By Taylor Killens
Mental health issues are often overlooked and considered as an illness that will pass in time, but “Effortlessly Empowered” at Lincoln Heights Missionary Baptist Church is a mental health group that is fighting the issue head on. While it is a difficult battle to treat mental health, it’s an ongoing and promising one. Lincoln Heights Missionary Baptist is excited to announce not only how they value mental health within their community of women, but how they plan to celebrate Women’s History month next month.
Many of the ladies that attend Lincoln Heights Missionary Baptist Church have come together as a group to educate one another on the struggles of women in mental health, how to identify when you are battling a mental health issue, and how to educate other women on how to handle their mental health issues. The goal of Effortlessly Empowered is to uplift and empower women through adversity. This group consists of women of all ages, titles, backgrounds, jobs, and struggles.
Each Wednesday and Saturday the ladies come together in a circle. In that circle, each woman shares their story in a judgment-free zone. The majority of these women have struggled with addiction, divorce, the loss of loved ones, miscarriage, and employment struggles. These struggles led these women to a dark and vulnerable place. As they suffered from depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, they turned to God and the church family to seek the help they needed.
This group is led by Kaylah Morris, a LHMB community member since she was 8 years old. She is now a college graduate from Xavier University with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Although she leads Effortlessly Empowered, her goal is to establish her own mental health therapy business to dedicate her career to helping women who are struggling with various mental health issues. Kaylah Morris shared her own stories and shared how she got through the trials and tribulations in her own life.
She teaches that the course of your life begins with yourself. It’s vital to be able to hold yourself accountable for what we allow in our space and what energy we allow in our space. She also discusses the science behind mental health, but she focuses on depression and anxiety in particular. She has the group members participate in exercises to force each and every one of them to express their true feelings and force them to have the conversations that they have avoided for a long time that could be triggering their mental health state.
Ms. Morris stated, “Being a part of Effortlessly Empowered has not only taught me how to cope with my mental health issues which are depression and anxiety, but the women in this group have taught me to embrace who I’ am, they taught me to fall in love with the woman that I’m regardless of my flaws, and that women are power.”
After participating in a plethora of their sessions the goal is to see progress each session. Each woman fights their battle in their own time and no one is in competition with the other person. Women cannot let their mental health issues stop them nor define them because the future is female. A member named Trinity Pearson stated, “My dream is to be a sideline reporter for ESPN. I’m currently enrolled as a digital media major at Bowling Green State University. My brother and sister passed away in 2018 when I began my college career and I suffered major PTSD because I was the only one in the car accident that survived. Effortlessly Empowered, my church family, and therapy taught me to fight. To not only fight for myself, but to fight for women and women who look like me because you don’t see many African American sideline reporters. My goal is to lead others and I have to lead by example by not only working hard by being the best media reporter out there, but also taking care of my mental health because without your mental health you are nothing.”
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