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Dr. Gena L. Jerkins

@drgenalyn

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Believer & Licensed Therapist
Merging Faith + Therapeutic Tools
Helping women who sustain everything else be sustained too.

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by @drgenalyn

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21 hours ago

This is not a test of how capable you are.

It is a check for the rules you have been following without realizing they were optional.

Pay attention to the statement that did not even feel like a question. That may be the one you have been living as though it were true.

Which number caught you?

Save the assessment. Share it with a woman who may be carrying a rule she never consciously chose.
#sustainwhatsustains
#therapytoolThursday taken in Houston, Texas by @drgenalyn

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a day ago

You finish the project no one could get moving.

Everyone praises how well you handled it.
Before the compliment has even settled, your name comes up for the next problem.

“She’s good at this” becomes “Give it to her.”

And just that fast, competence and responsibility become one.

That is meshing—when two separate truths get treated like they mean the same thing.

This week, we are separating what never should have been made equal.

Save this language.
Share it with the woman whose good work keeps earning her more work.
#sustainwhatsustains
#wednesdaywordforthat taken in Houston, Texas by @drgenalyn

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2 days ago

Amen. taken in Houston, Texas by @drgenalyn

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3 days ago

I’ve been thinking about this woman I met in a matcha shop. Somewhere between ordering our drinks and finding a place to sit, she said:

“I knew something was wrong. I just kept giving it names that did not require me to do anything about it.”

Then: “As long as I used those names, I was always the person expected to adjust.”
That stayed with me: the name she gave their behavior became an assignment for her.

“Strong personalities” meant she needed thicker skin.
“A demanding culture” meant she needed more stamina.
“A communication issue” meant she needed to explain herself better.

Every explanation sent her back to work on herself.

Sometimes softer language helps us stay in a place we cannot yet afford to leave. We may be protecting an income, a relationship, or an opportunity we worked hard to reach. I understand that colleague.

Yet, language that helps us get through the day can also keep us negotiating with harm long after we recognize it. And you deserve different-

An accurate name can change the question from “How do I become better at taking this?” to “What protection, accountability, or change is needed here?”

Please know, you do not have to have your next move figured out to tell yourself the truth. Adult Bullying Is Real. Our Euphemisms Are Helping It Survive.

October Series: UNLEARN
Read the full essay. Link in bio.
#sustainwhatsustains by @drgenalyn

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3 days ago

taken in Houston, Texas by @drgenalyn

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5 days ago

The meeting lasted one hour, but its demands did not end when everyone stood up from the table. She spent the previous night preparing for how she might be treated, the drive home replaying what was said, and the evening wondering whether she should have responded differently. Then she spent another six hours completing the details everyone assumed had ended with the meeting. Someone looked at her calendar and said, “You had a light day. You only had one meeting this morning.” The meeting ended. The extraction did not.

Read Adult Bullying Is Real. Our Euphemisms Are Helping It Survive on Substack: https://drgenalyn.substack.com/.../first-we-have-to-admit...
Substack link in bio. See less by @drgenalyn

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6 days ago

It’s Friday.
You know how we even use the drive time as work time.

Good for us for intentionally unlearning the reflex to fill every opening with more work. May this weekend hold a few moments that do not have to produce a thing.

PS>Somebody can probably guess my go to fry.
#sustainwhatsustains by @drgenalyn

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7 days ago

-because sometimes we've made it too complicated-

Care needs to fit the life you’re living well enough to actually reach you.
Today, we’re simplifying care before crisis.

Save the checklist. Choose one thing that meets a need you have today. Let it count without turning it into a whole routine.

Send it to the woman who checks on you. Ask each other: “What would help right now—and how can we make it easier?”

Come back and tell me what you chose. I’d love to hear what it made room for.

#SustainWhatSustains by @drgenalyn

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8 days ago

You come back from a break,
and everyone says you look rested.

You haven’t finished your first morning, and you can already feel the distance between how you felt when you woke up and how you feel now.

Care must do more than help you come back.
It must help you interrupt what keeps taking you out.
So ask more than: “How do I recover?”
Ask: “What keeps requiring recovery from me—and why does it still have this much access?”

Swipe through and find the place where your life keeps taking back what your rest restored.

Save this for the next time rest does not feel like enough.
Share it with a woman who is ready to do more than recover from the same arrangement.
#SustainWhatSustains by @drgenalyn

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8 days ago

Project: A Success. Done & done.
But it is the second “done” that often goes unnoticed:

The project reached completion—
the woman powering it reached depletion.

Everyone got what they needed.
You were still trying to find your way back to yourself.

Then came the praise.
“How did you pull all of that off?”

You smiled.
“Oh, it was nothing.”

Maybe making hard things look easy has become so familiar that even you stop counting the cost. But “nothing” leaves no record of what needs to be restored.

And soon, someone is asking you to do it again.
This week, we are unlearning the habit of erasing our effort at the very moment it is being recognized.

Your ability to carry it does not make it weightless.

October: UNLEARN
Week 1: Unlearn Dismissing Extraction. Share the lexicon with another woman who needs to unlearn "It was nothing".
#sustainwhatsustains by @drgenalyn

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9 days ago

Because we love you, we want the compliment to give you something—not politely sign you up for something.**

“You’re so good at this.”
“Nobody does it like you.”
“I knew you would figure it out.”

Enjoy being appreciated. Then listen to what comes next.
Is someone celebrating what you contributed—or assuming you’ll handle it again?

You can receive the praise without accepting the assignment. Here's what that might look like:

“Thank you. I’m proud of how it turned out. I’m not available to take it on this time.”

This October, we UNLEARN.

#UNLEARN #HumanInfrastructure #HighCapacityWomen #SustainWhatSustains #tuesdaytip by @drgenalyn

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10 days ago