Mazi Robinson
Mazi Robinson leads with a unique combination of warmth and truthfulness. Her truthfulness gives her warmth so much more credit, because you know her warmth is real.
I always want to know what Mazi thinks about something. If she likes it I am glad because I trust her wisdom, and I know she’ll tell the me the truth.
In her work and in her life, Mazi is a champion for women. She’s a skilled therapist, a dynamic public speaker, a trained facilitator of Brené Brown’s workshop.
Mazi is a licensed professional counselor and speaker specializing in helping women discover their true voices as they navigate self-worth/self-esteem challenges, relationship concerns, and life-stage transitions. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and has a Master’s degree in Professional Counseling from Georgia State University.
Mazi is also the founder of Cultivate, which through its bi-monthly gatherings and counseling center helps women cultivate joy, courage, and freedom in the pursuit of emotional and spiritual health.
Her private practice is located in Atlanta. Mazi and her husband, Jay, are the proud parents of eight-year-old Jack and three-year-old Sam.
In this interview Mazi teaches us through her experience and her expertise that healing is often painful, and sometimes we get worse before we get better. She teaches us, in addition, that choosing health in our own lives transforms our lives and the the lives of those around us, and that nothing is wasted.
She shares, “Pain is a great motivator… for most of us, we change because we get in enough pain to where the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain and fear of change.”
About her dream of starting Cultivate, which is having a tremendous impact in the city of Atlanta, she says, “One day I realized like, ‘Oh, I'm just staying where I am because I'm scared. And so I, I can't live like that.’”
Mazi shares, “I made the promise to myself that I want to live a brave life, and I don’t want to give in to fear anymore.”
Mazi’s courage will give you courage. Mazi’s expertise and focus on women finding their voice will make you take pause, her refusal to live scared will help you be bold, and her call to emotional and spiritual health will inspire you.
Listen to the interview below or wherever you get your podcasts.
(Transcript of Audio Recording Below)
Monica:
Well, I'm so excited to have my dear friend Mazi on the podcast today. Um, and Mazi is, um, really, uh, a cheerleader of women and she does that professionally, but also personally. And I have gotten to benefit from that. Mazi is a friend that has actually helped me be brave by her example. She's helped me be brave by supporting me. She's helped me be brave by believing in me when I didn't believe in myself and she's helped me to be brave by believing in my own dreams. And I, I run them by her all the time. And so she knows all of them. Um, but Mazi is a therapist and a speaker and she's the Founder of Cultivate gatherings and Cultivate counseling and she's just a wealth of knowledge. So I feel like I'm about to give everyone a big present when they hear I'm Mazi talk. Um, but I would love it. You just introduce yourself too.
Mazi:
Yes. First of all, thank you so much for having me. This is such an honor to be here and to get to do the podcast with you and that was way too generous of an introduction. But thank you.
Monica:
It's all true.
Mazi:
And, um, yeah, just so excited to be here. So a little bit about me. I am a Licensed Counselor here in the Atlanta area. I've been practicing for 13 years now. I have worked in a couple of different treatment centers in Atlanta. I've worked at a counseling center and then in 2013 I went out on my own and started my own private practice. And so I have been doing that since 2013 and that has been a wonderful adventure, uh, in just learning more about myself and realizing, oh, I can do things I never thought that I could do in terms of having a small business and starting a business.
Mazi:
Um, I specialize in working with adult women on self worth, self esteem challenges, relationship concerns and life stage transitions. Uh, like you said, I also do a lot of speaking, um, around the city to different groups and organizations. Uh, what else? I have been married for 16 years this July and I have two little boys, an eight year old and a three and a half year old who will be four in August. And I'm an Atlanta native, so I'm like a rare bird.
Monica:
Very rare. Um, and so then if we just were to dive right in, um, about the, the specialty of, you know, women with self worth and women finding their voices and um, tell us a little bit about why you became a therapist because it's, it's an interesting field and, and why you found yourself, you know, really focusing in on these areas in particular.
Mazi:
Yes. So that's a, that's a great question. Most definitely what I do professionally as a result of my personal life or" my personal journey, um, the tagline for my practice is "helping women discover their true voice." And some people, sometimes people will ask me, why are you so passionate about helping women find their voice? And the answer that always comes to mind is because I want lost mine. And so just that discovering, rediscovering a voice is so important to me. So my story of how I became a therapist, um, grew up, born and raised in Atlanta in Metro Atlanta and then went to college, went to Vanderbilt in Nashville and I was a vocal performance major. And so in a former life, I was a classically trained opera singer, which is kind of crazy.
Monica:
I didn't know it was opera. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing.
Mazi:
So, I was a lyric soprano. And so really what that means is I say a lot of Mozart and um, so I was at Vanderbilt and um, throughout college I struggled off and on with pretty significant performance anxiety. And it would come for a month or two and then I'd be okay. And it would come back for two or three months and then I'd be okay. And, and this kind of happened off and on all college I had been performing and involved in music since I was seven years old. So music was my entire identity. It was my entire world. Like everything was wrapped up in music for me. And so I graduated from college and then went to Florida state to get my master's in vocal performance. And after my first semester in Grad School, I came home at Christmas and I was just a wreck and I was very depressed.
Mazi:
I was incredibly anxious. I couldn't eat, I did not want to go back. I was just really kind of a shell. And I had just essentially burned out and music and burned out in my life and I was crispy. And so I told my parents, I said, I don't want to go back. And they said, well, we think you should go back. We think you should finish the degree. You know, it's important to get your masters. And I was like, oh, okay. And so then a few days later, uh, my dad came home from work and I still remember I was sitting in his blue lazy boy in the living room. And he came in, he said, you know, I've been thinking about this and you have no marketable skills. And I said, I know the world does not care that I can sing Mozart. It does not translate to many things in life.
Mazi:
And he said, so there's no point in you finishing this degree. Um, but you need to figure out what, what you're going to do with your life. Okay. And so, um, I went back down to Tallahassee, withdrew from school, moved out of my apartment, came back to Atlanta. My parents paid for me to, uh, get an apartment. I moved into my apartment and I enrolled at Oglethorpe, which is a small university in the Atlanta area, in their teaching certification program because I thought, okay, what is the most practical thing in the world? What is the opposite of being an opera singer.
Monica:
Something I can do in any state.
Monica:
It's something I can do in any state that I can always find a job. Like I was going for total practicality about teaching. What would I like to teach? Well, I've always found history interesting. Like I didn't want to teach music.
Mazi:
I didn't want to be a choral teacher director. You know, I totally wanted to leave music and so withdrew from Florida state, came home and moved into my apartment, enrolled at Oglethorpe. And um, the interesting part of that story is that my cousin, my first cousin, my, I come from a very large family and so all of my first cousins are actually old enough to be my, my parent because my mother was the youngest of five. Very tangential. That's a lot of cousins, older cousins. Yes. But it's a neat part of the story of my first cousin and was a professor at Oglethorpe and she was one of the education professors and so, and uh, plays a huge role in this story and eventually in my life because she was able to get me into Oglethorpe within a week.
Monica:
Way to go Anne.
Mazi:
I owe a lot to Anne. And so I'm enrolled at Oglethorpe and I ended a four year, uh, addicted, very abusive relationship. I had dated the same person all throughout college. It was a very unhealthy relationship for both of us and, um, and ended that relationship. So in 10 days, from January 3rd to about January 15th, my entire life changed except for my name.
Monica:
That's astounding.
Mazi:
It is. It is. As you know, when I think about it now, particularly through the lens of a therapist, um, it is astounding that everything in my life changed. Everything that I had been investing in for the past four to 15, 17 years of my life totally ended in a, in a week's period of time.
Monica:
Well, you know, one question that occurred to me when you're telling your story about ending, um, you know, this focus on music that had been your whole life and then ending this four year relationship that had probably consumed four years of your life as well. And that ending helped you then go through a period of healing, which was hard, but then start all these new chapters. How did you get, and this is maybe too big of a question, but I'm curious, when you look back, how did you get brave enough to end those...Were you fed up? Was it just too much? You know, how did you get brave enough to say, you know what, I, I, I can't do this anymore. I don't know what I'm doing next, but I can't do this anymore.
Mazi:
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. I think pain is a great motivator. You know, and I think for any of us, there are obviously exceptions to this, but I think for most of us, um, we change because we get in enough pain where the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain and fear of change. And that was really what it came down to me. And I was in a lot of pain. Just my life on many levels was just not in a healthy place. I wasn't emotionally healthy. I wasn't spiritually healthy. I wasn't mentally healthy as I could have been.
Mazi:
And pain is just a great motivator. And yeah, and I reached the place where something had to change because I was a shell of who I had been and I had really lost myself. Um, in that year 2000, I did a lot of reading. I spent a lot of time by myself in that year. I really only saw my parents in this one particular childhood friend who lived near me at the time, but I spent a lot of time by myself, a lot of time in my apartment and read a lot. And one of the books that I read was, uh, married, uh, Mary Piper's Reviving Ophelia. And I heard about this book for years because my junior and senior year English teacher in high school loved this book. And she always talked about this book. And, um, and so I had remembered it and I think I saw it at the bookstore and I thought, oh, this is book Dr. Harris always talked about.
Mazi:
And so I decided to read it in the book is a wonderful book and it's, it's essentially about, um, female lifespan development and, and about how women lose their voice. And I read the book and, and I just thought, oh my goodness, I'm not crazy. Like I'm not damaged. I'm not, I'm not totally broken. I have just lost my voice and this happens to a lot of women and I've lost my voice for a lot of reasons. And it was just a real light bulb moment of I have lost myself and I've lost my voice. And, and I, I kind of made a promise to myself that I would find her again. I did not know how. And at the time I really didn't know. Um, I didn't know what the end of that road would look like. I think there was still a doubt in my mind that I would always be scarred. Um, but I was determined to be well. Um, and again, I don't really, those two things both sat in my mind, but I was determined not to stay where I was, so to speak. And Yeah.
Monica:
And you didn't know where you were going, but you couldn't stay there anymore. And I think people underestimate the power of that insight. You know, that we have to have a plan to get better or go to the next place, but sometimes we just have to have the decision, you know, and the rest kind of unfolded a little as you gave us little insights into yeah.
Mazi:
Yeah. It just kind of unfolded. And, um, and reading was very helpful in that year of just learning about myself and, and kind of beginning to understand what had been happening for many years in my life. Just this process of kind of losing myself and trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be. Um, and um, uh, yeah. And so just moving through that year
Monica:
and so, you know, that that takes us into, you know, this idea of women and losing their voices. Yeah. And, um, it is, you know, and, and both of our work as therapists, I know we encounter this all the time, that it is, can be very hard for women to understand and identify their voices. And like you said so well that women lose their voices. Why, why do you think it is hard and, and again, a big question that's probably a societal reasons and cultural reasons and um, religious reasons even, but that, why is it hard for women to understand and identify their voices?
Mazi:
Yeah, I think it's hard for a lot of reasons. Um, you know, if you think about it all throughout our life, people are leaving us messages, you know, if you think of our brain as a giant voicemail, yes. Um, people are leaving us messages and some messages we delete... Pass through one year and not the other. And some messages we keep saving and replaying over and over again. And some of those messages, you know, people leave intentionally, you know, um, instances where children have grown up in abusive households and they are told they're not good enough or they're dumb or that sort of thing, those messages stick. But I think for a lot of people and um, a lot of the messages in that voicemail inbox or messages that are left indirectly, you know, they hear some, we hear someone say something about someone else and we think, oh, I don't want them.
Mazi:
I don't want to, I don't want that to be me. So silent vow, that's never going to be me. And so all these, we have all these messages that are left for us. And if we internalize those messages, we repeat those messages. And eventually the kind of cacophony, if you will, of the messages drowns out our true gut, our true intuition. Because that's really, you know, when I talk about this idea of voice, that's really what voice is, it's, it's intuition. It's your gut. It's your feeling like, oh, this doesn't feel right, this doesn't feel safe. I know that this should be happening. Um, and those messages drown out that, that true voice until that's all we hear are these other voices. You know, the voice of the coach from Middle School, uh, the voice of a parent, the voice of the sibling the voice. And unfortunately our brains save the negative messages a lot.
Mazi:
And um, and so we just replay those messages and hear those voices and then that kind of becomes our voice and we lose our voice. And then I think what can happen is we can adapt, if you will, a false voice and a voice that is not true to us. And so for instance, what might that look like? Um, rage. You know, I think rage is a false voice. There's nothing wrong with anger. I say that to my clients all the time which is totally like anger is an emotion. We were created to feel angry.
Monica:
It informs us.
Mazi:
It absolutely informs us. Um, but rage is the dark side of anger. And so I think rage is one of those false voices. I think sass and sarcasm and self deprecation would fall under that category of, of a false voice.
Monica:
It's a way of being strong that is not necessarily authentic.
Mazi:
Right, exactly. Yeah. And also it's, um, it's biting. Yeah. You know, when we are using our true voice and we're speaking from our true voice, um, that is, that's not a tool to hurt someone. You know. Playing small, you know, being quiet, just literally being quiet. And I think that happens to a lot of people that they literally just stop talking and it's not that they're talking, but they just stopped giving their opinion. They just stopped saying no, they just stopped questioning. They just become quiet. Um, I think, uh, being cute is an example of a false voice of kind of, you know, being the cute one a little air headed being funny and, and it's not that you're not a funny person, but are you, have you to this false voice because you think people will like you better if you're kind of cute and funny
Monica:
if you're pleasing in that way, if you're more accepting.
Mazi:
Exactly. Exactly. Is that more acceptable? I think we can kind of vacillate on this spectrum of voice where we either get real puffed up and people are going to hear me, you know, and we kind of shout right? Or the other end of the spectrum where we are really quiet and we're not stating our needs or wants or feelings or thoughts and, and you know, we tend to fall on either side of those spectrums and the true voices in the middle. And we don't need to puff up, we don't need to shout. And we also don't need to be afraid that our feelings, our needs are going to be too much for someone that we stand in that place of knowing who we are, understanding why we feel the way we do, where these thoughts are coming from, understanding why we behave the way we do, understanding why and how we get triggered. And we speak from that authentic love, true place. And so I think that's what it means to discover your, that true voice.
Monica:
Wow. Yeah. Um, I love that analogy of the, um, the voicemail. I've never heard that. That's amazing. Um, you know, one of the things that I think about often is that is that women are, are, are trained often to think about others before themselves. Um, and, and that can be really hard for them to even recognize their voice because while they're thinking about what Joe and Tommy and Susie me before they even consider that they might be hungry. Right. Um, so let's talk about women and enmeshment with the people in their life. And maybe, maybe we can define enmeshment, it's a word that we throw around a lot, but for someone that doesn't use that word was so in measurement.
Mazi:
Enmeshment, and I wish you all could see me, but,
Monica:
You're putting your hands together.
Mazi:
I'm locking my fingers together. Enmeshment is when it is hard for us to discern where I end. And you begin. Yeah. And so, uh, if you're happy, I'm happy. If you're sad, I'm sad. Um, if you've had a stressful day, then now I'm stressed. Like there's no delineation. There's no differentiation between your feelings, thoughts, opinions, and my feelings, thoughts, opinions. And it's an interesting thing with, with women because I think women are, they are naturally relational. Um, that's not necessarily a nurture thing. I, I believe that's a nature thing. We are relational beings. Uh, research shows a little bit more naturally so than men. But guys you're relational too, um, but you see that, um, you research bears that out. Uh, Carol Gilligan is this psychologist who has done a lot with female lifespan development. And one of the things that she observed years ago when she was starting her work is that if you observe always and girls on the playground and if they're playing a game, um, the boys if like if they're playing a game and the ball can bounce out of the boundaries of the, wherever they are, if the ball bounces out, the boys will say, you're out.
Mazi:
You got to sit down. But if the ball bounces out, girls will say, oh no, no, it's fine. They'll, they'll adjust and adapt the rules to keep everyone together so that everyone can keep playing. Whereas boys and their player like, nope, that's the role. The ball when you're out, you're out. And so it's interesting. We aren't just really relational. And then I think there is kind of a so socialization aspect that women are encouraged to then be caretakers and nurturers on top of that natural instinct. Um, I was reading, this is one of my favorite things I've read recently and I keep telling people about it cause I think it's fascinating and I think it's so true, but I was reading in this book, uh, uh, they were talking about women and how they develop in this and the progression of the loss of voice.
Mazi:
And they said, the author said, if you ask a girl at seven, what would she like on her pizza? She'll say, pepperoni. And if you ask a girl at 10, what would you like on her pizza? She'll often say, I don't know, maybe pepperoni? If you ask if girl at 13, what would you like on your pizza? She will more often say, I don't know. What would you like?
Monica:
Wow. And the progression of losing your voice
Mazi:
And becoming hyper aware of everyone around you and, and wanting to please and adapt and take care of. And again, there's nothing wrong with those things. Um, but you want to do all those things and in the process you lose touch with, wait, I like pepperoni. I want pepperoni and that's ok.
Monica:
Staying relational, but not losing yourself in that process.
Mazi:
Exactly. And when we are enmeshed, we lose ourselves in the relationship.
Mazi:
So, um, we lose the me within the we. It just becomes about the we. Yes. And um, and the danger in that is that we can fall into this pattern of over accommodation. So I'm never going to get pepperoni on my pizza because you prefer mushrooms, but eventually, you know, 30, 40 years into the marriage, you're going to feel really resentful that you never got pepperoni. That's right. You just some, and so the dark night of enmeshment is, is you can fall into this pattern of over accommodation, which then leads to resentment. Resentment is just so corrosive to any relationship, whether it's a marital relationship or, or a friendship. And, um, yeah.
Monica:
So then tell us if, if, enmeshment is a, is a way that we lose our voice and it really, um, it really sort of capitalizes in a negative way on maybe women's natural relational being.
Mazi:
Um, and we don't want to do that.
Monica:
Right? Yeah. So, so then differentiation and being maybe not exactly the opposite, but, but, but, um, a better way of living. How would you define differentiation for women?
Mazi:
Yes. Or for people in general, but since we're talking about women, yeah. So differentiation is the idea that you and I can be connected. Um, but what you feel, think and do and even what you think of me does not influence what I feel, think and do and how I feel about myself. So we are connected, but our experiences are, are separate, which is health, right?
Monica:
That's also healthy.
Mazi:
Yes. It's also healthy because yes, we never want to demonize or stigmatized. And I think this happens a lot with a woman's natural nurturing, relational instinct. Because I think that's one of the things that is so awesome about us is how relational we are.
Mazi:
But I think we always want to keep it in the healthy zone. You know, any strength pushed to an extreme becomes a weakness, you know? And so we want to keep it in the healthy zone. And the healthy zone is differentiation. You know, I can be connected with you and we can be very close friends, which we are. Um, but we may have differing opinions on something and our differing opinions doesn't mean that, um, we then have to not be friends. We can still be friends and still have differing opinions. Because I think for a lot of people, particularly, let's say if they grew up in a household where there was a lot of high conflict and there was a lot of anger and rage as adults, they may fear conflict. They may fear anger. And so they have sort of this core belief of, Ooh, if I make someone angry, they won't love me anymore.
Mazi:
They will leave me now. They will reject me. So I don't want to make anybody angry. I don't want to disagree because I don't want there to be conflict. Um, and so it's really uprooting this lie that a lot of us believe that same equals connection. If and I you are the same than we are connected. If we are different than we are disconnected. And that's a lie that a lot of us buy into. And so what's the truth? So the truth is we don't have to be the same, but we can be connected. Being, having different opinions, different feelings about something does not mean that automatically leads to disconnection.
Monica:
Absolutely. Being the same is not being close. We can be close and be different.
Mazi:
Right. Exactly. And, and we, I think we have this automatic association that if we're the saying the new clothes one,
Monica:
I think, I think that we are taught that, you know, I think that, um, you know, even from when little kids want to dress alike, you know, and, and that, that being the same as that, that we're, we're close.
Monica:
Um, well switching gears some, I know that I'm a big, passionate and focus of yours is, um, emotional health and spirituality. Yes. And, um, why is emotional health such an important part of spirituality? And when we don't have that, what are some of the pitfalls that we can fall into?
Mazi:
Yes, so I, what I've observed is that a lot of times we, um, we can think those are two separate things. There's emotional health and wellness, mental health and wellness, and then there's, um, spirituality, faith and spirituality, spiritual health. But what I've observed in my work with clients over the years is that really it's all the same thing. Um, that we cannot be emotionally healthy unless we are spiritually healthy and we cannot be spiritually healthy unless we are emotionally healthy. So we cannot be emotionally healthy unless we have, um, a sense of something greater than us, a power that is greater than us, that there is a plan, um, that, um, there is a purpose that there is something bigger than us than just our own desire to be the director of the show and, and control our life.
Mazi:
But on the other side of that coin, we can, I don't believe we can be spiritually healthy unless we're emotionally healthy. Because if we don't have emotional awareness, if we, uh, if we can't identify how we're feeling, express how we're feeling, understand where that feeling comes from, how it gets triggered, how we behave when we're having that feeling. Um, then we're gonna have a tendency to stuff our feelings. We're going to have a tendency to disconnect from them and try to ignore them, try to avoid them. And we're going to use our faith and spirituality to do that. Yeah. So I'm not going to worry because worry is a sin right? I'm going to let go and let God and all of you know, I'm, I'm going to believe that God's got this and God does have it. But God also gave us the ability to feel for a reason.
Mazi:
Because every emotion is a messenger. You know, it's telling us something about our environment around us. And so if we aren't letting ourselves feel, then we're not receiving all the messages that we need to be receiving, you know? And so we have to be careful to not use our faith and spirituality as a way to numb and disconnect from our emotions. Right. And we can't fear that our emotions are gonna make our faith and spirituality, Nessie, um, that it, it is both. It is both.
Monica:
And, and, and, um, spirituality can really be weaponized. Yeah. You know, against ourselves. Yeah. Um, or, or against other people. So we can suppress our own emotions with it. We can also suppress other people as well. You know, that's not having faith, I mean all, all the statements that so many of us have heard. Absolutely. Well, tell me, um, you know, I want to circle all the way back to cultivate.
Monica:
Yes. Which is just, I got to, you know, see this dream of yours come to fruition. Can you tell us about what is cultivate for those that don't know and why did you start it?
Mazi:
Yeah. So, um, cultivate is, um, it is an organization, um, that consists of bimonthly gatherings and now counseling center. And we help women cultivate joy, courage, and freedom in their lives as they pursue emotional and spiritual health. And so the idea of cultivates, um, came to me in 2014. So in 2014, I just started noticing some trends. I felt like they were trends, um, in the community. Um, at the time, um, one of the churches here in Atlanta had started a women's gathering called the Grove and thousands upon thousands of women would show up on a Monday night, a once a month to attend the Grove and in the pouring down rain that could show up, they can stand in line to enter the building.
Mazi:
And I just thought that is amazing. Like women are hungry for truth and not like bumper sticker, put a magnet on your refrigerator, easy truth, but they are hungry for debt, hard depth in truth. Um, I also noticed that um, uh, authors that may be 20 years ago would have been in the back of the bookstore. We're now on the front of the bookstore. You know, all, there's like Jen hatmaker and Seana Niequist and Beth Moore and Glenn Doyle, all of these authors who talk about faith and spirituality. We're now at the front and they were best selling authors and they were becoming household names. And so a kid, there just seem to seem to be this hunger amongst the female community for rich, deep emotional and spiritual truth. In other areas of my life on Facebook, I am an avid facebooker and I'm OK with it..
Monica:
Okay. It is what it is, what it is. It's authentic. It is.
Mazi:
I'm just owning it. But I noticed in a lot of the community groups that I was a member of, a lot of people were asking for counseling referrals and I thought, you know, I think people would, more people would go to counseling if they knew where to go, but they don't know where to go. And googling counselor Atlanta is a really daunting and overwhelming kind of scary task because you get all these results and you know, there's some bad counselors. Yeah. It's just the truth, you know? And so I started thinking, is there a way that we can encourage women in Atlanta to be emotionally and spiritually healthy? I think, you know, there are organizations who do a great job at one or the other, but is there a way to do both,?
Monica:
To integrate it.
Mazi:
To integrate it. And to encourage women to pursue emotional and spiritual health and to make it accessible. And so that was in 2014. And so over the next three years, I just brainstormed, Cultivate, and Cultivate, had many different iterations over those three years, uh, lots of, of ideas. And, um, and I would take little steps to, to make, cultivate happen. And then I would lose my nerve and I'm like, go back in my hole and then I'd take another little step. And I'm like, no, no, no, and go back to the hall. And, um, finally I landed on the idea that, um, cultivate, could be a gathering for women. And so I reached out to this. And so fall of 2016, I reached out to my two friends, Robin English, and Miriam Ryan and I shared with them the idea of cultivate and, you know, ask them to, you know, would you be interested in partnering and kind of let's bring this to life and let's serve the women of Atlanta.
Mazi:
And, um, and so we met a couple of times and then I totally lost my nerve. And I stopped emailing them
Monica:
I don't know this part of the chapter.
Mazi:
Yeah. Just like radio silence, like I've left the city. And um, so then fast forward a few months to February, 2017 I was speaking at a women's retreat, um, up in Gainesville, Georgia. And I was a, and the topic of the retreat was living loved and um, and I was pulling out of the parking lot and um, and the, the topic of the retreat had been very near and dear to me. Writing the talks for the retreat had, had, uh, been healing for me on a lot of levels. Uh, just forcing me to look at just stuff in my behalf. Um, and when I was pulling out of the parking lot, I thought, you know, if I do nothing else with my life, when I take my last breath, I want to be able to say that I told women they were loved by God.
Mazi:
And, and then I thought the only reason that cultivate is not coming to life is because I'm scared. You know, because I had literally been thinking about cultivate everyday for three years. I would, you know, my joke, but this is real. This is a true story. Some people fall asleep counting sheep and I would fall asleep thinking about Cultivate every night. And so I thought, you know, I reason I'm not moving forward and I'm not saying, Hey Miriam, when Robin, let's do this is fear. I was afraid it would be hard. I was afraid in if it failed, that would be embarrassing. I was afraid. I didn't know how to do something like this, um, just all these things. And so I reached out to Miriam later that week and I said, you know, I think it's just fear and I can't, I personally made a promise to myself two years ago, I was, I was no longer going to live in fear.
Mazi:
And um, and so she said, well, let's meet, let's have lunch and talk about it. And so we met and talked through it and we decided, you know what, let's hold one gathering. And if people show up fabulous, if they don't, we were at least faithful to the call. And so we sent out an invitation to everyone we knew and uh, we are planning to have it at my house. We were, I was hoping, we were hoping for 35 people, I don't know why 35 but that just seems like it's number younger and people kept Rsvping and it became clear that, uh, my house was not going to work. And Miriam worked at Kairos Church in Sandy Springs and Kairos graciously let us meet there. And so we held the first gathering on May 9th, 2017 at Kairos and 125 women. And every time I tell that story, I still get choked up because it was just such an example of God's incredible abundance, like his abundant answer to prayer, um, you know, three years of prayer of like, what is this that you've put on my heart?
Mazi:
I can't shake it. I keep trying to walk away from it and I keep being drawn back to it. And, and I remember after the gathering, I just literally like sobbed all the way home, just so overwhelmed by the goodness and the abundance of that evening. And, um, so we decided to start holding gatherings. And so we meet every other month. And, um, we always have a speaker because we believe it is important to learn from each other's stories. Your story doesn't need to be finished. You don't need to have it all wrapped up in a bow. But it's important to share our chapters because every chapter has a meaning. And we have, um, a time of worship and music and then we always have a speaker. And, um, and we had, and every eve, every gathering has a theme. We've had some gatherings where we've talked about anxiety, um, some gatherings where we've talked about what do you need to say yes to in your life?
Mazi:
Other things have been on disconnection and loneliness. Learning to be carried by love, learning to let people love us. We're so good at loving other people, but are we good at receiving? And so last year I started thinking, okay, well what's the goal with Cultivate the, that I'm, I'm very gold task for since I was like, okay, well at that point like, oh, are we just going to keep having the gatherings? That's fabulous, but you know, where are we going here? And so I've been sitting with that for several months and one day, again, it kind of hit me and I'd never thought about this before in all of the iterations of Cultivate this has never been one of them. It just hit me Cultivate Counseling and I was like, well yeah, that seems like a logical next step and a logical outgrowth.
Monica:
Of emotional and spiritual health. The combination. Yeah. To be able to provide, uh, you know, a real life way for women to, in addition to the gatherings to work on that.
Mazi:
Exactly. Exactly. Like if, if we're all about emotional and spiritual health, then let's actually provide it. And so, um, so I began talking with different people, trying to figure out what would that look like and what, you know, to set it up and so forth. And so on. And so Cultivate Counseling officially open June 1st or first week of June last year. And, um, one of the distinctives with Cultivating Counseling, we serve women and couples. Um, but one of the distinctives is that we offer affordable counseling, um, because we believe everyone deserves the opportunity to be free of their hurts and habits and everyone deserves access to excellent counseling. And so that has been really exciting to, to um, uh, provide an open the door, uh, for counseling to people who maybe can't afford in town rates otherwise.
Monica:
which is such a, it is a really common deterrent for people getting help, is the affordability of it.
Mazi:
Right, exactly. It kind of started doing some research and observing and I observed that there's about 50% of the population that's priced out of counseling, you know, because they either make too much money where they don't qualify for really low fi community counseling or they don't make enough money where they can afford counseling in the city. And so, uh, so our desire is really to serve that 50%. And, and, and if for some reason we can't see you, then we will make sure you find some place that you can be saying. Um, so it's been very exciting to see gatherings grow and to see the counseling center. Um, we now have two staff therapists, Sarah Collins, who you've interviewed, and Becca, Becca Hamilton just joined last month. And so it's been an exciting journey
Monica:
And you're doing good work. It's good work and it's good to see it.
Monica:
Um, you know, when I think about, um, what you've started with cultivate and being afraid, it's, you know, on the outside, we all see I'm quite an astounding thing that has been created for the women in Atlanta. Um, and you know, before at the beginning of your story, it was pain that motivated the change. But would you say, you know, thinking about what, what got you to move past that fear and really just go for it with cultivate was really identifying the purpose that if I wanna if I, when I die, I want to know that I would told women that they are loved by God. Was purpose. What gave you courage to move past that fear?
Mazi:
That's a really good question. I think that was a big motivator. But, um, as you know, I'm a big Brené Brown fan. And Brené says she has the saying that she says, "once you have been courageous, you can never go back."
Mazi:
And because you know what it tastes like. And so, you know, when you're not being courageous and the incongruence in the kind of, the falseness of it is too much for you then. And so I became familiar with Brené in 2012 and I tend to be a little bit of an obsessive and so join the club. Yeah. So for several months I like read everything, but she'd ever written, I listen everything that I could find on her. And, um, and that really started this, uh, kind of new chapter in my life of really trying to identify the ways that I was playing small and giving into fear both professionally and personally. And I just kind of made the decision, I can't, I can't do it anymore. It's just not good for me. I mean, I could keep doing because on the surface I'll, yeah,
Monica:
it's more convenient, right?
Mazi:
It's always easier. It's always easier. But I made that promise to myself that I, I want to live a brave life and I don't want to give into fear anymore. And so, it's really leaving my, leaving the job at the counseling center and starting my private practice was a huge piece of that decision because I'd always thought about having a private practice, but I'd always convinced myself oh, you don't, you don't have a business mind, don't know how to do bookkeeping. And, um, and but one day I realized like, Oh, I'm just staying where I am because I'm scared. And so I, I can't live like that. And so, so having that experience with having left the job and starting the private practice and then realizing, no, it's just fear again, that's keeping you from moving forward with Miriam and Robin with Cultivate, I realized, Nope, I, I can't live like that anymore.
Mazi:
And so it was that realization. It was like what Brené says, once you've been courageous, you can't go back and I couldn't go back.
Monica:
You couldn't force yourself back into that tiny box to play small again. I think that's good for all of us to, you know, to remember and to hear that story that, you know, after we're courageous even wants that we start to build those muscles and it's easier to do it again. Absolutely, yes.
Mazi:
And, and you become more aware of when you're not being, when you're giving into that inner critic and those old buys, it should comes more heightened.
Monica:
You're sensitized to it. Last question. Okay. That I'm asking everyone is what is one person thing or event that helped you become who we're listening to today?
Mazi:
Yes, so I knew you're going to ask this and obsessively thought about it.
Mazi:
And, um, so I have two answers.
Monica:
We'll go with two.
Mazi:
Okay. All right. I have two answers. I really think like if you look at the timeline of my life, I think, um, Marist is one of the most defining things
Monica:
This is the school you taught at.
Mazi:
This is the school that I taught at. Um, because Marist was the gateway to the rest of my life. And, I felt like this is one of the great evidences of grace in my life, but I really felt, felt like, feel like, um, Marist was God's way of saying, okay, it's time to live again. You have spent years in sackcloth and ashes. You have blamed yourself. You've punished yourself. You have sat in guilt and shame and hurt and it's time to get up and live and take your mat and to live.
Mazi:
And, um, so Marist was huge. The other part of the mirror story is that in that year 2000, I mentioned that I rarely went out. And so I did, I, I mean, I rarely went out, but I started teaching at Marist on January 3rd and January 13th. So that, that second weekend of me teaching there, I felt like going out, I was like, oh, I would like to go out and do what 23 year olds do!
Monica:
Rejoin this world.
Mazi:
Rejoin the land of the living. And so I called my childhood friend and I said, hey, let's, let's, uh, why don't you call your friend Bowen and see what they're up to. And these were some friends that she knew. And that January 13th, I had briefly met him, uh, in December, but that January 13th, I met my husband Jay And, and I've always said, had Maris not happened, I never would have gone out that night.
Mazi: (55:17)
And I never would have met Jay. And Jay is, um, such an an again, an evidence of grace and, um, and this life that we have and who he is, he is exactly what I always needed, but I didn't think that I deserved. And so I kept chasing, you know, after these other things and people in my life. And, um, you know, I didn't come to Jay fully healed. There was still some healing and wholeness that needed to be pursued, but I, um, but you know, I kind of came into that relationship in a much better place and we instantly started dating. And so that was in 2001. So total, we've been together 18 years. And, um, so Marist was the gateway into that relationship. I believe it was the gateway into realizing that I love speaking and all those years of music, they were not lost.
Mazi:
They were just that being able to be on stage and learning how to be on stage in front of people was just preparing me for something different. It wasn't preparing me to sing. It was preparing me for something different. And, and I learned how to teach and how to speak at Marist. You know, I remember I used to stand outside the doors of the teachers in the history department. I would just listen to them teach because they were such great lecturers and I would, you know, just make notes of the rhythm of their voice or how they told a story or, um, and, and they just, they taught me to teach. And so Marist changed my life and in a lot of ways Marist saved my life. So I am forever grateful to Marist, um, because they were the gateway to my life now and becoming a counselor and a speaker.
Mazi:
But the other one, the other answer that I was going to say, which sounds a little cheesy and overdramatic is that I just think that the little and big struggles of my life made me who I am. And you know, I try not to fall into comparative suffering when I say that, you know, cause my instinct, which I'm going to give into it as I know my life hasn't been as hard as others. But there have been these things that I've experienced in my life. And then even later on in my adult life, you know, Jay and I have experienced job loss and unemployment and two bouts of infertility and financial loss and you know, and uh, and so just all of those things, you know, nothing is wasted. And that's what I've realized, like the, the pain and the hurt and the unfortunate things happen in life, but nothing has been wasted.
Mazi:
God has been so good in redeeming everything. And I, I use everything in every talk that I give every time I sit with the client. Um, it's just none of it has been wasted even though it hurt at the time.
Monica:
And that pain has in some ways become part of the power of the work that you do.
Monica:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Such a pleasure.
Mazi:
This has been so much fun.