Chai Break Shwetha and Rema

Meet, Mrinal Gokhale, an Indian-American writer who began her career as a freelance journalist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the most segregated city in the United States. She reported on Mental Health Awareness Month events for Hispanic and African-American publications as part of her work. She realized that these conversations were lacking in Asian and South Asian representation. To increase education and acceptance of mental health among South Asian generations, while also showing non-South Asians how intersectionality looks in the diaspora, she went on to author 2 books, both anthologies, the first one in 2021, called “Saaya Unveiled” and “Taboo: South Asian Mental Health Stories” published in 2023.
Chaiversations.org
You can purchase her books on Amazon

So far in this season, we have been talking about normalizing conversations around mental health and we’ve also talked about the fact that seeking professional help isn’t always tied to big life events.
In this episode, we talk to Shruthi Bharath about one of the biggest life-changing times in a woman’s life - motherhood. We delve into those vulnerable, often loney moments of early motherhood and the challenges it presents.
Here are some of the topics we discuss
Early motherhood challenges and how it impacts mental health and well-beingWe’re 3 women on this episode, all of us mothers, each of whom have had their unique, yet common struggles being new mothers - we discuss identity crisis, feeling lonely in those early months of motherhood and so much moreAs a platform, what are the various elements of early motherhood that you envision on the platform, and where does maternal mental health fit in?Chaiversations.org

Dr. Monica Shah is a licensed psychologist and certified school psychologist based in
Manhattan. She specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy
(DBT), and rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT).

Chapter 1: What is Good Girl Syndrome? How the phrase "good girl" is ingrained in the vocabulary of our Indian culture and where it stems from? Shwetha & Rema share anecdotes from their personal experiences.
Chapter 2: The personality and mental health implications of "good girl syndrome"
Chapter 3: Shwetha & Rema answer a series of questions to find out if they have Good Girl Syndrome and you can play along too.
chaiversations.org

Our guest today is Kareena Mehta, a mental health professional with a B.A. in Psychology from Bryn Mawr College and further education from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she earned an Ed.M. in Mental Health Counseling and an M.A. in Psychological Counseling.
Kareena brings with her a plethora of cross-cultural experiences, both from her own personal life growing up in Belgium, moving to India and then the USA; as well as professionally, wherein her clients are spread throughout the globe from Africa to India, USA, Cannada and beyond.
We talk to her about:
Her forray into the mental health spaceThe basic differences between a psychologist, psychotherapist and psychiatristThe differences she experiences being a mental health professional in India vs here in the USAThe most common mental health challenges in India and the USAThe gaps in the mental health space5 things everyone can do to work on their mental well-being on a daily basisCheck out the full episode and Subscribe to our monthly Substack newsletter at
chaiversations.org

We discuss the barriers we faced whilst trying to access mental health services in the US, and South Asian organizations that are doing the groundwork in creating databases of a network of therapists and services, Plus, Rema shares a few ground-breaking mental health books that were a huge part of her journey.
We hope you enjoy this episode! You can check out our website chaiversations.org and Subscribe to our monthly Substack Newsletter chaibreakpodcast.substack.com