The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Dr. Rheeda Walker On Cultivating Resilience In The Mental Health Space, Embracing Your Village + More

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

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Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. own? I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this. It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water,

500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Listen to Escape from Zaka Stan. That's Escape from Z-A-Q-A-S-T-A-N on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. As a kid, I really do remember having these dreams and visions, but you just don't know what is going to come for you. Alicia shares her wisdom on growth, gratitude, and the power of love. I forgive myself. It's okay. Have grace with yourself. You're trying your best, and you're going to figure out the rhythm of this thing. Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lauren Smith, Laura Layton, and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8th, 1992, apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose Place was introduced to the world. We are going to be reliving every hookup, every scandal, and every single wig removal together. So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets. How would you feel if when you met your biological father for the first time, he didn't even say hello? And what if your past itself was the secret, and the time had suddenly come to share that past with your child? These

are just a few of the powerful and profound questions we'll be asking on our 11th season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 11 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody.

It's DJ Envy, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Charlamagne, the guy. We are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed. She just was at Charlamagne's Mental Wealth Expo in Manhattan. She's there every year. She's been there for all three of them. Well, she was just there. This is Monday, right? So we have Dr. Rita Walker. Welcome. Good morning. It's great to be here. How are you feeling? I'm blessed. I am blessed. Now, I always wanted to start with how did you meet Charlamagne? How did you and Charlamagne connect? And how did you feel like, you know, this is somebody I want to work with, with all that he's been through and how crazy he is. Debbie Brown. And the fact that he attacks beige men like myself. I'm just messing with you. But now, how did y'all connect?

It is an interesting story. And it debbie brown and uh what's interesting about it and the fact that i just feel blessed even though the morning has not gone as planned for me um was that i met debbie basically through someone else she didn't know me so someone else said reach out to her she likes these kinds of um resources for mental health and when i reached out to debbie debbie said well can you send me a second copy of the book? I don't know if you've heard of my friend, Charlemagne, the God. And I'm like, oh my goodness. Like, absolutely. Yes. And so she sent him a copy of the book and it was before it was out. So this was 2020. This was January, 2020. The book came out May, 2020. And, uh, you love the book, which I appreciated immensely and said to me that I was clearly on the path that

I'm supposed to be on and the rest is history yeah I read it I read it on vacation of uh of 20 December of 2019 going into 2020 and I was just like man this is the most culturally competent book on mental health I've personally ever read you know so I was just like I couldn't stop singing the praises of the unapologetic God the the black mental health. You know, and I wanted to talk, you know, me and my wife was talking about this the other day, you know, a lot of people have mental problems. Um, but what, what I think makes it a lot worse is a lot of times we enable people with mental problems and have mental breakdowns. Uh, and we enable them by putting stuff out there that we know that is clearly a problem.

Like we see that with celebrities. We see that with regular people. And I was thinking to myself, you know, we as a community should stop because we can tell when somebody is going through something. And we can tell when somebody might not be on the right medicine or might have a problem that day or might not be going. And instead of saying, you know what, let's fall back on it because we can see it. It's almost like as a community, we enable it, which makes it worse. And we think a lot of times that it's funny. We think that we're putting this story out, but actually it's making it worse because if they're going through a mental breakdown and we see it all the time

and we put it on these blog sites, on websites and put it on air, it makes it worse because now what happens? Now they went through that break or that breakdown and now everybody comments on that breakdown good bad or indifferent and now they respond to that and it's like a cycle that never stops so what do you say for people like that especially people that's going through it it's you know I appreciate that question envy because it's it's unfortunate because we already have a lot of stigma around mental health and so when people are struggling and folks are making fun of them and joking and calling them out their names and everything else that we do, it makes them less likely to want to get help and to reach out for help.

So that's the that's the tragedy of it all. And what we can do, you know, with platforms like this one, the conversations that you all are having is to raise awareness that mental illness is real. It happens on a continuum. And so I think sometimes we think about mental illness as just someone on the street, maybe talking to themselves and talking to someone who isn't there. But there are variations of mental disability that happen for people.

And if we can be more sensitive to those individuals, maybe they will be more likely to reach out for help. Maybe they would be more likely to say something like, you know, I don't know what's going on for me, but I need help. Instead, and this is true for any of us, if we feel like we're being criticized, we're not going to go asking the people who are criticizing us for help. We're not going to put more of our business in the street. And so I do encourage us, you know, encourage the listeners and for us as a society to be more sensitive. And even if, you know, a joke gets out there, a meme gets out there before we know it, it's OK to come back and say, you know what?

I'm someone who feels like I'm psychologically sound. I apologize for what I just did. I apologize not to that individual, but also to the to our community, because we need people who are willing to stand up for what's right, even more so than anything. You had a post on your Instagram that kind of ties into that. You said you need people in your business. Yes. So explain why you think that is because to Envy's point, I feel like sometimes when we see these things play out publicly, then maybe somebody will be like, I think we need to intervene. Yeah.

So I posted that. It's on one of my YouTube videos on my YouTube channel that folks can subscribe to but one of the things that we do is to say I'm not gonna talk to anyone because I don't want anyone in my business I've had folks folks have been recommended to me for support and some type of care and then when I reach out to them they say well I don't need to talk to anyone I got this figured out. The challenge of that is that people feel like I got this on my own because they don't know what mental health professionals do.

And they don't want, again, to have other people in their business. But we need people in our business because this is the thing. When we're in crisis, when anyone is in crisis, they can't problem solve. Like they can't see what's happening to them. And so they need trusted people around them to be able to say, hey, this is what I see and I'm concerned about you. And that's what folks can say. You don't have to say, hey, man, you messed up. Hey, you know, we don't need to criticize. It's helpful to say, I'm concerned. This is what I see. State the facts and just say I'm here whenever you're ready for whatever that looks like and then move on I wanted to talk

to you about so you know a lot of people are scared to go to see a therapist or they don't feel comfortable and I always tell people and I know Charlemagne says the same it's all in your time right when you feel comfortable in and you have to find the right therapist therapist is like you know like a doctor sometimes you might not like your doctor you have to find the right therapist, therapist is like, you know, like a doctor. Sometimes you might not like your doctor. You might have to find another doctor. But what advice would you give somebody until they find somebody that can help that can help them maybe get through some of their problems or to get them into a space of relaxation? I joke with Charlemagne one time all the time. Like I see Charlemagne hugging trees. Right. I wanted to just be hugging trees. I go do grounding exercises.

So I take my shoes off and I walk in the ground. You know, I meditate outside. I like to meditate against trees. That's what it is. Well, I tried it. I didn't get the same reaction. But what would you advise people to do to try to maybe get them to a relaxing point that you can advise them to if they can't afford a therapist or maybe they don't feel comfortable with the therapy. How would you advise them to try to get through their day that's not smoking weed or not drinking or not doing something that is just, you know, just a temporary fix?

Yeah. You know, everything doesn't work for everybody. And so maybe tree leaning doesn't work. Tree hugging. But well, tree leaning. Leaning? I've seen hugging. Tree leaning. Tree leaning. you. Tree hugging, mm-hmm. But, well, tree leaning. Leaning? I see you hugging. Tree leaning. Tree leaning. Yes.

Oh, sorry. Doesn't work for you. But have you ever just gone outside to get a different perspective? All day long. No, my outside game is amazing. I stay outside. Well, I love the air. It's fresh air.

It smells different. It feels different. Knock it off. Yes. I was about to say, I don't know where you live, but I do know where you live. But it's... Where we at out there, yes. You grew up in New York, though.

I feel like when we were... You grew up in Houston? No. I grew up in Georgia and South Carolina. See what I'm saying? Or South Carolina, as we say in South Carolina. That's right. So we be outside.

We play outside, run around barefoot. But you can go outside in New York. You can because what it is about being outside is just a different perspective. Sometimes when you're in a physical space, you get stuck on ruminating what's happening in that space. Going outside allows you to get out of your head and maybe get a different aroma of air, but it changes things for you. And so that's one of the things, it's one of my favorite things, that and deep breathing, because we can breathe deeply for free and at any moment.

And even, you know, for those of us who may be in rush hour, because I am in Houston, I have been in Houston for the last 12 years. You know, sometimes you stop at a light and you just got to breathe diaphragmatically because you're right, even when you're ready to see a mental health professional and you have that person exactly figured out you know the chances that you're going to get an appointment that day or even the next week and sometimes not even the next month is real and so it's all about grounding exercises being in the moment being aware of the things that we tell ourselves because we tell ourselves all kinds of not helpful things. One of my favorite things

that I want to remove from the dictionary is the word should. I should be able to work out or we should on other people. They should help me. We have to be aware of the things that we're telling ourselves that basically escalate depression and escalate anxiety. And one other thing that I, that's a free one. Most folks, you know, take a shower at some point during the day, night, morning. Stop getting in the shower and going to work. People get in the shower and they think about everything that has gone wrong or everybody who got on their nerves or everything they didn't do or need to do. And it's helpful. We can just get in the shower and have like a mini spa and just feel the water on our shoulders and be in that warmth and that can set us up to be able to anticipate things that don't go our way i do that a lot i do that all the time but also i would also say it's you know how important is a village right and the reason i

say that is uh although i really dislike charlamagne like hate levels um i like him because he shows no uh mercy he doesn't care about my feelings that's how you know you're not nowhere near being healed i'm joking with him he knows i love him he knows i love him hating his heart you know he needs some work he knows i love him but the reason i like him is is he doesn't show any mercy meaning he doesn't try to protect my feelings like you know i mean because a lot of times your friend won't tell you what you want to hear well they tell you what you want to hear but not what you need to hear yes so I have a couple of people in my village like my wife Charlemagne that they're gonna tell you the truth and that helps a lot and a lot

of people don't understand that so this explain how important of villages and I really don't like them but ahead so the village is important on so many levels. One, because, you know, as an individual, we get stretched thin and we need folks to shore us up where we kind of falling down. But yeah, kind of like I was saying, when folks are in crisis and can't see, it's hard to see yourself and you need other people around you to kind of put up a little mirror and say, okay, this is what I see happening. I know you're working hard and trying to not look like what you're going through and all the things, but sometimes we need other people around us to say, you know, I see your success. I see you pushing, but I think it might be time for you to just take a break or how can I help you take a break? Because sometimes we

tell people to take a break and they feel like they can't and they need the village to say, excuse me, they need the village to say, okay, this is how i can help you to take a break and we need more of that the unapologetic guide to black mental health i'm telling you it's one of the greatest books i ever read y'all should get it and all this information i guess is going to be in this new workbook yes okay yes so the workbook is available now for pre-order. It will be released on November 1. So I encourage everyone to go to my website, drredawalker.com. And by the way, Rita's spelled a little differently. It's R-H-E-E-D as in diamond, A, Walker. But what I did was to take a lot of the tools from the first original book and put them in the workbook because there are a lot of people

who are walking around and I've seen them at the expo where they've got all kinds of notes and highlighting and things that they want to remind themselves to do. And so I went another further, as my granny would say, and put all of that in the workbook so that people have some steps that they can use. And folks can find which steps work for them because, again, everything isn't for everybody, but folks can find which steps work best for them. Now, what do you tell women? Because I know you're navigating the mental health as black women on a panel, what you did this weekend. But what do you say to black women who, you know, they have so much to deal with, right? Because they're not just dealing with their mental, right? If you have children, they got to deal with

their children and the different attitudes and different feelings. And then if you have a husband, you got to deal with, you know, your husband's day. And then you still have to, most women still got to, they maintain the house, whether it's, you know, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the kids. And there's just some things that I can't do and that Charlamagne can't do. Charlamagne's not doing his daughter's hair. I'm not doing my daughter's hair. But so how do you tell, how do you tell women to go through that and to still try to keep their mental sane? Well, one of the messages from the Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health is first about self-assessment, because we sometimes try and create solutions

without knowing what's going on. And you mentioned already, we have a lot of different responsibilities in a lot of different domains, but we don't always recognize that. We just, who has time? You just keep it moving. And so in the book, I talk about this rating of 0 to 10 for psychological fortitude that is basically your capacity to be able to take care of your work and home responsibilities some people are in school to to take care of our physical health in the african-american community as you all know we have a lot of chronic illness and doctors are saying you have to take medication and and folks aren't managing their health well and then we have to be able to follow our life purpose all while dealing with the

threats that come our way. You know, the microaggressions and those subtle things that people say they don't mean to, but the subtle things that people say. And so if I could say right now that my psychological fortitude is at an eight, I'm like, okay, I'm doing pretty good. I can take on more things, maybe. I can maybe skip some steps here along the way. But if my PF or my psychological fortitude is at a six or lower, and certainly if it's at a three or lower, it's probably time to get some professional help if it stays there. But, you know, about that five, six, six and a half range, it's good to call in reinforcement, you know, to say to the family, hey, I can't do this today. I

need somebody else to step up, to call on a friend and say, you know, I don't even know what all is going on for me right now, but can you just take 30 minutes to just sit, maybe sit outside, but to sit and talk because this is where the village comes in. We weren't meant to operate as individuals ever, but when we can assess and rate where we are and then figure out, okay, if I'm too low, then maybe I need to take some things off my plate and find some support. And if I'm too high, maybe it's time to reach out to somebody else. You know, like, hey, I'm having a good good day I was calling or texting to see how you're doing so that we can build community I want you to describe what psychological fortitude is

and does the workbook have like some exercise in it that can help you increase it yes the the point of the workbook is in fact increasing psychological fortitude like that is the theme throughout okay what kind of exercises are in there that can help increase? Well, you know, one of my favorite things is cognitive restructuring. So that's a technical term that we use in cognitive behavioral therapy that is in my training as a psychologist. But giving individuals exercises to be able to reframe and rethink what is happening. So as an example, for me this morning, one of the things

that didn't work out was me getting my hands on the book and being able to bring that here for you. And so as I'm walking the 10 miles that I thought was 10 minutes, but it felt like 10 miles, as I was walking to the studio and feeling kind of frustrated, like, man, I was supposed to have the book, you know, it was supposed to be here and we were going to take a picture and it was going to be great. And then I was like, you know what, but I'm going to be here. It doesn't really matter that much if I don't have the book. And when we can shift our thinking, it shifts our mood. You know, the way that we think about and assess our environment impacts how we feel on the inside. And so I have a lot of exercises on how we can rethink things. And

there are folks who will say, well, you know, that's not real. You know, that's kind of being fake. Okay. Well, let's make a choice between whether or not we want to be real and whether or not we want to drag down our own mood. So we have to figure out where our priorities are as far as how we're doing psychologically. Now, a lot of people have kids, of course, and it's way different than when we were growing up. I really, it was very little about mental health, very little about therapy. Do you think every child should start with a therapist early? I think that therapy is probably best helped in helping children indirectly with the adults. So one of the reasons that I wrote the Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health was because the

suicide death rate was going up for five to 11 year old black children while it was going down actually for white children. And my thinking was, what's going on for the parents and what's going on for the teachers and aunties and the other adults around that child that they could be missing what's happening? It's not intentional, but, you know, we're all going in so many different directions. And we have a lot of unaddressed and untreated anxiety and depression. Those are the two most common psychological challenges. And so I really desperately want to start with the adults, because if we can get into a place psychologically where we can be more available to our youth,

then I see us as the first line of defense. Now, there are some youth for whom the parents just don't have what we need. There are some youth for which we just don't have it. And so for those folks, they do need to get professional help. But I think that we need to start with the parents. Now, you said depression, right? Mm-hmm. Do you feel like depression is contagious?

And the reason I say that is when you hear some of these kids talk about, I'm depressed, sometimes I feel like, do you know what depression is? Or is it something that you've seen on TV? Do you know what depression is? Or did you hear somebody say it? You know, so do you feel like it's one of those things where it was like, well, Johnny said he's depressed and I'm sad. So I'm depressed too now. And it puts them in a zone. Do you feel that that's the case? Do you feel like with us talking so much mental health in schools where maybe the kids wouldn't know about it, so it wouldn't be?

Or do you feel like, well, maybe that's a sign for them to say that that's what it is. So like if somebody talks about sex, it's like maybe your kids will talk about it more because they hear it more. But if they don't hear it, will they talk about it because they wouldn't necessarily know about it? Well, children, you know, different age children are going to react differently to what they hear around them. And so maybe younger children who are, you know, first or second grade or younger are just kind of copying what they hear their peers saying. Whereas older children who are adolescents, teens, may be more likely grateful to have language to talk about what they experience for themselves. I do feel like our youth are struggling more than they did when we were growing up. And I don't know what all is happening. I think that there has been an erosion of identity, wherein we knew who we were and we knew who our community was, you know, and a strong sense of spirituality. And a lot of that

is eroding and the exposure to social media, you know, and the research has been relatively consistent about the impact of social media. And so we have to be careful about what our young people are being exposed to. But if an adolescent for sure, and maybe even, you know, a child as young as eight, nine or 10 is saying they feel depressed. I would first ask them, you know, that's interesting. Tell me more about what that means for you. What does, what does depression look like for you and see what they say? Maybe they'll say, well, it looks like what Johnny's going through. Okay. Well, tell me more about what Johnny's going through.

What Johnny's going through, this, this, this, and this. Are you going through this, this, this, and this? So we have to be curious investigators as adults. But if we're uncomfortable talking about mental health, then we may not ask those questions, those important questions. You're absolutely right, and I think the beauty of the society that we're in right now, like none of us are keeping secrets. So we're all talking about

mental health the same way we would talk about physical health or anything else. And one of the proudest moments of my life as a parent was during COVID. My daughter, she's in 10th grade now, so she probably was like in seventh then. She came to me and my wife and she said, I am overwhelmed. I know I didn't have that language in seventh grade to just be able to, I am overwhelmed. I know I didn't have that language in seventh grade to just be able to say, I am overwhelmed. And it's like, of course you are. Like, why wouldn't you be? You're at home, you know, doing claymation projects on the floor. Of course you're overwhelmed. So I think it's good that we're having these conversations. We're giving these kids the language to be able to express what they're going through. I do think it's important. And I can

understand at the same time time parents who don't necessarily have the language are feeling a little bit concerned because it's like, okay, wait, where did this come from? We didn't deal with this, and so are you getting this from the school? You know, where is it coming from? And that's why, you know, communication is so incredibly important because I do think that even though

we're talking more about it, a lot of folks don't still have the language. And I know this because I'm talking to folks and they're like, well, is this depression? I'm like, no, not really. But if we think about depression, sometimes just feeling empty on the inside. And a lot of people feel empty and are trying to fill it in with other kinds of things.

Social media, drugs, you name it. But we also have to look at other things like are they sleeping and are they eating and are they thinking about suicide? So even though we talk more about mental health, there's still a lot more to do as far as just the education part. And that's one of the things I wanted to do in the Unapologetic Guide. And I do a lot of still in the workbook in case people didn't read the first book. They're OK to get the workbook and just keep pushing. I want to ask you about two things that we had Kirk Franklin up in, and I don't know if you've seen his Father's Day documentary

where he finally meets his biological father for the first time. It's so powerful because you see him dealing with his inner child in real time. But there's one saying that he says, he says, we all need to win wounded. How do you feel when you hear that? I haven't seen the documentary and when he said wind wounded tell me what we always have to learn how to win wounded because you know we're all flawed broken like you like we just have to learn how to win in life wounded yeah well and it's true I mean everyone we all have been through

something whatever the something may be it's different for all of us, but we've all been through something. And, you know, my granny used to say, well, if you, but I'm going to fight on anyhow. My parents used to say, you got to work twice as hard to get half as far. You know, we have to be aware of these things that have happened to us, but at the same time, tap into our strength. And that's probably one of the most important things that I think is important from both books and that I talk to my grad students about because I'm training doctoral students who are working on their PhDs, that with your clients, you have to find the strength in them. Help your client find their strength. We all have strengths.

But oftentimes we get so overwhelmed with everything that's gone wrong that we lose track of what our talents and our gifts and what our strengths are. Talk about some of those studies that you and your doctoral student, Jasmine Brooks, have published. Well, there's one paper I think that we talked about more recently that was based on mindfulness and recognizing that even for folks who, with some of our other papers, just experiencing depression, experiencing discrimination, that to the degree that we can be grounded in the moment and be focused and let go of some of our judgmental thoughts.

Because sometimes we judge ourselves, we judge other people, we judge how we're feeling. But if we can instead just focus on the moment and be in the moment, then those adverse things that have happened are less likely to escalate into suicide ideation and thoughts of self-harm and things of that nature. So again, just even when bad things happen, and that's been my research for the past 20 years, that despite all of the adversity, that when we can call on our strengths, our gifts,

our resources, and our talents, it offsets or mitigates the impact of some of the other bad things that have happened. And that's true for all of us. Dr. Rita Walker, man, make sure you go get the Unapologetic Guide to Mental Health workbook you can preorder it now it's available November 1st but you should go pick up the original book too before you get to the workbook that's right and we thank you so much

I recommend it to everybody like anybody that has any questions you know in regards to mental health to me I'm like yo you should read The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health by Dr. Rita Walker and how can they find you? I am at drritawalker.com and again it's d-r-r-H-E-E-D-A Walker at, excuse me,.com. And I'm also on Instagram, on all the social medias, Dr. Rita

Walker. And I appreciate you all. And just always, always, always grateful for you, Lenard, and being willing to amplify this conversation and all that you do. And I appreciate just all the love and joy that you all have amongst each other. Thank you, Dr. Rita Walker. Thank you so much. All right, it's The Breakfast Club. It's Dr. Rita Walker. Wake that ass up.

Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Had enough of this country? Ever dreamt about starting your own? I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this. It's surprisingly easy.

55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Listen to Escape from Zaka Stan. That's Escape from Z-A-Q-A-S-T-A-N

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your best. And you're going to figure out the rhythm of this thing. Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, this is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Layton, and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8th, 1992, apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose Place was introduced to the world. We are going to be reliving every hookup, every scandal, and every single wig removal together. So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. to share that past with your child? These are just a few of the powerful and profound questions we'll be asking on our 11th season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 11 of Family Secrets

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.