How Can YOU Impact Others? With Anka and Tami

This week we introduce Anka Roberto and Tami Reichert. We discuss how to positively impact the youth in your communities and how little traumas are just as Important as big traumas! 

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Transcript

Chris: 0:32

Welcome back everybody. This week you have the constant co-host, Chris Kellum, Tyler, y'all. And we are bringing on two lovely ladies. Tell us about yourself.

Anka: 0:43

Sure. My name is Anca Roberto. I'm a Doctor Lou prepared psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. I teach full-time at U N C W down the road here as their concentration lead. Oh, wow. And I also have a private practice locally in Wilmington. Very

Tami: 0:57

nice. So my name's Tammy Reichert and I'm a registered nurse. I'm also a board certified nurse coach, and I share an office space with Onca. And I do pediatric emergency room as a nurse.

Chris: 1:10

Very nice. So Tyler knows these ladies I guess from the Great Life through, yeah, through my wife. Oh, okay. That makes so much more sense. His wife. As a nurse, was a nurse. Used to do is both, all

Tyler: 1:25

the above.

Chris: 1:27

But this week as per usual, Tyler is sustaining from drinking. Mm-hmm. He's doing 75 hard

Tyler: 1:34

because I went to Charleston and drank too much for four days. So, balance.

Chris: 1:40

Yes. But me and Anka are drinking the new Southern Revival. It's their street. Technically. It's from Highwire Distilling Company. It's a huge name. But it's called the New Southern Revival. It's a hundred percent Jimmy Red Corn which is a specific strain of corn which no one really saw for years. Mm-hmm. And they were able to like, find a few acres and plant it and get it growing back in like 2014. But it's a nice, it's a little bit of a sweeter flavor and more earthy rich mineral tones, but, In that

Tyler: 2:15

100% corn. Yeah. You're gonna get that sweet sugary flavor out of it. Yes.

Chris: 2:20

And it does have a deeper red tone to it. Mm-hmm. And then what was your name again? Tammy. Tammy. I

Tyler: 2:27

was like, hmm. We have actually just met,

Chris: 2:30

so wait, literally 20 minutes ago. And then Tammy's sipping on the

Tyler: 2:38

Beyond distilling bourbon that we had

Chris: 2:40

on last week. There we go. Because she's never had whiskey, so we were like, let's, let's not ruin the world for you. Right? Yeah. We'll start with

Tyler: 2:48

this sweet orangey taste to it and not get like a really hard, harsh whiskey flavor your first time,

Anka: 2:54

so. Right. I appreciate that. That was kind of them. We tried something.

Chris: 2:59

But yeah. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

Tami: 3:02

Cheers.

Chris: 3:04

In the long arms. Oh wow.

Tyler: 3:07

That is just the face of having whiskey for the first

Tami: 3:09

time. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. Yeah. That is

Chris: 3:12

good. It's very different. Tyler was arguing that. I'd tell it's a winter whiskey. Oh, it's fall. Well, ah, the house's close autumn. Sorry. I like to label our whiskeys based on like, when I see, think you should drink it, huh? Because as a person who drinks whiskey all year long, you don't wanna drink a harsh, heavy whiskey in July. Hmm. I mean, you can, but that's not me. Yeah.

Anka: 3:38

Kind of like wine. It's like a wine. Yeah.

Chris: 3:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. See I try and connect everything. See that? That's right.

Tyler: 3:45

Nuances.

Chris: 3:47

But we do want to give a shout out to. To sway

Tyler: 3:51

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Chris: 4:31

Yeah. So yeah. Tell us like, we know what you do, right? Why are you here?

Anka: 4:38

To share the good word of the stuff we

4:40

do.

Tyler: 4:42

I love, how did you, how'd you both get to the points of where you're at now? Yeah. Because it kind of sounds like there was some winding paths. I got you there. Is that, is that right?

Anka: 4:52

Very much so. Yeah. I think,

Tami: 4:54

yeah. No, I agree. You wanna share first? Sure.

Anka: 4:57

So I was just talking to my husband about this cuz I don't know, he's like, you went straight, how did he, we've been married for 17 years. He's like, I thought you took a gap. I'm like, no, there was no gap. Ooh. Right. Graduated high school, went into nursing school four year degree up at Fairfield U Okay. Yeah. Ghost tags in Connecticut. And then launched from there, moved to New York City with my bsn and worked at NYU Medical Center on a peds floor and got burnt out super quick. And then decided to work in New York City and community health and worked with a lot of kiddos in the foster care system. So there went my mental health hat. That was my first love for mental health. And then from there, worked at a CH A Children Hospital for Children with special needs in Westchester Blythedale Children's Hospital, which was an awesome place to work. And then from there, went back into public health, got a, got another degree and a half, two degrees, a dual degree. I just love school so much that I just kept going back and my employers kept paying for me to go to schools. I was like, all right, what's the best way to do it? Wait, I'll go paid for it. My job.

Chris: 6:06

Oh yeah, employers. I said, I thought you said my lawyers. I was like,

Tyler: 6:11

oh, interesting.

Anka: 6:13

And then what happened next? Then I had a couple kids in between. Right. That's how it happens. Then I ended up in the nicu. Okay. After my oldest, who's 16 now, spent some time in the nicu. I made buddies in the nicu, so they hired me on part-time. Gosh. And then, Stayed there for quite some while, had Serena our second, who's now 13. And then we lived in Sandy Hook, Connecticut at the time and that was just awfulness. And I was in my doctoral of nursing practice program getting my D N P as an FM p a family nurse practitioner. And then that fall decided I need to do mental health work cuz I was doing it in the community. Oh yeah. So I switched over in January of that year into the Psych and P Track. So I'm a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and have like never doubted the decision to do that cuz there's such a need everywhere for us. That's an

Chris: 7:14

understatement. Yeah,

Tyler: 7:15

I highly see that. Yeah. What brought you down to Wilmington then? The

Anka: 7:20

weather. Yeah. I don't blame you. Me too and other things, but yeah. That's great.

Tyler: 7:25

Yeah. And how about yourself?

Tami: 7:26

So my journey started out in California. My sister is a nurse practitioner here in Wilmington. She's also faculty at U N C W, and I always saw her in the NICU taking care of the babies, and I wanted to be a nurse. So I went to San Francisco State, got my undergraduate degree, and I always wanted to do pediatrics. I loved kids. I traveled, I made my way to the East coast. I actually worked in New York City for a long time. And I lived on Long Island. I tried to go back to school for a little while, tried to get my nurse practitioner, but my husband was sick and life and all that. Mm-hmm. Long story short, I've been doing peds for a long time. We moved down here, weather, life, that kind of stuff. And I'm kind of at the place with my career where I feel like I need to sort of take that next step. And mental health has become something that has become a passion of mine, especially with children and adolescents. I fostered kids for a while. And I saw the mental health crisis. It started a non-for-profit in New York. We did human trafficking education and awareness, and we worked very closely with the county and legislators and different people within the community that we saw a huge need that children actually in the foster care system are very high at risk, especially when they're in adolescence. They age out of the system. They're very at risk for human trafficking. In fact, one of the kids, I just got a text message yesterday, one of the kids that we know she just got pulled into human trafficking Oh, wow. From a group home in Westchester County in New York. She and they're looking for her now. And so I just said, oh my gosh, we need to not only do this organization, but also foster these children. Mm-hmm. And as I've worked more and more in nursing in these last few years, I've seen the crisis that our kids are going through. And actually applied for my D N P. Hopefully I'll get in soon at some point. But my goal as well is to get my D N P and work with adolescents and try to make a small dent in the, the crisis that we're we're on right now with mental health in adolescents.

Tyler: 9:27

Is that something you see in Wilmington as well too when it comes to trafficking? Cause I know that's a pretty big issue down here. So would you say it's pretty close to on par or as New

Tami: 9:37

York? Well, so yeah. And so you can throw any statistic you want out. You know, there's a lot of statistics that float around about all sorts of things. But the truth of the matter is, is that human trafficking is everywhere. Mm-hmm. It's right in our backyard. It's under our noses. I mean, your next door neighbor could be trafficking their child. There's, so, there's familial trafficking. There's people who do survival trafficking for themselves. And you just have to, you know, the bottom line comes down to what choices are they left with, you know, where are they feeling cornered at that they need to make that decision? And so ultimately trafficking is, is everywhere. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Wilmington has no shortage of that problem. Wow. Right.

Chris: 10:16

I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where people, like I always hear that Wilmington has a lot of drugs, but people don't think about trafficking. Right. Trafficking issue as well. Mm-hmm.

Tami: 10:28

Right. And there are a couple organizations in town I just would love to throw out. Yeah. I mean, five 14 Revolution is really good. It's run by Rebecca Anderson and I know her co-partner Mandy. They're actually, they've got an office space that's open for the women. That's right. On Market Street where a lot of Oh wow. Sort of, I hate to say the action occurs, but for lack of a better word. Yeah. And then first fruits ministry my husband works for, they have a safe house. Oh wow. Okay. So there are people in the community that are doing that work. Mm-hmm. So, very nice.

Tyler: 10:58

Yeah. That's great to know. I've been, been here for 12 years and I haven't heard of either one of'em, so Yeah. I'm glad you brought it up on the podcast for everyone else.

Tami: 11:04

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris: 11:05

I think that's the thing that happens the most and that I learned the most about here on the podcast especially, is all of these little things that have been around forever and no one knows about it. Mm-hmm. Because we're not talking about it. Mm-hmm. Which reverse going back cuz I always talk about the randomest stuff in, in my head and then I have full conversations with yourself. Yes, I do. So how did you ladies link up? How did you share an office space now?

Tami: 11:35

Yeah, we do

Anka: 11:35

now. So our daughters became friends. And we just heart connected. Yeah. With who we are as humans and as women and as believers too, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Just doing life together, building each other up, supporting each other as women leaders in the community. Nice. And helping to mentor our littles. You know, we see all these kiddos that are just influenced by so much of society pressures and it's just hard to watch. That's the sideline. So it's, we've gotta come along each other as women, empower each other to empower our girls and the communities we serve. So, yeah.

Tyler: 12:13

So since you both have your own kind of like private practices now, kind of sharing that office space, what do you do now in the community? Just kinda get that out there. Cause we kind of went through the past, so kind of bring it back to the

Anka: 12:23

present. Yeah. Lots of things. So, and in my role as faculty at U N C W, I do a lot of community engaged trauma awareness work. Okay. I'm a trauma clinician. I'm EMDR certified and trained. I don't know if you know what that is. No

Chris: 12:38

idea. Yeah. You saw the look on my face.

Anka: 12:41

Yeah. So EMDR stands for eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It's, I wish they didn't have that as the acronym, but it is the acronym. It's basically a trauma treatment that helps to reprocess negative thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and feelings from past traumatic events in the similar way that REM sleep does. Right? Yeah. You know how when you go to sleep at night and people say sleep on it, you'll feel better in the morning. Yes. You actually do because you're in rapid eye movement and that process helps to reprocess whatever is going on in your subconscious mind. So EMDR is like, What do they say 20 times the speed of REM sleep. Oh, when you're doing it in therapy with a client. So in my private practice, I treat, that's my base modality. I also have the ability to prescribe pharmacological agents, which I don't love to do unless I have to. Mm-hmm. And do a lot of like nutritional support and that's kind of how Tammy and I really work together. Okay. She does a lot of the nurse coaching and does a lot of, and she can share more of what she does, but does a lot of the changes in lifestyle and diet and I do some of that as well with some of the clients. But yeah, working on a whole bunch of different projects at the schools locally. We did a trauma-informed playmakers training for teachers right before Covid and then Covid hit and kind of, you know, the world shut down. Yes. So that was, you know, difficult to have to manage around, but we're trying to get back in there. Yes.

Tyler: 14:35

Yeah. What does a typical client look like for M D R?

Anka: 14:39

Like you, like me, like whoever, you know, it just, it everyone is, comes in with whatever it is they're carrying from old past traumas. Okay. I see a lot of adults that have their little six year old self. Like, so when you ask Yeah. When you mentioned that earlier, I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I see that with my clients. What would you, what would you want your six year old self to, to feel and to know? Yeah.

Tyler: 15:04

Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. I wasn't sure if there was like a specific like trauma or something you had to have gone through to make it worth it, but yeah, that's good to know. I'm glad Yeah. That we went through that. Yeah. Little,

Anka: 15:13

little teas are no less than a big tea, meaning your little traumas like being bullied in school. Mm-hmm. Or having a parent not show up for you at a certain time. Or having these like gigantic community trauma like we had. Mm-hmm. You know, all, it's like a bunch of feathers building up. Can still weigh a ton. Right, right. So it, it really, and it, everyone has a different level of resilience, so there's that too. So you can help foster that or you need to help create it. Mm-hmm. Cause they don't have much of it. Yeah.

Tyler: 15:44

That's interesting. Yeah. And so nurse coaching wise, right. That's something I hadn't heard of before Jennifer told me. So what is nurse coaching?

Tami: 15:52

Nurse coaching is helping people kind of move towards what goals they wanna achieve. So it can be as simple as somebody wants to lose weight and they just don't know how to get started. Mm-hmm. They've lost their motivation. I had one client I was working with who that was her case, you know, she had fallen off the bandwagon, so to speak, seven years ago. And a goal we had set by the end of the session was just to take our shoes out of the closet that she used to walk with and put them by the front door. Oh yeah. So she can remind herself that. Hey, I can walk. And so I like to help people start with small changes because I feel like if you try to go all in mm-hmm. You're more likely to fail. Right. We've all done that. Right? Yeah. You know, the 75 hard is a big challenge. A lot of people can't really, you know, do that. Yeah. On a day-to-day basis, unless they've done other things that have set them up for that. So a lot of people need to kind of start with something simple. It could be, oh, I'm gonna exercise one day this week. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna dust off the rowing machine, or whatever. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I've also worked with people who have come to me with trauma. And so with that I did something called heart math, which is a trauma informed care where I can help people sort of see a problem from a different perspective, from a healthier perspective, maybe from their wiser self, which is a, a heart resilience, like a, from where their heart would see it. So from more of a beautiful perspective. Yeah. And people use that in corporate America. People use that for all sorts of different. Scenarios. It can be something small, it can be something big. And from coming, coming at that, from a, that perspective, that heart perspective and tuning into what you're feeling and what your body's experiencing often gives us a really good, healthy perspective on how we can take that first step. Oh wow. So yeah. So

Anka: 17:36

yeah, the body keeps a score. Oh yeah. And I think people forget that. Yeah. So the heart math work is very sematic. Mm-hmm. So as you work along with folks who are trying to figure out like, what the hecks going on with my body, really, your body's telling you something. Mm-hmm. So people don't slow down enough to hear it. Mm-hmm. And feel it. Cuz there's a lot of stuffers out there in the world, right? Yeah. Where they're just stuffing it all and it all shows up in their symptomatology, their anxiety, depression, irritability, anger, temper. Hmm. You know,

Tyler: 18:08

that's very similar to when we had Do you guys know Dr. Hillary Rutledge by chance? Hmm mm-hmm. She's a functional medicine doctor in town. Oh, great. And she was talking a lot about how cortisol plays Oh yeah. Like such a large role. Yeah. Into people's lives and they're like, well, I don't feel stressed, but kind of what you were talking about is just kind of slow, steady, just kind of piling it all on until your body can't take it anymore, even though your body's been screaming at you for all these years in different

Anka: 18:34

ways. Yep, for sure. Yeah. I do some similar testing. I do a little, I'm dabbling a little bit in functional medicine. Mm-hmm. But there's a attached a test called the Dutch test. Yeah. And it shows cortisol levels and people, when I show the results, they're just floored when they see they're either really spiked high or they're just totally depleted. Mm-hmm. And they're in like adrenal shutdown. Yeah. Yep.

Chris: 18:55

So, wait, I have two questions we we'll start from, we'll go backwards. Cortisol, uhhuh, what is it? And is. Do you want high or low? Mm-hmm. How do you want medium?

Anka: 19:08

You want medium? Cortisol is a stress hormone. Okay. And God naturally gave us this cortisol to respond to stressors, but we shouldn't have it on all the time. Mm-hmm. Because it causes inflammation. Right. So that's why lots of folks end up seeing a functional medicine doc or functional provider or anybody in that realm because they're feeling like their bodies, there's something going on with their body. Their gut's not healthy. They're feeling like there's like leaky gut syndrome. Mm-hmm. They have headaches, all that. Think of all the inflammatory cascades that happen. Mm-hmm. So when we have lots of cortisol on board, you're kind of causing all this inflammation to just continue on and and continue on. And it influences other neurotransmitters. So we've got serotonin or epinephrine, right? So we've got all of these other GABA receptors and things that help us be well. And if we are cortisol is not managed, then we can lead to like toxic stress. Cycles symptoms that kind of looks like a ptsd.

Tami: 20:07

Mm-hmm. And chronic inflammation. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Chris: 20:10

Yep. So then second question, you guys have said traumas multiple times, but the way you said it meant to me, I'm looking, I'm like, I feel like you're meaning the same thing, but different things. Hmm. What would you mean by like traumas for like a person to me, like to me working, knowing you work in a hospital, I was like, oh, trauma. I'm like, yeah, like medical trauma, you're thinking, yeah. Right. Yeah. But I know that you're meant, the way you're saying it is.

Tami: 20:39

Psychological. Well, so actually that's interesting you bring that, that question up because it actually can mean both. Yep. Right. So a new realm of research actually in the physi in the physical trauma world, right? So somebody comes in, they've been in a car accident, or a child comes in into the emergency room and something is really wrong, and they're in this trauma room and all these lights are on them, and all this stuff is happening fast and clothes are being taken off of them, and IVs are being put in them. They're experiencing trauma. Mm-hmm. And they experience trauma almost in the same way that a person who was violated or bullied or something like that would experience trauma. The body just holds it in. And what AKA's work is, is to kind of move it out of the body so that it doesn't cause that chronic stress, that chronic inflammation and we don't carry that with us and have psychological diagnosis or a soliloquy of chronic inflammation and all these. Medical problems. So there is research that some hospitals now are actually trying to support a patient if they've come out of the ICU or they've come out of the pediatric icu mm-hmm. Or they've come out of a, a trauma situation and support them a little bit more long term because they've seen that that trauma is almost similar to a war vet. They can relive that experience over and over again. Mm-hmm.

Anka: 22:01

There's actually an article I worked when I worked in the nicu. That's exactly what the article said to all the NICU families. Being in the NICU is no different than being in a war zone, except nobody else knows about it. Wow. Just you do, right. Yeah. So I just presented at Feeding Matters. I don't know if you know who they are as an amazing organization. They work with lots of children internationally. And families in and around feeding issues, which we see a lot with NICU babies and babies with other comorbidities. And they're finally, I think the medical world is finally listening to folks say, Hey, that child has experienced a traumatic event these times. And I think the word trauma is being coined so much now, just cuz of covid. Right. But it's been around for a long time. Yes. Just nobody's paid attention to it. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I had to

Chris: 22:52

ask. I'm like, question. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the person who I can connect dots all over the place, so I kind of knew what you were saying, but for the person who doesn't,

Tyler: 23:03

I think it important to do that too because like a lot of people have like their preconceived notions of what certain words mean. Yeah, yeah. And just kind of bringing it back down to a base level Yeah. I think is important. Just in general, not even just on the podcast. Another question I had for you too, then. It's, we've had a lot of people on talking about mostly motherhood, believe it or not, on tour podcast. Yeah. Yeah. And when just your parenting in general, even just when you have a baby, you just kind of handed a baby and you're like, Hey, good luck after you leave the hospital. And how there's a lot of people in town now are trying to say like, okay, here's some support to help you. Here's some places to go to get that information. So the way to connect that all, it sounds like there's that similar thing that after you spend time in the hospital or in a medical facility for too long, that there should be some type of support outside of it because it's, I'm sure very lonely. Right. Is that kind

Anka: 23:55

what I'm getting to? Absolutely. I actually treat lots of postpartum moms in my office. Oh, really? Similar. I mean, there's either some severe mental health symptom that's showing up postpartum after they have their baby. There's a lot of isolation mm-hmm. When you have a newborn. Right, right. That's actually where I started my maternal work was in the public health department up in New York. Mm-hmm. Just literally doing home visits with moms. Yeah. With babies. They were having a hard time latching, breastfeeding, all the things you dream of, these amazing time in your life and none of it's working. Right. So it's like,

Tami: 24:27

what?

Chris: 24:29

It's odd enough cuz like I've seen enough in life that I also know I haven't seen enough, but people are like, oh, well my kid's not doing this. Like, he's not latching, he's not feeding. And everyone's like, it's all my fault. And I'm like, eh. Mm-hmm. I don't think it's all your fault. There's that, there's, there's

Anka: 24:49

that negative cognition though. Yeah. Right. That's, that's an old thought. Yeah. That I bet you that person had when they were like eight. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I did something wrong. It's my fault.

Chris: 25:00

See, I like that connection.

Tyler: 25:02

Yeah. Yeah. See it all comes together. Yes. Uhhuh.

Chris: 25:05

That's what I'm here for.

Tami: 25:08

Connecting the dots. Yes. They're all connected. It's true story. And I was working with a mom who who had birthed a baby. Mm-hmm. You know, and she was getting ready to have her another, another baby, and she was pregnant with her second baby. And during that time it just kind of came out and she's like, I don't know where this came from, but. The experience of having multiple people touching her, you know, and her body and her being out of control. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely left a mark that she wasn't naming trauma, but she was naming it that like, I would like to actually have a little more control next time I deliver this, this baby. How can I do that? And so, you know, we work together Yeah. In the coaching relationship to name four things she was gonna bring to her doula for her birth plan. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because I think that's another aspect when women are preparing to birth the baby, that if there was any trauma earlier in your life, or even if there wasn't that, if there definitely was some sort of physical trauma mm-hmm. That'll resurface.

Anka: 26:08

Yeah. I'm not in control as a big negative. Mm-hmm. It's like the most popular negative cognition.

Chris: 26:14

I could totally see that, especially in the world today.

Anka: 26:18

Yeah. And those always lead to all these sequela of like different symptomatology. So you look at those folks that suffer from eating disorders, control is a huge culprit to that. You know, any of the substance use disorders, control is always a big component of that. Lots of those folks have a lot of traumatic backgrounds, the way they were raised, what kind of environment they were in, what their parental relationships were like. So it just needs to be recognized and treated, and there's just not enough of us in the community.

Tyler: 26:51

What's a way that someone can kind of connect back to having more control? Because I feel like that would be something hard to learn.

Anka: 27:00

Yeah. I think like really mentoring, that's huge, right? Mm-hmm. And giving people agency. Hmm. And so as adults, if we're not mentoring someone younger than us, then shame on us. Right. Right. So don't do life alone. And always, I always think of find a mentor above you and actually a, our pastor's wife just spoke about this a couple weeks ago. Make sure you have people alongside of you and then make sure you're mentoring someone that's younger than you. Mm-hmm. That kind of try phase that triple action cuz that helps a lot. Cuz if people don't feel like they have a village or people next to them or beside them, you know, they need sisterhoods and brotherhoods and all the hood. You know, we just all need to be like living in these little hoods together. Yeah, it's true.

Tami: 27:49

Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to piggyback on that There was a study, there's a, there's a homeless shelter nationwide called Covenant House mm-hmm. For runaway youth. Mm-hmm. They serve up to 21, I believe. And one of the studies that came out of that was 3000 youth were spoken to. And one of the things that was identified in that, that correlated with human trafficking and being out on the streets and homelessness was they didn't have one adult Yep. That they could connect with. Yep. Wow. One solid, healthy adult that can mental mentor them through life to do life with they couldn't identify that. And that was a big key factor. Yeah,

Anka: 28:25

I can see that. Yeah. And the world of when you talk about attachment with littles little people when I say little people, I mean like kiddos, right? They only need one healthy adult, one healthily attached adult. So even if kiddos have parents who are divorced, It's okay. They're gonna be okay. Right. But as long as one of those parents is healthly attached to them, it doesn't have to be a parent. It could be a grandmother, it could be a neighbor, it could be an aunt, an uncle, a brother or sister, whomever. But somebody that's got that connection with that person who's kind of looking out for them. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: 28:59

So, talking about mentoring I feel like finding someone above you is easier. Mm-hmm. But how do, how do you guys, how have you found someone underneath or younger than you to mentor?

Tami: 29:14

That's a good question. I think doing life together, I don't necessarily find myself mentoring her daughter. Mm-hmm. But I'm there if she needs it. Right. So, and vice versa. I mean, she has mentored my oldest she has taken her out for a drive and, and just been that, that supportive adult for her. Mm-hmm. We try to be regulated adults in our own home and healthy adults for our kids, but sometimes they do need another adult. And so I think her daughter knows that she can come to me, and then my daughter definitely knows that she can go yeah. To her. Mm-hmm. And they can, they can provide that support, but there's also lots of organizations to get involved in. There's prison ministry. There's definitely a lot of things within churches if you go to church, you know, that you can get involved with. You know, there's a lot of youth that come to church that are very broken. Right. You know, they're, they're searching for something and somebody. Mm-hmm. And so even something as simple as that, things we take for granted.

Anka: 30:07

Yeah. And we have a university in our town. I mean, there's so many youth that need mentors and I'm fortunate enough to literally be on campus, so I get to mentor the students that I'm working with. But I mean, they are just, you know, get involved in your local schools. Schools are always looking for folks to come in and help out, you know, after school programming or tutoring or, you know, there's just, if, if you're willing and, and you have the time, you can, it's easy to find the littles around. Yeah.

Chris: 30:35

I was thinking about that cuz you said you had listened to like our first couple episodes and Thaddeus is a huge proponent of mentorship. Mm-hmm. Cuz he, he's one of those people who like you, wants to be in the community and he is always has his hands in there, like his neighborhood. He is always chatting up the kids, walking down the street, just making sure like, Hey, you know, you know, this is a good spot. If you have a question you can come hit me up. He's always in the gym working out. Yeah. He's pushing people. To get better. Yeah. And I feel like we

Anka: 31:07

definitely need more. Yeah. I have a beautiful friend, her name is Jocelyn Hunter. She actually has, has a practice up in Castle Hayne and she teaches with me at U N C W. But she is like the mentor, the mentor of all mentors. She, I mean, believes in, you know, coming alongside of, of particularly young black women, black girls brown and black. So that she really, cuz that's what helped her get to where she was. Hmm. You know, she's got her PhD and doing great things and Wow. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. So she's actually this summer, I'm gonna plug for her if it's okay. Yeah. Certainly. She's doing a, a workshop this summer called Becoming her I believe it's gonna launch on August 19th to allow for women of color, young youth of color to come alongside her and doing a real great day of just pouring into them and, and teaching them what it's like to have someone that cares. That's actually really, that's awesome. Really cool. Yeah.

Chris: 31:59

Yeah. That's fantastic. I feel like there's, like we had mentioned earlier, there's a lot of things that are going on in the community that you don't hear about because obviously the news, what are they spouting? All the stuff. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's not here locally. That's that we should be actually hearing about in the agreed. Agreed. I mean, I want to know what's going around, out and about around us, but you also need to know like what's going on in your community. Absolutely.

Tyler: 32:26

Especially what's out there to help the people that need help. Yeah.

Tami: 32:29

There is there is a really good organization. It is a Christian organization, but regardless of your, you know, religious beliefs, it's called one Christian network. And she has a plethora of resources on her website of anybody who's helping anybody and everybody in the community, from furniture resources to foster care resources, to food banks to where you can get clothing to a warming shelter and it's for everybody. And then you can see what's out there, what's being done, and come alongside what you feel most passionate about. And most of, most every organization touches in on youth in the community, right? Mm-hmm. You know, in some ways, shape or form, whether you're walking alongside a mother who's new mother, or you're walking alongside a teenager or a young family or a grandfather who's got grandchildren, you know, some way, shape or form you're touching on mentoring somebody when you walk alongside with them and you can learn a lot from someone else too, right? Yeah. Oh

Anka: 33:23

gosh. Yeah. It always makes me think like, I think lay people need to show up, right? For the folks. Yeah. Because then mental health clinicians won't need to be needed. I mean, if lay people just sit at a bench and wait for people to, you know, or chat with a person that's online with them, how often are you sitting and everyone's on their phone, you're in an elevator, no one's talking because they're all talking on their, you know. Yes. It just, ugh. Hurts my heart. Good

Chris: 33:48

point. I miss this thing. Like communities in general, I feel like we used to have more community centers so people could come and hang out. Oh, well I'm the old guy who lives in the neighborhood. I'm retired. I have nothing else to do. Why not? I'm sitting here playing chess or I'm hanging out and kids can come in and you see'em. You get to know these people. Absolutely. And I. I'm hoping that we can shift back into that direction in the world, you know, where we're reaching out more in the

Anka: 34:17

communities. Yeah. I grew up going to a local Y down the road from my elementary school. Yeah. We used to go to the Boys and Girls Club every day after school. Yeah. And that's where we just hung out. And that's where my brothers all made their mentor friends. And then there was this guy, I remember this guy, his name was Ronnie. He lived in our apartment building. Mm-hmm. He was an old dude. He used to restore classic cars. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. And he would be in the parking lot and we would see him through the window and he'd be like, come on down. And he'd pop open Dr. Peppers for us. And my brothers are helping him, but that's, ah, we don't see that anymore. Mm-hmm. No one's in their houses. I always, the

Tyler: 34:53

other part of that that's even worse too, is that everyone's so on edge now that like if there was an old guy that was like, oh yeah, come on, let give you Dr. Pepper. Like there's a lot of parents, I would be like, nah, you probably shouldn't go talk to that guy. Yeah. And like I know that, that's the other thing that's kind of sad too, is that we get. To that point. Yeah. Agreed.

Chris: 35:11

Yes. I always tell my wife, I'm like, you know, if I ever won the billion dollar sweepstakes, that is something I would do. I'm like, one, I would open up a brewery slash distillery because I mean, why not? We had a podcast. Why not? Right. But I've always looked into, I was like, I would love to do a community center where Me too. One, I like video games, so I'm like, you know, have a spot for computers so kids can play computers and you can do all this stuff or you can play basketball, you can do sports. But I mean, there's so many things out there that I just wish that you could bring it back.

Anka: 35:44

Yeah. And that kids can get to, I find that to be an issue in Wilmington. Yes. Like how do people get there? You can have this community center, but it's all the way on Market Street. Who the heck's gonna drive? No. Right. An hour of traffic to get

Chris: 35:54

there. Well, and then you're stuck and you're like, well you could take the bus. And I'm like, yeah, well you could.

Anka: 36:00

Yeah. But.

Tami: 36:01

But yes. Nobody's sticking the bus. Yeah.

Tyler: 36:04

Also, wave transit is one of the worst buzzing systems. Don't worries. I already thought of that. Well,

Anka: 36:09

I think that's a collective thought. So, you know, stay tuned for other people who you may meet here to really wanna be doing that work. Yes.

Tyler: 36:16

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, don't worry. That's another reason why we started the podcast too. Networking. Yes. Trying, trying to get the community together. Yeah. That's right. So cool. Something else that we focus on a lot in our podcast too is men's Mental Health. And something that we have touched on is like a lot of women and moms and stuff like that, but do you see men coming through your practices? And if so, how? What could we do to have more men reach out to you? Oh

Anka: 36:42

yeah. I see lots of men in my practice, even when I was in Connecticut. And unfortunately they don't get to me until their life has completely fallen apart. Mm-hmm. Normalizing it, I think is one of the biggest ways, I think as a, as a guy yourselves, like both of you guys, if you can talk about it more here. Yeah, that'd be great. You know, let's normalize that mental health is not you know, it's, it's, no, it's just, it's just the same as physical health, right? Mm-hmm. So you go, you go to your primary care provider once a year, twice a year. Maybe you should check in with someone, be like, Hey, what's going on with me? You know? And, and men present depression, anxiety for men present as irritability. Yeah. Mm. And how often do we see that as a symptom? Right. But nobody knows what the heck it is. Yep. Or they're, you know, they're walking in the door and they just, you know, everybody's, oh, leave dead alone. You know, don't leave. He needs space. Mm-hmm. That should be a sign that's so's not, right. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. No,

Tami: 37:45

I mean, I think what she said is, is on point. I mean, you just have to normalize it. I think the way we've normalized that, You know, suicide is a risk amongst teenagers and they have, it's become so normalized in the community of teenagers that I'm seeing in my work on a day-to-day basis that they're reporting each other. Mm-hmm. Because they care. They'll tell the other kid's parent, they'll tell a teacher. I mean, I've seen it firsthand at least twice in the last two weeks. Wow. So that has become normalized. So I think normalizing that discussion and just saying, Hey buddy, you seem really off lately. You know, have you ever thought about talking to somebody? I think the more you normalize that amongst men, I think you're gonna see more men coming in and finally start talking.

Anka: 38:27

Yeah. And the other piece there is, you know, when, and this is for the practitioners listening, or people who help other people, if you have kids in your office, Those parents should be getting help too. Yes. Right? Mm-hmm. So if there's a mental health crisis for children, adolescents, well, there's a mental health crisis in that family, in that household. So mom, dad, and every other family member should be in that room together. And that doesn't happen often. No. Many times one of the kids are in the office, parents are in their car. Ah, yeah. You know, I'm like you're gonna be part of session today, so make sure you're in here. Right. So that's, that's a way in. Right. Because if the kids' in crisis and they're needing care, more than likely, most, most than likely, the parents both need. I remember when I first brought my oldest to her first therapist, she mandated that my husband and I were in treatment. I was in treatment at the time already. So kind of pushed him to get, get help as well. Yep. And it transformed our family structure. So, I think that's the answer. And then guys hanging out, like, what do you guys talk about? Like when you're drinking, hang out. I'm being serious. Like when you're drinking your whiskey and bourbon. Not in this space, but in social setting, you know? Mm-hmm. I'm hopeful you guys are talking about real stuff cuz girls, you know, we like, we like to talk about emotions.

Tami: 39:47

Yeah. But yeah. One of the things that I wanna do, and why I wanna get my dmp, and I've shared this with Lanka, is that wraparound services approach, right? That it can't just be the child that's getting treated, or mom's going for parenting support and dad's still working, and it's a multifactorial approach. You have to have everybody in that room. You have to have everybody working on themselves, because what I've learned as a parent is I need to be in check with myself, right? Mm-hmm. Like I've gotta be the thermometer for my child, not the thermostat, right? I can't constantly be changing my reactions based on my emotional state that day. And I know so many of us parents struggle with yelling. And struggle with even some parents still spank their kids on the butt, you know? Where is that coming from and how are you showing up as a parent? That's something I've learned a lot about my own growth mindset in the last, you know, six to eight months is how am I showing up for my child? And I think it's really important that parents understand that they have to do the work. They can't just rely on their child to sit there and do the work. If you're making your kid do the work to get better mentally, then you need to be doing the work as well. Mm-hmm. Amen.

Tyler: 40:55

Yeah. I've noticed that too with just being a parent as well and being around other parents that they're like, oh, they expect their kid to do one thing, but they're not willing to do it themselves. Right. I'm like, that's kind of leadership in general. Yeah. Like, you wouldn't, if you were at work as the employee and your boss was telling you to do something and they weren't doing it, you'd be like, okay, why? Right. Same

Anka: 41:15

thing. Yeah. And I mean, ah, I just look at families that dunno how to play together anymore. Mm-hmm. It's like, come on, get off your cell phone and get on that playground. Like, I'm like the only mom when my girls were little, like I was like climbing, climbing the slide and doing all the things, playing tag and getting sweaty and hot and that really, you don't see it a lot. Mm-hmm. I'm too big.

Tyler: 41:37

There's some pretty big playgrounds out there. You're

Anka: 41:39

not, you're never too big to play to go on the

Chris: 41:42

playground. Yes.

Tami: 41:44

There's, you can play

Anka: 41:45

in different ways.

Chris: 41:47

No, no. But you're right. So years ago I worked an afterschool program, which I thought was amazing and I feel like I wish more schools had it, which to me doesn't make any sense why it stops at fifth grade and why they don't have it through middle school. Mm-hmm. Because these kids need support. Yeah. But it was hilarious because we would go out and half the time we'd be standing there and I'm like, I really don't want to go run up and down these play equipment. But you would get out there and the, you could tell that the kids felt something different because you're involved in the situation and you're playing with them. Why are they in after school? I have no idea. It could be their parents had to work late or they're out of district and their parents have to get across town. But regardless of the fact, I think in general we should all be connecting and starting at the bottom because if agree, that's how the pyramid is built. Like you start at the bottom. If you fix and work on the issues at the ground level, then as you get older you won't have more of these issues. That's right. And then as you get older you won't have any of these issues and

Tyler: 42:51

Absolutely. Kinda leads connection is huge. Yeah. Yeah. It kinda leads back to just having the shoes next to the front door Right. Type of thing. Just starting that base level. Cuz I have people that reach out to me cuz I do 75 parties my third time doing it. They're like, oh, how do you like create discipline? I was like, well, first just make your bed in the morning. Yeah, yeah. Find, find the easiest thing that as soon as you wake up, you have one task that's been complete during the day and when you go back to bed. You can see that task that was completed again, and it's one of the easiest things you can do is just take your covers and bring it back up to the pillow.

Tami: 43:22

Yeah, for sure. That's right. But going back to the connection thing really quickly, you know, and I, there's a saying that goes around, you know, different child life specialists, child life therapists, child life, you know, people is that with parenting, it's connection before correction, right? If you're not connecting with your teenager in a playful way, or you're not connecting with your child in a playful way, you are, your correction is not likely to go very far. Mm-hmm. If you're just constantly correcting your kid, they're gonna wanna like bottle themselves up in the room and they're never gonna wanna come out and participate and do anything with you because they're just so afraid. They're just gonna constantly get criticized. So it's really important to build that connection. And I know when my daughter was little, we would do silly things like wrap her up like a burrito. Mm-hmm. You know, and she loved the sensory input with that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, swing her at the playground. Just play those little things and as. They've become teenagers, our girls, our tweens and teens. I know Anca does game night. We've had game night together. And she's very intentional about making sure her girls know that she's there. Mm-hmm. Like at Sunday's Family Day, I'm not doing anything. Right. Yeah, that's

Anka: 44:25

great. Yeah. Yeah. And kids need to be tucked in and so do we, you guys as adults, like kids don't wanna tuck you in at night. No. It's a thing I know. No, it's great. You know, it's it and our teenager, I think parents think teenagers are like, you're done raising them when they're turned 13 or something. I don't know. But it's, I mean, those are like the most crucial years You need to be in their spaces, having those conversations. We have pillow talk every night. Mm-hmm. Like last night I came home and my youngest daughter was upstairs and I just kind of like put my head on her shoulder and just cuddled with her. She's watching a show and she just needed to know mom was home, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I

45:02

like

Chris: 45:02

it. It's been, it's been interesting. We started this year on kind of that trend of. Pretty much helping yourself mm-hmm. To help others. Mm-hmm. Like we had Coach Reggie on and he was talking about therapy in general. Like he, he is a coach and, you know, sometimes you don't wanna call it a therapist, but like a mental coach. And how that helped him, which then in turn helped his family. So like the whole family has that opportunity and everyone's growing from there. And then we've had on a lot of like people this year, this, at least this first season, where it's a lot of people who are saying similar things, that we should be reaching out and helping ourselves internally, which would then help the world.

Anka: 45:48

Absolutely. Yeah. I remember when my husband had a big turnaround and got the help he needed, and I think it was like three months later, my daughter was, I think she was like six. She looked at my husband and she said, daddy, you're different. In a good way. You know, in a good way. Looked like, daddy, what happened to you? Changed. You're different. Something changed, and we both looked at each other and just smiled. I was like, yeah. He, he, he, he did what he needed to do and yeah. Ended up benefiting the whole family. That's fantastic. Yeah.

Chris: 46:22

Which is great.

Tyler: 46:23

Yeah. I'm sure it made him feel amazing too, just being, knowing that, like what all of that pain and everything that you went through Yeah. And all the stuff that like Yeah. All the hard work, like paid off and actually hearing it Oh,

Anka: 46:34

yeah. From his kids. Yeah. We both remember exactly where we were, what we were doing that morning. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. That's great.

Chris: 46:41

I feel like that's a definite success. Mm-hmm. In life. Which leads me to, what would you ladies consider success for your businesses or for your personal self?

Tami: 46:52

Hmm. That's a good question. Ooh. I think personal success would be, Getting through my d and p program at some point in my life, hopefully before I'm 60. That's my goal, right? Good goal. Oh, you're retiring. I think success would look like changing a few lives, helping, helping to impact a few lives here and there. I mean, I know I can't change the world, right? Mm-hmm. I'm one person. But I have the mindset that I can make a difference while I'm here. You know, life is this much, you know, it's a blink of an eye. It's gone. So I think success would just be knowing that when I close my eyes at the end of my life, that I've made a difference in a few adolescents or family's lives to make their life better. And hopefully they can continue that trajectory throughout the world. It just has that ripple effect. Yeah. As far as my business goes, I think that's the same, it's the same goal, right? Yeah. Cuz I just wanna see people's lives impacted. I. For the better. If you know they're struggling with something, I may not be able to be a counselor just yet. You know, I can't necessarily talk about the past, but I can definitely utilize what experiences in the past got them to where they are so that we can move forward. So however that looks for that person, that's great.

Anka: 48:04

Yeah. For me personally, being more joy filled. I love that word and I really try to live it. I have a Jeep I just bought a couple years ago. I didn't know how to drive a manual, you guys, and I went out and I bought this car. My husband's like, what the, you don't even know how to drive it. I was like, I'm gonna learn. There you go. I know her name is Joy. That's awesome. Yeah, choose joy. I mean, I'm just choosing joy in every moment and just, you know, joyful in friendships, joyful in life, and not doing things that I don't, that don't bring me joy. Really choosing, choosing the things that are right for me that feel good personally. And as a, as a Christian woman too, allowing for that joy to be kind of like spilling into all spaces through the Holy Spirit just kind of working through me. Mm-hmm. Which brings me over to the practice work is, you know, I practice through kind of that, the lens of being a, a, a Christian psych np and utilizing some of those bases and ground groundwork to be able to form foundations for people who are really looking for that walk and looking to embrace that for themselves. So allowing, like, I don't have control over what happens in that room. I'm just like the vessel and whatever happens, I just into it and pray as they leave. But even it's just one person at a time. I'm not looking to do big, huge things. It's just being intentional with people is, honestly, I love people so much. So it just, it brings me joy. So I hope that joy radiates to the people I work with. Yes.

Tyler: 49:33

Yeah, you, you can definitely tell just in this podcast talking both of you, that you definitely feel the joy from both of you and what you do and the excitement that you have for the future of what you have. So I just wanted to put that out there as well too. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah,

Chris: 49:45

that's cool. Cool. So I have one last random question. Sure. I'm gonna ask you for the next season. Okay. What's your favorite burger in town? Oh, no. Oh,

Tami: 49:56

that's a good one.

Anka: 49:58

Favorite burger in town? Oh. Oh. I don't know you guys. What is that favorite You eat favorite? You eat out, eat.

Tami: 50:05

I'm, I'm a foodie. You are. You, you go to a lot of places, so you, you have the best judgment here.

Anka: 50:11

I'm not a burger person though. That's the thing. What do you eat when

Tami: 50:14

you go

Chris: 50:14

out? Chicken tenders? No. Gosh. No.

Anka: 50:17

No. I like, you know who we're talking to? Love seafood. Oh, okay. So what you got? So you're gonna like, what's my favorite seafood joint? Yeah. I, I love fish bites cuz that's close. Where's that? That's on Carolina Beach Road. Mm-hmm. Tiny little hole. The wall place. Okay. My parents love that place too. Really good seafood. Not during tourist season because you can never get a table, right? No. Yeah. You

Chris: 50:40

can't get a table in any tourist

Anka: 50:42

room. I know, but it's like off the, it's not even in a, you can't even walk there. You know? You gotta dress in a weird

Tyler: 50:47

spot. You have to know it too. Which is interesting that it's so busy during tourist season even. Yeah, that's cause food's so good.

50:52

Yeah.

Tami: 50:53

What you got? Well there was liking, what was the place that was in that brewery? And they kind of went out for a little while and they have the tater tots and they have like the smash mess hall. Oh, they're open again. Okay. Because I was having a little bit of a crisis that they were closed. Everyone did. Yeah, I know. It was a little too long. I kept shaking. I was like stalking their, their Instagram, but in the meantime, and I'm, I'm really sorry, mess hall, but I found ple. Is it Pleasure burgers or the bur the burgers on Carol in Carolina Beach. In that gas station? Yes. Oh, I heard about that. I found them and I, I the owner, I don't know now.

Anka: 51:26

Amazing. That probably, yes. I'm not a burger person, but that is one of the best And that Quick mart. Yes. Yeah, it's a quick mart.

Chris: 51:33

Totally random. So I know the guy who owns it, he comes in and I have, it's been a while. We might actually have him on here. I was gonna say,

Tami: 51:39

now we're happy. He's a good guy. Yeah. I met him a couple times.

Chris: 51:42

Yeah. Him and his family is really chill. But it's one of those things, like, I've been waiting for someone to mention it because he, he legit, every time I see him is like, yo, you need to come by and have one of the burgers. Like it's, it's the best on the island for sure. He's right. If not in town.

Tami: 51:55

Actually, I think they might, I don't know. I haven't had a mess Hall burger in a while because they've been closed for so long. That, I don't know. I kind of gotta go back to Mess Hall now and decide. But then I heard This's upcoming Grim Burger. Mm-hmm. That's been making its way through breweries and I've been hearing that that's some competition. So I need to go try Grum Burger. Yes. Yeah. Do like a good

Chris: 52:14

burger. In reality, this is like leading up so I can be like, GR Burger, we've been hyping you up. I need you to come on a podcast. This, that's my goal is like, to end the season on a note and be like, Hey, guess what? We brought somebody finally only brought on Grin

Tami: 52:27

Burger. Yeah. We brought it back to food. Yeah, I was just gonna say, there's

Anka: 52:31

the food, there's, there's not

Tyler: 52:33

a podcast without it.

Anka: 52:36

That's great.

Tyler: 52:37

So for the actual final question now, if you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?

Anka: 52:44

Get over yourself. A hole.

Tami: 52:46

Oh

Chris: 52:46

good. That was

Tyler: 52:48

good. Yeah.

Tami: 52:50

Goodness. Don't be such a perfectionist. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Along

Anka: 52:54

those lines, get over yourself. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tyler: 52:57

Not gonna be the perfectionist

Tami: 52:58

anyways. Yeah. Yeah, I think I struggle with that, so yeah, stop. Good. I like

Chris: 53:04

it. It's all good. I like that. Yeah, that was pretty awesome. Where can people find you on social media or, you know, to try and use your services?

Anka: 53:18

Yeah, so holistic healing pllc.com is our URL website and Tammy's located on there. She's housed on the website, so it's the two of us doing stuff. Janice's

Tami: 53:30

the two of us. Yes. The two of us building healthier relationships. Yeah. I love

Chris: 53:36

it. We, we'll definitely have that in the show notes. I guess I lied, I have

Tyler: 53:40

one more question. Sure. Is there anything that the community do can do to help you guys succeed? No.

Anka: 53:48

The state of North Carolina Yes. Needs to pass the save act, which would allow nurse practitioners across the state to have access to full practice authority without the restrictions of having to need a physician collaborator, which has been an issue. Mm-hmm. So when I moved here from Connecticut, I couldn't practice, well, I couldn't find a physician collaborator, cuz you're, you can't even get a license. You have an approval to practice in North Carolina. Right. Which to me is just bazar. And then you can't apply for that until you meet a physician collaborator that aligns with, you know, I, I, that's like an ethical thing for me. Yeah, right. So I didn't know anybody here. So when I moved here, I took the job at U N C W and I didn't practice for a year, which was just like, hurts my soul. And then finally found someone through the clinic I worked at, and then decided to, you know, move private practice and again, had a hard time finding somebody. And then they charge me a monthly fee and they don't even really do anything. So it's just one of those things. So right now it's we're actually go, I'm going up Thursday to Raleigh to talk to some senators about getting, that's that, getting that moved and changed and let's pass the act so that we have full practice authority.

Tami: 55:02

Yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna say that that's absolutely what people can do, you know, is to call their senator, call state legislators and promote that because. Advocacy for nursing to be a forefront for healthcare has got to be a priority. Mm-hmm. Because we do, I hate to say we do cost a little less than a, than a medical provider to Medicaid, but we do, but we're still worth just as much. Right. If not more. More because we just bring that holistic approach, right? Mm-hmm. But we have a mental health crisis in this country and it's not going to get any better. We cannot get, we cannot get doctors through medical school fast enough to become providers. And not many of them wanna go into primary care. Right. Or into mental health. Many of them wanna specialize cuz that's where the money is at. I hate to say it, but that's a true story. Mm-hmm. And you're putting up a barrier by it's a whole loophole. We could have a whole conversation on this, but you're putting up a barrier for nurse practitioners to practice when time and time again, multitudes of studies have showed the nurse practitioners can. Basically run the show. Mm-hmm. I mean, I hate to say it, but we can, we, we are capable of, of doing it all. And what's

Anka: 56:08

happening, what we're seeing as a trend is North Carolinian nurse practitioner students are getting educated here and then they're moving out state. Mm-hmm. Because they can practice out of That's right out of the state to the falls of their Yeah. I mean it's to the full of their authority. So why, why would we not? Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler: 56:27

Yeah. Especially with colleges like Duke and the UNC system that's pumping out so many, I'm sure great candidates. Amazing and Yeah. And why are we shipping'em throughout the whole rest of the country? We can keep'em here

Anka: 56:39

and folks that are moving here are not moving here. It's actually getting in the way of them relocating to states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, because. They can't practice the fulls of their authority. I mean, Florida just passed it. New York did as well recently. Mm-hmm. Wow. So we just, we need to be the next one. That's right. Yeah.

Tyler: 56:57

When you have Florida and New York agreeing on something, you know, you need to be on the bandwagon.

Tami: 57:03

That's right. Especially when New York's done it, it's like, oh, that must be the standard. Right, right.

Chris: 57:08

Well, I just wanna say thank you for popping on here. Thanks for having us.

Anka: 57:12

Yeah. It was a blast.

Chris: 57:13

Yeah. How was your

Tami: 57:14

first whiskey? It was good. It's different. I didn't realize whiskey had legs like wine. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. Pretty

Chris: 57:20

cool. Yeah. Whiskey. That is the thing that I don't think a lot of people realize. Mm-hmm. Real whiskey. Mm-hmm. Is very comparable to real wine, like, Which is why I go to my favorite whiskey and wine bar, which is where I'll be after this podcast. But but like if you get this really bad bottom level Yeah. You're gonna know the difference. Same with wine. If you go and you get the Oh yeah. Four buck chuck. That's right.

Anka: 57:48

That's what's gonna happen. Decent. Yeah, exactly. That's right.

Tami: 57:54

So did you like revival? Oh, I loved it. It was great.

Anka: 57:56

Good. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Absolutely.

Chris: 57:59

Do you agree it'd be a good like winter fall?

Anka: 58:02

Yeah. It feels harvesty. Yes. That, yeah. I do the same thing with wines. Yes. Like I'll drink a, I don't like whites, I drink reds. Mm-hmm. So I'll drink a good noir, like a good fruity noir in the summer. Right. Cuz it's lighter and then a good cab in the winter fall.

Chris: 58:16

Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I learned so much. Sitting at the bar. You asked what do guys talk about? I literally talked to the bartender and asked them the stupidest questions because I'm like, You did all of this training similar to like someone who has a full degree, you did all this, you don't use most of that information anymore. I'm gonna ask you the questions to make you use that degree.

Anka: 58:38

You guys should have barbers in here. Have you interviewed barbers in the, they have a lot to say.

Chris: 58:42

I haven't interviewed a barber. I have

Tami: 58:44

one. And hairstylist. Oh

58:46

yeah,

Anka: 58:46

there, there's a, there's your mental health clinicians right there. Yeah. Yeah. They hear it all. And they, yeah. They're just wise, I think. Yeah. True story.

Chris: 58:55

Yeah. Good point. I love it. Well, thank you guys for listening to this episode. We have some ideas for new people to pop up on the podcast here in the future too. Mm-hmm. But yeah, like us follow, share. Leave us a five star review if you can, because Spotify loves that stuff. But yeah. Cheers. Cool beans. Cheers.

Tyler: 59:14

Thank, cheers. Thanks. Thank you.