
Inspiring Others to Use their Own Voices
Brooke uses bold vulnerability as she shares her own story of struggle and triumph with mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. She offers hope, and tangible tools, to help others effectively identify, understand, validate, and articulate their emotions to become powerful, authentic leader in all aspects of life.
Featured Talks
Don't Judge a Book by its Cover
This is Brooke's signature, most inspiring talk! Ideal for youth audiences aged elementary through high school.
In this presentation, Brooke outlines her own struggles with mental health challenges when she was a teenager. She outlines how looks can be deceiving, and that no matter who you are or how you appear to others, the most important thing is how you feel, and if you're not feeling strong, that's okay, but it's something that should be talked about!
Brooke gives takeaway skills that she has used for healing that students can use for their own path to healing.
Anxiety vs. Gut Feeling
This talk is suitable for youth, college aged students, and adults alike. This is especially pertinent for youth leaders, as intuition is an important element of leadership.
Info:
Growing up, I experienced anxiety that showed itself to me as a feeling inside of my gut. When I was younger, I believed it to be a stomach bug, but as I look back I know it was anxiety. That feeling inside of my gut, as terrible as it felt, served a multitude of purposes. It was an attempt to protect me, an attempt to get attention, and it was an alarm bell that was going off inside of my body telling me there was something more to see there; something that needed to be paid attention to, talked about, and worked through. Anxiety doesn’t have to be something that we run from, or something that creates feelings of shame, as long as it is being brought into the light, it can help us better understand ourselves and find healing through its recognition. And when we can begin to understand the difference between a Gut Feeling that guides us, and one that tears us down, we can begin to heal.
SHAME: Our Imperfections are Perfect
This is an ideal talk for youth, college aged, and adults alike. We are all familiar with shame and the downfalls of shame when it comes to healing our emotional and mental challenges.
In this keynote, Brooke talks about how Shame has played a role in her healing, and how at times it has made healing hard because she almost felt like she didn't deserve to feel better because of the negative coping mechanisms she used in the past to deal with her anxiety and depression.
Brooke shares the scary feelings of shame, and how to overcome them through recognizing behaviors that trigger feelings of shame and how to breed self-compassion despite those feelings of shame.
Takeaways: to help us identify where shame infiltrates our own lives, how to respond to feelings of shame, and ways to cope with those feelings.
Healing through Nature
As an herbalist, farmer, and nature-lover, Brooke shares the magic of nature with audiences in hopes they utilize it as a resource for healing. This is a presentation best done outside when the weather is nice.
Brooke will lead participants on a foraging walk where they will identify wild medicinal plants, and learn grounding techniques in nature.
If desired, a gardening workshop where participants can plant their own flowers with pots, seeds, and soil provided by Brooke will be present.
Custom Talks
Brooke has developed custom presentations, keynotes, and workshops over the years for different needs and desires. If you're looking for something special and customized, please let us know!
Workshops/Storytelling
Social Emotional Learning Through Storytelling
Brooke's keynote presentations tend to get kids inspired and motivated to start sharing their stories and discussing the challenging emotions that they've been dealing with.
In 2020, Brooke developed a curriculum that paired the 4 pillars of SEL with storytelling as a vehicle for understanding.
The 4 pillars are: Mindfulness, Emotional Management, Interpersonal Skills, and Responsible Decision Making. Storytelling is the 5th, so we can begin to understand how our own stories fit within those learning objectives.
In these workshops, Brooke goes over the 5 pillars of SEL, and how to begin sharing our own stories with those we know and those that we don't, so that we can build understanding, compassion, and resilience.
This is a great workshop for youth groups, after school programs, youth centered nonprofits, and other youth-focused groups.
Brooke’s Experience
-
Mental Health Storyteller & Advocate
Brooke has over 6 years of experience speaking to youth, college aged students, and adults about mental health challenges and how she, personally, has overcome them. She has spoken to over 20,000 students, staff, school counselors, and social workers since 2018.
-
Social Emotional Learning Consultant
Brooke created and implemented a Social Emotional Learning Curriculum through her consulting company called Building Bridges SEL.
This curriculum combined SEL with storytelling and was utilized in 2 elementary schools in Berkshire County in Collaboration with the District Attorney’s office of Pittsfield to help students who were at risk of being a victim to the school to prison pipeline.
-
Farm, Garden, & Herbalism Facilitator
Brooke’s herbalism and farming experience began at the Heartwood Institute in Northern California in 2016. She has been working as a chef, farmer, and herbalist at Soul Fire Farm, a nonprofit farm dedicated to ending racism in the food system, since 2019. In that time, Brooke has facilitated hundreds of individuals in farm tasks, as well as Action Planning toward more desirable futures.
-
Somatic CBT Practitioner
Certified through the Embody Lab to facilitate a connection between the emotions and where those emotions lie in the body. When we’re able to heal from the top down, and the bottom up, we encompass the whole person, and the entirety of the lived experience, which will help us truly heal and process through our emotional blocks.
-
Community Herbalist
Brooke has been an herbalist since 2016, and deepened her knowledge and skills starting in 2021. She has taken hours of workshops and hands on classes and successfully curates all sorts of herbal remedies for friends, family, and community.
-
Mother of 2
Brooke’s experience as a Mother gives her a unique perspective when trying to understand the youth she speaks to, while humanizing and providing healing for the parents as well.
-
Former Child Actress
Brooke’s experience growing up in the entertainment industry from the time she was 6 months old to an adult allows her to understand the immense pressures we, and others, place on ourselves to be, do, and have MORE.
-
Farm to Table Culinary Prowess
Brooke’s chef experience began back in 2014 when she started a food blog that propelled into an in-home chef cooking service that tailored meals toward the individual needs of the client. Brooke understands how food greatly impacts the spirit and understands the basics of nutrition for mental health. She also understands the inextricable link between the brain and the gut and how to curate meals that support energy, vitality, and and overall health.

About Brooke
Brooke's presentations and workshops combine unabashed vulnerability, humor, and social emotional knowledge to deliver a powerful message to those young, and old, who may be experiencing challenging mental health issues, or know someone who is.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
This is a message that is essential for the successful overcoming of challenging emotional experiences, and in sharing her own story and journey, she brings this awareness to the forefront and offers hope to everyone who listens.
Her experience as an actress, a public speaker, a preschool teacher, a farmer, and herbalist, a Mother, and a former troubled teenager, make her presentations and workshops relatable, entertaining, powerful, and most importantly, hopeful.
WHY BOOK BROOKE
- She knows how to capture attention: Brooke is a captivating speaker that keeps the attention of middle, high school, and college students alike. She helps them feel less alone and shares her own story so they can better understand and articulate their own.
- Her stories are courageous and relatable: She’s a real person who has endured and overcome real, relatable struggles. She knows how to communicate on a deep, personal level.
Qualifications
Rich Lived Experience
Brooke’s lived experiences of struggling with mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and the negative coping skills she used to overcome these challenges makes her relatable, respected, and inspiring to students and adults alike.
Emotional & Social Intelligence Certified
Certified through UC Davis
Conflict Transformation Certified
Certified through Emory University
Somatic CBT Certified
Through The Embody Lab
Mindfulness Certified
Through Slater University
Certificate on The Science of Wellbeing for Teens
Through Yale University
7 Years DBT Experience
Been engaged in DBT practices as a recipient and a facilitator for 7 years
Book a Discovery Call
Interested in booking Brooke for your next conference, assembly, health class, etc? Book a discovery call so we can find a presentation that's perfect for your audience!

Minding Your Mind Presentation at Providence College
College Students
Brooke has spoken at colleges and universities about the challenges of putting on a facade in order to please others.
She helps students feel less alone as they navigate the high stress stakes of university life.

Minding Your Mind Presentation
Middle school & High School
Middle and high schoolers love Brooke's story because they see themselves in it. The challenges they currently endure, Brooke has struggled with at their age. She is speaking from experience, wisdom, and reflection.

Leadership & Staff Retreats
Brooke speaks at conferences designed to inspire, motivate, and empower women, young leaders, and others to use their own stories to overcome their challenging self-talk and understand how to move forward with grace and confidence.
Testimonials
-
MYM presentation
“I just wanted to reach out and tell you how blown away I was by Brooke's presentation today. I received more positive feedback from students and faculty alike than I have on any other mental health programming I've brought in. She was relatable, personable, and most importantly, hopeful. Our Q&A was fantastic, and the line to meet with Brooke after the event was many students deep."
-
MYM Presentation: High School Student
"I think it was very informative. Many young people likely appreciate Brooke as well as me because of how open and vulnerable she is to share her story in hopes of helping others. I can relate to some of her experiences which feels very validating but I think that it is still helpful for people who can't relate because it is giving them insight on how to support others. One thing I took away from her presentation was DBT. I've tried multiple different types of therapy before but I would definitely be interested in this and will look into it more. I'm very grateful for people like Brooke."
-
MYM Presentation: High School Student
"I thought Brooke’s presentation was insightful because many high schoolers today deal with mental illness and most often are undetected from themselves and the information Brooke provided being her story can give other people the idea that maybe they are struggling with a mental illness and should seek help."
-
MYM presentation: School Counselor
"Brooke was amazing and delivered such an impactful message! She truly is great at what she does! Ryan and I were talking and think she would be a great person to have come back and talk to other audiences as we continue to move forward in the process of impacting our entire school community. Brooke certainly set the bar exceedingly high from my perspective!"
-
MYM Presentation: Middle School Teacher
"Thank you so much for presenting virtually to our students. The feedback from students and teachers has been nothing but positive. Your story really spoke to our school community and seemed to resonate with a lot of our students."
Contact form
PRESS
The Rural WE
Brooke Bridges is a mental health advocate and founder of Building Bridges SEL: Storytelling for Social Emotional Learning.
Mass.gov - District Attorney's Office
Berkshire District Attorney’s Office, Probation, Pittsfield Public Schools Partner In New Social and Emotional Learning Program