[Music] - Major funding for the series, I Am More Than, was provided by Caring for Denver Foundation.

Additional support for this program was provided by the Colorado Health Foundation and DemiFund.

[Music] - My name is Dr. Breigh Jones Copeland.

I am a black woman, a carefree, loving human, and I am my ancestors' wildest dreams.

[Music] - Breigh, take one.

- Can I take my shoes off?

- Yes.

- Okay, because these-- they're a little dusty.

[Laughter] - I think the painting my story aspect has, like, so many different layers to it and how it can inspire people on their mental health journey.

The best artists, if you hear why they create what they create, it's usually from a place of pain or just a place of like the human experience and being able to, like, really externalize that and display that.

When you're creating from a place of pain, or happiness, or whatever, you're experiencing that.

You're not avoiding it.

And so, you're getting kind of in the weeds with whatever that human experience is, and I think that allows you to have more ownership of who you are and what your story is.

My life in a color is probably brown.

I think there's a sense of, like, groundedness and, like, connection with the earth that I feel like I really have been blessed to, like, be able to have that relationship with.

It also just, like, reminds me of blackness, you know, and how beautiful the color brown is, and being able to embrace that beauty throughout my life.

I think I definitely have to honor all the things that I do because they all are connected and they all fulfill a lot of different facets in my life.

So, the first one is being a faculty member at University of Denver.

I was a graduate from there.

I got my master's degree in sports psychology and my doctorate in clinical psychology from there.

And so, being able to return as a faculty member has been very fruitful to be able to pour into the next generation of clinicians and give students an experience that I feel like maybe was missing for me.

My other one has been the sports psychologist for the Broncos, and that's been a really, really fun gig.

And then, my last one is being the owner of Black and Blossom, which is-- that's my baby.

I'm going to cry.

Why is this emotional?

I'm a cancer, y'all.

Bear with me.

I'm going to cry at some point during this interview.

[Laughter] Black and Blossom was birthed in 2020 during the pandemic, and I really needed a therapeutic outlet.

And it started as a work from home business where I was just doing flower arrangements out of my apartment, delivering them around Denver.

Then, that transpired into like a pop-up shop where I'll be in the community just like slinging flowers.

And now, I have this beautiful space that it's gotten to manifest into, which has been a game changer for my mental health and my self-care.

I was born in Memphis, Tennessee.

Anybody can ask, you probably hear it in my voice, but I am Memphis through and through.

My childhood was really fun and adventurous.

And my mom, she kind of raised me as a single mom.

My mom and dad divorced when I was about two.

My mom was primarily like that person for me and she was so-- Like, I still ask her to this day, like, how did you work a full-time job, and cook me three meals a day and, you know, get me to all my sporting events?

And even on her off days, she would come up to school and like stay with me all day in class.

And so, like, I remember that very vividly.

Childhood was just like really, really fun for me.

And I also had this contrast and experience of being like a high performing figure skater at that time, which I was the only black girl.

People would literally come up and give me money when they saw me at practices and at my private lessons just being like-- You know, I was young and I didn't really understand in this moment, but like they're core memories for me of like, keep going, never let anybody stop you, like you're the only black girl out here, like just keep going.

So, I think I was just socialized really early to look at my blackness as like a gift, you know, something that was special, which I'm really happy for because I know a lot of our experiences.

We don't start there, right?

We start at looking at it as it's something to be ashamed of.

- Please guide me.

- So, but like the idea is that the whole thing is going to be-- - I've experienced biases that are more like pervasive and deep rooted, especially in my training.

There was one particular instance where-- I mean, y'all know me, you know my style.

I can be a little blunt and honest.

And I'm going to give every person respect.

It doesn't matter if you're above me, like, you know, hierarchical in the system or not.

And so, I want other people to give me respect as well, even if I am in the student role.

Long story short, had a supervisor who didn't agree with the way I was delivering feedback, just like a lot of gaslighting of I would express something about my concerns about a case that I was working on.

And they would send an article about how, oh, you're probably having these feelings because you're hyper identifying with the client.

And it's like, no, I'm having these feelings because my supervision is feeling like I'm being attacked, you know?

And so, got a lot of feedback about me being angry, and aggressive, and disrespectful, and resistant to feedback.

And I was very sad, one, because I thought I had a better relationship with this supervisor to where they did not give me this feedback in person.

It was something that was on a written form and it was tied to my record.

And so, what I did in the moment was contacted some of my mentors and just, you know, had a very honest conversation about how it made me feel and how I was experiencing it.

I ultimately made a decision to not talk to the supervisor about it.

I was transitioning to my residency.

I was no longer in Denver and I honestly did not feel safe with that person anymore.

Sometimes you address it with the person, but if you feel like you're not going to be heard in the situation, still getting the support that you need, and the support for me look like talking to my mentors and talking to people of, just so you know, this is my part of it and this is my story.

And so, I was able to make some commentary on the feedback and address that I feel like this was really rooted in some biases and stereotypes that she has about black women.

The words that you used to describe me are angry and disrespectful when I was engaging in dialogue with you and giving you feedback about how I was experiencing the supervision.

That's more realistic of some of the biases that I experienced of just these kind of more racist undertones versus it being so blatant, you know, in the moment where it's like, yeah, you're not realizing that this is a problematic perspective that you're having.

Making sure that I didn't internalize that was really important for me because, you know, there was just a lot of questioning of, was I angry?

Was I being disrespectful?

Was I being resistant?

And I don't know.

Other people are going to experience me that way in spaces and going the extra mile to make sure that people wouldn't, right?

So, then, I'm being more over accommodating and more neutral when I really want to speak my speak my mind, you know?

And so, making sure that I didn't internalize that to where it really impacted the way that I show up because the way that I show up is important.

The things that I say are important.

So, if I silence myself, then those things aren't going to be said and changes aren't going to be made.

So, it took me a while to get there, but that was my process.

So here?

- You know, because we're going to add some of that foliage in now.

So, imagine we're looking into a forest, right?

A lot of trees.

[Music] - Flowers have really changed my life and healed me.

And I think it's healing the community.

Every time people come in here, we're always having just deep #*#*#*#* conversations about life, about-- you know, because people feel safe here.

So, people I've never met before, they just come in, and we get to talking, and they tell me about their lives.

And I feel like there's an aspect of the correlation between safety and creativity.

I think you have to feel some sense of security and safety because creativity is something that I think, especially as black people, we haven't had a chance to really cultivate.

It's like you go out, you make money, you're productive, you take care of the family, you're surviving.

You don't have time to do something that you actually like or that you enjoy.

And so it's like really liberating ourselves in that aspect.

I think a lack of support or a lack of community can be so detrimental to mental health.

One, because like I said, we need people, we need our people, we need to know that someone cares about our existence and our being.

But also, we're not meant to do this alone.

What's the African proverb of if you want to go far, go together, if you want to go fast, go alone.

Yep, there we go.

So, social determinants of health, right?

A big part of that is relationships.

A big part of that is connection.

And so, when you think about it, being connected to people actually helps you be healthier.

And we can think about all the ways that that manifests, but I think a biggest part of that is feeling like you have-- there's more to yourself than just you.

Like you have other people who are going to vouch for you, who are allies to you, who value you.

And so, really it ends up being like a greater sense of purpose when you are connected to other people, even if that's on a small scale.

So, I think that's a big part of what Black and Blossom is able to provide.

And also, just me, what I'm able to provide too just as a person in this space just being able to really see people and honor whatever they bring into this space.

Creativity is a catalyst for mental health because this process of trusting yourself, surrendering.

And when you start to learn how to trust yourself and your existence and being really present with that, inevitably, your mental health is going to increase and become better because you have that awareness of what you're doing in the moment, what you need.

It's really you being in flow with yourself.

Playing, letting go, just allowing yourself to tap into things that, you know, it doesn't have to be about the product.

It doesn't have to be about the end result.

It's really about the journey.

It's always my experience when I create a flower arrangement.

It's just like, I don't know where this is going to go, but grab some flowers and let's just see what happens.

And after a week of being a psychologist, and a professor, and taking care of so many other people, I get to look forward to just coming here, playing with flowers.

It's more complicated than that, but, you know, just being surrounded by natural beauty and being surrounded by this space.

So, I'm really grateful for Black and Blossom and what it's been able to provide me and the community.

I mean, I think first off, in order to acknowledge somebody else's humanity, you have to acknowledge yours first.

And so, if you just sit with that for a minute and how it relates to how people interact with each other, a lot of times when we're operating in the world in our own heads, in our own #*#*#*#*, it blinds us to being able to see each other.

Black women, we are so rooted in community.

We know that the way that we see ourselves is because of the way that we see each other and the way that we create space for each other.

That's natural to us.

It's not natural to everybody else because they haven't had to look out for other people outside of themselves.

Black women, we aren't invisible.

And I think we have internalized that a lot.

We aren't invisible.

We are very visible.

We are very visible, okay?

And I think to a fault sometimes, right?

Like people look at us, and ostracize us, and you know, put us on some type of pedestal about how we look and how we engage with the world.

We stand out.

Standing out does put you at risk of being dehumanized a little bit because people can't always relate.

I've had to grapple with that so much in my life of feeling like, okay, do I conform myself?

Do I, you know, mold myself enough to where I'm just enough of this or just enough of that?

And one, that's unrealistic, and two, unattainable.

And so, it's like taking back that aspect of being loud, and being proud, and taking up space because that's what I was put on this earth to do.

And so, embodying my fullness in every aspect that I can do that has really allowed me to take up the amount of space that I need to, right?

It's inserting myself when I need to.

It's being assertive.

It's saying the things that need to be said, and people can't ignore that.

I think it's kind of twofold of, you know, recognizing that a lot of times when people are engaging with you in a way where you feel invisible or unseen, it's probably so much about how they are just like so blinded by their own-ness, whatever that is, that they can't create space for somebody else.

And what you do about that is kind of, you know, a wild card.

Do you address it?

Do you, you know, see it and move accordingly?

Like I'm never going to interact with that person again.

What do you do to protect your own-ness, your own human-ness to where it doesn't make you feel like you have to be small or you have to be bigger than what you want to be either, right?

Not contorting yourself so that you can fit within somebody else's mold.

I have some good tools in my toolbox in how to manage my stress.

More recently, I think I've just prioritized these a lot more.

The first one is working out.

I think just moving my body, whether that's stretching, whether that's yoga, whether that's a dance in the car on the way to work, just to make sure I have that mind-body connection.

The second one is therapy.

I go to therapy every week.

My therapist is trying to make me go bi-weekly now because she says I'm doing such a good job where I'm like, I'm coming in with some problems next week then.

But therapy has been a game changer for me, especially being a therapist, a psychologist.

I highly suggest everybody go into therapy.

Everybody has mental health, right?

I have some of the guys on the team, they're like, "I don't have mental health.” And I'm like, "You do.” It's like a light switch, you know?

And you want to make sure that you are doing everything that you can proactively to make sure that that light switch doesn't get flipped.

You don't want to be too reactive about that.

So, therapy is a way that I do that.

And the last one is journaling.

Journaling has been something that has become like a practice for me.

And I think it's just a way of me checking in with myself, especially when I go to therapy one hour a week.

So, I'm with myself the rest of the week.

And it's a great way to release and externalize a lot of the stress that I have to navigate on a daily basis.

So, just writing it out, I date it.

I have a conversation with myself.

I'm literally like, girl, what's up, you know?

But there's a practice of journaling where you're getting something out of yourself and you get to hold it, right?

It doesn't become something that lives within your body.

It's not as real anymore.

And sometimes when we don't talk about things or address things, it could feel so real in our heads.

We make up this whole world about, you know, what our struggles are, what our stress is.

But as soon as you see it written on that paper, it's like, okay, it's something outside of me.

You know, I'm detached from it.

It's not a part of me anymore.

And you can do whatever you want with that paper.

Ball it up, throw it away, burn it.

I like to keep track of it because I recognize that stress is just an experience, and it can be fleeting as long as you allow it to.

So, it's like this is just like a blimp on the spectrum of my life experience that I have to honor.

I can't ignore it.

So, that's my way of honoring it.

[Music] - I actually asked my husband this question of, "What would you say if I was a color?” He was like, "Red.” And I was like, "Why red?” And he said, "Because you're fiery.

You're always doing something.

You're always on the go.” And he was like, "But I'll add some light pinks in there because you're also very soft."

- I'm getting to pink.

[Laughter] I think that I am embracing more softness in my life.

Yeah, I think, whoa, deconditioning myself to not always being the one who has all the answers or not being the one that always is doing all the things.

You know, I think pink for me is like, lay your guard down a little bit, like live.

So, yeah, pink is showing up a little bit.

She's peeking her head.

I think feeling more secure in my world and in my spaces, having a husband that really takes care of me allows me to be a little bit more soft and having just financial stability as well.

I don't feel like I'm operating in survival mode that much anymore.

I would just want people to understand and know that I struggle too.

That things get hard for me too.

That me carrying it well might be more of a manifestation of not being comfortable showing that struggle sometimes or not being comfortable asking for help in those moments versus she just has a handle.

She just has it together, you know?

I think generally, people might describe me based on my stimulus value that I'm a black girl with braids and tattoos and more likely a creative.

Someone who owns a flower shop, like the flower girl, or if they meet me in the teaching context, she's a professor.

And I definitely hold on and honor all those parts of myself.

And, you know, I love those things about me, but also I'm more than that.

- I feel like I'm done.

- I did find myself getting frustrated at first because I was like, "I don't know where this is going.” But yeah, what a life lesson to be patient and, I don't know, present with the process, and trust it, and see where it takes you.

It's locked.

Oh, no.

Wow.

I still feel like I want to sit, and look at it, and just psychoanalyze it more.

But I think just as I was going through it, I felt really proud of myself.

I feel proud of just how things came and manifested.

And I really do think if someone was to say pick a picture, and this was in there that represents me, I would choose this because it does feel so much like who I am.

This painting represents just my own journey of growth.

And starting out with brown because I feel like brown is-- that's my main color.

I talked about the earth and it being really grounding, and then it being surrounded by flowers, which represents just the growth that's really everywhere.

And the vines connect all the pieces of the painting together, which I think represents just connection and how that represents the growth that I've experienced in my life with the people around me.

And I put a cityscape there because I think I can't deny my roots.

My roots are in Memphis, which is a pretty urban city.

And then, that expansion of going from something pretty urban and that contrast to something that's more rural and nature focused.

[Music] [Applause] Give me those tissues.

[Music] The painting experience for me was I think transformative.

It was a catalyst for me of being able to understand myself a little bit more, give myself the opportunity to really practice what I preach about vulnerability, and being open, and sharing my story, which I think I've been able to do more now that I've had that experience of creative expression and being able to really get a grasp on who I am and what my life has been like.

So, the painting experience for me I think has really changed me inherently of who I am and how I see myself.