Today we’d like to introduce you to Deanna Robinson.
Hi Deanna, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in a home where I was not valued. I was expected to be quiet, a non-issue. I unfortunately suffered a lot of abuse and mistreatment by people who I was supposed to trust. That just does something to a young mind. My brain didn’t develop as a child is expected to. I was anxious, depressed, traumatized and a teenage parent to boot. I was a whole issue. I wasn’t expected to be much and, in fact, became ashamed that I was so smart but it was going to waste. After several failed marriages, financial hardship and a host of different jobs, I had my first manic episode. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder with psychotic features, PTSD, Dissociate Disorder, and ADHD. Thereafter, I was deemed disabled. I had been disabled for nearly 17 years and began to make too much money to continue to be recognized as disabled. All of a sudden, I’m faced with living life and earning all my income through my own efforts. As someone who has severe psychotic episodes every year and who lives many days with deep clinical depression and anxiety, how was I going to do it? I was frightened that I wouldn’t be well enough for the rigors of business ownership, especially at my age. But I didn’t want to start my business based on fear or lack, but rather a sense of redemption and hope. I had been training and speaking for years but never saw it as a viable business endeavor. As a certified trainer and speaker on various mental health topics, I received consistently rave reviews of my expertise and my ability to make people laugh, feel good, and be inspired. My family, friends and even strangers I’d talk to always commented on how I gave them hope or helped them to see things from a new or different perspective. I thought to myself all these people cannot be wrong.
At the encouraging of my youngest son, I finally incorporated a business and began to receive checks made out to my business! What a feeling of accomplishment! I’ve done work with UCLA, CSU-Bakersfield, OnTrack Program Resources in Sacramento, CA, Learning.com, and a host of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) affiliates and state organizations throughout the country. I’ve made videos for the University of Phoenix and the country’s hospital emergency room staff. I regularly train police officers on how to respond to someone having a mental health crisis. I am doing what I love to do and am most talented at. I am so grateful to my heavenly mother for her undying love and encouragement every day when I feel like I’m not enough or I’m not doing enough. Sure. Learning digital marketing, new platforms, accounting and attracting companies and people who can benefit from what I have to share is tough. But with the belief that I can do it and my friends and family egging me on, I CAN do it. I’m tossing the limiting beliefs that ‘I’m not worthy’ aside daily. I put on the wardrobe of fortitude, resilience and spiritual guidance. I tell myself that if I only get one or two things done a day or every other day for my business, I’m successful. I am kinder, gentler and more accepting of myself as a person and as an entrepreneur. I expect that attitude to grow making me a purveyor of health and mental healing for many years to come. I’m a whole issue.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
What’s most challenging is my keeping my day-to-day attitude positive. It’s like someone gives me a steady drip of positivity inhibitors. It’s the darndest thing trying to self-motivate when every instinct says to go to bed and pull the covers over you. Most days I try to be gentle and authentic. Telling myself it sucks, but we got this. I can help someone today. We’re going to move through it anyway.
We’ve been impressed with The Healing Conversationalist, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I founded The Healing Conversationalist because I live every day with serious mental health conditions and can other people see and feel a light when it feels like there’s no hope. I know what it’s like to not want to get up in the morning, shower or brush your teeth. I know what it feels like to be defeated even before you get started because of fatigue and low motivation brought on by depression and anxiety. I also know the skyrocketed highs of mania and the nonsensical beliefs of psychosis. As someone who’s intimate with these experiences, I help transform minds and lives by being a hope giver. I know the joy of accomplishment despite setbacks. Companies, individuals and organizations seek me out to train them, facilitate support groups and be a guest speaker at conferences, conventions and other events. I help people see they’re okay and worthy of a good, peaceful life despite the sometimes disabling effects of mental health challenges. As a Mental Health First Aid instructor, a QPR Suicide Prevention trainer and an 18 years mental health advocate, I have the uncanny ability to educate with disarming wit. I teach with frank humility and light-hearted humor. Those seeking to feel better, to understand more, to be inspired or to heal and move through their experiences to a greater sense of acceptance and peace can benefit from the charisma, knowledge and hard-earned wisdom I have to share.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
It’s a risky proposition to tell the world you’re a person who’s been taken in handcuffs to the psych hospital because you were hearing voices and taking off your clothes in the middle of rush hour traffic. Fear of ridicule, embarrassment and rejection are difficult emotions to experience under any circumstance but to invite that kind of reaction because you share something so exceedingly personal is something of itself. Without risk-taking, there is no possibility of realizing how awesome you can be, how powerful you can feel, or how much of an impact you can make on people’s lives and on the world. Risk-taking is a prerequisite for exceptional joy and success.
Pricing:
- Public Speaking – $1500/1 hr. event
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.thehealingconvo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehealingconvo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHealingConvo/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thehealingconvo
Image Credits
Octavia J. Davis
