Welcome to Trauma Talk

Welcome to Trauma Talk

Hey, and welcome to Trauma Talk. So, I’m going to start off with a question. Where do you think more people are turning today to get mental health resources? I will tell you the answer at the end of our little video here. My name is Meredith Shuman, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to Trauma Talk. This video is just really about introducing you to who we are and what we hope to achieve with some of these videos.

I want to start off by saying we’re really going to try to do three things with every single video.

Research-Based Content

Number one, we’re going to try to provide solid, research-based content, grounded in solid science, about mental health, about trauma, and all the mental health-related fields. We’re going to try to not only bring in the science, but also be really clear that we’re dealing with people here, and this is nuanced and sensitive. Our goal is to have all of these research articles linked in the show notes and in the description below. That’s what I’m looking for — the description. So that is our goal. We absolutely want you to dig into those resources, and hopefully those can help you all by themselves. But we also hope the videos can be of service to you as well. So, number one, we want to provide research-driven, science-based mental health resources in these videos.

About Meredith Shuman and James Trail

Number two, they’re being presented by me. My name is Meredith, and some of my professional credentials include gosh, about 30 years or so in the mental health field in a lot of different capacities. In the last several years, that’s been as a part of James Trail, which we founded, and it’s a nonprofit. In the last three or so years of James Trail, I’ve been able to provide in-person workshops for over 3,000 people, and that is such an honor for me to do and such an honor for me to step into that space. We’ve done so here in the United States in multiple different locations, conferences, and that kind of thing. We also have partnerships with some global sites including Cuba, Mexico, India, and Kenya, and others, and we’ve been in-person in those places as well providing these resources. So not only does that give us some credibility, but it also says we care about the global community.

Personal Life

That’s my professional work, but I wanted to share a little bit about my personal life too. I’m married, I have five kids. Four of my kids are adopted. That has really opened my eyes even beyond the experience that I have as having a Master’s in Social Work and work experience — but really, when you bring folks into your home who have experienced some really hard things, it’s just really taught me a lot. It’s taught me a lot about myself for sure, and things that I’ve learned and things that I’ve tried to grow in. With each of these videos, in small ways and sometimes in big ways, I’ll be sharing some of myself, some of my own personal stories, some of the things that have worked for me. My goal is always to make this relatable and make this relational even. Sometimes that’s difficult over a screen, but I’m going to attempt to do that here because I believe in more than just the content. I believe in the relationship. I believe that we can learn what we’re supposed to do and try to do it, but unless there is some sort of relationship there, or another person still on the other side, and really even our own communities — the people in your life that you lean into — all of that is so important as we try to process information and resources and try to live healthier lives in our mental health realm, and with the trauma that many of us have experienced, myself included, for sure.

A Trauma-Informed Approach

The third thing we’re going to try to do is we’re always going to try to provide these resources in a trauma-informed way. You are not going to see in these videos some sort of scene that would be potentially triggering to you. That would never be our intent in any way. Our goal is not to shock you here, or to grab you as the viewer, or to show you something on the screen that really tugs at your heart. There may be times when we use some B-roll, that kind of thing, but again, our intent is really to make this a safe space to receive this kind of content. That’s a major part of the goal. Not only are we going to try to provide visuals that are non-triggering — and that is our intent — but the other piece is that we’re going to try to be sensitive to your issues and your challenges. So many of us have faced things like relationship challenges or mental health diagnoses. Some of us have experienced church hurt or ministry pain and grief. We’re going to approach those kinds of things really in sensitive ways. Our goal is to never shame anybody for where you’re at in your journey — instead, to honor where you are in the journey by providing the resources that we all want in order to get to the next place, in order to find more healing, more freedom, more joy in our lives and in our relationships.

So that’s just a little bit of the basics about us, about me, and about these videos, and I hope that’s helpful.

Where People Are Turning for Mental Health Resources

Now, to answer that question — where are people turning more and more for mental health resources? The answer is YouTube. Right here on YouTube. If you’re watching this on YouTube, you know this channel, this way of communicating and providing content to the world, is growing so fast. I read somewhere — I’ll try to find the article for you — but I read somewhere recently that YouTube has surpassed Netflix and other streaming services in terms of videos that people watch. If this is where people are turning for mental health resources, even though in-person is always better, we want to be here. We want to be here providing the kind of content that might serve you. We’re not going to do everything perfectly. We definitely want to know from you how we can serve you in the different places around the world that you might be, but it’s a blessing and an honor for us to come alongside you in any way.

Closing

If these videos serve you, and I hope they do, please subscribe and like and give us some comments, and let us know topics that you want us to cover as well, and we’ll do our best to do that. One of the things we love to close out our videos with, and one of the things that I believe so strongly, is that when we journey together on this journey, trauma doesn’t get the last word.