BIPOC Mental Health in a Hyper-Digital Age: Work-Life Balance, Doomscrolling, and Social Media

As busy BIPOC professionals, parents, and partners who often WFH or do remote work, is it possible to put our phones (and anxiety) to bed?

Podcast Season 2 Episode 2

Vanessa is interviewed by our guest host, CEO & Founder Linda Ong of Cultique, a Seacrest global group agency for businesses in media, entertainment, tech, and consumer spaces. We talk about why the Model Minority Myth and cultural stigmas are a "double whammy" for AAPIs, and how to cultivate work-life balance by creating space for productivity, mindfulness, and rest. Plus: how to stop doomscrolling, the mental health toll of being a new mom, “monotasking” vs. multitasking, and how to find “flow state” for maximum creativity and efficiency.

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Thrive Spice Media is a digital media platform and podcast that is dedicated to advancing mental health and social impact for Asian Americans and underrepresented identities. We are now excited to offer Mental Health Masterclass workshops. For more information, please head to www.thrivespicemedia.com.

About Linda Ong:

Linda Ong is the CEO and founder of Cultique, the leading cultural advisor to the media and entertainment industry, and a venture of Civic, a Seacrest global group company. Founded with partner Sarah Unger, the premium boutique crafts bespoke cultural strategies for businesses in media, entertainment, tech and consumer spaces. Cultique unites thought leaders, industry disruptors, academics, creatives, and experts to maximize the impact of brands, content, and products in a world of constant change. Linda's groundbreaking work on cultural insights related to women, Latinx Bi- culturals, millennials, and other drivers of rapidly changing landscapes have positioned her as a sought after cultural advisor and industry voice. Linda has been a guest lecturer at the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, the Marshall School of Business at USC, and UTLA - the University of Texas's LA-based program for broadcast marketing and communications.
Follow Linda on Instagram as well as Cultique.

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Cultique x Thrive Spice: Linda Ong and Vanessa Shiliwala on BIPOC Mental Health and Work-Life Balance in a Hyper-Digital Age

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Full Interview: Linda Ong & Vanessa Shiliwala | Thrive Spice Podcast

YOUTUBE Cultique.Co x Linda Ong x Vanessa Shiliwala - Work-Life Balance, Doomscrolling and BIPOC Mental Health

Vanessa Shiliwala: Our guest host today is Linda Ong, the CEO and founder of Cultique, the leading cultural advisor to the media and entertainment industry, and a venture of Civic, a Seacrest global group company. Founded with partner Sarah Unger, the premium boutique crafts bespoke cultural strategies for businesses in media, entertainment, tech and consumer spaces. Cultique unites thought leaders, industry disruptors, academics, creatives, and experts to maximize the impact of brands, content, and products in a world of constant change. Linda's groundbreaking work on cultural insights related to women, Latinx Bi- culturals, millennials, and other drivers of rapidly changing landscapes have positioned her as a sought after cultural advisor and industry voice. Linda has been a guest lecturer at the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, the Marshall School of Business at USC, and UTLA - the University of Texas's LA-based program for broadcast marketing and communications.

For our episode today, we did a mental health poll of Cultique's Instagram followers, who shared that mental health was very important to them and that their greatest hurdles to mental health were number one, work-life balance, followed by number two - well, tied for number two, actually: "doomscrolling" and negative self-talk, and then social media. In this conversation, we talked about mental health and what's unique about the AAPI experience, resources and helpful tips on creating a mental health practice or routine.

Linda Ong:

hi, we did it.

Vanessa Shiliwala: Yes.

Linda Ong: It's always a challenge technologically to get. I know,

 You look beautiful.

Vanessa Shiliwala: Thank you.

Linda Ong: As always. First of all I wanted to thank you because I believe you reached out to me originally on our Cultique.Co Instagram. Maybe we had a post about mental health or AAPI. I'm not even sure what it is, but I always love it when people reach out and you know, engage in a conversation. And I wanted to invite you, um, to get to know a little bit more. You and I have had a chance to talk offline a couple times, but for other people to understand the important work you're doing and to invite more people into the conversation specifically about the AAPI community and mental health, two issues, which are, don't need a month, you know, AAPI month or Mental Health Awareness Month only, to allow these kinds of conversations. And so these are good to have all year long. And so I just wanted to maybe start by asking you a little bit about Thrive Spice Media, your company. Just tell us a little bit about what it is, and then we'll talk a lot more about what are the things that you like to discuss.

Yeah, of course. Well, thank you so much, Linda, for having me it's such an honor to be here and I believe I actually stumbled across your account initially through a #StopAsianHate hashtag.

Okay. And that's actually quite relevant because that's what led me to create Thrive Spice Media in response to the Atlanta spa shootings. A little over a year ago and the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and bias that was being documented. And of course, to those of us in the community, we know this is not a new phenomenon.

It's simply something that now has a global stage. And, um, frankly the attention of the world, which is kind of a double edged sword in that we finally have some recognition and awareness around what we're going through, but also you know, the it's a marathon, not a sprint. So it's something that I saw the need for for action.

And I tried to think about, okay, what can I do? And something that's always resonated with me as a actually tool for self care and for curiosity and learning is podcast. And so I decided to start a podcast in a digital media platform, centering the Asian American mental health experience for a number of reasons, but really because in my research and my personal lived experience, I found that Asian-Americans specifically are three times less likely than any other racial group to actually seek help for mental health services.

Linda Ong: Mm-hmm. Why do you think that is?

Vanessa Shiliwala: Yeah, I think there's so many factors. Um, there's definitely a stigma in the cultural upbringing around you know, kind of this shame around seeking therapy.

You know, irrational belief that it's for crazy people or that mental illness is a sign of weakness or that mental health, unless it manifests as physical symptoms is not real. So there is kind of a, a reckoning around that space. I think the pandemic actually was very helpful in bringing that to light. And these are real actual conditions that actually can manifest physically. And then also you know, a lot of the model minority myth. A lot of us are kind of, um, at times willing participants in it, because we want to believe in the American dream. We wanna believe that the hustle and that the hard work is going to get us into, you know, that level of success that we want to enjoy and the prosperity.

And then I think that leads to, you know, we just have to keep our heads down and keep working and ignore any signs of mental health struggles to just kind of get to the finish line. And so I believe that as well as just the lived experience of being marginalized and underrepresented does add to another level of, you know, not seeing that representation, not seeing ourselves in leadership, that also leads to higher incidents of mental health conditions. And the other statistic that I found with the community is that Asian American women are actually the number one group between the ages of 15 and 24 to die by suicide.

Linda Ong: Oh my gosh.

Vanessa Shiliwala: Asian men, men are in number two. So, and this continues to be true of the Asian community.

And it's something that you know, I'm very passionate about, because we want to save lives. We want to sustain our community. You know, continue to see success in, in mental health, not just, you know, across the board everywhere else.

Linda Ong: Yeah. Well, thank you for all the work that you do. So much to unpack in just a little bit of time.

And I know, obviously this is just the beginning of a conversation. Certainly not the be-all, end-all. Um, a couple things that come to mind. I recently had the, the fortune to meet with some new people who, um, were very open to what they didn't know and were asking me questions about the AAPI community and so much of the representation and conversation that is out there tends to be about a very, what I would say, relatively elite percentage of the community that has the opportunity to go to good schools and has parents that are, you know, willing to support their educational priorities, which we know is cultural. And it was interesting because this person who was very educated, white, and very educated, but also very open, said, well, I don't really understand because Asians and AAPIs are so successful.

And I said, well, first of all, let's talk about that. I said, first of all, that is a percentage of the population. What you don't see are the millions and probably the majority, or a very sizable percentage of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. who are immigrants, who are low wage workers.

Mm-hmm.

 Who are, you know, the number two ethnic group that is growing in the us behind Latinx is Asian, AAPI, and specifically a lot of Southeast Asians who are coming as low wage workers, sometimes undocumented. These are not the people that are going to Harvard. And we don't talk about that.

Right. And as you said, the pandemic did kind of lay bare a lot of these communities like in Chinatown or whatever, where you've got ten people living in, you know, we don't see that representation. So let's not think that all Asians are going to Stuyvesant High School in New York.

That is not true So number one, there's that number two, the ones that are going and that are being pushed to, you know, Ivy league schools and things like that are under tremendous pressure

Vanessa Shiliwala: absolutely.

Linda Ong: with their families who don't necessarily culturally want to engage in a conversation about mental health. So you've got a double whammy, right? This model minority is not allowed to have mental health issues. In fact, in my own family, I've been on antidepressants since 2004. Uh, thank God. Um, because I would not have been able to be a functioning individual without it.

But I only told my mother like five years ago because I knew she was gonna be like, What's wrong with you, you know? And she would never, despite her having her own issues that were, you know, a lot of trauma in her earlier life, never would see a therapist. Never would consider any kind of medical help So, but I think a lot of, sort of the, as you said, like these representations sort of get in the way that people, even when, you know, the Stop AAPI Hate conversation started, as you know, probably a lot of people were coming to me and said, oh, I didn't know there was Asian Anti-Asian racism. I'm like, okay.

I faced it all my life. So. Talk a little bit about your experience. I know that you have a, a deep connection to the topic and what, what inspired you to kind of spread the conversation?

Vanessa Shiliwala: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. And I just wanted to comment on, on your response there. And I think as Asians, as Americans, we love to celebrate excellence.

And so I definitely want to uplift that. I think the other side of that coin is that to your point, um, a lot of data and stories about Asian Americans have not been disaggregated. So what that means is that there is one kind of flat narrative that you know, the world kind of digests. And it's not encompassing of the true diaspora of our diversity.

And so one of the aims of Thrive Spice is to actually highlight that there are diverse stories that are not monolithic, that actually display more of what is representative of the fact that we don't fit into a box, and that we do have diverse experiences. And in terms of my personal experience, you know, a lot of it's timing. I'm from Wisconsin, I'm Chinese and Taiwanese American. I grew up with not a lot of representation around me. I didn't see, you know, I had Michelle Kwan and Connie Chung and like, that was it . And so, um, and like still, they were like, you know, they were put on a pedestal. We were like, so excited anytime they showed up on TV.

And so I went to NYU, I moved to New York city and it was like, the world opened up. And I saw how much diversity there was. And I saw that there were so many people that looked like me, and at the same time had different experiences. And so, uh, my background's in marketing, I worked for 15 years in corporate America working for a lot of consumer products and tech companies and worked my way up the ladder to director.

My goal was to be director at 30. I got there at 29 and then I was like, Okay. I should be, I should be happy now. Right. And I looked around me and I realized that I actually was not happy. I didn't have that kind of sense of peace that I thought I would have after having kind of checked the boxes.

And at this point I had gotten married, you know, I got promoted to director. Very soon later I became pregnant with my first child and I was like, okay, I'm checking these boxes. You know, we got a house. And I was like, still, there was that kind of like nagging feeling that I had not really prioritized my mental health.

And so, I decided to take a pause and actually stay home with my daughter for her first year, and really be present with her, and raise my family. And I think that looking back, I was really ill-equipped for the mental health journey that that would put me through and the challenges of going from working full time in the city to being home in the suburbs with a newborn who I was suddenly responsible for her life.

Linda Ong: And probably, if you were like me, cuz I went through a similar situation, had no idea what I was doing.

Vanessa Shiliwala: No idea whatsoever.

Linda Ong: Did you go from a situation where you're like so accomplished in your work?

Vanessa Shiliwala: Yeah.

Linda Ong: But not accomplished in your, in your parenthood?

Vanessa Shiliwala: Exactly. That's such a great way to put it. It's like you have giant imposter syndrome.

Yes. You're Googling and asking Alexa how to do everything. And you're just like, I, I was at my pediatrician's office, like all the time. We're calling her saying like, is this normal? Is this normal? Is this normal? And most of the time the answer is yes. But I think there was, um, this was like four years ago now.

I think there's actually a stark difference in how the medical community has treated postpartum mental health since when I had my first child. Because at that time, my pediatrician, my child's pediatrician was the only one who actually asked me actively: how is your mental health? And I think that very simple question was so critical because no one bothered to ask me that. They were like, oh, you have this beautiful new child. You should be so happy. Your child is healthy. And they're all right. Um, but I think the combination of, you know, just lack of sleep, feeling like you don't know how to do anything. I mean, I'm a recovering perfectionist. And when you have to fail hundreds of times a day as a new parent um, because you can't figure out how to get your child to stop crying.

You can't figure out why they're crying, and all of that. Then, you know, it's, it's really a recipe for poor mental health. And this is not for everybody, but I'm just speaking from my experience. I remember I knew something was wrong because I would try to go to sleep at night. And finally my daughter started sleeping through the night.

But I would wake up at 2:00 AM and I couldn't fall back asleep until 4:00 AM. And this happened night after night after night. As a mom, sleep is like, it's cash in the bank. Like you, you do not wanna miss out on sleep. And so I was like, I knew something was wrong. And so I ended up calling my insurance company and I knew I needed to get help.

So I spoke to someone on the phone and they, I remember they have a list of questions to ask you because the average wait time to see a provider is about 21 days. And so you're kind of in a crisis mode, you need help, but you have to wait three weeks. So. They said, we're just gonna ask you a few different questions, just, you know, trying to bridge the gap there.

And one of them was, you know, when was the last time you showered? Are you eating regularly?

Showering! I remember, that was very elusive when I was a new mom.

Yes.

Linda Ong: And I wouldn't get to take a shower.

Vanessa Shiliwala: Yeah. I mean, these, these sound like simple things.

Linda Ong: But that's very real.

Vanessa Shiliwala: It's very, very real. And I think in any mental health condition, kind of returning to the basics is so vital because we take these for granted, you know, a regular sleeping and eating schedule.

Um, I had to establish a whole new sleep routine and it took me months, honestly, to get back on onto like a, what I would say, normal sleep routine. I had anxiety around my bedtime for, for months.

Linda Ong: Of course.

Vanessa Shiliwala: What if I can't sleep tonight? And then tomorrow I have to be, you know, "on"? And I'd have to catch up on sleep during my baby's nap and all that.

And so it, it was just this constant cycle of feeling like I was always behind. And so, I combined a lot of just self care, exercise, and eating well, nourishing my body. I was also nursing. So this was also like, literally, what goes in matters, because you are nourishing your child.

Linda Ong: Right.

Vanessa Shiliwala: And just kind of prioritizing that as well as seeking mental health help with a therapist. That was really helpful for me to just kind of, um, even just develop an awareness around what was happening and why I was struggling. You know, I learned so many new terminologies and then I had to really unlearn a lot about what I thought the "good mom" was.

So I thought a good mom, and this is, you know, speaking, I know for a lot of children of immigrants, you see your parents sacrifice so much and you, you think, oh, that's, that's why they were such a good parent. They sacrificed everything. That's the story we tell ourselves in our head. And so we're like, oh, I'm gonna do the same for my kid.

Cuz they deserve that too. What we don't realize is that actually, when you prioritize your own health and well-being, you're a better mom. You're a better wife, you're a better partner. You're a better business person because you've taken care of yourself and you've shown that you respect yourself and so that you can actually give more then.

And, and so that's something I, I didn't know. And I had to learn as a mom.

Linda Ong: Since you've been doing this work. Now, how long have you been doing Thrive Spice, your podcast?

Vanessa Shiliwala: A year and a half now.

Linda Ong: So you started in the pandemic.

Vanessa Shiliwala: I did.

Linda Ong: Have you seen people become more open? We, we ran some, uh, poll yesterday. Mm-hmm and we see the average answer to the question about the importance of mental health is very high.

People are more aware of the need to prioritize their mental health. A lot of that being caused by work life balance. Um, some people are talking about, you know, doom scrolling or talking negatively, or thinking negatively about negatively about themselves. What are, what are the conversations that people are coming to you for?

Yeah. And what resources do you steer them?

Vanessa Shiliwala: Yeah. So I, I, I really appreciate the poll that you did because I feel like it really is kind of a microcosm of what a lot of us are struggling with because the lines have blurred between work and home and personal and all of that. So it's more important than ever to establish boundaries.

And they don't, they look a little bit different and they feel different than what they were pre pandemic. So a lot of us are working from home. So it's really about being more strict about, you know, what do you say no to? What spaces are you utilizing for work? And then can you actually shut the door and leave that space at the end of the day? It's, it is about, you know, saying no nicely. You can do that. You can ask for help. Also, you know, when it comes to work asking, you know, a lot of times you get last minute priorities kind of thrown at you, you can, you know, tell your management team like, okay, I can do that, but like help me reshift or reprioritize.

And then I think the other thing that happened during the pandemic is that we all became multitaskers. Especially if you had children or dependents that you had to manage while you're working from home. And something I've been trying to reclaim personally is monotasking. Um, because I am hyper-efficient when I monotask.

So I can get something done in a space of 20 minutes that it would normally take me two hours if I were trying to multitask

mm-hmm

So I'm trying to do that instead. So like actively carve out the time for myself. Okay. This is nothing is going to interrupt this. I'm going to do that. Now, that being said and done.

You know, you like to make plans and then life likes to like laugh at you. And then, you know, you have a sick child or something happens and it just doesn't work out the way it does. And that's something that I've had to kind of have an active practice in, in terms of like, well, okay. If I can't carve out that time, can I carve out three mindful minutes?

Of, you know, this time, this space, I am going to meditate, or I am going to take a walk, or I always say movement is medicine. And so for me, that's been something very healing for me in terms of just like, you know, moving in my body and just getting outside in the environment. And that's always been very helpful in terms of perspective shifts and kind of energy.

And then I also say rest is resistance. Because we are living in a world of

Linda Ong: Love that.

Vanessa Shiliwala: the doom scrolling, of course, the recent news on abortion, the shootings and Uvalde. And we're all, we're so tired. Um, it's been so agonizing for us. It's been so painful. We keep trying to heal and it's this vicious trauma cycle.

And so in those moments, I think, you know, know when to take a break from social media. My entire feed is about abortion. And I care deeply about it, but at the same time, maybe that's not the best for my mental health. So something that, you know, my guests and I have always talked about a lot is social media breaks.

You know, what do we fill that time with? And I like to say, you know, we can fill that time with something that actually is helpful to our mental health, whether it's, you know, exercise or involving yourself in sort of artistic expression or journaling. I really love to journal. I think that always helps me just get my thoughts out.

And another thing is just to really complete the grief cycle because we are going through a lot of trauma right now. And so the way we can do that is by exercising or, you know, talk therapy. But a lot of us, I think, tend to just like, hold it inside and we don't talk about it. And then we just end up, you know, kind of retreating into our shell.

And that's actually really hard when you're, when you're trying to get out of a mental health condition of anxiety and stress and depression, because,

Linda Ong: well, it comes in a cycle, if you're only talking to yourself. Right.

Vanessa Shiliwala: Right. So it's about just kind of putting it out there, whether it's on paper or talking to someone about it, or, you know, kind of getting it out of your body physically.

I think those are all very healing modalities in terms of managing your emotions. Because we, we do live in a time of kind of like hyper doom scrolling and a lot of things that feel outside of our control. And at the same time, you know, if you can feel compelled to take action, I would say absolutely do it, you know, volunteer, start something, but know that it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Um, it's not going to necessarily change overnight. And so that's something I think I wish I would've told myself before I had started is that it will take time. You have to show up, you have to show up and know that you're doing it because you know, it matters.

Linda Ong: Yeah, wow. So much in there. And, and so little time just to, to wrap up, we have a few minutes but obviously a lot of a lot of great comments and, uh, you've given a lot of fantastic tips.

Uh, you know, one thing that I always think about is. This need to give yourself permission to set boundaries and to say no, and to set priorities. And somebody once told me, you know, nobody wakes up in the morning thinking about what's best for you. Nobody does, you know, maybe your mom when you're little, but then after that, it's, it's all on you.

So if you don't prioritize your time, no one else will.

I love that the resource that you reached out to when you were in trouble and it hadn't really occurred to me, you know, um, clearly it wasn't something that you felt necessarily comfortable going to your family about, but you reached out to your insurance company, which I think is so interesting that they were very helpful because I always think of insurance companies as not being very helpful.

um, you know, and there's a question from Melissa about even talking about you know, digital device addiction.

Mm-hmm.

What other resources... or maybe people should reach out to you? Like how, if somebody is struggling and they don't know who to reach out to or who to talk to.

Yeah.

What advice could you give them?

Vanessa Shiliwala: Definitely. So I think the wonderful thing is that there are so many resources now. So, the podcast is really meant to be supplementary to a mental health routine. So just like you have like a physical routine where you're taking care of your body I really advocate for, you know, creating a routine to take care of your mind.

And the two are connected.

Linda Ong: Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Shiliwala: And you don't need like an hour or two a day. I think that's another misconception is that you can take five minutes, five minutes to be mindful. And I think if you observe the power that it gives you back in your body it will be really empowering for you. And I think that's what's really incredible. In terms of phone and social media addiction. I think we're all there. And I think the, the first step is actually just to acknowledge, like, this is very common and, um, it's not a fault of yours necessarily. I think there's a lot of practices you can do to to manage it.

You can, I've seen like, there's like phone beds that are really cute. You can put your phone to bed, literally.

at Certain hours of day,

Linda Ong: So it's like a physical manifestation.

Vanessa Shiliwala: Yeah. Yes. You can, um, there are apps that actually like, prevent you from using the phone except for emergencies like overnight. You know, there's a lot of research on blue light and how it impacts our sleep.

So I also recommend installing like a red light or blue light filter on your phone. Um, there's a lot of ways you can create and set those boundaries for yourself. And then I also like to say replace it with something that you can measure. So whether that's like I have like a mindfulness coloring book that I really like.

So sometimes I, when I'm like feeling really anxious, instead of looking at my phone and doom scrolling until I fall asleep, I will take that out and like use my kids' colored pencils and draw a little bit. And I actually found that it's really helpful for getting into flow state. It's almost like running or some kind of activity.

And that's another part of time management that I've been trying to kind of, optimize, like getting into flow state. Because once I get into flow state, I can do a lot of work in a lot less time. Um, and I feel happy while I do it. So it's really all about like, how do you carve out times for flow state?

How do you carve out times for rest and also deprogram the notion that rest is kind of a waste of time. Rest is active. Rest is resistance. Rest is vital for you to be the most creative, the most productive and the most, you know, everything in your life. That's something that I've also had to reprogram.

And I think that in this like hyper digital age, it's, it's more important than ever to just kind of set those boundaries.

Linda Ong: Well, thank you so much for that. Just a little tip on, on, from me, which is, um, I had read that in the morning when you wake up, most people have their phones right by their bed. And what I've started doing for the past month or so is, um, reached for a book. There’s something neurological about reading on paper versus reading a digital device in terms of waking up your brain and how it works. So that's just something that I've made a habit of. And I almost challenge myself to not look at my phone until I've read a couple of pages and it doesn't have to be, you know, it could be a magazine.

It doesn't have to be a huge thing, but just let your brain sort of wake up with a, an actual analog piece of reading versus digital. Yes. On that note, unfortunately, we're gonna have to wrap up, but this has been such a great conversation. And I really I've learned a lot. You've given so much, so much valuable info and tips, and I know that your podcast is really gaining traction.

You've had some great success. Can you just take us out and tell us where can we find your podcast and, and talk a little bit about how it's doing?

Vanessa Shiliwala: Of course. Thank you so much. I, I love that tip. So Thrive Spice is the name of the podcast. We were recently featured on Apple Podcasts' homepage for AAPI heritage month, which is very exciting.

We're also listed as a resource on NAMI, which is the National Association for Mental Illness' website. And I've actually gotten requests from several companies to host mental health workshops. So I've been doing that as well, which I, I really love having that interactive experience with others in the community.

So you can find us wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, anywhere it's called Thrive Spice. And, uh, you can also find us at www.thrivespicemedia.com. We are active on Instagram as you can see @thrivespice. And so, you can find us there, and we're also on YouTube if you would prefer to watch your podcasts.

Linda Ong: Thank you so much, Vanessa. Thanks for sharing your story and your journey. And we look forward to checking in with you and seeing how you're doing and how everyone else is doing in these crazy times. So be safe will thanks so much.

Vanessa Shiliwala: Thank you so much, Linda, take care.

Linda Ong: Take care, bye-bye.