
Aimee Prasek: Oh, yes. I love it. And I'm Aimee Prasek. Look at that new intro. Uh, yeah, we wanted to kind of share a bit more about what brought us to this work and also how you can join us to spread some more joy. So I'll start. Okay. Picture a 17-year-old. With no coping skills. Is that most 17 year olds? I don't know. I don't work with adolescents.
Henry: I was gonna say, that's not hard to do.
Aimee Prasek: Well, it was me. It was probably not uncommon. I don't have a 17-year-old yet, but now I'm a little nervous. All right. But you know, it was something that I think could have been taught. It was not something that we really worked on in our family. Coping skills, conversations about feelings, those were not things[00:01:00]
that we spoke about. And so when my dad died when I was 17, I did not know my feelings and nobody asked me about my feelings. Again, not a topic of conversation. I do remember my mom signed me up for a grief group and that was about it. There was no other conversation about grief or depression or loss or navigating through this and, of course, this is before the ACA. We had no money after my dad died. I was kicked off of the health insurance the minute I turned 18, which meant no mental health care except that terrible grief group.
Honestly, I'm sorry. Grief groups can be so great. I truly believe that. But I hated this grief group, and if I had known any better, I would've sought out a different one, I think. But again, I was not equipped to [00:02:00] do that. I knew I didn't like it, but I kind of thought that was the point, right? It was a grief group and I didn't really know the, the difference. Of course, it's gonna be depressing and terrible. It's a grief group. Not all grief groups are depressing and terrible, I would like to say.
Anyway, I head to college. I am soaking in depression and denial and anxiety, and I'm an introvert in so many ways. So it felt impossible for me to make friends. But then my sophomore year, and this is the days of internet forums sort of growing in popularity, I searched for a depression forum and I found that other people were suffering too.
And I know that sounds maybe obvious, but that is not what I thought. I thought that I was having this unique, terrible experience, but nope. All these people were also having their own unique, terrible experiences that were actually pretty universal and quite similar to what I was [00:03:00] experiencing. I guess this was sort of the perfect example of misery loves company. Maybe the point of that phrase is that after a few months on this forum, it became really depressing. The conversations were always focused on dysfunction and what was going wrong. That misery, I mean, it was great to sort of feel like it was a bit of a normalcy, but it started to feel like more of a drag. And so it just kind of cycled in that space over and over and over again. Maybe some other folks who have been on those forums kind of know. Uh, and it actually, what was interesting, it was kind of that impetus. It scared me a bit 'cause I started to see the same people on the forum and they had been there long before I was, and those same cycles of conversation and depression were continuing.
And I'd been stuck there for more than two years in this terrible space. And I just knew I had to do something else. And so, because I didn't have health insurance, I had one option that I knew of. [00:04:00] I could get six free sessions of therapy from the college I went to. So I did it, and it was really big for me.
It helped me tap into some of these thought patterns that were harming me. It was cognitive behavioral therapy, which is, we integrate CBT principles here at Joy Lab. Uh, so it, it helped me, really focus on those skills, uh, and new patterns of thinking that could support me. And that therapist also gave me a book about breath work around the same time.
And I also stumbled into a yoga class. I've told this story before. I was trying to get into an ultimate fighting class that got canceled and I ended up in the yoga class in the other room, uh, which was kind of funny. It was great. So all of those pieces really ignited actually this hope, that... that this wasn't gonna be how I would be forever, that there would be some healing.
And I, I started to make some forward movement. And my junior year, [00:05:00] uh, again, because, you know, I could get those six sessions of free therapy, only six though, per year. You know what I did? I registered at two more colleges. And I was able to get 18 sessions 'cause I got six at each one. which is kind of insane, right?
So my credit load was ridiculous. I was taking so many classes so that I could get a free, free six sessions at each university. I mean,
Henry: Wow.
Aimee Prasek: If this isn't a message of how we need to support folks more in their mental health, I don't know what is. But so thanks to financial aid, I guess, for helping me get mental healthcare, although I am still paying on those loans, but it was great at the time and I did finish my degree.
Then in my first year of grad school, I came across a book by—Henry, you might know this author— Dr. Henry Emmons. He [00:06:00] wrote The Chemistry of Joy. And then another book by, the Dalai Lama. about universal values, really. So like compassion, kindness, diligence, balance, equanimity, sounds familiar for some of us here at Joy Lab. And those were my big kind of aha moments in mental health, essentially this realization that I wasn't broken, that I didn't have to just focus on fixing what I felt like was wrong, which traditional CBT again is really good for, in some ways those patterns of harmful thinking that I found really helpful.
But I could also focus on what was good in me and I could give that attention to. I could build up this good stuff and I could actually go beyond just feeling not depressed, I could tap into something more. And so I did that work to cultivate those skills, those inner states and strengths, [00:07:00] kind of bumbling through with books and finding lectures and researching and practicing.
And it really made all the difference. And I'm not done by any means, but I knew, I knew after two years of doing that work that other people needed this stuff. They needed more accessible mental health tools, more integrative approaches, and mental health resources that focused on building on what was good in them rather than just focusing on what was going wrong.
And I knew that I wanted to create or be part of the creation of a system for that, that could help people move through these practices in a way that was more efficient than the one I took, 'cause it was a great path, but it was pretty expensive. Now that I look back at my, my financial aid, and it took a while and it felt a little too uncertain at times. Fast forward here we are 20 years or so, and [00:08:00] when I say we, here we are. I mean, all of us like this kind of work that we do at Joy Lab and Pathways North. This is the work that I committed to some 20 years ago, that I've been on a mission to do throughout that time, but it wasn't until I met Henry and our bigger team kind of came together. And then all of you, like you on the other side of this screen or earbud. It wasn't until all of us came together that this stuff could actually start to take shape and start to work. You know, that's, it's this kind of collective approach to mental health that I think is really special that we do here.
This kind of public health approach that honors our own individual paths and then that we walk together. So all of us together creating and listening and practicing and sharing this stuff and changing conversations and approaches, so that mental health can be part of our daily conversations.
Coping skills can be part of our daily [00:09:00] conversations. Our struggles can be part of our daily conversations in ways that aren't shaming or embarrassing or stigmatized. That's why we're here. I think that's how we all came to be together in this work and I'm just grateful that we're building this together.
Henry: Mm-hmm.
Aimee Prasek: That's my story.
Henry: Wow, Aimee, that's, such an inspiring story, really. You know, you and I started working together, what, 10, 12 years ago? Do you remember?
Aimee Prasek: Yeah, Our first project, I think was 2016.
Henry: Okay. So almost 10 years.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, in that time, I, I just don't think you have ever wavered in your, your commitment to, to being able to get resources and tools and skills out to people at, at a public health level that is [00:10:00] really affordable, if not totally free. And you know, I think that you have influenced me so much in these last 10 years.
We've kind of, I've seen a lot of growth in both of us in this, that we've influenced each other
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: you know, in the, in the creation of, of all of this. You know for me, my, it was pretty early in, in my career when I realized that while I loved working with clients one-on-one, it, it's just impossible to really meet the needs that are out there,
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: with this one-on-one care, no matter how many psychiatrists and therapists we're able to create and how much money we can throw at it. It's just the needs are too great. And, and I kinda learned largely through experimentation that it's just more effective to get, kind of information and, [00:11:00] and skills to, to get 'em across in groups and in larger gatherings and coming together rather than, than the one-on-one that we focus on.
There's a need for that. Obviously
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: there's a place for that, but there is very clearly a, a, place for the kind of work we're doing, which is to try to really scale in a large way, to scale some of these interventions.
And, and I think I, I really saw that clearly when we, at the very start of the pandemic, when we offered what we called resilience retreats, which was kind of like a forerunner in a sense of Joy Lab. We
really, really worked at refining the content. But, but that was really such a clear example of the need people absolutely needed to a place to come together, you know, to, to connect with one another and to get some messages of hope and resilience and, [00:12:00] and learn that there are things that we can do that really influence our day-to-day experience. So this combination of traditional mental health, way too expensive to meet the needs, um, and learning the importance of developing skills, not just knowledge, not just medications or other treatments, but really developing good, solid emotional and inner skills that a person can take with them long after the intervention has ended, you know, whatever that, that is.
And also just the importance of working from the inside out. You know, not just the outside in, but working at, at going inward, really seeing what's there, learning to value what's there. And so for me, you know, at this point in my life, I still have such a desire to contribute in some way and to give of [00:13:00] myself whatever knowledge and experience and skills I've picked up over the, the years and really trying to decide where should I place my efforts?
What's the, what's, where's the best place to put my shoulder to the wheel, so to speak, so that you know, the, needs that are out there get met, and I have, and I'm some part of that. Well In a, in a recent, uh, episode, we talked about that quote that I learned from a new friend about being an island of light. That... in a kind of a sea of darkness, if you will, which I think is kind of an apt description of kind of what we're going through right now as a, as as humanity.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: There's a lot of, a lot of really tough challenging things right now. And so this, this idea of being an island of light, I love it. I'm motivated by that. I feel like that's what we're doing [00:14:00] here with Joy Lab and I think people, hopefully people are picking, picking some things up from this that, that they're able to take out in the world and become a little island of light themselves, you know, by, by applying some of these things.
Aimee Prasek: Ah, I love that. Henry, you noted scaling. So I'm thinking about all these islands of light and how we can, nurture our own, the work we do, our inner work that we do here. And then scaling that, like scaling that joy, scaling that light, which feels so good amidst all this kind of blah. Like technology that's being scaled, that's like causing some harm. Let's be real. You know, so it's, it's taking that model, of, of scaling, of 10Xing, of all this stuff that gets thrown into technology and, and things that maybe we [00:15:00] don't need scaled in this world. And I'm not saying all technology, but there's some stuff that we don't need to scale. Man, we can put our attention and our effort and our giving into scaling, joy and light and, and, and mental health resources.
Like that's the stuff we wanna scale because it creates, it creates light. It's not just little islands of light, but they start to grow in just a whole global light source. I guess first of all, and you, you noted Henry as well, like this coming together is, is part of Joy Lab. So yes, thank you everyone for being here, for being part of Joy Lab.
That's what it takes to scale joy for all of us as a network, as a community, to give attention and intention to this work and to, do it ourselves and it it'll spread in the world. So your care and cultivation of your joy is powerful. It ripples out. So [00:16:00] before we close today, if you've felt like Joy Lab has helped you, we would absolutely appreciate your support to keep this work going, and to keep it ad free.
We do not want this podcast polluted with advertisements that are scaling some crappy new social network. We don't put our episodes behind a paywall. We believe that if you need these tools, you should be able to access them. So please consider donating to keep this work going. Uh, you can head to JoyLab.coach, tap the donate button.
Even 5, 10 bucks makes a real difference. And if you can set up a monthly donation, that actually helps us more than you might think. Those small donations add up to keep this work accessible so that someone can find us when they need us, so you can help make that happen. If you can't give financially, that is okay.
I'll link to the [00:17:00] episode we did about giving too much or pathological altruism as it's sometimes called. If you can't donate, then a powerful way to spread joy and to continue our work together is to tell someone about the Joy Lab Podcast, to share with them an episode that really resonated with you or that they might be interested in.
Whatever you can give, whether financial or sharing the work will create ripples, will create more islands of light. that light that can help someone not fall back into depression, or that helps someone come out of loneliness and take some brave steps toward building new relationships. Uh, all that continues then to ripple out again, I love the math on this.
It's just exponential. So before we close, I do wanna, share some wisdom from Pema Chödrön. I think it speaks to what we got into today. Here it is: "Be kinder [00:18:00] to yourself and then let your kindness flood the world."
Henry: Hmm.
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