Meet Suzi Landolphi | Mental Health Mentor and Licensed Psychotherapist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Suzi Landolphi and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Suzi, do you disagree with some advice that is more or less universally accepted?
Don’t follow conventional advice!
The definition of “conventional” is a person concerned with what is generally held to be acceptable at the expense of individuality and sincerity. That right there says it all and definitely doesn’t describe me. I have always been a disruptor of the conventional, especially when following conventional thinking and acting means creating and accepting the same ineffective results. I am not OK with giving up my individuality and sincerity to be acceptable. Every great social justice movement had to fight against what society dictated was (and still is) acceptable. We don’t create true community, equality, and justice by being insincere in our commitment to human rights. The definition of insincere is being dishonest in the expression of actual feelings; being hypocritical. Hypocrisy is based on dishonesty. I would rather be criticized for being unconventional (which I have many times), AND be sincere in my commitment to my individuality of purpose and principles.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Even though I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I choose to work as a Mental Health Mentor. Mentoring allows me, and my mentee, to literally, DO more together like visiting someone’s home and having dinner, working out at the gym or going on a hike, learning how to gentle a wild horse, and attending a retreat, where I am one of the facilitators. I realized that as a therapist, I could tell my clients, to quit drinking, quit smoking and lose a hundred pounds and then go home, drink a gallon of wine, smoke a carton of cigarettes and eat a whole F-ing cheesecake myself. I am not willing to risk being a hypocrite. Being a mental health mentor means never asking anyone to do anything I haven’t done or I’m not doing. I can share some of my struggles without making the work about me. I call that owning my shit. We get to explore what happened to them, instead of what’s wrong with them. We accept the effects of trauma, both the struggle and strengths. We start to base our actions on principles not our personalities. We commit to daily practices not tools or coping mechanisms. Be Crazy Well reminds us that: Most of what we think about ourselves and feel about ourselves, was either done to us or told to us making us at risk of doing to ourselves and others what was done to us. Be Crazy Well asks us to create the person we deserve to be and the life we deserve to live.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would take them to my little cabin, at Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue, in Twin Oaks, CA. I am on the Board of Directors and the Program Director for the non-profit. Lifesavers is home to 400 wild horses and donkeys, living on 1400 acres in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. The two and a half hour drive from Los Angeles follows Caliente Creek through a windy, oak treed canyon. Twin Oaks has 300 residents and no cell service. We have a saloon, a church, a one room school house turned into a restaurant and Lifesaver’s thrift store. That’s it! We eat great meals sharing in their creation. We take the four wheeled vehicles up the mountains, spending hours visiting our many wild horse herds. We sing Kareoke at the School House Grill, have homemade ice cream after dinner. and then play a game of horseshoes. During the week, we bring a few of the wild horses down from the mountains to start the gentling process. There is no breaking only connecting. Everyone chooses their horse and one by one, humans and horses are guided into the round pen to learn the gentling skills that allow human and horse to create a safe connection and begin to trust one another. Once trust is established through authentic and consistent kindness and respect, the horses allow the first human touch by their gentler. Days are long and the welcomed nights offer sitting outside, appreciating the starlit sky and a smooth glass of wine.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
As a follower of old wisdom and new science, I am so grateful for the my wise family members and those dedicated researchers, who dare to buck the conventional dogma. My mother was a courageous woman who wasn’t afraid to stand up for those oppressed in the past and present. Born into white privilege, she was a credible voice calling out the truth of historical and generational trauma. I was grateful she married my step father, who was, Native American, African American and Italian and also taught me the value of cultural diversity. Their partnership was a extraordinary force of courage and goodness. Their influence inspired me to create public service announcements on racism, fight and care for people with AIDS, open America’s first condom store, win a federal lawsuit so sexuality education can be offered in schools, host my own radio and TV shows in Los Angeles, become a therapist, create an equine therapy program and rescue ranch, help create the curriculums for several veteran retreats and start a mental health evolution called Be Crazy Well. I am honored to work as a mental health mentor for some of the most influential disruptors in the pro sports, entertainment and corporate arenas.

Website: https://www.becrazywell.com

Instagram: @becrazywell, @suzilandolphi

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Other: Bluesky @suzililac.bsky.social