ALOK Talks Compassion, Poetry, & Wellness with Laurie Hernandez

“I was writing poems about mental health before I even knew what mental health was.” Gender non-conforming Writer, Poet, and Performance Artist ALOK (they/them) joins One Mind Champion and Host of One Creative Mind, Laurie Hernandez (she/her) to discuss how art and poetry have been an essential part of their mental health journey.

In this episode of One Creative Mind, two-time Olympic Medalist and season 23 winner of Dancing With The Stars, Laurie Hernandez joins internationally acclaimed Author, Poet, Comedian, and Public Speaker, ALOK for a conversation about exploring mental health as artists and athletes. ALOK shares how they’ve navigated their wellness journey through using art and poetry as a way to speak their pain and communicate their feelings. ALOK also explains how mental and physical health are not separate from one another, saying, “I feel like there’s this tendency to see mental health as non-physical, like it just belongs in our bodies, but like the binary between men and women, there’s a false binary between mental and physical health.”

Watch this video to hear more from ALOK about how they’ve been better able to understand their own emotions through art, and poetry specifically, and how they believe that compassion is an essential component in improving the world’s mental health and wellness.