We recently had the chance to connect with Shel Scott (aka Shel Khan) and have shared our conversation below.
Shel , it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
I try to get up, make coffee, do a 5-10 minute meditation, read a few pages of the nonfiction book I’m currently into, and do my Duolingo before going on my phone to check my social media, the news, or anything else. I have moderate success with this – some days and weeks are better than others. It’s one of those things that I know helps my day start off right but I still have a tough time motivating myself to actually do it. I try to get in a 15-30 minute workout of some kind before my first client, as well.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am Michelle, aka Shel, and I run a private practice mental health agency called Prevailing Minds. I try to fold in clinical experience and skills with the peer support perspective of having lived experience with mental health challenges. Over-medicalized views of mental healthcare tend to lead mental healthcare providers to believing that they shouldn’t be sharing anything about their own journeys. But I have found that being open and honest with my own experiences has actually been an asset in my work.
I try to work from an anti-oppressive and decolonial viewpoint and am constantly striving to learn better ways of embodying this. I operate on a sliding scale to offer fees that are more reflective of the social determinants of health.
I also teach with various organizations, including the national Occupational Therapy (OT) association, mostly about exposure therapy. I also conduct psychedelic drug policy research with a couple of NGOs as well.
My main passion outside of work is music. I have published a few songs in the past few years and am working on learning how to do music production so that I can produce my own stuff. I perform pretty regularly around Toronto as well.
Recently I have been learning about ways in which I can bring my group facilitation skills, social justice engagement, and group facilitation skills together, and I co-hosted a workshop on songwriting for activists with a really great local activist marching band called Marching Disorder.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
Something that I have really been working on releasing lately is my perfectionism. As a child I believed that I had to be really good at something in order to enjoy it. If I tried something and didn’t take to it immediately, I didn’t allow myself to stick with it in order to develop or to just have fun. That is something I have been really working on lately. My martial arts practice is helping with that in a big way. I found my way to Wing Tsun Kung Fu three years ago, and it’s the thing that I’m worst at that I’ve been best at sticking with. Sometimes I lament coming to it relatively late in life, and wish I had found my way to it earlier in life, but then I think that I actually found my way to it at the right time, because now I’ve been able to stick with it even when I find it incredibly challenging.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
I struggled a great deal with mental health issues when I was younger. I would say my greatest wounds were feeling like I was never good enough. I struggled with a lot of self-hatred as a youth. I never felt like I excelled at anything, and I really despised myself for it. Now that I’m older and have more perspective, I joke and say that I am the “middle car” in the racing game. None of my stats are very good, but I’m pretty average or even decent at a number of things. And this is something I have really been leaning into. Life is too short to have narrow interests. I do a lot of really interesting things, and I am not an expert in any of them. And I am learning to be okay with that as I age. I try to view this aspect of myself as a way that I keep my life open to new and exciting possibilities and interests rather than being hyper-fixated on any one thing.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
I think that a lot of people are feeling a lot of pressure to monetize their passions. This can be great, of course, but it can also take some of the magic out of creativity and exploring new things. I think that the pressure to monetize comes from the conflation of financial success with actual happiness. A lot of very smart people fall into this trap. Don’t get me wrong, being financially stable is necessary for happiness in a capitalist society. But we shouldn’t have to feel that our passions are only worthy if we monetize them or experience financial success with them in some way.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I am under no illusions that my existence will be captured or prolonged in any way after my death via any sort of legacy. The idea of having some kind of legacy is of course appealing in the existential sense, but I think that being too focused on this can lead to people to doing things for the wrong reasons. I think impact is important, and I’m lucky to be able to feel that through my work I am having at least some moderate positive impact on peoples’ lives. I come back to something my dad always said to me, when I was really little and asked him that question that little kids ask their parents – “What’s the meaning of life?” He always replied that he felt that the meaning of life is to try to leave the world better off than when you entered it. My hope is that people remember me as someone who cared deeply for those around her, including those struggling, fought fiercely for social justice, loved expansively and passionately, and expressed herself fearlessly.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.prevailingminds.ca
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shelkhanmusic/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/shelkhan
Image Credits
Shel 1, 2, 3, by Daniel Fast
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
