We were lucky to catch up with Lakeisha Gatling, PhD, LCSW, Yoga Guide recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lakeisha , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
To be quite honest, resilience is not one of the words that I like to cling to. The mere definition in and of itself means one’s ability to recover quickly from difficulty. As a person in the healing profession and as a woman of color, I realized how often that word can be misunderstood. There were many times in my life in which I wish I didn’t have to recover quickly but my environment and surroundings didn’t give me much of a choice. I come from a lineage of women who worked very hard to take care of their family and they often did it while being single mothers with limited opportunities for advancement in life. The idea of “being a strong black woman” often meant that I had no other choice than to recover quickly. I know now that it is more than okay to recover slowly, and that recovery can lead to resilience. I have choices. I choose Tenacity over Resilience!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Since I was a young girl, people seemed to always come to me to share their stories, and even to ask for advice. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized I had a special gift; several gifts actually, which were being a good listener, sharing kind and calming words, having compassion, and having a passion for service to others. I did not think that I would be a psychotherapist though. However, after seeking my own counseling in my early adult years, I shared with my therapist who was also Social Worker, that I was interested in becoming a Social Worker to help people in the way in which she had helped me. At the time, I was already a working adult and didn’t know where to begin. My therapist encouraged me and shared some of the ways in which I could begin. With her support, the support of my husband and my sister-in-law, I started going to college, to begin the path to becoming a Social Worker. Because I was a working adult, my quest, for education to become a Social Worker came with long nights, and weekends filled with studying and writing papers.
I attended school for 15 years consecutively and achieved an Associate’s degree, a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree, and finally a Doctoral degree. After completing my master’s degree, I was able to take the exam to become a Licensed Master Social Worker, which begin the start of my practice. I didn’t know how to start a private practice much less wasn’t so certain that I could do it. Much of the challenge that came with starting a practice was learning how to put fear aside. My passion for helping people, especially women of color always kept me grounded when fear tried to get the best of me.
I also had to keep in mind that I was creating and doing something that I didn’t have a blueprint for. Therefore, I gave myself permission to “got out into the deep” and create my own way. Creating my own way looked like being willing to make mistakes and allowing myself to be vulnerable at times to ask for help on how to start a practice. It also looked like granting myself access to education so that I could be accessible to the women who I wanted to serve.
My passion for helping people heal, has now afforded me the opportunity and ability to own and manage two businesses that focus on mental well-being. I am the owner of a private psychotherapy practice, LD Gatling Counseling & Consulting in which I help individuals, specifically helping professionals heal through their own mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety. I am also the owner of The Nourish Haven which is a self-care coaching and restorative wellness services company that offers wellness products such as The Nourish Your Inner Being Affirmation Card Deck, Customized Self-Care Boxes and wellness services, Restorative Yoga, Self-Care Coaching, and Retreats.
My goal is and always will be to help others ” Master their own Healing Journey’.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The qualities, skills or areas of knowledge that have been most impactful on my journey have been my faith, keep trying, permissions slips, and creative freedom.
Faith! My faith has and will always be my foundation. Without faith it is impossible to accomplish anything.
I am a “tryer”. I have an adventurous nature about myself. I believe there is no such thing as failure, you just keep trying until you find the path that fits who you are and where you’re going on this journey that we call life.
Permission slips have been one of my greatest resources. I learned this idea from Dr. Brene Brown. Often times it was and has been giving myself permission to have courage. Courage to say Yes to myself, courage to try, courage to say no when needed and courage to be my authentic self at all times.
Then lastly creative freedom. for much of my journey, I had no blueprint. I learned by trial and error. I also surrounded myself with influence whether it be books, attending motivational talks, and other likeminded individuals.
If I could give anyone advice to anyone for their journey, it would be, don’t be afraid to ask yourself questions and be open to self-discovery. We spend a great deal of time looking to others for the answer. I invite you to look inward.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
My biggest area of growth in the past 12 months has been getting comfortable with vulnerability. I am somewhat of an introverted person, and I would rather stay in the background. Through doing my own work I learned that some of what I thought was being introverted was actually a trauma response. I have worked really diligently to become comfortable with using my voice to help others. In fact, participating in this interview is a part of my growth and improvement.
Contact Info:
- Website: ldgatling.com & thenourishhaven.com
- Instagram: dr.lgatling & thenourishhaven
Image Credits
Blue top Ken Jones Photography Black top Darryl Howard Photography
