VAH - Mental Health
By Valeria Cervantes — Founder of VAH
Mental health awareness isn’t just about your thoughts — it’s about your body, your energy, your stillness, and the way you carry pain. It’s not a trend or a campaign. It’s a conversation we need to have — especially as women, creators, and leaders learning how to hold space for ourselves and others.
At Valeria’s After Hours, we believe vulnerability is power. We speak up, stand up, and show up for the women learning to listen to themselves again. This is a message from Valeria — raw, real, and deeply human.
Listen to Your Body
Your body speaks. It aches, tenses, and shuts down when your mind is screaming for rest.
Your mental health will show up in your organs, in your skin, in your posture — know that.
Take care of all of you.
Vices are how most of us hide our mental struggles. And it doesn’t help when there’s no safe support system — when we’re told to stay quiet, smile, or “get over it.”
The truth is, women who seem strong and “put together” aren’t intimidating — they’re reflections of the work you haven’t yet done for yourself.
Don’t fear them. Learn from them.
Body trauma is real. Pain in certain areas of the body is often your mind showing its cracks.
When my mental health healed, everything else did too. Simple.
Healing Is Messy — and Beautiful
Healing, for me, is chaos and clarity in the same breath.
It’s crying one night and dancing the next morning.
It’s sadness, anger, joy, fear, and strength — all within minutes.
Healing is being fucking raw and real.*
Doing nothing is doing something.
Stop feeling guilty for resting — for having a week, month, or even a year without productivity.
If you’re healing, everything else is irrelevant.
Community & Connection
I have a small circle of friends, as well as my parents and brothers, who have been my backbone—the real ones.
Because truthfully? “Community” often claims to care, but many are too caught up to show up.
That’s why VAH exists — to stand the fuck up* for the vulnerable, the healing, and the honest.
For those wanting to be safe and better.
My spiritual practice is simple: sitting in nature.
Listening. Existing. Being.
Leading Through Resilience
I’ve known my role for a long time. My struggles were many, and I faced them alone — and that’s what made me resilient enough to lead and create in this space.
I believe in these conversations.
I normalize them.
I welcome them.
If you feel alone, anxious, depressed, or burnt out — good.
Not all pain is here to hurt you.
You’re meant to learn from it. Grow from it.
You have the power to decide whether it breaks you or builds you.
Resources exist. We’re here now.
— VAH
Wear Your Resilience
Mental health isn’t cute — but your resilience is.
Women are unstoppable. Women’s nervous systems are wired to respond to stress in distinct ways — hormone-linked plasticity and structural differences in brain cells suggest we’re equipped to adapt, but that doesn’t mean we’re indestructible. — That’s not weakness, that’s power.
I’ll always believe your feelings.
I’ll always listen.
And I’ll keep having the hard talks, no matter who they make uncomfortable.
Because f*ck them — the truth deserves space.
You deserve peace of mind.
