Welcome to Mindshift Power podcast, a show for teenagers and the adults who work with them, where we have raw and honest conversations. I'm your host, Fatima Bey, the mind shifter. And welcome, everyone. On today's episode, we have, a guest again. We have miss Erica Bess.

Miss Bess, she is a licensed therapist. She has eleven plus years experience as a social worker and therapist. A majority of her work has been working with teens in a school setting. She owns Empower Therapy. And in today's episode, we're gonna do something a little different.

我們要和一群非常特殊的聽眾對話。所以今天的演講是專門針對那些感到不被支持的少女們的。沒錯。貝絲小姐，你今天過得怎麼樣？我很好。

How are you, miss Bae? I I'm great. I'm looking forward to this conversation, actually. Yes. Let's start off with this.

所以我們說那些感到得不到支持的青春期女孩。支持到底是什麼意思？支持可以有很多不同的意義，但當我聽到支持時，我覺得它是一種情感上的支持，有人可以傾訴你的問題、煩惱或疑問。而是說，有一個你可以傾訴的人，你不必評判、恐懼，也不必擔心如果我對這個人說了這些話，他們會如何回應。你明白嗎？

我可以暢所欲言，而不會遭到任何反對。你覺得很多人有這種感覺嗎？當然有。尤其是青少年。我和很多青少年合作過，很多。

I work with teenagers too, not to the same degree that you have Mhmm. And in in a different capacity, but I I agree because I see it. I see it too. Definitely. But why does support matter?

Support matters because we all go through tough times, and there's no tougher time than being a teenager. You're not quite a child, and you're not quite an adult. So it's a very in between period where you're, like, looking for your identity and trying to find yourself. And during that time, you need people to lean on and kind of just talk things through to help you guide you in the right direction as you're leaving teenagehood and moving into adulthood. Well, that's only true for teenagers.

Right? Because once we're adults, we don't need that. Right? Oh, please. When you're adult, you need that maintenance too.

Yes. We do. Yes. Even the therapy therapy people need therapy. Like yeah.

Yeah. It's important. We all need support. I'm a coach, and coaches need coaching. So it's absolutely true.

And I I'm saying that because sometimes people feel like, you know, I don't want some of my seniors feel like, oh, you're just talking at me because you're an adult. So now this is a human thing because there's adults who who are not any more mature or developed than you are. Right. Even though where we should be doesn't matter. You know?

有些成年人也喜歡這樣。沒錯。那不對。我們需要支持。這對我們的成長和進步很重要。

Right? Mhmm. Without support We go down the wrong road. We we do. As as human beings, it's it's just not natural to grow without support of some kind.

Right. What that support looks like might be different Right. For each of us, but it's it it it's important. Absolutely. But the reason I wanted to have this episode is I know that there's a lot of teenage girls out there right now who just feel like they they got nobody in their corner, and they feel like they aren't they aren't anything.

They aren't worth anything. And they don't know who to talk to, who to go to. You know? A lot of people put messages out there saying, oh, as an adult, if you got any issues, come talk to us. But they they're not always relatable Right.

或者，青少年可能覺得自己難以親近。嗯。那麼，一個沒有支持的女孩該怎麼辦？讓我先回顧一下。在你回答這個問題之前，我想指出另一件事。

Yeah. I wanna talk about the girl who has no support anywhere, especially at home. There's no one in the household you can talk to. Okay. There's no support at home.

That's that's your foundation right there. If there's no support at home, you feel like there's no support anywhere because home is supposed to be a safe haven, your comfort spot where you go to get love. And if you're not getting that in your own home, in your own household, it's like the world is 10 times more scarier than it already is. You don't even know where to look for that support outside of your home, especially if you can't turn home. You know what I mean?

It's scary. It is. Now supposed to be was the keyword that you said in that phrase. Right. You're supposed to get support at home.

But for a lot of girls out there, and I know because I've seen it, I know you've seen it too. It's not there at all. If anything, they're gonna get ridiculed and yelled at or told they're stupid. And so that makes you shut down. Yeah.

What's the danger of shutting down when you have no support? The dangers of shutting down when you have no support is that you are gonna look for things that are outside of you that might not be good for you because you're grasping at straws trying to find that support or create that support for yourself. And you don't actually know what's good support versus bad support because there's both. You know? And you we tend to, as teenage girls who don't have that, go for the bad support because we just don't know because, of course, we're finding our way.

What does bad support look like? Bad support could look like, oh, that's my homie, and he always make sure that I have some weed to smoke. Like, that's not a good support. Like, he's giving you free weed, but he's also compromising your health, making making your lungs darker than they need to be. Like you know?

Yeah. Like, that's my homie. He's gonna throw me some weed. Okay. That that might be a nice gesture, but how is that helping you?

Because you you go smoke that weed. You're gonna go to sleep. You're not gonna focus on the projects that you have set up for you. You might not even do your homework. And just go to sleep and forget about it.

Forget about your day and just keep going on, and then it becomes a habit. That's support, but it's not good. Right. I I'm gonna give another example of what I think is also bad support. And I wanna give these examples because some we can talk about the concepts all day and night, but if you don't understand how to how to apply them, we have to say anything.

Right. So another example of what bad support looks like is let's get school today, yo. Right. We don't we don't need to do that. Let's go let's sit at home and smoke some weed.

Right. We're gonna we can hang. We can chill. We can have fun. You only live once.

對吧？壓力。是啊。 Yolo。嘿。

耳壓。是啊。人生只有一次，太不公平了。嗯。就這樣。

They're trying to make sure I have fun. They're trying to make sure you fail. Right. That's not good stuff. Like, forget class.

Forget what I have to do in that class that day, but we just gonna skip the whole day and go smoke. But then you think that support because that's friendships. There's there's time where you guys can bond and be at whoever's house together, and it's fun and it's laughing, and you think, oh, this is my this is my team. This is my people. And then meanwhile, you're you're failing tenth grade.

Like Not just school, but let's skip work. Call out of work. They encourage you to do things that are irresponsible. Right. They encourage you to do things that are bad for yourself.

Right. That is what a bad support is. Absolutely. So whether that's work, whether it's school, whether it's curse your mom out, whatever it is. Right.

Tell your mom to go fuck herself. That's horrible. That's horrible advice. But Yeah. There are some friends so called friends who will tell you to curse your mom out if she doesn't wanna let you go out with her tonight or something like that or go hang out at the mall.

Oh, your mom said you can't do that? Uh-uh. Your mom's a bitch. Like, come on. Like, that is not support at all.

That's not good support. It's bad support. But for a lot of for for some people, that might be what they have around them. Right. So let's talk about what does a girl do who has no good support around her.

I feel, a girl that doesn't have any good support around her, she would really maybe benefit from going to community centers in the neighborhood that might be able to connect her to other girls that are going through similar things, like a teen group, being able to connect with community service organizers and mentors within that community setting that can kind of point them in the right direction or just be a one on one mentor to them and guide them in the right direction, giving good positive advice, allowing them a place where they can talk freely and ask questions and just have, like, open raw communication and answers and just feel supported there. I I wanna add. When it comes to community centers Mhmm. I'm a firm believer in them because, disclaimer, I'm not saying every community center is great because I have not been to every community center in America, and there are some run by crackpots. So there are some some in there where people are just getting money to breathe.

Right. I'm not talking about those community centers, but I do think that those are a smaller portion. Right. In my in my years of experience, working with different community centers in different capacities in different ways and being a youth coordinator or just working with youth, I I firmly believe that 80 to 90% of the community centers out there really do have people in them that care and keep it will keep it real with you. Yeah.

Definitely. That's what I've seen. That's what I've experienced. Those are the things that I've heard. Mhmm.

So, again, I haven't been to every community center in America, but I do think it's a great place and space for you to just find people like you and and find people who will genuinely support you Right. With all all the BS. Right. And, you know, because sometimes we wanna we we we're supposed to tell you to go to your school counselors. We're supposed to tell you to go to these people in these different positions.

我們應該告訴你去你的教會行政部門。嗯。但事實是，有時候，如果你能去，而這些部門有效，那就應該有效。請你去。我希望他們有效。

But for some people, that's they don't trust those spaces enough. Yeah. Yeah. To to make sure that they sometimes, they can't find it even at church. Right.

你知道嗎？你的教堂或猶太教堂。對於真正的青少年議題，無論是教堂、猶太教堂或清真寺，他們根本無法在宗教之外的層面上與他們產生共鳴。所以，他們可能更難給青少年當時可能需要的建議。是的。

We should the if you're you're again, this is for teenage girls. If you feel unsupported and you don't know where to go to get that support, we are having this episode to try to help you out because we know how dangerous it is for you how dangerous and detrimental it is for you without support. And if you don't I mean, ideally, you should have it at school. You should have it at home. But if you don't, we wanna tell you where else you can get it.

社區中心就是其中一種方式。但也要留意你周圍的人。你周圍的人可能會支持你，順便說一句，應該不只一個人支持你。對。你可以依靠兩三個人，獲得你所需要的一切。

You might not just get it for one person. Right. If you do, it's okay. But if you don't, you get it from three people, that's also okay. Right.

It might be your friend's mom. It might be the neighborhood grandma, you know, who's nobody's grandma, but she's everybody's grandma. Right. Right. We all we all have those.

Big sister or something. Yeah. There's always somebody. I can promise you right now, there is somebody out there who's willing to listen to you. There's somebody out there who actually cares about what you're going through.

即使你可能覺得自己孤單一人，你可能會覺得自己很蠢，覺得自己是唯一一個，但你做不到。對。首先，你不蠢。其次，你不是唯一一個。絕對是如此。

There I promise you, no matter what you're going through, no matter who you are, no matter what your thought process is, you are not the only one. You just need to find other people like you. You need to find other people you can relate to and talk to. We are around. Mhmm.

We just need to know that you need us. So you might have to do some reaching out. Yeah. Exactly. What else would you say?

在那裡嗎？她們還有什麼其他方式可以找到對象？除了社區中心，也許可以聯繫女子團體，也可以和她們交流，建立聯繫，建立人脈，接受引導員的指導，討論一些實際問題，並在這些團體中找到支持。我認為這非常有幫助。我覺得我們應該補充一些人們通常不會在這次談話中提到的內容。

Mhmm. When you go to these groups and community centers and girl groups, please don't say, well, y'all ain't perfect, so you're full of shit, and I'm leaving. Because sometimes you don't do that. They do. They do.

有時他們會這樣。給它一個機會吧。就像你不期待完美一樣。我不在乎你在哪裡，你是誰，或你認為自己生活在哪個星球上。對。

Nobody's perfect. And Right. A good community center still has issues Right. That don't look for perfection. Right.

尋求支持。沒錯。尋求支持。如果他們能幫你，能幫你成長，那麼這可能就是你想去的地方。沒錯。

Talking about whether or not they look perfect. Mhmm. I'm talking about whether or not they help to build you. Right. Something to look for when it comes to support from adults or even your peers, really.

確保你跟他們聊完之後，思路更清晰，你的自尊心也得到了提升。嗯。你知道，你一個人的時候感覺好多了。是的。這才是好的支持。

Do you agree? Mhmm. Agreed. What else does good support look like? I think it looks like somebody helping you get through a rough time with school and helping you manage your time, showing you how to do time management, how how to study for certain things, how to focus your time, how, yes, we have some stuff due for school, but also not just all school stuff.

Maybe doing something and, like, extra curricular activities like a sport or, joining a club. Something that is progressive that's gonna help you towards your future. Like, when you do transition out of being a, teenager and into adulthood, you could say, oh, yeah. I I used to swim or I used to play for the basketball team, things like that. And those are positive things that are gonna help enhance your future.

And it's not standing on the corner, being with your friends, wasting time. You know? You're doing something progressive that's gonna help you in the future when you become an adult. Yes. Support, yeah, support means people that are gonna help build you, basically.

Yeah. Build you for the future. Build you emotionally. Yeah. Build you financially, like, help you with your finances, help you get a job.

Yeah. Build you, you know, academically, career wise. Right. There's millions of people that need to be Yeah. Yeah.

There's so many areas of support. You know? But if you feel like no one cares, and I know that's a lot of you, so I wanna address that that as well. If you feel like nobody cares, you're a % wrong. Right.

They are out here. I don't care who you are. You could be the ugliest chick on the block. There's still somebody who cares. The ugliest and the dumbest.

Right. If you feel that way, there's still somebody who cares. Yes. Who could get those thoughts out of your mind and start seeing yourself in a positive light. Because sometimes when you like you said, with be not having that support at home, if that's all your family is feeding into you, that's where you start to believe.

絕對沒錯。如果你覺得你還有家人，他們只會對你說些負面的話，哦，閉嘴。我不明白。這太蠢了。閉嘴。

Right. Right. You're never gonna be nothing. Right. You have people who are saying that to you, you really need to block them out.

Yeah. I don't care if it's your own mother. You need to block them out. They're projecting their own insecurities onto you and hoping that you will not succeed just like they how they feel. Yeah.

是的。是的。沒有。這些人你得屏蔽掉。絕對屏蔽。屏蔽掉他們。

You you just do because they're they're they're helping to tear you down instead of building you up. Exactly. So when someone feels unsupported what is one of the number one things that they do? They settle. They settle for less than what they deserve.

是的。我們來談談妥協吧。好吧。妥協是指，當你有更多東西可以接受並擺脫困境時，你只接受最低限度的東西；或者，當你可以從困境中獲得更多東西時，你只接受比最低限度更少的東西。這和15美分而不是20美元是不一樣的。

Exactly. Like like, yeah, let's say you had getting hired for a job. I'll pay you 15¢ an hour. And then the other job says, well, I'm a pay you $20 an hour. Which one are you gonna take?

如果你接受15美分，你就算是妥協了。你也成了奴隸。沒錯。基本上，你是個志工。

A volunteer. Fifteen cents. No. But, really, it it that is what it's like. When you're settling, you're accepting 15¢ Yeah.

When you're worth $20. Right. And you have to imagine and perceive your worth as being more and knowing that you're worth better and that you deserve better. And that support ties into that. I wanna dive a little deeper into what we're talking about right there.

是啊。你收了15美元。不好意思。 15美分，嗯。因為你沒意識到你值20美元。

Exactly. Get around people who help you realize your worth, not your worthlessness. Right. That builds you up. People you are around cannot help you recognize your worth, and they help you to recognize or reinforce your worthlessness.

You need to get them the hell out of your life. Yeah. And if you live in the household with them and you can't get away, you need to block them out and get around those who can do that for you. Right. That's what you wanna look for.

That's how you know you're getting good support. Yes. Absolutely. Do they tell you you're worth $20, or do they tell you you're worth 15¢? Right.

他們是否鼓勵你，在你做事時告訴你，是否給你注入活力，還是只會試圖打擊你，讓你對自己感到不滿？所以，你才能從中分辨出差異。我之所以一直強調這一點，是因為身為一個十幾歲的少女，我對自己有這樣的感覺。嗯，我可以透過廣播告訴你，你很美。你很有價值。

I can tell you all that stuff Mhmm. To try to build you up, but that doesn't matter because I I don't know you. I ain't met you. Right. You don't be surprised to see that.

你需要一個能當面告訴你的人在你身邊。對。而且能告訴你為什麼。嗯。你真棒，因為你明白這一點。

你很棒，因為你總是樂於助人。無論發生什麼，你都很棒，他們都能幫助你成長。沒錯。如果你身邊沒有人能做到這一點，你就應該去找他們，因為我向你保證，這樣的人不缺。真的不缺。

嗯。你得去找他們。我們在這裡。是的。因為你們有些人現在正在聽。

伸出援手。是的。你想讓自己感覺更好。你想做得更好。你只是不知道該怎麼做，這就是我們製作這期節目的原因。

你可能必須主動尋找我們，因為我們可能沒看到你，或者我們可能沒意識到你需要幫助。你可能需要主動尋找我們，這樣做是可以的。對。而且你可能得去幾個不同的地方才能找到我們。對。

但有志者事竟成。只要你努力，你就會找到我們。我向你保證。是的，沒錯。

There are many adults really willing and ready to help teenagers all over with the the crazy things that come with being a teenager. And there's people that will support you and give you the right direction. And I feel when it comes to me with support, I always wanted to remember what it was like feeling like a teenager, and I always kept that thought in my mind. I'm always gonna remember what it feels like to be a teenager so that when I have to work with teenagers in the future or I even have my own teenager in the future, I can relate to what they're going through because I was there too. I always kept that thought in the back of my mind.

Yeah. Mhmm. And that's how I think I connect with them. It's one of the reasons and I'm gonna share this on this episode because I think it's important that you guys understand where I'm coming from. Mhmm.

我這麼說，並非因為我已經長大了，一個成年人在跟你說話。我這麼說，是因為我曾經跟你一樣。對。我知道那種感覺，那種覺得自己笨手笨腳、一無是處、無能為力、不正常的感覺。我知道那種感覺。

That's how I grew up thinking too. I now know that that's a bunch of bullshit. Exactly. Listen to me. You can you know I'm confident now.

Mhmm. But I understand how that feels, and I understand how untrue it is. Right. I believed that lie for a long time, and some of you are believing it right now too. And I wanna try to break that the best I can.

Right. If you're willing to listen to what we're saying and put it to practice, you can break it too. Absolutely. That's what we're all about, breaking those chains. You think you have one box that you have to stay into, and that's your support right there, and you can't go outside of that box.

但我們今天要告訴你，你可以跳出這個框框，找到那些真正支持你、幫助你成長為理想人格的人，你的同伴，你的部落。嗯。而且，不一定要是家人。如果是的話，那就太好了。對。

Because some people have awesome family, but a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't. Yeah. A lot of a lot of people don't. And some of your family members might love you, but they give you bad support.

They encourage you into bad directions. They encourage you to kill your dreams and work a job. Yeah. They encourage you to stay away from the people that are healthy for you. That's bad support.

Mhmm. And maybe their intentions are good, but you need to get good support around you. It doesn't mean you need to kick them to the curb and just, like, completely, never talk to them again sort of thing. But you might wanna keep them at more of a distance and draw somebody in closer who's going to give you true support. Because, again, I promise you, we are out here.

對。我們在這裡。看到你們的支持，你們也看到了改變。是的，是的。

Oh my god. Yes. Kinda like if you grew up in a cave, you you don't understand light until you get out into it. And you're like, oh my god. There's a whole big, beautiful world.

It's shiny. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. So you don't realize how bad your environment is or what you're lacking until you get it.

沒錯。就像，哦，我看著橙汁，但直到嚐了口，我才真正渴望它。現在我還想再喝點柳橙汁。你懂的？嗯。

And good support can do that for you. And I promise you it's out there. You just have to try. You have to look and look and look and look and look until you get it. Absolutely.

If there's gold hidden in them hills, you're not gonna find it until you keep digging. Yeah. Eventually, you'll find it. And people like us are like that gold. You sometimes you might have to dig to find it, but we're here.

但我們來了。我們來了。所以，準備好了，願意，也能夠。安頓下來。我們討論過安頓下來的事。

Yeah. Can we just just real quick go through a couple examples of what settling really looks like for pretend like I'm a 14 year old girl. What does settling look like for me? Settling could look like you wanna join the varsity cheerleading squad in school. And the the coach might say something.

哦，我不知道你是否夠優秀，可以加入校隊。所以，也許你可以明年去試試，或是加入青年隊。當你知道你的技能達標，你會跳舞，會跳舞，你可以加入校隊時，你就可以加入校隊。但那些負面支持，或者乾脆就是敷衍了事，讓你懷疑自己是否夠優秀，是否有資格加入校隊。但你會因為別人對你能力的評價而勉強接受青年隊，或者乾脆什麼都不要。這是一個很好的例子。

Yeah. And we do that. We do that all the time. Another example of settling is send them for little Johnny who ain't doing nothing with his damn life and ain't going nowhere. Right.

Settle because you wanna feel loved. True. Johnny might be fine as hell, but Johnny doesn't have any goals or aspirations. In his teenage years. What do you think he is gonna be doing in his adult years?

約翰尼現在應該為他的未來做準備，同時也應該鼓勵你專注於自己的未來。如果小約翰尼發現他既沒錢又沒抱負，他會把你帶上歧途。明白嗎？所以，僅僅說你有另一半，或者只是說“哦，那是我的男朋友”，也算是一種妥協。說「哦，那是我的愛人」可不是鬧著玩的。

But it's really not. You are your person. You need to focus on you and building yourself up and having those people surrounding you and your your uplifting support. That also contributes to you. There's nothing wrong with settling for there's nothing wrong with getting a boo.

Just make sure you don't get a boo boo as in doo doo. Yeah. Right. He ain't doing shit and ain't going nowhere. Yeah.

You don't wanna settle for that because if you have plans, you wanna go to college, you wanna be a nurse. Right. Medical. Right. He ain't even he barely attend school and smoke weed all day.

Right. That is not who you want to spend your time with. Now that is super settling. Oh, yeah. It's Sue I like the way you say it.

Settling. Super settling. Like, beyond. It it is. And and I know that there's some girl listening right now who's like, oops.

那就是我。是的。這個問題有點難回答。不過沒關係。我們有時也會這樣。

他不需要完美。也許他還在琢磨自己想做什麼，但至少他有在努力。沒錯。我是說，他還是個青少年。他應該努力去弄清楚。

他還沒到那裡。沒關係。沒關係。正在努力。如果他在努力的話，嗯。

You you might have a you might have a good one there. Right. But if he ain't doing nothing, someone who's getting in the car going nowhere Yeah. They don't try to come pick you up. Get on in.

We're going nowhere and take you with them. Yeah. Exactly. Just go along for the ride. Don't settle don't settle for that, and don't settle for friends who it's same thing, not just romantic relationship friends.

Right. Don't settle for people that try to hold you down. Less than what you're supposed to be treated. Treat you less than what you deserve. And then once you start seeing yourself in a higher esteem and your your confidence is up to where it needs to be, you're gonna be able to recognize those people and be like, they're not for me.

I can't have them in my, area. I can't be around them because it'll only tear you down and defeat the work that you're doing on yourself. You, young lady, are a diamond. Do not allow yourself to be treated like a pebble. Okay.

And we'll leave it at that. Period. I love that. Well, I thank you again, miss Best, for coming on, once again and giving us your insight and expertise as a a a well versed, therapist. And so tell the audience how they can find you.

You can find me at the empowertherapy.com, and you can reach out to me there, and I will reach right back out to you. And she really will. She's an excellent excellent therapist, y'all. So, again, once again, thank you for for coming on, and y'all better get used to it because she's gonna be on more episodes. We're gonna talk about more subjects and get her insight.

我們堅持真實。是的。這是保持真實的唯一方法。現在讓我們換個思路。我們非常重視，也非常重視你們對良好支持和不良支持之間的差異。

某人看起來支持你，並不代表他們真的支持你。如果你從今天的錄音中沒有得到任何其他收穫，請理解，獲得良好的支持非常重要，而不僅僅是那些支持你陷入困境的人。有人會支持你，為你鼓掌，為你歡呼，直到你陷入困境。這不是好的支持。確保你得到支持。

And when you do, make sure that you're paying attention and that it's good support. Do they help you grow? Do they help you get better? Do they help you feel up when you're down? At the end of the day, they need to add to your life, not subtract from it.

Just want you to think about that for today. Thank you for listening to mind shift power podcast. Please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel at the mind shifter. If you have any comments, topic suggestions, or would like to be a guest on the show, please visit FatimaBay.com/podcast. Remember, there's power in shifting your thinking.

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