We recently connected with Julian Green and have shared our conversation below.
Julian, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
A generally held belief throughout Western society is that despite very best efforts, most parents “screw up” their kids in various ways.. I can’t say that my belief system varied significantly from this widely held assessment. For years I associated many of my interpersonal challenges, financial insecurity, and mental health challenges with Harold and Shirley (my biologicals). Throughout childhood to adulthood, it felt easy to draw a correlation between my challenges and my parents’ mistakes. My father, an army veteran struggled my entire life with addiction and died in 2017. Mama had a career in psychiatric nursing, and loved the field of mental health, but in many ways chose not to do her own mental health work. For what feels like forever, I saw so much of them in my irrationality, introversion, and irritability, and self-deprecation. The coronavirus pandemic shifted my beliefs in this regard with no mercy perhaps, for the first time in my life, I had the wherewithal to see myself outside of my influences and genetics. It was frightening, but during that time I was able to offer myself something that I hadn’t before –the opportunity to be human. During the pandemic, I saw an uptick in the number of other black men seeking therapy; through my support of them, I began to nurture myself with greater intention, much like the way I would nurture a treasured friend. As I knocked around this process (it’s much easier to support others with this type of work!) I gradually began to develop forgiveness and compassion towards my parents, who both survived, significant traumas and stress during their formative years. I began to look at them as real people, and not adults who decided to have a baby (yours truly) on the way to divorce court. I also began to discover the parts of me that reflected the best parts of them: thoughtful, creative, supportive, insensitive. Through therapy and shadow work, I developed and enhanced understanding of how to look at my thought process, and not just the contents of my thoughts. this clarity helped me understand what my parents truly got right, which was making the decision to dissolve their marriage and move on. I now draw more adaptive correlations between my capacity to move on from things that don’t serve me and my parents gifting me with a family dynamic, that was much healthier than what my older brother was exposed to. I now feel gratitude towards my parents, and even more gratitude towards myself for helping others make transitions towards a well-lived life.
Julian, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
While both of my parents attended college, without a doubt, I was strongly influenced to attend, historically black college through my love of the movie “school days” and the television show “a different world”. During undergrad, I was surrounded by professors and students who shared my cultural experiences, and my hopes for our community. Initially, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to become. So, one day, I asked my mother, her thoughts on what I should major in. She talked about social work, and, it seemed easy to me at the time (I was wrong!.). So, I chose this major, and it was the best decision I could’ve ever made. Clinical social work has been a natural fit for me, I love learning about the human condition, as well as methods and interventions to enhance individuals and communities. Early on, I knew that I would not be a good fit within child welfare, adult, protective services, social, welfare, policy, or many of the typical, social work career paths. Upon learning about clinical social work as the cornerstone of mental health service provision, I found my purpose and passion. Within this role, I’ve been able to merge my love of holistic health and wellness with clinical work. Oftentimes, I feel like a modern day, shaman, integrating various tools, and approaches to encourage others growth and healing. Most recently, I have implemented biofeedback and other wellness technologies into practices. I envision a world where people learn about mental health, much earlier in life in order to reduce mental health stigma and encourage the development of self-care strategies.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
I think what’s the most helpful to succeed as a mental health therapist is the ability to develop and sustain a viable self-care practice/strategy. Arguably, we are not designed for the level of social exposure and overstimulation that we experience within this field. The sounds, the energies, the emotions, our thoughts about what our clients communicate, all conspire to undergird stress and overwhelm. After five years in private practice, I realized that my daily workouts and healthy eating simply were not enough. As we often hear in mind-body practice spaces, I needed to “deepen my practice”. This meant that my monthly massages needed to increase to a minimum of two per month. This meant that I needed to schedule regular time away to ensure that I did not make do with a “staycation”. This also meant that after hours, I guard my quiet time like Fot Knox.. I should add that deepening my practice occurred after a pretty significant period of burnout. Burnout scared me because of how seriously I’ve always taken my health. On paper, I wasn’t supposed to burn out. But we often learn the hard way that none of us are immune to the challenges, that insight, chronic stress, compassion, fatigue, or burnout. I’m grateful to have experienced these things because they led me to a place of clarity about what disrupts my self-regulation. I can’t imagine there being a more powerful concept to model to my clients than self-care/self-love.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
After teaching for 5 1/2 years, I decided to return to direct practice. I missed the client engagement, as well as the rush of working in acute care facility. Gradually, I began to feel comfortable in my new role, and made excellent connections with most of the staff at the new job. However, there was a colleague who felt threatened by my vigor and the ease in which I formulated bonds with our colleagues. This colleague eventually made disparaging remarks about me and even complained about me to human resources. I felt gob smacked; I literally did not have a response to being targeted in this way. As an African-American male, I am often the only person who looks like me at various professional meetings and organizational events. It’s difficult to share that I was targeted by this pier because of my race, but through therapy, as well as continued professional development, I feel confident in my assessment that my race was a factor in my treatment. However, that facility was not what I would consider a safe space to be able to verbalize that at the time. Additionally, this was the period during which Bill Cosby’s allegations began to surface; in my communications, with other black men during that time, many felt targeted, or threatened due to their status as black men. With this in mind, I considered what my needs were within the work place. I asked myself, am I OK with the micro aggression? Am I OK with having my own mental health challenged by an environment in which I provide mental health treatment to others? Ultimately, I requested a transfer in order to attain a fresh start and continue my great work with the facility. This request was denied and they asserted that I continue working with the individual who targeted me. I was crushed. I felt completely isolated in my experience and disempowered. I began to take a look at my resources and my finances. Ultimately, I decided to quit. I got into my car and I began to road trip around the country. I visited friends from graduate school and visited cities unknown other than from things I had seen on TV for movies. I didn’t work full-time for the next six months, and I allow myself to use that time to explore my creative sides and develop new friendships across the world. Once I returned to full-time employment, I realized that I didn’t miss a beat. I was happy to return to the workforce, and even happier to be in the driver seat of my career, knowing that I would never again subject myself to toxic work environment.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.juliangreen.org
Image Credits
I own all rights to uploaded images, as I was the photographer.