We recently connected with Abyan Bashir and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Abyan, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

The idea of starting a private practice began when I realized the service gap related to providing culturally sensitive mental health care. I wanted people who look like me to know they have the option to see someone who shares their identities and understands their worldview and the barriers they are up against. With my intersecting identities, I understand and empathize with my clients’ unique challenges related to their experiences, and contextualize the obstacles they are up against in ways that are more recognizable to them. For example, I can understand the implications of being a Black person navigating our current society in ways White clinicians may not. Similarly, I can understand the conflict in values and growing pains related to being a 1.5 generation immigrant woman socialized in the West sandwiched between two very different cultures. My unique perspective and intersectionality allow me to connect and understand BIPOC and immigrant communities, so I’ve dedicated my life to this work. I wanted to help people who look like me feel heard, seen, and understood. During my education, heavily influenced by Western culture and ideologies, I began to see how my own values and culture were frequently different than what I was being taught about healing. I initially attributed this to being “faulty thinking” on my part because what did I know? I was just a student, right? As I completed my education, it became evident that while the intention to provide culturally sensitive care is present in the field, the execution needs significant work so that communities of color feel connected, understood, seen, and heard. My intuition always indicated that I have a gifting for developing healing relationships with people. Still, as you can imagine, sometimes even I did not think I was suitable for the job due to lack of representation. After acquiring the education needed and the clinical experience, I realized I was right, and yes, I did know something; I had lived experience. My lived experience navigating and living in the United States as a Muslim, Black, Immigrant woman mattered in giving me the insight/perspective and understanding to help my clients, particularly clients whose identities overlap with mine in various ways. My intuitions fired up when something I learned did not sit well because, based on my lived experience, what I was learning was not always going to work for people with cultural backgrounds different from the Western framework. However, I did not give it much credit. Why I felt this way is a whole conversation in and of itself. I look back and think to myself, why couldn’t I trust my experience? What I now know is that we are not taught to see how society and the educational process, particularly in the West, positions young black and brown professionals to doubt their experience and what they know to be true from a cultural standpoint. I want to be a part of making sure that those who look like me have access to that information. I am grateful to have one of the best mentors anyone could ask for, Dr. Solon, who helped me see, realize, and learn myself in ways that will help me be a better therapist.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am 1.5 generation, Somali immigrant, doctoral level psychologist. I started and operate a mental health agency called Let’s Talk Healing providing psychotherapy, in-home mental health service for adults with severe and persistent mental health issues (ARMHS), and center and in-home ABA services for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Let’s Talk Healing also offer community education and staff training on various mental health topic such as Trauma and Neurology, Development, and culturally sensitive clinical care.

My family and I fled war in Somalia and came to the USA to seek refuge when I was about 3 years old. Growing up in the U.S. allows me to have a unique perspective when working in systems of care. I can see the troubles and challenges that my community has faced prior to and since arriving in the U.S., while also seeing how the methods of care here may not be adequate to understand or address the unique needs of my and other communities of color. After undergrad, I worked in entry level positions providing social services to clients from different cultural backgrounds, which prompted me to get my master’s in social work with a concentration in mental health. This exposed me to the existing and increasing mental health stigma in different cultural communities, including mine, and the implications of unmet mental health issues related to war and intergenerational and historical trauma. People in my community and other communities tend to suffer silently due to the stigma, and the generational impact becomes clearer as first-generation immigrants have children. The growing issue of substance abuse is rampant in my community. This is not a coincidence; people and their children and youth are hurting as a result of trauma and ongoing unmet mental health needs. As I started working with underrepresented and marginalized communities, I realized I had more to learn and decided to pursue my doctorate with the intention of starting my practice. I spoke about this journey in detail in my first interview.

What are you most proud of?

I am most proud of starting Let’s Talk Healing, which was launched and started providing services in 2021. It has been a hectic two years figuring out how to run a business! Knowing very little about being a business owner when I started made for quite a steep learning curve. Finding the right people who are also passionate about this work has also taken more time than I would have imagined. Before launching as a business, Let Talk Healing (previously known as Let’s Talk Therapy) was an initiative geared toward educating the community about mental health to counteract the stigma related to mental health and mental illness. Since we launched as a business, we have been fortunate to help individuals, and families and their children understand and meet their mental health needs in ways that help them feel seen, heard, and understood. We have created Trauma workshops, provided consultation to other clinicians, and developed programing for children with special needs. While we have more to figure out about maintaining and growing a business and more programs to create, the feedback from the community has been heartwarming. I am honored to be doing this work, and I want to continue to impact the lives of the people I work with so they can live more fully from their individual and cultural values, centered in their dignity and integrity.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One lesson I continue to unlearn is to release the need to “know” everything about something before I start. I tend to be someone who likes to be adequately prepared and spend much time in the research phase of things, and what I have learned in business is that there is much learning that happens as you are on the job, running fast to keep up. Knowing everything about a business is impossible if you have not previously run a business. Sometimes, I think the need to know all that you think you need to know could result in getting overwhelmed and stuck. We all have unique gifts and strengths. A better approach is to lean into your gifting and what you know to be true about yourself while being open to learning new skills and knowledge needed for whatever you embark upon. You can remind yourself it is about how you grow in the journey and the cool things you learn about yourself in the process. Although it’s much harder sometimes to do, I find myself getting better at it in different ways all the time. And as I get better at being comfortable with the uncertainty and staying grounded in what I know to be true about myself- that I’ve been able to overcome all the challenges that life has thrown my way thus far- it becomes easier to focus on the personal and professional growth that will result from learning a new skill like how to run a successful business!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

As I think about this question, the first thing that comes to mind is, “My whole life illustrates resilience.” I say this in the sincerest way because I don’t remember a time in my life when resilience was not present or was not an option. I came to this country as a child with a family who lost a significant person, my father, to war and violence. My mother was widowed with nine children to care for and feed. With the help of my older siblings, she and my siblings figured it out. It wasn’t the most lavish life, but we had each other and God. I dedicated my life to making sure I made something of myself to show appreciation for what my family went through to help me get to where I am. I wanted to make my family proud and contribute to the well-being of my family including their children in the same way my older siblings helped contribute to my well-being when I was a child. I was the first in my family to go to college, obtain a master’s and then a doctoral degree. My resilience was evident in all stages of my life, even when I did not know I was being resilient, as I did not have the resources and knowledge of what my educational journey would entail. Still, by the grace of God, I made it through each stage stronger and more resourceful. I had to work full-time throughout my education, including my doctorate (details in my first interview), so that I was financially self-sufficient, and to be frank; I did not have any other choice. Furthermore, I continue to be resilient in navigating and running a successful business that honors the people we serve and the fantastic staff doing this important work alongside me. I thank my colleague, friend, and mentor, Dr. Solon, for her continued support and belief in me. I also want to thank my excellent Let’s Talk Healing team and my business mentor Dr. McLeod for all their support in helping me do this work. I would not have been able to do this work without their grace, compassion, and guidance, and I am beyond grateful to be in this position to impact the world and people positively.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.letstalkhealing.org
• Instagram: letstalkhealingtogether
• Facebook: Let’s Talk Healing
• Other: Agency email: [email protected] Dr. Bashir’s email: [email protected]