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Training

Escucha tus Emociones // Listen to Your Emotions

About Escucha Tus Emociones

The mental and emotional health campaign "Escucha Tus Emociones // Listen to Your Emotions" originated in Wisconsin and was created by licensed bilingual psychotherapist Ana Paula Soares, with the support of the Evelyn Cruz at Dane County Centro Hispano, producer Sandra Dempsey from Source Ten, and other organizations. Currently, the campaign is supported by the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute.

The campaign began in 2021 in response to the mental and emotional health crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic due to great number of essential workers and the lack of access to health care the Latinx community in the US experiences. The pandemic shined a spotlight onto the barriers and challenges our community already experiences every day.

What began as a campaign has now become a significant community effort. In addition to producing culturally and linguistically appropriate digital materials, it offers training in Spanish to health promoters, community leaders, and healthcare professionals so they can offer free community talks (pláticas) in the community, helping to reduce stigma and supporting the Latinx community in finding mental health resources and services. The Escucha tus Emociones initiative has trained 60 health promoters, community leaders, and healthcare professionals.

Escucha tus Emociones Facilitator Training

In November 2022, with the support of the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute and sponsorship by Better Ways to Cope, an initiative of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, "Listen to Your Emotions" held its first comprehensive training on mental and emotional health in Spanish with over 60 health promoters, community leaders, and healthcare professionals.

The training shared important concepts about mental and emotional health, tools and techniques for stress reduction. It also included topics relevant to the Latinx community such as the impact of immigration, acculturation, and discrimination on mental and emotional health. With a holistic approach, the training interconnected contemporary psychology and psychosomatics with the wisdom of ancestral traditions. The training was designed and implemented by bilingual psychotherapist Ana Paula Soares.

Some of the topics covered in the facilitator training included:

  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Physiology and Psychology of Trauma and Emotional Healing
  • Immigration and Health
  • Healthy Communication
  • Integral Medicine and Ancestral Healing
  • Practical Tools for Stress Reduction
  • Mental and Emotional Health in Childhood and Adolescence
  • Group Facilitation
  • And much more

Community Talk (Plática) Offerings

escucha tus emociones outreach in community

Talk Circle Topic: Solutions to Care for Our Emotions

Once an emotion has started, it’s extremely difficult to stop feeling it. We can suppress emotions, but we cannot make them disappear. Just like a pressure cooker that explodes, emotions when suppressed gain intensity and affect our health. What one resists, ultimately persists. But how do we achieve calm? Here are 4 practical steps to calm our emotions.

Talk Circle Topic: How to Improve the Relationship with Our Adolescent Children

The current circumstances have affected the emotional health of our adolescent children. In addition to the physical and hormonal changes, coupled with technology and lack of activity, we often see our children glued to their phones, and as parents, we feel frustrated and lose control. In this plática we explore healthier ways to communicate with our youth.

Talk Circle Topic: Take Care of Your Relationships

Did you know that by taking care of your relationships, you can live a longer and healthier life? Science tells us that the quality of our relationships with partners, family, and in the community significantly affects our physical and mental health. Every day, we interact within our families, at work, and in the community, so it's important to nurture the quality of our relationships. Those in highly problematic relationships suffer in their health and may have a shorter life expectancy. But how do we create healthy relationships when many of us didn't have them and didn't learn as children in our own families? In this plática we explore ways to better communicate and care for our relations.

Talk Circle Topic: How to Control Negative Thoughts?

Don’t believe everything you think! We have up to 60,000 thoughts in a day. Our thoughts can easily turn into emotions. 80 percent of thoughts, in addition to being repetitive, are negative. Negative thoughts create stress and alter essential chemicals for emotional well-being to the point that the brain begins to shrink. In this plática we cover 3 strategies to effectively navigate through negative thinking.

Learn More

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