 Thank you so much for keeping it wide in the morning. This is Y254. Thank you for being part of this conversation. It's all about mental health and relationships among the youth. How can you ensure that you maintain your mental health? Mental stability is still an issue. They said in the recent past that depression is real. Let's talk about that. At Y254 channel, I am with Grace Karyuki. She is a margin family therapist today to help us understand this. Are you a parent? Are you a youth? Are you a teenager? How is it that mental health is affecting you? Ensure that you engage with us. The hashtag is one in the morning. You can go to Facebook and Twitter and drop in your feedback or your comments and questions as you continue with this conversation. Grace, before we went on that break, you said that you are giving advice to that young person out of what you also went through. Don't resist. Don't be rebellious about your academics. They said they want you to do a particular cause. Do it. After that, you can have the ability to do yours. It's all about control. I remember amongst the four pillars. One of them was control. How can a Kenyan youth have control over themselves and the decisions that they make? Because at the end of the day, there are some women making decisions to either prove a point or because they are rebellious or because of peer pressure. How can a youth get that control over themselves? Absolutely. Again, I said, when you are in the age of 18 to 25, this is the time that you are defining yourself. Defining yourself away from family and defining yourself within now the bigger community. As you develop. Yes, as you develop. So it is very important that you take during that first year of being 20, 19, 20, especially the time when you are waiting to go into college, take some time to do self-awareness. Understand yourself. What are my temperaments? How do I relate when I am angry? What makes me angry? What triggers me? What are the messages I tell myself? And also, know and understand what being an introvert is versus being an extrovert. Now whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, it's neither right or wrong. It's just is. But I know our society, we are conditioned to think that the extrovert is more healthy than the introvert. Because they are silent introverts. And we tell our kids, why do you keep to yourself you don't like people, you hate people. We don't want to do any of that. The whole thing of asking children or young adults or teenagers that why are you so shy? What are you afraid of? We don't want to put people on that space. They even tell the boys, be a man. Yes, no, no, no. We don't want to do that. We need to be able to understand young people who are listening to me that you are both a mind and in your mind that's where your thoughts are and that is where your emotions are and then you have a spirit and this is your inner life. This is your real, how you experience life and everything get in touch with that and then you have your body. Your body is your behavior. That's how outwardly people can say you are mad but outwardly people can say you are happy because of the way you are behaving. And so it's important to understand you can have control over how your life ends up. If you take time to get in touch with who you are but don't ruminate on your negativity because a lot of us what we do is that because of the way we are raised we have been told how bad we are so we, you know this whole thing of wuki kula cha kula, yeah good girl wuki kata kukula, what does that mean that you are a bad child so we want to change the way we think about ourselves that we are neither good or bad but we either do well or we don't so we can catch the behavior we are not talking about me as a person that I am a bad person. No, I want to say I am a person of value however, occasionally I do make mistakes. I love what you say that it is not that you are a good person or bad person you accept that you just did something well or at the point you didn't do well but you also strickled down even to academics when someone, when a student fails in the academics doesn't make them a bad child so we've been to Ranganimbaya, don't say that and don't label even if people are labeling you stop taking the label let me say it this way we have a fear of failure we have a fear of rejection we have a fear of shame and we have a fear of punishment so what happens is that if I fail I label myself as a failure I need to accept yes I failed the paper but that does not mean that I am a failure in life or even as a student it just means that I didn't get the grade I wanted so I need to sit down and use that as a learning experience our negative experiences that we have had in life use them as learning experiences what doesn't kill you makes you stronger the difference between survivors and victims the survivors are people who learn lessons so that they don't repeat the same thing again victims are everybody is against me nobody cares about me I am not a good person therefore why even try that will lead you to depression anxiety also is the fear anxiety is rooted in fear that I don't have control that I won't be able to handle life God created us with something that nobody can ever take away from it's called resilience bouncing back look at the rubber band we need to be like a rubber band when you are stretched and the stress goes away you will come back to what to the normal space where you are supposed to be but that does not happen automatically you've got to understand that your brain is elastic you need to learn that you can instruct what your brain is going to do so yesterday there was something bad that happened to you your brain carries that information in the subconscious and once you are waking up in the morning you are afraid that what happened yesterday is going to happen today and at that point you need to bring your mind to the current and say yes it happened yesterday it was a horrible day yesterday we are going to do something different because we are going to learn from that experience and by that you are getting control over yourself yes over yourself what is happening is that we go on autopilot and then we pack this is what I when I have young people that I am doing therapy with they tell me I don't like to remember that and I say if you want to heal you need to remember but I am going to train you how to remember in a therapeutic way in a helpful way in a cathartic way where you are cleansing the wounds so that the wounds can heal properly and you can continue on with your life so it is possible for someone to pick themselves up control how they react to the environment and move forward it is very possible how can a young person handle PTSD okay now when we talk about PTSD and for those who do not know PTSD is rooted in an experience that made you feel like your life you are going to lose your life so you felt terror and that information because PTSD is not normal stress that is absolutely really bad stress things like fire fire in the house you are afraid you are going to die car accidents rape victims we are talking about domestic violence where somebody is beaten up until child abuse where children are beaten up so badly and other things like that or you witness a traumatic experience what happens your subconscious stores that information as trauma and so when you are triggered you re-experience it it feels like you are feeling it again and the triggers could be in form of sound anything sound, smell something you see now this is the thing with PTSD you cannot be able to heal that without professional help so if there is a young person who is suffering and again PTSD is usually the symptoms of anxiety you are very hyper vigilant you are jumpy you can't sleep at night you are afraid to be alone panic attacks you are experiencing panic attacks a lot please reach out for help you cannot heal PTSD without professional help there is a way for us to be able to walk with you so that your subconscious brain can release what we do is you go through a traumatic experience that information your brain goes like poof it closes it in and then there is a trigger that happens to you and your brain begins to open again you re-experience the pain it closes again you need to help you release this trauma so that it becomes a memory then you need to come and we slowly help you to open it and in a save environment we talk through it and we support you as you re-experience it and we bring you out to the point where you are able to release that information you are no longer afraid of that information because it's something that happened in the past but the fact that it is a memory doesn't make it a bad thing once it becomes a memory you no longer re-experience the trauma because now we have allowed your subconscious brain its job is to protect you from pain the pain that you experienced before now one of the things that we do so that I can also put this in perspective is one of the things you can do if you have some things that you remember and you feel bad about and you close down is to remind yourself it happened three years ago it's not happening now I mean a different space don't be afraid to go for an interview because you went to an interview last year and how kuchukuliwa this is different you have grown and you are in a different space this is a different company but go back and look what did I do wrong that I can change for the next one Grace I want us to wrap this conversation up in a nutshell with this for this person who is watching you from home that Kenyan youth is watching you and he is listening or she is listening you talk about mental health and relationships among the youth what should be like something that they should always remind themselves each and every day something that will always keep them in track when they find themselves losing the way they think about it it brings them back you are a person of worth you are a person of worth your worth does not come from what you do who accepts you or not your worth comes from whoever created you you are created as a worthy person so for you to be successful you work from that space you are working from a space this is who I am if there is anything I want young people to understand is that you need to get in touch with yourself and find that worth within you you are worthy you are worthy thank you Grace it's a pleasure that's a very moving I felt like you were having a a TED talk I was with Grace Kanyuki ladies and gentlemen marriage and family therapist joining me this morning in talking about mental health and relationships among the youth I hope you have learnt something I hope you have been able to take something within yourself and move forward so that you can know that you are worth it you have something that is of value within yourself so pick yourself up you can move forward Grace it's a pleasure thank you for finding time to join me this morning and karebo this is why 254 keep it why in the morning for those who joined essential you go to our facebook platform drop in your comments and your feedback as you continue with this conversation my name is Ram Maguko keep it why 254