We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Inhale Exhale By Ma and Shammas Psychotherapy a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Inhale Exhale By Ma and Shammas Psychotherapy , so excited to talk about all sorts of important topics with you today. The first one we want to jump into is about being the only one in the room – for some that’s being the only person of color or the only non-native English speaker or the only non-MBA, etc Can you talk to us about how you have managed to be successful even when you were the only one in the room that looked like you?
Confidence!! I think we can both agree that we had such a deep sense of pride and passion for what we do. We believe that energy really creates an empowering environment. I think we are both learning how to delegate trust one another. Success is what you’re creating and who you are creating it with.
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?
We would like to start by introducing ourselves, our names are Lizeth and Sabrina and we run a group therapy practice. Lizeth is Latina and Sabrina is Iraqi… Best friends turned business partners & entrepreneurs. Let’s start with the basics, we are both licensed marriage and family therapist. We began our therapeutic journey over a decade ago, working in and out of various clinics. We began working together back in 2015, serving youth and adults, struggling with severe mental illness. Approximately four years ago we opened our separate private practices while continuing working alongside each other. A common theme throughout our journey, and what we’ve noticed, is the increasing demand for prospective clients to get linked to services. We both quickly capped out our caseloads, and we’re no longer able to serve as many community members as we wanted.
Much of our background is primarily founded in serving youth and adults, with severe mental illness. We quickly fell in love with the community and the population we were working with. As we were growing into our own practices, we found that private practice can be a very isolating and lonely space for practitioners. The environment shifts from working alongside a collaborative team of people to being primarily solo and independent of the community we we were all trained to be in. This increases the likelihood of staying stagnant and really out of the loop with the rest of the community. Also, due to this, we found that many of our fellow providers were more reluctant to take on cases more sever in nature. At the end of the day, we wanted to build a therapeutic family that facilitated support for one another without the red tape
Of traditional county programs. And so began our project of having created Inhale Exhale by Ma & Shammas Psychotherapy Group. It’s a mouthful, we know! We are so incredibly proud to introduce an environment where, from the moment you step into our lobby you feel safe and welcomed. We really pride ourselves on breaking down the traditional power dynamics, and really focusing on a more natural humanistic interaction. Whether this is with our clients, our team, or the community. You will always get the most authentic version of ourself. When you come into our office, we are welcoming you into our home. We encourage you to take your shoes off and make make yourself comfortable!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Hands down our ability to really understand severe mental illness. Our time working for a county funded program that focused solely on youth struggling with psychosis related symptoms. That can range from early warning signs, such as thinking you’re hearing someone call your name, to the much more severe end of fully formed hallucinations. Much of our foundation and experience was built on working with individuals who have been assigned with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar with psychotic features and trauma induced psychosis, to name a few. We were challenged daily and encouraged us to really build such a strong respect for individuals struggling to that degree. For us, the most rewarding part of that experience was watching people get their lives back. While once upon a time, a diagnosis such as Schizophrenia was seen as one of the most debilitating disorders, we found that early intervention was incredibly effective in managing symptoms and significantly improving one’s quality of life. This is not just a skill, rather a passion we really took our experiences, navigating people struggling to such a level of intensity. We wanted to introduce that into the private practice world.
I would say the second skill is challenging the discomfort of risk taking. And creating a business, where all the pressure of its success lies on you, is terrifying. I think this deters a lot of people from taking that leap. It’s uncomfortable and it’s scary. This is really is a skill, where challenging those nerves and working through that fear will have elevate you to the next chapter of your life.
Lastly, the ability to really prioritize our health and wellness. While we fully get that may sound like the cookie cutter answer, it really can’t be emphasized enough. Reclaiming what it means to be permissibly selfish with yourself. We help others understand and advocate their needs, and we need to be leading by example.
By working together, as partners we hold each other accountable and really try to promote this to our team. This really has created the dynamic for our business we always dreamed of. We still walk into our office everyday in awe that we created this. The pride we feel continues to fuel that healthy work life balance.
Our advice would be, never stop moving, trust the process. Keep it simple and trust yourself, not that voice in your head that tricks you into thinking you can’t have it. If it feels good, do more of that, If it doesn’t, shift gears. Surround your self with likeminded people. People who excite you and hype you up. While we both knew we could go out separate ways and do it alone, we didn’t want to. We get to work with our best friends while serving some of the most incredible people in our community.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
We don’t think this has a clear cut answer. So we are going to cheat and say both! I think, when you’re passionate about some thing you naturally and instinctually gravitate towards going all in. While, in the same breath, taking time to focus on areas that need improvement keep us fresh and ever evolving. It’s really important to focus on the journey, and not only the final destination. The world of therapy is constantly impacted by our social and political environment. Let’s take the pandemic, for example. This really shifted the way in which people conducted therapy. The movement of telahealth took over because we had to, not because we wanted to. So we had to learn and adapt. How do we provide the most effective services when we can’t have somebody face-to-face with us? The way in which we relate to people is constantly changing peoples needs are constantly changing how people want to be loved and cared for is constantly changing. I think there’s a time, and a place to really lean into self improvement. I think the key is to be gentle with ourselves, it’s a delicate dance of not overwhelming ourselves and staying present in the moment while not getting too comfortable.
We think in therapy people are often reaching out with that desire to unpack the darkest parts of their lives. There’s a certain level of trust that our clients have in our team to really to nurture that vulnerability. So it is important that we are going all in to best support our clients. This space represents a multitude of things, it’s a space for for us to be ourselves, it’s a space for staff to take their time and paste themselves in their craft in a way that feels best for them, and it’s a space to challenge the stigma associated with severe mental illness. Real people helping real people.
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Edwardo Garcia
