Tech Career to Mental Health Therapy: Empowering Voices in Men

0:00 [Music] 0:16 so I think um my story you know going 0:20 from Left Brain to right brain started 0:22 about 67 years ago when I lost both my 0:26 parents uh within you know four five 0:29 months of each other 0:30 um and my mom was in a coma for about 4 0:34 years and I'm the only child so I was 0:36 taking care of her so I didn't realize 0:40 but I was depressed I came back to the 0:42 area and I didn't have issues of getting 0:44 up from bed but my when I went for an 0:47 annual physical my doctor said you you 0:49 know you're depressed and um and there 0:52 was also a lot of self-blame because I I 0:55 felt I could have done more for my 0:56 parents and um that started a journey 0:59 journey of um 1:02 self-compassion um I took a lot of 1:04 classes at 1:05 Stanford and um there was a 11mon 1:09 program on compassion uh 1:12 cultivation um 1:14 so did programs uh became part of a 1:16 compassion group and we used to meet 1:19 every two weeks and uh one of the 1:22 members of the group uh was the director 1:25 of Cara I don't know if you know Cara is 1:27 a grief Center in Palo Alto and uh one 1:30 day she called me and said that we are 1:32 seeing a lot more south Asians coming to 1:34 the grief Center uh she specifically 1:36 mentioned the South Asian dad who uh who 1:41 had just lost his uh high school kid and 1:45 U did not want to speak to a um a 1:48 Caucasian white uh woman therapist he 1:51 wanted somebody who understood his 1:53 culture and he wanted to talk to a man 1:57 so she said she couldn't find a cation 2:00 male therapist um that she could 2:02 recommend and um so she called me and 2:05 said you know I would you know I know 2:07 you well and you know you would be doing 2:10 a great service if you went into this 2:12 profession so um two weeks later I 2:16 applied to Santa Clara and um I'm in the 2:19 program right now and uh loving it so 2:22 far 2:24 so yeah thank you so much I think 2:26 there's a big need and especially how 2:29 men men takes so long to acknowledge it 2:33 right even as women we talk a little bit 2:35 more but for men I think that's a big 2:38 big need that you're going to 2:56 fill