SHE SOARS

Unfiltered: Your mental health matters to your sexual health

• CARE Canada • Season 3 • Episode 10

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Omaina Ozako, a Nigerian-born mental health professional and storyteller joins host Jacqueline to discuss the close connection between Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and mental health. Together, they have an unfiltered conversation about stigma, trauma, and the role of culture and community in breaking the silence around mental health and SRHR. Omaina shares her journey to social work and insights as a therapist who is passionate about ensuring people feel seen, heard and validated on their journeys. They discuss factors that impact people’s access to SRHR and mental health and share personal stories to normalize opening up and getting support. The conversation highlights the importance of societal approaches to meeting individuals’ needs and recognizing the vital role of mental health in young people’s overall health and well-being. 


Resources: 

Kids Help Phone: https://kidshelpphone.ca/  

Youth Mental Health Canada: https://ymhc.ngo/

Canadian Mental Health Association: https://cmha.ca/

Hope for Wellness: https://www.hopeforwellness.ca/  

Black Youth Helpline: https://blackyouth.ca/ 

Suicide Crisis Helpline: https://988.ca/

Child Helpline International: https://childhelplineinternational.org/ 

*SHE SOARS, funded by Global Affairs Canada, is the Sexual and reproductive Health and Economic empowerment Supporting Out-of-school Adolescent girls’ Rights and Skills project. Learn more at: https://care.ca/shesoarsproject

Episode transcripts are available in French and English at: care.ca/shesoars.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the SHE SOARS podcast are the speakers’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, standards and policies of CARE Canada. The SHE SOARS podcast is a youth-led initiative that provides space for young people to discuss global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights with the purpose of raising awareness in Canada. Listeners acknowledge that the material and information presented in the podcast are for informational purposes only and do not constitute advice or services. The podcast is for private, non-commercial use and speakers do not necessarily reflect any organization they work for.

[00:00:00] Paniz: Hi, and welcome to SHE SOARS. Her voice. Her rights. 

[00:00:05] Jacqueline: We are CARE Canada's Youth Champions, a group of young people across Canada who are passionate advocates for Sexual and Reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

[00:00:13] Paniz: We're excited to discuss and raise awareness about young women's rights and choices in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. ​

[00:00:18] Jacqueline: Together, we will explore how these global issues connect to our lives as Canadian youth and discover ways in which we can all take action. 

[00:00:26] Paniz: We will also talk about the SHE SOARS project, which improves access to health and education, which are areas we want to see change in. Join us!

[00:00:37] Jacqueline: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the SHE SOARS podcast. In this episode, we're going to explore the connection between mental health and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, which we'll often refer to as SRHR.

[00:00:48] My name is Jacqueline. I'm a Youth Public Engagement Champion at CARE Canada and work as a global health researcher in women's health and cancer equity. After my undergraduate studies in health sciences, I did a one-year fellowship in Tanzania, implementing a youth SRHR education program and building a community-owned reusable sanitary pad business.

[00:01:07] And during this time in Tanzania, but also through my experiences navigating my own personal reproductive health journey, I have come to understand how on a global scale mental health and SRHR are two sides of the same coin that rarely get addressed together despite being so closely linked to one another.

[00:01:25] So today I'm so excited to be joined by an incredible guest who I had the pleasure of meeting earlier this year at an SRHR roundtable discussion in Toronto. Omaina Ozako is a Nigerian-born, creative mental health professional and storyteller currently based in Canada.

[00:01:42] With a background in social work and psychotherapy, her work centers on helping others feel seen, heard and empowered, particularly those from marginalized communities. Through her experiences supporting women navigating substance use, trauma and healing at Karis, and working with female-led social enterprises in Ghana through Youth Challenge International, she has seen firsthand the critical need for mental health to not be an afterthought, but as a foundation embedded into gender equality and SRHR programming. So with that, welcome to the podcast, Omaina.

[00:02:16] Omaina: Hi, Jacqueline. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

[00:02:20] Jacqueline: I'm so happy to have you here and I'd love to hear a little bit more about your journey getting into the work that you're doing now.

[00:02:28] Omaina: Honestly, I'm going to be one of those people that is going to say I fell into it. So my undergrad is in biology and I was pre-med, so I was on the track to being a doctor, which if you're Nigerian, you know that there are very few tracks you can get into. So I chose doctor and I was kind of gung-ho about it but there was just something – it didn't really land for me.

[00:02:46] Anyways, fast forward after I finished my undergrad it was time to decide what I wanted to do next so I decided to go to grad school. To be completely honest, I had no idea what social work was. I kind of just moved to Canada and ended up at UBC (University of British Columbia). But after one class in grad school, I was like, this is interesting.

[00:03:02] I think I've always been intrigued by the way individuals engage with each other, but also how they engage with the world around them. Because at the end of the day, individuals don't exist as silos, right? They're constantly being impacted by their environment and that impacts how they engage with certain environments.

[00:03:21] So it's always this very interesting web and I find that a lot of times when we're having conversations, the systems we exist in usually remove the nuance so you are either this or that, but there's no opportunity for both things to be true. And I think what I really appreciated about social work is that we can understand how individuals interact with each other. But then what is the in-between in those relationships?

[00:03:45] And then the world as a whole. And I really appreciated how social work was a bit more holistic. And then in terms of my career, I ended up doing a placement in addiction when I was in grad school. Funny story is there was like a list of all the things you could pick from, and I promise you that addiction was one thing I didn't pick. And for whatever reason, that's where I got placed. But it was one of the best decisions. It really opened my eyes to this idea and it is really why I'm passionate about how mental health is so embedded in how individuals engage with the world. I worked at OCAD (University) as a Black mental health counselor for a few years, and then right now I work at an eating disorder clinic, so the one thing that has always been really important to me is this idea of offering people the opportunity to feel seen, heard and validated. Because I think the systems we exist in, like I said, because they removed the nuance, it can tend to invalidate an individual's experience.

[00:04:39] Jacqueline: Wow, that's such an incredible journey that you've gone on and a few things that I'm really inspired by are your ability to have that open mind to explore the different opportunities, but also that nuance. Because it can be a little bit intimidating, so incredibly important work. And SRHR is another topic that is incredibly nuanced that we don't talk about enough. And there is a lot of gray area, there's a lot of fear surrounding it. So I would love to hear from your personal and professional experience, how would you describe the connection between mental health and SRHR?

[00:05:25] Omaina: Well I think fundamentally SRHR is about autonomy rights. It’s about an individual’s right to choose whether that’s sexually or reproductively. So the idea that you could have that type of conversation without talking about their mental health is really ridiculous, I think, because mental health affects how an individual experiences both those things. So you can't talk about them separately.

[00:05:38] Jacqueline: Yeah.

[00:05:38] Omaina: I really do think that if we're going to have an honest conversation about these things, that we need to understand it in a holistic perspective.

[00:05:45] Jacqueline: I completely agree. Is there anything that you've learned about mental health and SRHR that you think is really overlooked or that doesn't receive enough discussion or attention?

[00:05:56] Omaina: Yeah, I think so. When I worked at Karis, it was a program for women with histories of addiction. People seek substances to solve any kind of issue, right? And a lot of it is embedded in trauma of one kind or the other. But if you're dealing with female-identifying individuals, unfortunately lots of their trauma is around sexual health or reproductive health.

[00:06:17] So anything from sexual assault to abortion rights and everything in between. So you end up with an individual who is using substances as a solution to deal with their trauma. And the reason why they even get to the point of using substances in a lot of cases is because the support for their mental health – post whatever it is that they experienced – wasn't available.

[00:06:38] So there was this gap that existed in the care that they needed and so they filled that gap with substances. So I think it's very easy for an individual to say, ‘Oh, you're just an addict’ or you know, ‘You just do drugs’ or whatever that might look like. But if you zoomed out and really looked at the context of their life, you would see that in a lot of cases with a lot of folks there is a gap that existed. So I think if we're having a conversation about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, it's important to understand that it's not just the buzzwords we hear, right? So it's not just even abortion rights, like it's so many things in between.

[00:07:10] Think about an individual who is navigating like post miscarriage or postpartum, all the way to an individual who is navigating their sexuality. There are so many things in the middle, right? And to your point, it is so nuanced, but I find that because of the way we see mental health – kind of this one-track way we see it and there's a one-track way care is offered – even if you think about it, there's also like a very western way by which mental health is seen and even sexual and reproductive health. And I know from your experience working in Tanzania, you can probably speak to this as well, even a way we talk about it in the northern hemisphere, in the global north that is very different from the way that we would be talking about this in the global south.

[00:07:51] Jacqueline: Culture does definitely have an impact. Like you said, the way that we speak about it is very different. But I would say that there are some similarities that are definitely a priority. Even the way that we don't speak about it I think is like the first priority, right?

[00:08:07] Breaking that barrier is really difficult when we can't even talk about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights itself. So how do we now add in the mental health aspect and as I mentioned before, like having it [be] two sides of the same coin. It's like what do you address first?

[00:08:24] In some circumstances they go so hand in hand that to your point about implementing it as a necessary aspect of programming or services available and supports is so important because they're not separate. We know that you're two to three times more likely to have a psychiatric disorder if you have a reproductive health disorder.

[00:08:48] We know that mood and anxiety disorders are twice as common in women compared to men. And it goes back as early to adolescence. When you're growing up, you're learning about self-identity, about autonomy, about the biological changes that are happening in your body. It starts so early and yet we're so fearful of addressing that or having that as a necessary aspect of our education, of our healthcare.

[00:09:15] So yes, I agree that we talk about it so differently but there are so many similarities that if you zoom out [are] the same around the world.

[00:09:24] Omaina: For sure, and you make such a good point, right? Even the language we use around it, because if you say something like sexual health, reproductive rights, to one person, it might mean something [else] to another person even though both of them have an experience that may be a bit similar.

[00:09:38] I mean, in an ideal world, in my ideal world, these are conversations we would be having very early on, but also that we would make them simple. Because I think sometimes we get very top heavy and it makes the conversations kind of inaccessible because folks feel like if you don't have all these degrees, or if you cannot articulate it perfectly, then you can't engage in a conversation.

[00:09:59] Omaina: And so something that is important to me is making conversations around mental health very simple. So for example, in therapy, I use a lot of analogies that people can understand. So if you're talking about something like burnouts, using the analogy of like a car breaking down. To your point, there is similarity I think in the stigma. Also in the fact that the language just doesn't exist and then you end up in these very siloed conversations.

[00:10:21] Because if you talk about something like autonomy, it's not just in relation to SRHR, right? Like autonomy has to do with how we engage with the system, but it's very easy for people to fluff it off and be like, ‘That's just a woman thing,’ or ‘That's just like a female thing.’ And so this idea of like, how do we incorporate these conversations in larger spaces and not just in the spaces that we're already having this conversation?

[00:10:45] Jacqueline: Yeah, completely. And how do we make it accessible to everyone, and like calling people into the conversation. Everyone's background knowledge, everyone’s lived experiences are going to bring a different perspective to the table. And it should never be about like calling people out, but it should be about how can we make this more inclusive? No matter the literacy, no matter the gender, whatever it is.

[00:11:10] And I feel like that is a good transition into talking about the social determinants of health, which for the listeners, is a broad range of personal, social, economic and environmental factors that determine individual and population health.

[00:11:25] So this can be something like income or education and literacy. It could be your childhood experiences. So what have you experienced up until now? It could be like the physical environment that you live in, your culture, your race, your gender, anything about your life that impacts your health. And so when it comes to mental health and SRHR, I feel like they are so impacted by the social determinants of health.

[00:11:52] And I know your experience in Ghana working with Youth Challenge International, you worked on female-led social enterprises and got to learn a little bit more about how those social determinants of health play a really big role in SRHR. So I was wondering, what did you observe about how economic empowerment and other social determinants of health, how does that support both mental health and reproductive health?

[00:12:18] Omaina: It's such an interesting question, so for those who are not familiar, Youth Challenge International programs called HerStart and basically supports women on the continent, specifically in Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda to build social enterprises.

[00:12:31] So businesses that basically solve a social or environmental problem. And so I was in Tamale, which is in Northern Ghana. The women get training and then after the training there is a possibility to apply for funding, but not everybody gets the funding because there is only so much money to go around.

[00:12:44] The women get to build an idea like a business model and it was really interesting to see what happens when you give people information. You know the saying like, ‘Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for one day and teach a man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life.’ That was maybe like my one lightbulb moment was this idea; the money was obviously needed, but just this idea of providing the women with the information and also with the permission. 

[00:13:13] Omaina: I think that is something that a lot of women unfortunately need because of the systems we are engaged in is the permission to believe, the permission to dream, the permission to imagine. The first thing you think of might not be the best thing, but you can think, you can imagine. Jacqueline, when I say when people are given the permission to do, the things they come up with, like there were people making detergents out of eggshells. They were given the information they needed and then given the permission to dream and to believe. You saw that that permission empowered them to name the experiences that they had to validate the sometime really horrific backgrounds that they had come from. Because again, something that happens when you engage as a female-identifying human in a patriarchal society is that you minimize lots of your experiences.

[00:13:58] But when you're given the permission and empowered through information and through just validation, think it really allows individuals to validate their experiences in a way that empowers them to then go and do. I don't know if that answered your question; I think it does.

[00:14:14] Jacqueline: It totally does. And there are so many powerful things in there like having that opportunity and possibility for you to chase your dreams to maybe step out of those gender expectations that you have lived with your entire life and knowing that wow, there is actually opportunity for me to do more here.

[00:14:30] In my own experience too, in Tanzania, when I was helping start up a reusable sanitary pad business it started off as like an income-generating opportunity. So women saw this as, okay, now I have a little bit more autonomy over the income that I'm making and I can learn new skills.

[00:14:49] But then what the women started to notice themselves is that using that as a space to then build community and actually talk about mental health or talk about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. And you know, now we're talking about reusable sanitary pads and I used to never be able to say the word like underwear to my peers, or I used to never be able to let another person know that I'm on my period or I'm experiencing pain or I have these symptoms. And so now you're building a community around economic empowerment, around sexual and reproductive health, being able to share similar or different experiences with one another, but then also being able to support others.

[00:15:35] So when we're talking about mental health, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, the community and the social aspect is so important to consider because like you said, you now have the opportunity to do something and know that it is a possibility for you. But when you have other people by your side, it's the most empowering thing because now you can encourage each other to be bigger, to be greater and to normalize it.

[00:16:00] Your community starts to see, the men start to see like wow, these women are making money. These women are talking about periods. It starts to normalize it. So you have this momentum and like this snowball effect where now you're inspiring an entire community.

[00:16:15] Omaina: Yeah, for sure. I remember post pandemic working at OCAD and thinking to myself, if I could prescribe community to half of my caseload, they wouldn’t need therapy to the extent that they needed therapy. So again, they needed it, right? But the extent to which they needed it was exacerbated by the fact that they did not have community. And so even just this idea of community, I don't remember where I heard it, but it was like the most powerful thing you can ever hear somebody say to you is ‘me too.’ And the idea of normalizing, like you were saying, an experience, right? Because when you think you are the only one that has gone through an experience, shame sets in and it's very hard to move from shame.

[00:16:52] But for me to say to you, I see you, I validate what you're going through, again, gives you the opportunity to be compassionate towards yourself, which is the antidote to shame. And then you can move. And so I think even when we're talking about building mental health into the structure of the systems we're existing in I do think it's important to note that I'm not just talking about one-on-one support. We need to be building these things as a community.

[00:17:15] We need to be having these conversations as a community, as a society. Because if not, we do still end up in those very siloed spaces. Because at the end of the day, then it's just one person in therapy with their therapist. And yes, that is helpful for them. But I used to tell people like even if I see you every week, that's one hour out of 24 hours in one day, out of seven days in a week. So even if I saw you every day, that is one hour of 24 hours. Right? 

[00:17:42] Jacqueline: Yeah.

[00:17:43] Omaina: There is only so much time you can spend in one-on-one support. It is so important that we create these systems of community that are embedded in the structures of the programming. Because like you said, they give individuals the opportunity to be like, ‘Oh wait, that's not normal,’ or ‘Oh wait, that is normal.’

[00:18:01] Jacqueline: Yeah.

[00:18:01] Omaina: And to be able to validate what they're experiencing and like you said, give them permission to move.

[00:18:06] Jacqueline: Yeah, completely. And when you think about therapy, what is it at its core is being able to open up to someone. So you have that social connection with someone and them being able to support you to provide their own expertise in whatever way they have it. And the goal after therapy is now to be able to go out into the world and like healing whatever it is that you need to heal, but like you said, prescribing community, prescribing social connection, I think is really overlooked. And it's hard to do. Don't get me wrong. It's much easier said than done in today's society like it's very individualistic in the global north.

[00:18:44] But the goal is being able to talk freely about your lived experiences without the fear of being judged or without that shame, without that guilt. Speaking from experience, it's a lot less scary once you actually find the courage within yourself to do it. You're received a lot better because we're all going through the same thing, right? We're a lot more similar than we think we are as human beings. And like I went through a really big reproductive health scare that I talked on a previous episode [about] when I was 13 years old. It had to do with my period and I did not want to talk to anybody. Like I'm 13-years-old, I'm still learning what a period is and talking to my classmates about like why I was gone from school for a month. You know, I'm making up lies. I'm telling all of my classmates… I wasn't telling them nothing. But as I grew older and like learning more about my body and asking my doctors questions and feeling more comfortable opening up, I actually was met with a lot better of a response than I had initially expected. 

[00:20:00] And it was so great that I continued doing work like this and now I'm on a podcast talking to you. So there is a lot to learn from not being afraid of being vulnerable about your SRHR experiences and educating those in your life that may not have those experiences.

[00:20:17] Omaina: And kudos to you. Because again, you being on this podcast, you sharing your experience is the ‘me too’ that somebody needs to be able to be like this is something I'm going through.

[00:20:28] Jacqueline: Absolutely. I know we talked about it earlier but did you want to touch back on your experience at Karis like working with women navigating substance misuse? So I wanted to ask you just to clarify to the listeners what exactly is substance misuse and then what did you learn about how substance use, trauma and SRHR intersect?

[00:20:50] Omaina: Yeah so substance misuse, I came across a definition of it maybe early on when I first started working. And it was this idea that an addiction is the solution to a problem. I remember the first time I heard it, I was just like what do you mean? That doesn't make any sense. This is bad. We need to solve this. And the more I worked in it, the more I realized that that individual was very right. I think his name is TJ Woodward. Because if you think about it, let's say I have experienced this trauma in my life, and the definition of trauma I really hold dear is ‘double my tears’ like trauma is not what happens to you, it's what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you. It doesn't have to be this ‘big T’ quote unquote trauma. It can be the absence of something. So let's say you grew up in a home where you were emotionally neglected like that is a trauma even though something physically wasn't done to you anyways. So [when] someone navigates a trauma, you are going to look for the thing that is going to fill in that gap, that hole in your life, whatever it might look like.

[00:21:45] I found that when an individual stops drinking, without actually going to the root of what the problem was, like what was their addiction solving, they replaced the behavior with something else. So you would have individuals who would come in and they would stop using, quote unquote, then they would replace it with like unhealthy sexual relationships or toxic relationship dynamics or shopping or eating or whatever.

[00:22:08] It’s important to look at it as what is this thing solving for? Because can you look for an alternative arrangement? I think the idea allows individuals to maybe show themselves some grace to be like, yes, I can hold myself accountable for the decisions I've made. I was impacted by my environment and I looked for the way that made the most sense for me to navigate it. I think when we add in SRHR it’s this idea that these individuals were female-identifying, right? So for a lots of them, like I said, lots of their trauma surrounded something in the realm of sexual health and reproductive rights. And again, their addiction was their way of solving whatever that issue was.

[00:22:48] Jacqueline: Yeah. I think that is such a powerful example of how closely everything is interconnected when we're talking about SRHR. It's like a great example of why it should be incorporated into programming to prevent something like that from happening but then to also treat if it exists already. So if you could give one suggestion or in an ideal world how do you think we should reform our approach to SRHR through a mental health lens?

[00:23:19] Omaina: I think for me it's meeting the individual where they're at. Because for a lot of SRHR programming it’s prescribed, right? Like there's this idea that we know what people need. So if you're navigating a reproductive health concern [or] a sexual health concern, based on the data, we know what you need and these are the services that are available to you. But I do think in an ideal world, it would be that an individual is met where they are. So what is it that you actually need? Because I find a lot of times we don't ask that question. And then I think the system is then built from there. Now it gets complicated because it means that there is no one size fits all. It takes a lot more work to be like what does this individual need and how do we create the systems? I think when we actually ask that question, society has to admit to themselves that a lot of these things are intersectional.

[00:24:08] Jacqueline: Yeah.

[00:24:08] Omaina: We're not only talking about one thing we're talking about all these other things that exist and impact this individual. So I think it's easy for society to chalk it up and be like, here's the solution, [rather] than for us to really sit down and be like what is the actual thing that this individual needs?

[00:24:23] Jacqueline: Absolutely. And in the healthcare field, we would call it patient-centered, right? Like we would say that whenever we're developing a solution to a problem we want to center the patient and uplift their voices to create that solution once we actually learn from them. And that can go for community-based initiatives like we've worked on too. I'm really curious about all of the women and those that you have interacted with in social work [and] in mental health advocacy. I'm sure you have heard so many stories. I'm sure some have been really hard to hear, some have been really inspiring. So I was wondering if there is something someone you've supported has taught you that has shifted the way that you think about or approach SRHR and mental health?

[00:25:11] Omaina: Oh, that's a good one. I don't know if it's any one thing, maybe it was the lesson of seeing somebody and like being a human. I think when I first got into social work and throughout my career, there is this idea of what a good therapist looks like, like you say all the right things. And I think something I really learned from my mentor when I first got out of grad school was the idea of just seeing people and being able to get to their level wherever that level is – up, down, left, right. Because it truly is like where the work begins because we all see life through the lens of our experiences, right? 

[00:25:49] And I've seen the power. Like literally, I had a session with someone a few months ago where we talked about the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City for the first 20 minutes of a 50 minute session. They came and they were like, oh man, I don't know what I want to talk about. And they were like, “You had said you like reality tv” because something I randomly mentioned and I promise you Jacqueline we talked about the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City for 20 minutes because that is where they were at. After the 20 minutes, we actually got into a very deep conversation about what was going on. But the thing is at the beginning of the session they weren't in the space to talk yet. But by talking about Meredith and all of her antics, she got to a space where she was comfortable enough to have that conversation. And I think maybe at the beginning of my career, I would be like, oh, we wasted time talking about something else. But I think now I realize that at the end of the day because we're humans all somebody wants to do is be seen.

[00:26:35] Jacqueline: Absolutely. I for one am a huge reality TV fan and would love to spend this entire time talking about that with you as well. So hit me up if you ever want to chat more but I love your point there though where being seen is part of the human condition, right? That is what a lot of us are lacking and what a lot of us are searching for in life.

[00:26:59] And on the topic of mental health and SRHR I'm curious in your perspective what you would encourage someone to do. Let's say they're experiencing some kind of mental health or SRHR issue. On the note of being seen and forming that social connection, how important is it to seek out someone that can support you and also being that for someone else?

[00:27:29] Omaina: That's a good question. Well the thing is you need to find safety. So safety can look like whatever. Your safety can be you journaling. Your safety can be you making a voice note to yourself. Your safety can be someone else. The safety is the most important part. The voicing of it is less so about the other person's perception or their reaction but voicing something we're going through is validating for ourselves. Because I think, when we're talking about SRHR, lots of the things can feel like I'll figure it out. And there is something about the voicing of it that gives it credibility to yourself. It's why I think conversations like this are so important and cheers to you for speaking up about your own experience because it does create safety for someone to be like, okay, maybe I can tell my friend, my mom, my dad, whoever, about this thing that has happened to me. Also knowing that sometimes validating it for yourself is enough.

[00:28:26] Jacqueline: Absolutely.

[00:28:27] Omaina: Until you get to feel safe and comfortable enough to be able to voice it to someone else. So I would say for the person who is experiencing it, show yourself some grace. Things take time. They don't always work the way we think they should in terms of our healing journeys. And then for the person who is maybe the recipient, you don't have to agree with something to respect it. You can hold space for someone even if you don't fundamentally understand what they're going through. And I think maybe that is something that working in addictions taught me when I first got into it, I was like I don't have any personal experience. And what I realized is our way of solving for a problem might not be the same but the fundamental issue of pain, of grief, of frustration or anger is [that] all human beings navigate those things, right? Because empathy is literally holding space and validating somebody's experience. So you don't necessarily have to have the same experience with somebody to hold space for them. And also make sure you're holding space for yourself too because holding space for someone can be hard.

[00:29:27] Jacqueline: Exactly, and something that like to live my life by is that we should be uniting based off of what we have in common and what is similar to us. But our differences are what makes us so unique and powerful and that is where we step up and lead and allow others to lead. So being able to distinguish between the two is really powerful.

[00:29:50] So as a therapist, how do you personally manage the mental health and emotional weight of your work? And if you have any additional messages for those who may also be supporting someone in their life, what would you say to them?

[00:30:04] Omaina: I have tried over the years but I'm just going to be completely honest, I'm not very good at this. One thing I'm learning in this season of my life is to let the people in your life care on you. As the elders of standing in a Nigerian household, I am very hyper independent and I don't love vulnerability which is very ironic based on what I do for a living.

[00:30:20] I'm someone who is very quick to say, “I'm fine. Everything is fine. I'll figure it out.” But something I'm learning in my own therapy journey is to be able to name when I'm not doing okay, name it to myself and then name it to the people around me so that they can care for me. So I would say for anyone who is in any kind of supporting role, it doesn't really matter what it is, be able to be honest with yourself, name when you're not doing okay. And then to reach out to the people in your life who love you and care about you so that they can be there for you. You deserve care not because you've done something to earn it but simply because you exist. 

[00:30:57] Jacqueline: Absolutely. I think those are great key takeaways there. I do want to take a moment on that note to direct listeners to some resources that might be of interest to you for any support. So check out the description of this episode afterwards. So after everything that we have spoken about today, new perspectives on mental health and SRHR, my last question for you is how have your experiences or your clients’ stories shaped the kind of world that you want to build?

[00:31:27] Omaina: Oh, that's such a good question. I think the theme for me really is just this idea of building a world where each individual feels seen, validated and heard despite whatever they have, wherever they land in the spectrum of life. I think there is such a beauty to be able to experience life in your most authenticity, to not feel like you have to be one thing or the other, and that there would be systems that support them in that experience and will meet them where they need it. And wherever it is I exist, I try really hard to provide a space where people feel seen, heard and validated. I think when that happens, like I said at the beginning, they feel empowered to do. And they do the most beautiful things. And I think there is such a beauty to that. 

[00:32:17] Jacqueline: Well I for one feel seen, heard and empowered by you today. And I could not have imagined a better way to close out this conversation with you, Omaina. I am so thankful that you were able to join us on the podcast today. 

[00:32:33] Omaina: Thank you for having me. 

[00:32:35] Jacqueline: Before we say goodbye, for those of you following along with our secret word at the end of each episode, this is your call to jot down this episode’s secret word for a chance to win on our Instagram page @CARECanada. So today's word is ‘vulnerability.’ 

[00:32:51] Omaina: Oh I like that.

[00:32:52] Jacqueline: And finally, please note that we're taking a short summer break on the SHE SOARS podcast so we can prepare our exciting new topics and guest list for you in season four. Be sure to check out all of our episodes in the meantime and comment to let us know what you want to hear. Join us again in September for more on sexual and reproductive health and youth leadership in Canada and globally.

[00:33:15] Jacqueline: Thanks for listening to SHE SOARS. If you liked this episode, please share it on social media, connect with us in the comments or give us a like.

[00:33:22] Paniz: Make sure to catch our next episode by subscribing to our channel and following us wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:33:28] Jacqueline: Follow @CARECanada on Instagram for updates on our show and the project.

[00:33:33] Paniz: SHE SOARS stands for Sexual and reproductive Health and Economic empowerment, Supporting Out-of-school Adolescent girls’ Rights and Skills in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:33:42] Jacqueline: The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. Check out our global partner organizations: The Center for Reproductive Rights and Restless Development for even more project updates. 

[00:33:52] Paniz: Thanks again for listening. Until next time!