NAMI CON 2024

Wow! My local affiliate, NAMI Southwest Ohio, nominated me to receive the 2024 NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Multicultural Outreach Award and I won the nomination! I have been with NAMI for 18 years now! NAMI truly changed the trajectory of my life! I have spent this week in Denver, Colorado having the time of my life!

I will never forget the call I got on a Friday from our amazing Director of Cross Cultural Innovations and Engagement, Dawn Brown who I got to meet in person the first night of NAMI Con, when she asked me to book a flight to NAMI Con in Denver! She just said that she needed me there because I had just been hired as the NAMI National Sharing Hope Consultant. I was busy cleaning getting ready for a visit with my two granddaughters who were on the way that day to spend the weekend. I got back to my computer later in the day and there was an email saying I had been selected to receive the Multicultural Outreach Award at NAMI Con 2024! My local affiliate took care of all my expenses as they had budgeted for me in case I did in fact receive the award!

As a retired educator, I became an advocate to help others understand the importance of achieving good mental health!

“People perish for a lack of knowledge!”

Science shows that when certain receptors in the brain are not firing correctly, it affects the rest of your body! Prayer helps no doubt, but it can go much deeper than that!

Through my faith and my strong spiritual beliefs, I have been led on a healing journey by the Most High, to heal the generational trauma in my blood line from 7 generations back and 7 generations to come. I originally called this my Journey to Joy!

“There is no health without mental health!“

If my mind is not at peace, I can’t make good decisions. In the past, I would self medicate with food or shopping trying to resolve my issues. Over the past 18 years, I have made small steps to heal my body, mind, soul, and spirit. It’s certainly not a one and done. You can’t take a magic pill. But by becoming educated and addressing the trauma as the Most High allows, working with my Therapist, attending classes and workshops on managing stress through different modalities. Acknowledging my grief and losses, working to move the pain through yoga—laughter, grief, and chair—I am learning to breath more deeply while breathing in the peace and releasing the pain.

By giving to others, I receive gifts in return. I am content now with my own company. I speak loving kindness to myself every day while l thank the Creator for gifting me with everything in me I will ever need. There was a time when I thought I needed someone to complete me. That was a lie!

I am learning to love the darkest parts of my life that I am not proud of. See, we can’t operate from a place of shame if we ever expect to recover. Once we expose our mess to the light, it can hold no more sway over us!

Eighteen is a number often associated with finding awareness and spiritual awakening. It can mean moving away from toxic people, places, and situations that no longer serve you. It is tied to infinity as a new beginning.

I was so blessed to have one of my cousin’s attend the ceremony when I received my Award! Scott Logan came to support me! I was so overjoyed to see him! I felt like I was being wrapped in so much love from our Ancestors! Scotty, as he is known by some of his small town country cousins like me, has led an extraordinary life with his beautiful wife Rose. They moved to Colorado and have lived there since the early 70’s after he came out of the military and began to advance in his career with FEMA. It was awesome to spend time catching up with him.

We ate a late lunch at a local restaurant called Zoup! The young lady who served us was amazing! I found the food to be nutritional and delicious!

Scotty and Rose have been deeply affected by mental health. Their only son, Matthew, who I had an opportunity to meet once, had a serious mental health diagnosis. After he transitioned in his early 40’s, it took time for them to grieve and heal.

Talking to him was like a confirmation from our Ancestors that in spite of the losses we have experienced, we can get help from counseling and other means of support groups to help us turn our pain into purpose.

I am still basking in the love as it has been several days now since we got together. The last time I talked with him was following Uncle Sonny’s transition in 2007. Uncle Sonny and Aunt Sis were like parents to my brother and I after our parents had both transitioned. His family is so special to me. I look to his “baby Sis”, Brenda as a confidant and Big Sis to me!

Honoring our loved ones is so important. I was so appreciative of him driving 25 minutes to share one of the most amazing days of my life so far with me. I will always be grateful for our conversation and his loving kindness. His hearty laugh reminds me of his Dad and the twinkle in his eye of his beautiful Mother as he speaks about his wife, their daughter and grandson who is now 7 and the life he has lived will always be in my heart. I truly am blessed to have people in my life who love and honor me!

Enough for today…I will share more snippets of wisdom and joy that came in my life as a result of attending NAMI Con 2024!

In case no one told you today, please remember, You Are Loved! You Are Not Alone! God, Spirit, Most High, Creator, the Universe has big plans in store for you! By following GOD—Good Orderly Direction—you can’t go wrong!

Never Give Up Hope!

(c) (2024) Yolonda Kelsor. All rights reserved.

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