Superpowers
Embrace Your
Speak Up started with a vision to share
Embrace Your Superpowers
a mental health framework that I developed
for myself and my children.
My experience as the Minister of Health for Manitoba,
educator in Social Work & Nursing, lived experience of mental health diagnosis, interest in current neuroscience,
and love of comic books, have all informed a perspective and set of tools that empower and educate to end stigma.
Great for Superheroes, their Allies, Families, and Mentors!
Embrace Your Superpowers
uses techniques from CBT, Mindfulness, Peer-Support,
and is grounded in neuroscience.
It reframes mental health diagnoses as Superpowers
- seeing them as inherently neutral:
Left untreated and unsupported, they can unravel lives.
However, if understood, embraced, and focused within an empowering framework, for life-long growth and recovery,
these Superpowers can give people the ability
to thrive and succeed.
Embrace Your Superpowers
empowers us to grow and non-judgmentally integrate the successes and failures in our on-going recovery.
Embrace Your Superpowers
provides an assets-based stigma-free context
for others to understand, and support,
the lived experience of those they know and love.
Find Your Inner Superhero!
Superhero Inspired Mental Health Resources & Tools
Keynotes, Workshops & Community Content
*Topics For Your Live Event, Fan Convention, or Workplace*
Start With
"What You Call a Mental Illness,
I Call a Superpower"
An introduction to
Embrace Your Superpowers
content listed below.
Then pick themes and specific titles
to build a program that works
for your event or organization!
Our Superpowers
-
Spidey-Senses: Anxiety's Superpower
-
Winter Soldier: Power from Depression's Darkness
-
Hank Pym: Creativity & Balance in Bipolar Superpowers!
-
Iron Man: Mastering the Assets of OCP/OCD
-
Wolverine: Post-Traumatic Growth & Healing
-
Nightcrawler: AD(H)D The Superpower of Divergent Focus
-
+ More diagnosis profiles
Creating Mentally
Healthy Environments
-
Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters: Youth & Mental Health
-
Tap into Your Team’s Superpowers: Workplace Mental Health
-
United They Stand: Peer Support Perspectives and Tools
-
Superheroes & Allies: Supporting Loved Ones with Lived Experience
Tools for Recovery
-
Black Panther & Shuri: Your Sidekick is Closer Than You Think
-
Captain Marvel: Positive Psychology in Recovery
-
Welcome to the Multiverse: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Related Tools
-
Doctor Strange: Mastering Meditation & Mindfulness
-
JARVIS & FRIDAY: Tech, Apps, and Recovery.
Overcoming
Our Nemesis
-
The Shadow King: Overcoming The Inner Critic
-
Getting out of Genosha: Overcoming Stigma
-
Whose Side Are You On?: Understanding Our Impact on Loved Ones with Diagnoses
Specialized Topics
-
Flying Solo & Not Tripping on Your Cape: Mental Health for Entrepreneurs
-
How To Be Your Clients’ Superhero: Project Management, Leadership & Saving The Day
-
Avengers Assemble(d): Cosplay for Mental Health
-
Embrace Your Superpowers: Empowering Mental Health Workshops for:
-
Medical Professionals
-
Employees & Teams
-
Schools
-
-
+ Customized Topics
Life As A Mutant
-
Minister With A Mood Disorder: An Insider’s Perspective on Lived Experience in Elected Office
-
Hiding In Plain Sight: The Life of A Mental Health Superhero
-
Finding My Inner Superhero: Embracing Lived Experience & Geekdom
-
How Comics & K-Pop Saved My Life: A Fan-Girl’s Mental Health Journey
Find your Inner Superhero
and
Embrace Your Superpowers!
“With great power,
there must also come great responsibility.”
- Stan Lee (1922-2018), Amazing Fantasy #15, 1962
These words from Stan Lee have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, shaping how I raised my sons, led my classes, and took responsibility for a provincial Health Department.
They are why I do what I do today, helping other Superheroes.
As a True Believer,
I recognize the value of my struggles,
and of my privilege, and I seek to use both
for the benefit of others.
Thank you, Stan
for being one of my greatest teachers!
Excelsior!