In this video Dr. Jameka Cooper introduces her newly released book, I Am My Sister's Keeper: The Brown Girl's Guide to Radical Healing, aimed at women of color seeking wellness and personal growth. She explains that the pandemic highlighted the importance of mental, emotional, and psychological health, and positions the book as a tool to help readers gain control over their lives. The content outlines the book’s core components: mastering thoughts through cognitive‑behavioral principles; acknowledging and making sense of past trauma; using affirmations to reshape internal scripts; employing journaling prompts for self‑discovery; focusing on therapy and counseling goals; and embracing the concept of “radical healing,” which she defines as the act of a woman of color prioritizing self‑care in a society that often deems it radical. Dr. Cooper urges viewers to purchase the book, share it with others, and subscribe to her channel for future videos that will dive deeper into each chapter and practice.
Chapters
Hi, this is Dr. Jameca Cooper, and today I'm talking to you about my brand new book that is now out on Amazon called I Am My Sister's Keeper: The Brown Girl's Guide to Radical Healing. This is a must-have book for any woman of color who's working on herself or if you know someone that's working on themselves. Wellness is important. What we've seen during the pandemic is that wellness is really the foundation of who we are. If you are well and if you are healthy, you can really deal with the challenges that come with life. The pandemic is one example. What I found with my patients is that those who are healthier mentally, emotionally, and psychologically were those who fared better during the pandemic. So my goal in writing this book was to help people just like me, other women of color, get control over their life and to move forward. Some of the things I talk about in the book are things like mastering your thoughts. If you believe anything about cognitive behavioral theory or therapy, you know that your thoughts really control how you feel and how you behave or how you move in the world. So we have to be able to master— first identify those thoughts and then try to master and get control of what they are so that they don't control you, right? Another thing I have in the book is about acknowledging your past. Many of my patients that I've seen in therapy over the past 15, 20 years are dealing with issues from their past, their childhood, their adolescence, early relationships. And what's important in order for you to be well and to be healed is to deal with those things in the past. You can't change it, but you can make sense of it. Possibly reconcile, understand what has happened to you more so that it doesn't hold you back going forward in your future. Affirmations are also included in the book. I believe in affirmations a lot because they can really determine how you think. For those of us who may wake up in the morning and think, you know what, I will conquer the day, those type of thoughts become a part of the script that we have in our head, and that script determines how you think. And it also determines how you behave, how you act, and what you think is possible. I also have some tips and some prompts, lots of prompts actually, about journaling. I believe journaling is one of the ways that people can start to identify some issues or areas in their life and to get control over it. I believe as women of color, we don't sit back, take time, and investigate where we've been,. And of course that has a huge impact on where we're going. So lots of journaling in the book, lots of ways you can start to ask yourself questions and maybe even initiate conversations with those around you. So journaling is a big piece of it. I also talk a little bit about how to, um, focus more on the goals that you have for yourself in counseling or therapy, because that's very important for those of us who believe in counseling or therapy. Therapy, and I hope by the end of this book that everyone is a firm believer and supporter in counseling or therapy because it's nothing better than having time for yourself every week, every month to talk about yourself, your problems with someone who doesn't know you, someone that is not biased, someone that can help you sort things out, work on your goals, and move forward. So why is this book called Radical Healing? Because it's radical. Anytime a person of color, especially women of color, anytime a woman of color decides she's going to do something for herself, such as self-care or such as heal, that's considered radical in this country. It shouldn't be considered radical, but it is. So this is my attempt to do something to help people who look just like me, help them gain control over their lives and to find some peace and some healing. Lots of different activities and exercises. Hopefully you'll find one in there for you or for someone else. I encourage you to buy a book, get one for yourself, get one from someone else, look at it, research it, pay attention to it, and start to work on you. Everyone can come out of the pandemic with a brand new you, a better you, and a better you that is ready to go forward. That's my goal. Go out and get a book and make sure that you subscribe to my channel for more information and details later about the different parts of Radical Healing. There'll be lots more videos on specific parts of the book and the theory. Subscribe here, get the book. Dr. Jameca Cooper.
