We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sh’nai Simmons a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sh’nai, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

I grew up in New York City in the heart of crack epidemic and I watched the demise of many loved ones (family and friends alike). As a youth, that was distressing, and puzzling and I vowed to get understanding about it which led me to study psychology in undergraduate school. The more I learned the more I wanted to help. In my first year of college, I began to volunteer as a crisis phone counselor and the journey began.

Throughout the years and various positions, I learned a great deal from some amazing peoples many of whom were recipients of the services. One of my chief reflections was that I was not trained to serve my community. I found myself frequently tweaking the theories, strategies, and tools I learned in my training. I noticed that some of the environments that serviced my community were not welcoming and the policies and practices often put members of my community at a disadvantage as they were culturally responsive. I decided I wanted to be a part of the solution by creating a comfortable space for our clients, serving as a mentor for novice clinicians, and educating professionals to influence the treatment in other settings.

So, the idea of having my own counseling practice was birthed. However, as the first person in my family to obtain an advanced degree or owned a business I had no examples to show me how to do that. So, like many people after completing my education, I pursued employment. Once I got my license, I started to look for an office space but within the week of that process my family was faced with a relocation from Virginia to Tampa. Within 6 months of getting to Tampa, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. This was mind-blowing because I really thought I would be in the clear after my mom’s genetic testing revealed no hereditary indicators as risk factors for me. During that season of reconciling this threat to my life and plans, my friend who I call my big sister warned me not to put my dreams down. She had navigated a cancer diagnosis herself on more than one occasion and I trusted her guidance. So, I decided to take that advise and I subleased an office space. The trip to see the space and sign the agreement was tumultuous due to chemo side effects but I knew I had to press my way there. It was a declarative action that looked cancer in the face and declared “I shall live and not die!” Although I was still working a full-time job, my dream was a light at the end of a tunnel that gave me something to grab hold of and work on productively throughout the treatment process. I had no clue what I was doing but that made it even better. I had something positive to focus on.

I could not have done that alone. My husband was my anchor. He drove me to see my office. He drove me to my treatment appointments. He sought out other locations when my first office was no longer available. He gave me a safe space to land when fear fell upon me, and he encouraged me during my boosts of energy. Often people who succeed give off the impression that they are self-made. No such things truly exists. Everyone gets assistance along the way even if it is an encouraging word.

Sh’nai, 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?

Today, I am the owner of The Collective Wellness Institute, a group practice for mental health professionals serving the diverse needs of our community. As the lead clinician, my clients are high achieving professionals and married couples from my community. They often initiate services because of some relational distress and/or recognize their previous strategies for coping with distress are no longer effective. The other members of the team have varying niches some of which include trauma, children and adolescents, and athletes.

As a tenured therapist, I provide pre-licensure supervision for counselors in Virginia and Florida. These counselors have completed their formal training and gaining experience to prepare them for their license. Additionally, in Florida I accept graduate students from varying disciplines and provide them with practicum and internship experiences. These supervisory experiences serve to aid the development of future clinicians, but it also affords my practice the opportunity to ensure our services remain accessible, available, and affordable.

In community, I train leaders in service industries which can include law enforcement, human services managers, and ministry leaders. My public speaking specialty is in trauma informed care and compassion fatigue. One of the things I learned over the years is that ineffective service delivery is often directly related to overextended, ill-equipped personnel and implicit biases.

In each of these roles, I utilize my everyday experiences and my innate humorous transparency to demystify common but uncomfortable mental health challenges that are reality in diverse communities. I educate those I work with about the power and picture of the intersectionality within mental health treatment. I empower my audience to embrace to courageously embody their truths and the impacts of their truths. And I equip them to navigate forward with a fresh perspective and new tools for the journey ahead.

I am most proud to say that I have walked the journey that I challenge others to walk and that I align myself with them authentically to usher them to a place of transformation and though it may not be easy because I am certainly direct and unafraid of confronting the tough stuff, it is most certainly worth it!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

As a group practice business owner one area that highlights my resiliency has been securing my office space. As I mentioned earlier, my first location was sublet from another therapist. I never used the space. Due to the cancer treatment, it was simply not wise for me to engage with the public until I was healthier. Once I got healthy the lessor decided she no longer wanted to lease to me. I had my first client scheduled for an appointment, so I had to find a location expeditiously. My husband found a co-working spot with a large commercial organization in the area which allowed me a unique opportunity to have a virtual office price but access to a private office. That only lasted a few months until one day I walked in for an appointment and to my unpleasant surprise someone was in the office. They had leased it to someone else without communicating with me. 

So, we had to find another location which my husband did successfully, but it was in a real estate office storage closet. Yup, my desk, two chairs, and a copy machine was all that could fit in that space. Grateful for the financial relief I made do until one day about 6 months in the owners announced they were shutting down and moving to remote services. The journey for office space continued. This time I was able to find a colleague who allowed me to share space with her for a year. She then turned that space over to me when she decided to go virtual. After about a year, I decided I wanted to expand but the location I was in would not accommodate my vision, so I reluctantly ventured out to find a larger space. 

Until this point, I had always been very conservative in budgeting for rental space never exceeding $400 a month. To do that, I had to be creative and have flexible thinking. Those traits helped me get to a place mentally so I could embrace a 1200 sq ft new build office. The process was laborious, and it took over a year to get it ready. We were super excited about designing the space and watching the architect plans come to life through contractors. However, because so many of the owner’s promises failed, we had to extend our lease so when our attempt to renegotiate the lease on the new build was unsuccessful, we were disappointed and disgusted. We had to get an attorney to assist us in terminating the lease, getting our deposit back, and walking away. Today, we are in a beautiful 1731 sq ft office space with 4 therapist offices, an admin office, training room, kitchenette, and waiting room and our sight on even bigger and better. Every leap we made never made sense but the journey was worth it!

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

The key to succeeding in my field is knowing who you are in totality. If you do not fully know yourself, you can easily be convinced to do something you are not designed for. If you do not fully know yourself, you will fail to recognize your worth and accept anything. If you do not fully know yourself, you can harm others. For helping professionals all over, knowing oneself means having a comprehensive awareness of the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

All therapists are not created equal, and most therapists cannot treat everyone well. Knowing oneself allows you to clarify who your audience is and what you can specifically offer them. Knowing yourself can save you thousands of dollars so you do not invest in training and coaching that is irrelevant to your specific niche or assignment. 

I am unapologetically a Christian, black female mental health professional from a disadvantaged background on a mission to tear down obstacles in my communities that perpetuate health disparities. That context fuels me to navigate the spaces I am supposed to be in and deflect the ones that have no space to contain the totality of me, what I bring to the table, and THAT is the benefit of knowing who I am.

• Website: www.TheCollectiveWellnessInstitute.com
• Instagram: @DrShnai
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/Drshnai
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/drshnai
• Twitter: @Drshnai
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-collective-wellness-institute-tampa
• Other: www.DrShnai.com www.facebook.com/DrsNotes www.getintouchnetwork.com

Image Credits
Be Brandocious (Sabrina Hendley), Photos at Your Place (Tom Porter) Affordable Photos (Derrick) The Art of Pixeling (Angel Shackleford)