Catch da Flava Radio - Children's Mental Health Awareness Week

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For the May 8th edition of Catch da Flava Youth Radio, we celebrated Children’s Mental Health Week as host Diamond sat down with Mike Stroh who is the creator of organization the mental health awareness organization “Starts With Me”. Discussing the significance of storytelling when it comes to issues of mental health, Mike’s organization looks to share personal stories of mental health struggles and triumph to help others heal. In his personal journey of development, Mike smoked marijuana almost everyday from age thirteen all the way to thirty, having no idea he was causing himself severe damage because there were rarely any stories shared about the negative side effects of substance use. Consequently, Mike’s been motivated to become a motivational speaker to talk about his personal journey in understanding what he went through in hopes others can find themselves in his tale and be motivated themselves to share their tale. In understanding the power of storytelling, Mike believes that putting words to our emotions can have a healing effect because we can then come to understand what we are going through and through understanding we start to heal.



In discussing further what his organization does, Diamond explored the topic of mindfulness meditation which is promoted by “Starts With Me”. In discussing its usefulness for dealing with issues of mental health, Mike points out that meditation has been practiced for thousands of years and its benefits are vastly helpful for him in his own healing journey. He continues to practice, and Diamond explained the sense of calm and understanding she gained from sitting in meditation and finally observing her own thoughts and realizing how much her thoughts move so rapidly without end. Meditation has been said to calm the body and mind, regulating the body’s rhythm and so is not just a spiritual practice. In discussing further the benefits of meditation, Mike discusses that it is one of the many ways he has learned to heal and grow after all the substance use he had done. He mentioned that it was his “apology” in a sense and that when we make amends we need to back it up with action in order to be sincere in our apology.

We would like to thank Mike for being in studio with us. To learn more about his organization and what it does to celebrate mental health awareness through storytelling, check out their website: https://startswithme.ca


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