Today we’d like to introduce you to Candace Smith.
Candace, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started my journey with a story called “Openly Broken.” I was apart of a collaborative work where 15-20 women came together from all over the United States to share their story of how “their pain produced promise.” The title of that book is called: “My Journey to Exodus: How My Pain Produced Promise.” In my story, I detailed my first experience with a therapist. It was the beginning stages of me learning about my own mental health and how it was affecting my life. From there, I began to blog about my journey and that led to me hosting live talk sessions once a week to discuss certain aspects of mental health from a Black perspective. I did this for about two years and now I have retired “Openly Broken” and I am transitioning to an advocacy role in my community. For 2019, I will host two day monthly events discussing different aspects of mental health and how it is affecting the black family and community.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No, it has not been a smooth road but learning to take better care of myself mentally and learning different ways of communicating has helped tremendously. The major obstacles that I’ve faced have been my own internal struggles. Learning ways to improve that aspect of my life has made the other areas easier to navigate through.
Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
Well, I’m a writer. I ghost-write, tutor, blog and home-school three awesome young men. I have a local magazine and I’m very active in my community serving on two different boards – The African American Club of Pasco County and the Pasco Young Democrats. I also work with two homeless advocacy agencies in my community.
I’m still working on branding myself. The one thing I’ve learned is that branding is all about knowing who you are as an individual and I’m still learning that so I haven’t quite figured the branding part yet. But it’s coming!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I definitely see big things coming. I would love to do what I’m doing now locally on a more national and international level. I would love to continue to find ways to advocate for mental health in the Black community in more creative ways. My plan is to do what I’m doing in a much bigger way in order to reach more people.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.openlybroken.com, www.pascoconnect.com
- Phone: 9045546488
- Email: pascoconnect@gmail.com or blackmentalhealthsummit@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackmentalhealthawareness2019/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/openlybroken/
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Image Credit:
John Solinski
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