Welcome to the final Mental Health Check In podcast. This episode begins with a special message from Joe Anthony Myrick explaining what led up to the decision to close up shop and expressing gratitude for all the time y'all spent with this show.

Joe chats with FIre Up Your Brain founder Trent McEntire about purposefully navigating your life. Trent shares his process of getting to know himself through his life, how losing his father as a child affects him today and what it meant for him to learn at 19 that he has cerebral palsy his whole life. These events helped him to understand himself and to become somebody who helps others get a holistic grip on themselves.

This was the penultimate episode of Mental Health Check-In. There will be one final episode with a sendoff message from JAM to all of you listeners out there for taking part in this project.

This week, JAM talks with Tanya Cole-Lesnick, a therapist who does both individual and group sessions and who pioneered “The One Agreement,” a shorthand she uses with patients to help them live more wholly. She speaks to the differences between different kinds of session and why she approaches each the way she does as well as why she chooses to approach either at all.

The decision has been made to end the Mental Health Check-In Podcast within the next couple of episodes. We want to think all our listeners for healing with us. There will be two more episodes before we will make our final, formal goodbyes. Thank you.

JAM chats with therapist and author of “Crazy & Functional” and “Functional & Crazy” Michelle L. Manning about healthy ways to interact with one’s own emotions.

Manning teaches Joe about “CPR,” the process of coping with emotions first before being in a space where they can be processed and eventually reflected upon. But this process can’t be forced, and they agree that sometimes coping with an emotion is ignoring it while you get responsibilities out of the way or waiting to access them when the situation is lower-pressure.

This episode also features the Feelings Wheel, a tool therapy patients use to help articulate their feelings to make them more manageable.

Visit MichelleManning.com to check out her books.

JAM continues to spoil us this month with a conversation with singer-songwriter Will Wood. The conversation reveals that he’s much more than that even within that simple description. He describes his understanding of authenticity, how much it changes depending on who somebody is being authentic with and what kinds of authentic connections artists can have with their audience.

He also explains exactly why he avoids social media like the plague and also how social media is a plague worth avoiding.

If you want to make an authentic connection with this guest, check out WillWood.net for details on tour dates through September.

JAM chats with pro dominant Master Joshua, who uses his BDSM craft to nurture clients' mental health. He talks about how he came to be Master of anybody, specific situations where he saw how helpful BDSM can be and a little bit about the possiblitiy that BDSM could become viable in a clinical setting.

This month, Joe wanted to check in with Joe. JAM has been on an emotional journey since last December and is finally ready to share his steps on this course with you. He talks about grief, exhaustion and how he digested his recent near-death experience.

Starting next month, Mental Health Check-In will come to you twice as frequently starting with Joe's conversation with professional dom Master Joshua.

JAM chats with Maiya Katherine, author of An Apology to My Demons: The skeletons in her closet were not her enemies. They were her army, about how she turned her traumas into art with the goal of helping people who are stuck where she’s already been. She talks about her writing process and how drawing inspiration from other people fuels her writing, and she explains how she came to understand her toxic behaviors as adaptations that were only meant to serve her temporarily while she grew and healed.

If you enjoyed this interview, make sure to grab your own copy of the book to support Katherine’s future writing.

And if you want to hear more Mental Health Check In, you can support its production at Patreon.com/NewQueerOrder and gain access to exclusive content from the NQO team, including an extended interview, edited by Joe Anthony Myrick, with future Mental Health Check In guest Master Joshua.