After seven suicide attempts and years of stigma, mental-health advocate and trainer Shanika Suniyah Jordan chose help over silence. With host Barbara L. Parker, MA, LPCC-S, she unpacks faith vs. therapy, finding the right therapist (CBT/EMDR), and her “Release the DOPE” framework for letting go of shame, fear, and self-sabotage.

What you’ll learn

• Faith and therapy: why it’s not either/or
• How to find a therapist who fits (beyond “How does that make you feel?”)
• Hidden grief & early trauma → adult anxiety/depression
• “Release the DOPE”: ditching unhealthy habits to unlock purpose
• Why fitness supports mental health (confidence, serotonin, cortisol)

A private battle with depression can look like a normal life from the outside—until the day you meet your edge and realize you need a different kind of help. We sit down with mental health advocate and trainer Shanika Jordan to trace her path from a faith-only framework to trauma-informed therapy after a seventh suicide attempt became the turning point. What followed wasn’t magic or instant relief, but skillful work: finding the right therapist, embracing CBT and EMDR, doing uncomfortable homework, and building the muscles—mental and physical—that keep you steady when emotion runs high.

We explore the friction between religious stigma and real psychological needs, and how privacy protections make it possible to seek care without shame. Shanika shares how a therapist’s focused structure replaced vague “talking” with targeted tools, lighting up self-awareness where dogma had kept questions quiet. We connect the dots between movement and mood—burning off cortisol, boosting serotonin, and rebuilding confidence through consistent, accessible fitness. And we dig into “Release the Dope,” Shanika’s framework for dropping self-sabotage, guilt, and fear so your actual strengths can surface and guide purpose.

This conversation is honest, practical, and hopeful. You’ll hear how to evaluate therapist fit, why healing is a lifelong practice rather than a destination, and how purpose can be small, specific, and still profound enough to make you stay for tomorrow. If you’ve ever felt torn between faith and therapy, or stuck with a therapist who wasn’t a match, this story offers a roadmap: try again, ask better questions, and build a simple system you can keep. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review telling us the one belief about mental health you’re ready to let go of today.

• Book: A Powerful Divorce — reclaim peace & purpose
• BF Empowerment Center — counseling, coaching, MPAC youth program
• Guest: ReleaseTheDope.com | IG/TikTok: @releasethedope
• Follow: @powerfullybroken | @queenblparker | bfempowerment.com/pbp 

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