Dr. Marty Casey

"My grandmother was very intentional about making sure I was confident about who I was. I've always been a stout woman, short and heavy-set, and I'm okay with that. Sometimes when we don't fit the mold of how society sees us, it can change how we see ourselves. My grandmother made sure that did not happen."

"My grandmother was very intentional about making sure I was confident about who I was. We have to start young. This is something we have to teach, something we need to embed in our children at a very young age. Children explore, and they are born with the belief that they can do anything. But we put restrictions, set boundaries, and then they start to think maybe they can't. I need you to come forward again. I need you to come with the mindset of a child. I need you to explore."

"You have to just take one step forward. That is the hardest part. When an individual hasn't begun that journey of finding their purpose and passion, they are too scared to take that first step. That first step is simple. I am going to believe in me. I am rooting for me every day, every single day I am rooting for me. I wake up every day and think about what it is that I want to do, what helps with what I am doing, and how to move forward."

"How well do you know yourself. That starts with our emotional track. What makes you happy, what makes you sad, what triggers you, what brings you joy, what motivates you. I start asking those types of questions. A lot of times, people stumble and have to stop and really think. If I ask a very similar question to someone that they are around all the time, they can answer without hesitation. If I ask a wife, what brings your husband joy, she can answer. I really want you to start looking in the mirror, not looking to hope to see something, but to see what you see and be okay with that."

"I had a five-year-old. I was a single parent, and it was at that moment I had to decide, do I go after my dreams, or do I continue to just hold a job and take care of my child. Every day I kept thinking, if I don't take this opportunity, will it ever come around again? I tapped into my village, my support system. I asked my family, my mother, and my great-grandmother at that time, are you all willing to assist me by helping to see after my daughter while I go away for four months on tour in Europe? It went well, and I never looked back. I have been touring my daughter's entire life. My daughter just turned thirty-three."

"The more I got to know Marty, the more Marty was getting to know others, and others were beginning to accept me because I am authentically myself. I am unapologetically myself. You get to decide, Marty is my cup of tea. But it's okay because I am going to be Marty no matter what you decide. I really want you to start looking in the mirror with intention, not looking to hope to see something, but looking to see what you actually see and being okay with that. If it is something you see that you are not okay with, start working on those changes. I cannot change anyone else, I can only change myself."

Dr. Casey asserts “Hurt people, Hurt people, but Healed people can Heal people.” She has set out to do just that with her latest development of UnGUN Institute, focused on disarming Trauma in individuals, to heal from collective trauma events which plague the black communities.

"I created this method, and I used the arts to do it. Broken people can't hold all these pieces together and move forward. You've got to stop and mend those broken pieces so you can be whole to have purpose. I would say we need to help people heal so that they can move forward. Honestly, the answer is you have to become whole. If you really want to walk in purpose, you have to be whole. That was me. I looked like a wall of broken, shattered pieces until I became whole. Once I became whole, I could do anything. That's when I believed in Marty, probably because I saw the rest of her. At first, I was just seeing myself."

"I watched my father abuse my mother. That was not love, it was abuse. Seeing that abuse had an effect on me because trauma is transferable. My father was transferring trauma, and I could feel it. There was not a good match there, so I was showing up sometimes not at my best, reacting to the energy and trauma around me. When things happened, I reacted, and my response was fight, flight, or freeze. I was a fighter. But that is not who I am at my core. I am a person of love. So when I would react that way, versus responded, my reaction caused a lot of chaos from the inside. That's why I said this self-work is important. It's that reflection of knowing who you are. My circumstances put me in fight mode, but at my core, who I am is love. I needed to work on me."

"I started singing at the age of twelve, when I discovered that I had a voice and could sing. I realized it was something that made me feel good. When you sing, you are releasing, and someone else is hearing, so they are receiving. When you can see that they are starting to feel what you are feeling as you release it, I said, this is medicine. Through that medicine, it allowed me to have that exchange with others. I realized that in some of my darkest times and in some of my biggest celebrations, there was music. When I understood the power of the voice from singing and speaking, doing theater, being able to express outside of the framework of how you live or who you are, it afforded me an opportunity to heal. I said, well, if I could bottle this up and teach others some of these simple tools and techniques."