On March 10, 2024 Live From Austin, Texas: SXSW Film Festival: Selena Gomez, Mandy Teefey, Solomon Thomas, Corey Yeager, and Jessica Stern spoke at the Austin Convention Center in the “Mindfulness Over Perfection: Getting Real On Mental Health” panel. Wondermind is the world’s first mental fitness ecosystem launched to democratize and de-stigmatize mental health.
It’s tempting to share only the highlight reel of our lives, but when we’re open about the difficult moments as well, we make it easier to tap into our emotions and create space for other people to process theirs, too.
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Moderated by Dr. Jessica Stern, the conversation covered the importance of flexibility over strict routines in mental healthcare, dealing with negative self-talk, and getting real about when you’re not feeling OK.
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Selena Gomez is one of the most globally and culturally celebrated artists, actors, producers, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists of her generation.
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Mandy Teefey is a co-founder and the CEO of Wondermind, as well as Executive Producer of the Emmy nominated content, Thirteen Reasons Why and Living Undocumented.
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Solomon Thomas is an NFL Defensive Lineman where he uses his platform to advocate for Mental Health to break the stigma. He is also the co-founder of The Defensive Line alongside his parents Chris & Martha.
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Dr. Corey Yeager is a researcher, psychotherapist and author of, “How Am I Doing: 40 Conversations To Have With Yourself”. Dr. Yeager’s therapeutic practice ranges from the NBA, NFL, UFL to an array of Entertainment spaces.
In the above photo: Dr. Jessica Stern, Selena Gomez, Mandy Teefey, Dr. Corey Yeager, and Solomon Thomas.
KEY QUOTES: Selena Gomez:
When deciding the moment to speak about her mental health, Selena said:
(30:34) “I will say this, you can’t force someone to do it. It doesn’t work. There were a lot of people that cared about me more than I cared about myself that really wanted me to do things I wasn’t ready for. I had to hit my rock bottom and I had to do it at my time. And I took a couple of tries, but I’d like to think and hope that I’m in a much better place now.”
(5:33) “I released a documentary and I was terrified to do it. And I went back and forth on whether I’d do it or not. And I think the moment I did that, I felt this insane amount of release because there wasn’t any hiding anymore. There wasn’t just this image that people could see and think, oh, it looks nice. And it was probably one of the hardest moments of my life. So I would say it’s helped release a lot of anxiety of keeping it in, just to let people know I’m having a hard day or I just need a minute.”
Mandy Teefey:
(13:10): “Before I really understood what mental health meant, I always knew that I felt different than other people, and I didn’t understand the feelings that I was having. And so it was just easy to chalk up and go, ‘oh, I’m just crazy.’ I didn’t realize that that was negatively affecting me. I’ve always spoken negatively to myself and I had to relearn the rule. If I wouldn’t say it to my best friend, I’m not allowed to say it to myself.”
(52:50) “I feel like with the loneliness epidemic, it should be an opportunity for us to really take that time to explore individually and internally what you feel. But instead, there’s so much noise everywhere that it keeps you preoccupied and you probably don’t have a clue what you really like, right? Put that phone down, turn the TV off, and then sit in that loneliness. You’ll probably last a couple minutes before you start squirming. You need to listen to that. You’re feeling it. And there’s so much opportunity for you to expand into the greatest person ever and to find that happiness. You won’t be lonely when you’re alone, because you have that relationship with yourself that you truly understand, and it’s not filled with other people’s agendas.”
Dr. Corey Yeager:
When discussing how we speak to ourselves is just as important to how we speak to each other:
(15:23) “I think it’s particularly important that the language that we use with one another is extremely important, right? That’s important how we convey what our, what we’re thinking and feeling. But the language that we use within ourselves is even more important. The conversations that I have with myself, the negative patterns that start to occur. One thing that we must know about negative and positive patterns, negative patterns are easy to just fall into. You don’t have to really get, do any work to fall into negative thinking. And then one negative thought leads to another. And now we’re deeply down this rabbit hole. Positive thinking makes you have to make a move towards that. You have to really move yourself into that positive thinking. So I think one of the things that we must get better at is giving grace to ourselves, right?”
When discussing changing negative thinking and patterns:
(35:23) “Asking ourselves in the midst of negative thinking, asking ourselves to stop and say, does what I just was thinking about, does it serve me? If the answer is no at that moment, I can make a choice to change that. Thinking simply doesn’t mean it’s easy. Simple doesn’t mean easy. But if I’m in the midst of that negative thinking and can be positive, change that to a positive thought, even like 180 from whatever it was, I was negatively thinking about, all of a sudden that pattern that new synapse synapses are, are firing to say, oh, no, we can do this differently.”
When speaking about finding happiness in one’s self:
(54:18) “Two things that we must be clearly understanding that my happiness is no one else’s to give. It’s mine. I will create my happiness. Yes, all of the things people in my world can help facilitate that happiness, but it’s mine. I own that fact that if I’m happy, it’s because of me, right? And we oftentimes don’t realize that all healing, all happiness must come from within. You can, the healing must come from within. It does not happen from outside. I’m a therapist. I cannot heal anyone. I can facilitate their healing by being curious with them, so they get the opportunity to have aha moments and say, I had never ever thought of that. I didn’t realize that about myself. Well, that’s an aha moment, but that’s your stuff. You, you had all that stuff in there. You just want someone to help facilitate it. Friends can do it, therapists can do it, tons of people can. But realizing, recognizing healing, happiness must come from within.”
Solomon Thomas:
When discussing how his mindset changed when realizing it is okay to not be okay after his sister passed away:
(10:30) “Being able to get to the strength and get to the place where I can talk about my emotions and open up about these things, it’s truly impacted and changed my life in, in the biggest way. I feel like I can live an authentic life now. I feel like I can be myself unapologetically. Like I’ve done the work and I’ve learned about who I am and learned about how I react in certain situations, how I handle my anxiety, what I need to do to fix that, what I need to do to live with my depression. Like, you know, find out these, these things.
It’s connecting with people more than I ever have ever thought I could. You have these conversations and you talk to these people and you might not even talk to ’em directly, but you have a new connection because we’re all human and we’re all going through these things. You may never see it, but it’s important to talk about these things. And it’s why I just have so much respect for everyone on this stage because it’s hard to get here. It’s really hard work and it’s hard to be able to talk about these things, but it’s needed ’cause people are struggling and this world definitely needs more people speaking up.”
(50:50) “Taking care of your mental health can be as simple as getting enough sleep making sure you’re getting 20 minutes of working out in a day, getting 20 minutes to 60 minutes a day outside of your job so you can kind of reflect or turn off your phone so you can be present. Making sure you’re getting the right water intake getting out in the sun. These are all simple ways you can take care of your mental health without having to do these things. Like it doesn’t have to be every time you take care of your mental health, it doesn’t have to be like a big exertion of emotions. It can be these simple things like going for a walk but even past that, like just having connectivity, having community around you, having people that love you, having safe places or always I take care of my mental health so I can be present. And just approach today the way I need to.”
Dr. Jessica Stern
When discussing the delicate balance of being in your head in a healthy, therapeutic, productive way, and then also getting out of your head so you are not stuck there:
(55:20) I think about a lot is that there’s this delicate balance between venting a lot and also deciding when you’re gonna walk away from that process. And I think sometimes that’s a delicate balance of trying to figure out how can I be productive in opening up seeking support versus when is it actually keeping me stuck in the pit? And how can I find a way to get out of that by turning some of those conversations into action in meaningful ways.
We wanted to give a special thanks to our Entertainment Today Reporter: Nina Ameri for doing a fantastic job with covering The SXSW Film Festival and Special Events, for us in Austin, Texas!
There will be a lot more great news stories from Nina Ameri!
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