Alaska podcast explores identity, mental health and solutions

Looking for your next listen to start the year off right?

The Alaska-produced Mental Health Mosaics podcast presents multifaceted views of healing and wellness practices. A program of Out North in partnership with NAMI-Anchorage, Mental Health Mosaics started in 2021 and also includes activities, accompanying worksheets, and an art show coming this spring. A virtual podcast listening club allows folks to process episodes together and not be alone since a lot of emotion is packed into the conversations.

Produced by Anne Hillman, the podcast and project present opportunities to dive deeper into self-care and healing. It also addresses our responsibilities as citizens and community members – for our own mental health and the mental health of others. The program’s stated goal is to “destigmatize conversations around mental health and provide people with the information and inspiration to drive positive change.”

A former public radio reporter, Hillman also said that the podcast shifts “who gets to control what gets reported on.” An advisory board, which includes people who have experienced addiction, homelessness, and recovery, determined 10 main topics to cover. The topics range from breaking the silence around mental health to the effects of colonization and white supremacist culture on mental health treatment. One topic might have several podcast episodes.

Hillman wanted to explore “what is contributing to why we feel the way we do” while having “as many avenues as possible to have these conversations.” It is also important for her that people with lived experiences be seen as experts.

She admits that while they are diving deeper, the program is only scratching the surface. “Still…this is a start.”

Her hopes and dreams for the project are that it inspires people “to drive community change. (If we) see someone in crisis, not judge them but think, ‘Oh, they are going through something.’”

While there are huge problems impeding mental wellness in our communities, there are “also people who are successful.” Mental Health Mosaics is “an exploration of lived experience, an exploration of solutions, an exploration of identity,” said Hillman.

Solutions may not always be found in the therapy room alone or other places many have been taught to look. In a recent episode, Ralph Sara – host of another local listen, The Anonymous Eskimo Recovery Podcast – spoke about an “adventure therapy class” where they would go and hike or cross-country ski and have therapy sessions on the trail. “It gives you a time out there in the wilderness to be quiet and think about things too, you know, things that maybe happen during the week or, or during your lifetime, shoot, you know, it gives you time to process, which is good,” Sara said.

In a podcast about ways to decolonize mental health, therapist and mental health liberation activist Melody Li said, “This 50 minutes I’m spending with this person once a week or every other week is only a slice of the possibilities of healing. And can I offer them more? And at the same time, am I also advocating for them outside of the therapy room?”

Hillman added in that same episode that “these conventional ways that we’ve all been taught to seek help aren’t the only ways. And seeking help by being part of a community garden, seeking help by just listening to people, seeking help through, you know, offering food at a community fridge, are all ways to also heal and be part of things.”

Li agreed, saying, “This mutual aid is restorative to entire communities, not just the folks that are hurting. It’s for all of us.”

As the pandemic enters its third year, many people are hurting and needing to learn about a variety of ways to heal themselves and one another.

Funding exists for new episodes to arrive about every two weeks through April. The art show featuring Alaska artists will debut in March at Out North. Learn more at outnorth.org.