Minaa B on Healing Trauma Through Community Care
A powerful and practical guide that shares therapeutic tools, client stories, and actionable insights
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TW Managing Editor Neva Talladen interviews Minaa B, author of Owning Our Struggles, which is available for purchase now in our Bookshop. In this week's episode, Neva and Minaa dive into what Minaa means by healing trauma through community care and how her readers can implement her ideas in their everyday lives.
Minaa B. MSW, LMSW, is a licensed social worker, mental health educator, and the author of Owning Our Struggles. A former psychotherapist specializing in anxiety, depression, and trauma, Minaa has worked in several mental health industries, including early childhood in New York City Early Head Start programs, private practice, and community mental health. She earned her graduate degree in social work from New York University.
Minaa is also a wellness coach and the founder of Minaa B. Consulting, a mental health consulting practice that helps organizations develop psychological safety. As a mental health educator and coach, Minaa emphasizes the connection between mental health and social justice. She teaches individuals how to foster self-efficacy and enhance emotional resilience through community care. This approach acknowledges the impact of relationships in facilitating personal and societal change and assists individuals in establishing supportive and healthy connections.
An expert in her field, Minaa’s work has been recognized by various media outlets and publications. She has been featured on Red Table Talk, Peace of Mind With Taraji, Today.com, the BBC, and more. Her work has also been featured in Oprah Daily, Katie Couric Media, SHE Media, and The Skimm and on CBS News and other media outlets. In addition to her media appearances, Minaa serves on the Mental Health Advisory Committee for Wondermind, a mental fitness company co-founded by Selena Gomez, and as a relationship expert for eHarmony. Minaa is also the host of the podcast Mindful With Minaa. She lives in New York City.
In her latest book, Owning Our Struggles, you will discover the power of collective healing in this research-based and real-world guide to moving past trauma and adversity—together.
Adversity comes in many forms and can make us feel alone in our pain, even years after the fact. But as wellness coach and licensed therapist Minaa B. observes, we can’t heal in isolation. The best way to move past individual trauma is through connection and community—healing ourselves and one another.
In this powerful and practical guide, Minaa shares therapeutic tools, client stories, and actionable insights to help you on your healing journey, along with reflections from her personal experiences. Each chapter focuses on a common emotional struggle—from overcoming dysfunctional family patterns to developing emotional maturity, finding our village, navigating racial trauma, and moving past isolation and despair.
Through her unique mix of deeply honest personal stories, proven practices, and prompts for writing and reflection, Minaa helps readers finally face their struggles, get unstuck, and transform their thinking—to claim agency in their own lives and circumstances and to use that power to help heal a broken world.
All of us at TW love that her book focuses on the building blocks of healing rather than trendy hacks that one can use throughout the day. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing the patterns and behaviors that one may have acquired in childhood and how they still arise in adulthood. The book stresses taking responsibility for one’s self in order to enjoy the benefits of healing. That includes taking a look at one’s personal development, one’s community, and the social justice issues that one may have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Minaa also discusses knowing when it’s time to seek professional help. Many people say that they don’t need to seek professional help because they can just talk to their parents, their friends, or the people around them. This can lead to more detrimental mental health issues being overlooked and untreated. While Minaa acknowledges that speaking to one’s community is part of healing with the community, sometimes one’s community has to expand to allow people who are educated on specific mental health topics to weigh in and help the person on your healing journey.
At the same time, it is important to be realistic in our healing journeys while we live within systems that do not have our best interests in mind. For example, Minaa B talks about the fallacy of the American dream and how many of the economic systems in place in the United States are not meant for everyone and are detrimental to many of us. Minna urges us not to feel like failures if we do not achieve the American dream and to start thinking about what our dreams are and how we can achieve them. Healing does not exist in a vacuum, and it’s important to remind ourselves of this as we move through the world.
Check out Minaa’s episode to hear more about the healing journey from the point of view of a licensed social worker and mental health educator as well as how we can heal our traumas both individually and as a community.
Keep up with Minaa B.:
Website: https://www.minaab.com