Daily Inspiration: Meet Sharifa Ahrendsen

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sharifa Ahrendsen

Hi Sharifa, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am a Jamaican raised in America turned Portugal immigrant. I’ve lived on 4 continents visited most and studied Social Work at the 6th best Master level program in the world. Humans in context is my thing. Over the years I have sharpened my skills in a hospital emergency room, child abuse prevention agency, university counselling centre and my own private practice. I am also the founder of Sit With, a social good startup.

My passion is scaling the healing experience with me to the world, for free. Since divorcing oppressive western practices based on the 1800s, I’ve had good luck in discovering and creating new norms like many other therapists “figuring it out” post 2020. With remaining relevant training and front line experience of healing, I reap the benefits of not having to reinvent the wheel while also inventing impactful global solutions.

Thanks to groundbreaking AI technology I find myself at the intersection coding and talk therapy. I play daily with the dilemma of getting humans to pay attention to themselves and the world around them. My solution is to offer tools that empower individuals, reconnect humans to nature, organize mutual aid, collect ethical data and deliver hope for the inevitable rest that comes with restoration. Using technology as a bridge back to life IRL (in real life), a compassionate application of the web is a powerful tool to help vulnerable people, specifically anyone who suffers from poor social determinants of health.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a very bumpy road, par for the course, so I acknowledge the smoothness that comes from managing expectations. This period of time is not unique in the presence of struggles, what is unique to though is to create despite the usual struggles. Change is all around us and my nervous system wants to take the easy road to just get things over with, but when human security is in danger even easy roads can lead to trouble.

So, some struggles I expect and accept are that trust is scarce, resources are gate kept and change takes time. Trust right now comes when someone can look a person or product/brand in the eye and maintain attention. That’s been very bumpy considering in the last 5 years the collective attention span has shrunk to 10 seconds max via audio and visual shorts. When creating warm, therapeutic, intentional tools it doesn’t matter how effective or good intentioned they are if people don’t have the time to trust something new they won’t.

Another bumpy struggle is gate kept resources. Our global majority has shifted and this is creating new beliefs systems and social norms (luckily!). So, even in a time of clear abundance there is still an old hierarchical and ignorant expectation that money and security is not entitled to everyone or their endeavours. This is old news but changing the human mind is a bumpy road.

The last struggle, also my favourite struggle, is change takes time. No matter who, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. I feel relief in knowing I physically can’t grind 24 hours a day 365, however technology or my luck or my community across the globe collectively can maximise time. There is a lot of peace of mind that comes in remembering time plays an important and autonomous role in scaling everything we know.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My works is a bit uncategorized at the moment so I best understand it as art. I am scaling the talk therapy experience with me in all of its dimensions globally for free, accessible to any human. I am known for my ability to connect with anyone in a matter of moments so creating tools that do the same is my super power. My project began first as a book, a love letter to planet earth serving as a journal of painful changes I’ve noticed in the world around me and myself. As a healer I needed solutions for myself and my world so I grew my website to include Sit With.

Sit With is 8 hours of compassionate care, coping tools, introspection, community building, and intention setting in the form of a support group. You can access this tool and Walk With, a nature therapy mobile game, at my website sitwith.net to get to the root of your problems.

I’m most proud of the range of issues my products solve even though the offerings all together can be overwhelming, I have 5 healthy MVPs. I am proud that I quickly came up with more than enough for everyone, including the most sensitive people who think about everything everywhere all at once. In addition to an 8 week support group I also developed a nature therapy offline mobile game and I’m currently coding Rest With, a personal journal for conflict resolution. I am building community for participants to Stand With, taking user data to drive restorative policy in society. This tool validates the need for mutual aid and drives fundraising as well as social inclusion and protection.

What sets me apart from others is my drive for justice, it’s my special interest and I find a way to indulge it often. My most recent MVP that champions this is Help With, a community savings fund that aims to put billions back into the pockets of the worlds most vulnerable users. My absolute moral objection to wealth hoarding ensure’s I will never be a billionaire. What drives me is knowing the monetary success of my business is not to line my pockets, it’s to create a trillion dollar community welcoming to anyone because it’s possible and it unexpected 🙂

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
The quality most impart to my success is calm. Calm implies ease but really it is just the absence of reaction to the difficult world we live in. My clients, my loved ones and strangers a like notice the difference in themselves in the presence of my calm. Over time I have confronted chaos with and without calm and I personally prefer calm because it won’t make a bad situation worse. Now with practice and time it’s my responsibility and honor to alchemize difficult realities. To surprise people even with my uncanny ability to be calm. I believe as a Jamaican Gemini I was born for this. If I can embody this Irie lifestyle anything I do or create will be better for it.

Pricing:

• Sit With: 8 week support group for $Free.99!
• Walk With: mobile nature therapy game for $Free.99!
• Help With: mutual aid payment program for $Free.99!
• Stand With: ethical data collection & social protection for $Free.99!
• Rest With: personal journal and conflict resolution for $Free.99!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Sitwith.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sitwithsociety/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/S8tW8th/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharifa-ahrendsen-281a8235
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sitwithsociety
• Other: https://givebutter.com/VsJIx0