Former Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation participant Imani McGee-Stafford and podcaster Cameron Rogers shared private tales and psychological well being recommendation at this previous Thursday’s inaugural REALtalk speaker sequence occasion, hosted by the Ladies’s Useful resource Heart.
REALtalk — “REAL” standing for Relatable, Empowering, Genuine Leaders — will invite audio system to campus yearly, made doable by an endowment reward from the Delta Gamma sorority. Shura Gat, interim affiliate dean of scholars and director of the WRC, stated that further assist from different campus organizations, such because the President Council for Cornell Ladies and C.U. Tonight, allowed for extra skilled manufacturing high quality, together with skilled images, videography and sound engineering.
Gat defined that the sequence goals to ask audio system, with whom they really feel Cornell college students will determine, to share their knowledge and recommendation.
“[REALtalk] is the chance for Cornell college students — notably women-identifying people — to study from people who find themselves a little bit farther forward in life, who’ve confronted difficult points, notably round psychological well being and listen to the methods that they’ve been utilizing to develop their very own well-being,” Gat stated.
Occasion organizers from Delta Gamma advisable Rogers as one of many audio system, as she had lately spoken to the chapter. Organizers looked for a second speaker who would deliver a special perspective to the desk.
“We wished to have a number of views as a result of we’re dedicated to working with the intersections of id,” Gat stated. “That basically allowed us to assume, ‘what does it imply to have thoughts, physique, spirit?’ We knew from a few of what Imani had spoken about that spirituality is actually essential to her, and we had been hoping she’d share a few of that perspective with the viewers.”
Laura Chang ’23, WRC employees member, and Brittany Coffman ’22, M.B.A. ’23, former Vice President Basis for Delta Gamma, moderated the speak. Rogers started by introducing herself and the way she defines psychological wellbeing.
Previously working within the finance business, Rogers now hosts the Freckled Foodie and Pals podcast, wherein she discusses making wholesome dwelling approachable.
Rogers initially started to share her struggles with psychological well being on social media, via which she discovered a group of customers sharing comparable experiences. This group, she stated, was important in overcoming psychological well being challenges. Rogers continues to share wellbeing ideas with over 77,000 followers, together with methods wherein she cares for her psychological well being as a mom.
Rogers stated her favourite methods to deal with psychological well being challenges embrace meditating, journaling and exercising. She additionally urged viewers members to mirror upon their interpersonal relationships and acknowledge how they really feel after spending time with the folks of their lives.
Like Rogers, McGee-Stafford additionally discovered a group when she started to open up about her struggles with bipolar dysfunction. Reasonably than podcasting, McGee-Stafford writes and performs poetry, an outlet she developed to specific her feelings and psychological well being challenges.
“I’m all the time enthusiastic about anyone sharing their tales, as a result of I feel the extra tales we have now, the simpler it’s for folks to see themselves in these colours,” McGee-Stafford stated.
A former member of a number of WNBA groups, McGee-Stafford is at the moment in her third yr at Southwestern Legislation Faculty. In her future profession, she hopes to analysis and lift consciousness on psychological well being within the Black group.
“I labored with the College of Georgia Division of Behavioral Well being Providers, and I needed to do a workshop on reducing the stigma within the Black group round psychological well being… and I may discover no statistics,” McGee-Stafford stated. “My purpose is simply to analysis, be a little bit nerd and determine these items out.”
Gat stated that she and the opposite organizers felt psychological well being was a important theme for REALtalk’s inaugural occasion, however that they might develop to different matters sooner or later. In the end, the purpose is to ask audio system to campus with whom college students will resonate.
“We selected psychological well being as a result of it’s such an enormous situation, usually, and notably as a result of we began planning within the depths of the pandemic,” Gat stated. “If we proceed to have actually wonderful audio system — those that can and converse to folks in ways in which change their lives and affect how they’re seeing the world — we’ll in all probability maintain doing that.”