We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Lonergan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily below.
Hi Emily, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
My optimism is deeply rooted in my journey through adversity. Despite a difficult upbringing and experiencing a great amount of trauma during my childhood and adolescence, I’ve managed to cultivate a hopeful outlook on life and not let my past define me.
I think people often mistake optimism as toxic positivity. Optimism is not being positive all the time. Optimism is realizing that there is good in the bad and bad in the good. It’s embracing the reality that there will be highs and lows and riding the waves day by day the best you can. It’s knowing and remembering that no matter how cruel life can be and dark times can get, there is always love. “Love is life and life is love.” My mother always said this and I hold it very near and dear to my heart. Optimism is embracing love and light, with knowing very well that evil and darkness co-exist. There’s a lot of bad in this world and we hear it all the time in the news or media. Negative news is elevated and we constantly consume it. It’s vital to remember there is a lot of good in this world too and surround yourself with as much of it as you can.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Mental Makeover is a non-profit organization founded in 2018 by myself and Chris van de Stadt after the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain by suicide within the same week span. We had a conversation about how reactive our society approaches mental health rather than proactive. If a suicide or traumatic event happens, it is talked about, and then quickly fades away under the rug… but mental health is something we should be talking about every single day. That’s when Mental Makeover was born.
We started as an advocacy page on Instagram with just 13 followers. We were sharing infographics from other mental health organizations like NAMI and Active Minds and solely focused on keeping the conversation going. People resonated with this idea of continuing the conversation and fighting the stigma and our page began to grow. I created the logo that we still have today. and we started creating our own content. In 2020, our good friend and classmate Sarah Starion died by suicide. It was a complete shock and massive wave of grief. We knew we had to do more at Mental Makeover to support our community. We started a merchandise line in her honor called “Your Legacy is Every Life You Touch” (her favorite quote by Maya Angelou) and raised over $5000, which we used to create a scholarship in her memory at our alma mater, Salem High School.
With this growth, we began to create programming and resources to bring into our community and beyond. We developed two boxes as part of our programming, both rooted in achieving this goal and “Changing the WAY” mental health is approached through a strong focus on Wellness, Awareness, and Youth Education.
The World Needs You Here Box serves as a support resource for individuals who are struggling with their mental health. and awaiting professional mental health services or lacking access to them. This box is filled with activities, resources, and coping tools that can typically found in therapist offices and clinics that support an individual who is experiencing mental health struggles. Each activity includes personal words from our team members to show that the person using this box is not alone. Trials conducted in organizations such as Lifebridge North Shore, The Haven Project, as well as schools like Essex North Shore Technical High School and Danvers Public Schools, have yielded positive outcomes. We’ve distributed over 150 boxes, with encouraging feedback and tangible impacts.
The Understanding Emotions Box, designed to complement existing Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum in schools, has been successfully piloted in schools across the North Shore and with community partners like NAGLY, HAWC, Pathways for Children, and JRI Children’s Friend & Family Services. These education boxes are filled with interactive tools and activities striving to teach youth about mental health in an open, light, and easy to learn way. Our data collection initiatives, while still in the beginning stages, have already shown promising results. Children are gaining valuable insights into their mental health, learning to identify and articulate their emotions, and feeling empowered to seek help from a trusted adult when needed.
We also host a variety of community events to bring people together, share their stories, and talk about mental health in a safe space. We host our annual Polar Plunge every winter and The World Needs You Here Walk every summer, as well as additional connection-based events throughout the year. Hundreds of people come out to fight the stigma, support one another, and support our mission at Mental Makeover. We are so grateful for our incredible Mental Makeover community.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three qualities that were most impactful in our journey were openness, genuineness, and compassion. In order to spark conversations about mental health, help people feel comfortable and open, and empower others to share their stories, you must be open, genuine, and compassionate towards one another. My best advice to people early in their journey growing their nonprofit is to never lose sight of your mission and always be genuine. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the hustle and bustle of growing a non-profit, but the heart and impact of your work is so important. When things feel like a lot, remember to pause, re-center yourself and ask yourself why you continue to do what you do.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
I grew up with my mother, who was a single-mother to five children. She faced a lot of adversity from struggling with her mental health, to being in domestic violence relationships, to financial instability. Her journey wasn’t easy and in turn, our journey as a family wasn’t easy. But the most impactful thing she did for me was she stayed by our side no matter what and she loved us unconditionally. She would do absolutely anything for her kids. Her love was unconditional and so clearly shown day to day.
We were severely poor on section 8 housing, food stamps, welfare, you name it. I would get bullied at school sometimes for being on welfare. But my mother always re-assured me that if we have love, we are rich. Unconditional love from my mother is what made me who I am today and I am so grateful for all of the wonderful qualities she has instilled in me. Love is life. Life is love.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mentalmakeovertoday.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mental_makeover/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mentalmakeovertoday/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mentalmakeover
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mental_makeover
Image Credits
Buoy Creative
