November 5, 2024 • 51 mins
In this conversation, Dr. Raquel Martin and Dr. William Parham discuss the critical aspects of mental health, particularly focusing on the experiences of Black individuals in both personal and professional contexts. They explore the creation of support groups for Black women, the unique challenges faced by Black men regarding mental health, and the evolving needs of professional athletes. The dialogue emphasizes the importance of listening in therapy, reframing mental health as mental wealth, and the necessity of treating individuals as people first, before their roles as athletes. They also touch on the impact of social media, the significance of silence and reflection, and the need to rediscover one's dreams and creativity. Ultimately, the conversation highlights the journey of self-discovery and the importance of aligning personal values with one's mission in life.
Takeaways
- Support groups can empower Black women and address unique challenges.
- Black men's mental health requires tailored approaches and understanding.
- Listening is a crucial skill in therapy and client relationships.
- Mental health needs of professional athletes have evolved significantly.
- Reframing mental health as mental wealth can shift perspectives.
- Language used in therapy should be accessible and relatable.
Bio
Director of the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership for Social Justice in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University. He is a licensed psychologist, board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology who has devoted his career of service to clinical, educational, training, administrative, and organizational consultation venues. He is Past-President of the Society of Counseling Psychology of the American Psychological Association where he also is recognized as a Fellow in Divisions 17, 45 and 47. For most of his professional career, Dr. Parham has focused on working with athletes across levels (e.g., professional, elite, amateur, collegiate and youth) and across sports (e.g., basketball, football, gymnastics, softball, baseball, track and field, tennis, golf, swimming, volleyball, figure skating). He has also worked with performance artists in drama, theatre and music. Currently, he serves as the Director of the Mental Health and Wellness Program of the National Basketball Association. In addition, Dr. Parham is a member of the Mental Health and Wellness Task Force of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and a member of the Mental Health and Wellness Think Tank of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Raquel Martin (00:00):
Steve, Hello everyone, and welcome to Mind
your mental just a reminder thatthis podcast is not meant to be
a substitute for a relationshipwith a licensed mental health
professional. I know they arehard to find, and I get that I
have a bunch of resources on mywebsite if you need them, but I
am not your clinician. I am apsychologist, but I am not your
(00:21):
psychologist. So if you need anyspecific help, please look for
the help of a licensed mentalhealth professional. Learn all
you can learn from the podcast.Enjoy the episode. Once again,
we have Dr William Parham, well,how do you prefer to be
referred? Because sometimes yousign your your messages, Dr P,
Unknown (00:37):
a lot of people call me. Dr P, out or whatever. It's
been going on for 20 years. Sookay, just don't call me
Dr. Raquel Martin (00:48):
no. Well, I will. I will not okay. One of my
questions is the NP, the nbpa,mental health and wellness
program, was launched inresponse to the increasing
demand for mental healthresources. So how have you seen
the mental health needs ofprofessional athletes evolve
since the the program'sinception? And I think it was
2018 it
Unknown (01:07):
was 2018 It was launched. It was announced in
May of 2018 and I would want toback up a little bit some
context middle of the wellnessof elite athletes, and in this
case, basketball players. Hasbeen necessary from the
inception of basketball. This isnot anything new. Fast forward
(01:32):
just a little bit. The very logoof the NBA is a silhouette of
Jerry West, now deceased. Godrest his soul. Beautiful Man.
But if you read his book, hismemoir entitled west on West, my
Charmed, tormented life, he's asurvivor of abuse. He's very
(01:56):
candid about that. Had nottalked about it while he was
alive. I did have a coupleconversations with him about
that, as well as many otherthings, but the very logo of the
NBA is saying you are a person,not just a performer. There have
been many other players who wedon't have a long time ago, is
about 50 or 60 that have madepublic news for years, but it's
(02:21):
been sort of very sporadic forthe most part. It's been a good
system, and still is a goodsystem. But what was happening
at around 215, 16, there are anumber of players coming out in
volume and very public abouttheir very concerning struggles
with mental health and wellness.Kevin Love, Demar DeRose. Demar
(02:45):
Rosen Kelly, Uber, a few others,even a couple of coaches. And so
it was the concentration in asmall period of time where the
Players Association, which isthe union, basically, and that's
very, very different than theNBA. We can get into that later,
maybe, but we had to listen tothe voice of the players, or
(03:06):
they did at the time, and sothey got together and said, We
have to have a mental health andwellness program. Because of my
long term association with theleague, they had asked me to
apply. I applied and wasselected as the founding
director of the program, andI've been in that role since
2018 I think the needs are with.The players are as they have
(03:30):
been all along, at one level, alot of pressure because of the
stigma mental health andwellness. We don't the world is
not sort of given permission totalk about it. And if you're
celebrity, if you're AfricanAmerican, if you're male, if
you're a whole bunch of otherthings, we all are essentially
incentivized to say nothing.Don't air the family linen, keep
(03:52):
everything secret. And becausemany of these transgressions
happen when we're sub 10 yearsof age, we sort of want to be
good boys and girls anddaughters and sons and students
and athletes, etc, and so wefollow the code of silence, and
we accept and we distinguishourselves, not only in athletics
(04:16):
and academics, in our careersand relationships. We're pillars
of the community in ourspiritual practice, in our
community involvement,leadership, I should say, civic
leadership. And so there's theevidence on the surface that all
is well, and we got past all ofthat stuff. And it's not until
(04:36):
things happen like COVID Well,the world was shut down, and
people couldn't go to work,couldn't go to restaurants,
couldn't go to the gym, couldn'tgo get your nails and toes done,
couldn't go to the show,couldn't go anywhere. And they
realized that, well, our abilityto go do those various and
sundry things actually had twopurposes, not one. We went there
(05:01):
and felt satisfied, emotionally,nerved, successful,
accomplished, free from thedaily grind, etc. That's a huge
benefit. We learned that thebiggest benefit, however, was we
didn't have to focus in on ourpain and all of that past Trump
and so when COVID hit, andthose, literally, all those
(05:25):
options were shut down, the onlyroom we had is a space between
our ears. And that's when westarted to think and recall. And
it got overwhelming. So I sayall that to say a lot of players
are carrying around a lot ofstuff, despite what it looks
like on the surface. But also,there are a lot of players. This
(05:48):
is the last point I'll make. Alot of players in mental health
and wellness is not just whenyou're mentally ill or
struggling. We actually seemental health and wellness are
from on a continuum from one to10. And for example, players
that are from, let's say, eightto 10, they're actually doing
substantially well as athlete,as a husband or spouse or
(06:11):
partner, as a business person,as a person who's in
philanthropy and doing quitewell, who's a good parent, good
civic minded person, literallyeverything is going on, and
they're very hopeful. Have goodsense of agency. There are those
from four to seven who are doingbasically well. That may be an
area or two in which theystruggle a little bit more. And
(06:33):
then there's those on a one tothree who are struggling more
mightily, let's say and so ourgoals and our program is to
really address wherever you areon the continuum. It's not about
obtaining good mental health andwellness. It's how do you
maintain it? So we use bothgoals. But anyway, the needs are
the same as they wereaccentuated a little bit by
(06:55):
things like COVID social media.The latest report, actually by
the US Surgeon General that wasreleased in December of 2023 the
title of which is loneliness andisolation. The essential theory
there concept is, despite theenormous, fabulous, creative,
(07:17):
ingenious advantages andcommunication, the world is
still struggling with lonelinessand isolation at epidemic
proportions, globally, not justdomestically. And so that's an
added context for today'sathlete that we haven't yet got
(07:38):
our head wrapped around. And thelast thing that we haven't
really understood is artificialintelligence. That's going to be
another context. But anyway, Igo on, I get too excited about
all this, but the need hasalways been there. It's still
there. We're doing our best torespond to all the needs that
are have emerged and but we'llbe emerging, so we're trying to
(08:02):
get ahead of it done, and sowe're having fun doing it all.
Dr. Raquel Martin (08:05):
Hey, everyone, just a reminder that
mind, your mental is not just apodcast, it is also a amazing
community. If I do say somyself, it's phenomenal. I mean,
you get more access to me. Whatmore could you want in this
life? So if you want to join thecommunity, if you're not already
on the community, go to mysocial media. My social media is
(08:26):
the same Raquel Martin, PhD, andDM me the word community, so you
can get details on joining thisamazing, flipping community. You
get more access to me. Y'alllike, I'm a delight. All right.
All right. Hope to see youthere. Yeah, I love that aspect
of having fun with it. I wantedto hone in on I like the fact
that you mentioned that youthink of understanding mental
(08:50):
health as a continuum. And Ithink previously, because I try
to like research everyone reallywell, you've talked about
reframing mental health asmental wealth. How do you guide
athletes through the process ofunderstanding mental health as a
continuum, so that it helps toshift the mindset in and outside
of sports,
Unknown (09:10):
my approach has been to really capitalize on sort of
three approaches. One is to notuse words that we as
professionals have been taught,but the language of pathology.
See psychology in its history,borrowed heavily for medicine,
and medicine, historically, wasrooted in the science of
pathology, which is the study ofdisease. So a lot of the early
(09:31):
concepts, formulations,conceptions within the field of
psychology were rooted in what'swrong with you. And so I'm very
intentional in not using a lotof that pathologizing language
as an example words like antisocial dysfunction versus I tend
(09:53):
to not want to use those sortsof words, anxieties,
depressions. Uh, I tend not to,again, use words like that,
unless I really need to. I usewords, for example, like self
protection. If somebody isdistance and avoiding, there's
nothing wrong with them, someexperience has occurred in their
(10:16):
life and that their avoidance istheir self protective response
so that they don't get hurtagain, so people's experiences
not using it again, pathologizelanguage. But also, secondly, an
additive to that, I realizedsomething I mentioned earlier is
(10:38):
before the tape started rolling,if people, people come to me,
athletes come to me. Sometimesthe first time they ever see me,
they may have heard red, butthey don't really experience me
yet. They got along without meall these years. So I really
underscore what I mentionedearlier, when I listened to my
(10:58):
clients long enough they wouldtell me what's wrong with them
when I listen to them just alittle bit longer, they will
tell me what I can do to makethem feel better. So I really
pride myself on listening totheir story, because when they I
listen to their story, they havea decision about what they want
to say, how far they want to gowith their story. Am I really
(11:21):
the person they want to say evenmore about the story to? And so
they're making all thosedecisions. And so I think I'm
very good at listening. In fact,one of our one of my elders,
taught us long time ago. If youlook at the word listen and ask
people, What does that reallymean? Most people will give you
(11:41):
a reasonable definition. Ourelders taught us this. The key
to maximizing what those sixletters spell is hidden in those
six letters. You see, if youmove those letters around and
you come up with the wordsilent, the best way to listen
then, is to be silent. The bestway to listen to yourself, the
(12:05):
best way to listen to othersthat you are providing services
to, is to listen. They will tellyou everything you need to know.
So at best, we are facilitators,and I see myself as a
facilitator. The third thingthat I get to is, actually
there's four. The third thingis, when it's appropriate, I see
(12:28):
players talking about somepretty painful memories, and I
really listen to what they'resaying and listen to the story
part. But what I'm listening towith my second ear is how they
responded to it. I help themdiscover that some of their
(12:51):
source of their superpowerreally comes from not what
happened to them, but how theyresponded to so the pain was a
portal to them finding theirpurpose. So I, again, I like to
reframe that and related tothat, where do you want to go?
(13:12):
You were six years old when thisthing happened. Now you're 26
people live until 90, so youhave all this time left 26 years
of knowledge. How can you parlaythat into something the last
thing? Because they are in anindustry where they are paid
handsome it's important to getpeople to pay attention. So I
(13:34):
use the concept of wealth interms of mental health and
mental health that gets theirattention. They realize they can
tap into their wellness fundsanytime they want to. So their
confidence, motivation, selfesteem, all of that sense of
agency, all of those aredeposits that we are innately
(13:57):
gifted with and we don't oftencall upon, but you can go to
that. ATM, anytime you wish. SoI speak like that. We talk like
that with examples that come outof their own life. And when
those dots connect, it makes abig difference. In fact, last
thing I'll say, many athletesand people and patients I used
to work with have what we allknow are light bulb moments of
(14:20):
insight. Ah, now I get it. Dr, PWell, I say, you know, if you,
if you were to tell me that, DrMartin, I'd say, you know, it's
interesting. You say you had alight bulb moment of insight.
And I might go over to the walland cut my lights off in the
office and say, Is it darkerhere? And use it, of course, and
I cut the switch back on, andI'll say, is it light now you
(14:43):
just say, Yeah, I would ask you,why is there light now in the
room, and your first two answersare going to be wrong. First
chance, well, well, I say thatnot because I'm arrogant,
because this is what people do,yeah. And the first answer, most
people come up. With, well, dr,P, you got this wind trip, and I
(15:04):
did. It's still the wronganswer. So then your puzzle,
when you talk, oh, I know whatyou're trying to get at. There's
electrical current and there isbut that also is the wrong
answer. So now you're reallypuzzled. Now when I tell you
what the real answer is, youknow what your unit Your
(15:25):
response will be, duh. Why areyou going to do? Because you
already knew See, in order fortheir light to be now in the
room, the light bulb had to bealready plugged into the sock
that if you removed all thelight bulbs, and you still flick
the switch up and you can verifyelectrical current method of the
home you're still going to be inthe dark. So light bulb moments
(15:48):
of insight have to me that youare already pre wired with that
genius. But because of all thefog and noise in our lives, we
don't often get access to it. Sodaily meditation, being silent,
being reflective. There's aportal to which to let some of
that genius emerge.
Dr. Raquel Martin (16:08):
Yeah, and I can, I can see that you said,
like, very many salient things.But one of the biggest things
is, I always tell my studentsand people I'm working with,
like, don't, don't use a $20word when, like, you know, a $1
word will, do you know, like it,just like nobody likes to be
talked to like that. Andhonestly, it was one of the
biggest things that bugged meduring my PhD program. I would
(16:31):
be like, you expect me to youexpect me to talk to my patient
like this. Like this is, this iswhat you think is going to help,
especially someone whospecializes, and always wanted
to specialize in black mentalhealth. You expect that to
resonate with people that looklike me. You expect me to say,
well, the cognitive dissonancewithin you, I'm like they've
(16:51):
already it's already hard enoughto bring black people to mental
health like in the first place.But then you want me to sound
like an encyclopedia and expectthem to open up to me. That's
absurd, right? But
Unknown (17:04):
see, that's the arrogance of the professional of
our history, and it's thepromotion of the status quo,
yeah. And so I say that to saybecause one of the things that
has influenced me is I'vedeviated from a lot of what I've
trained to do. Not deviated, butcertainly have accentuated it.
As a person who's beeninterested in martial arts for a
(17:26):
long time took up Kung Fu andnow Tai Chi, there's a whole
different philosophy thatemerges. And when I compare the
contrast in these thoughts,what's African philosophies? I
began to say, well, there aredifferent ways of looking at
things, and it's like everycrisis, for example, at one
(17:47):
level is an opportunity. Soanyway, I see all that to say, I
think we have to thinkexpansively and do what you do.
Well, those big $20 words arenot going to go over in some
communities. And so how do youfind not only $1 worth but one
that is more efficient andunderstood and captures the
(18:08):
attention of the people you're apurportedly wanting to serve?
Yeah,
Dr. Raquel Martin (18:13):
I think efficiency is incredibly
important, and even just beingconcise. So when I'm teaching my
students and you're a professoras well, I mentioned, like, you
will never get a paper overthree pages for me, because I
don't understand why you need somuch to share that thought. And
one thing that I've also noticedin working, I mean, and this is
(18:33):
a aspect of the time and payinequities and health
inequalities, we don't have thatmuch time, you know, like we
don't. It's amazing if I get apatient that looks like me who
can come in every single week,but if they can't, I not only
have to use this 50 minutes, butI have to give you some skills
and techniques and maybe someprompts and some things that can
(18:55):
carry you over to the next timeI see you. Right? It's important
to be concise. You know? It'simportant to be able to break
things down. Because when I wasin training, since I worked with
children as well, the thoughtprocess was, if you can't
explain that term to a four yearold, you don't get it. And I've
had patients as young as fourwhere I've had to talk about the
(19:17):
integration of feelings andthoughts and behaviors, the the
aspect of fairness and just itlike you. If you don't, if you
can't break it down to a fouryear old, you don't grasp it
right,
Unknown (19:28):
right? You're intellectualizing and, again,
promoting status goal. Andthat's just, there's for me,
there's no place for that sortof fake promise that you're
going to be better because youare really participating in
keeping them stuck.
Dr. Raquel Martin (19:44):
Your leadership emphasizes treating
the player as a person first andthe athletes second. How has
this philosophy shaped the wayyou approach mental health and
wellness in high performanceenvironments?
Unknown (19:55):
It has shaped it fundamentally, actually, I was
told again, many, many yearsago. Probably, when I was a
teen, you can't take a U haul toheaven, and we are at a memorial
service that elder was telling,you know, as we provide, you
know, you go to theseprofessions, these the
procession from the church tothe cemetery. How many times
(20:19):
have you seen a U haul trailerattached to the hearse. And
obviously we thought was a sillyquestion, but the answer is,
nobody ever does, but where itwas going with it. You can't
take a U haul to heaven. So ifthat's true, which is code for
it is, then what the heck areyou on earth for? What is your
purpose? What is your plan? Andso early on, I started to really
(20:43):
think about that, not fullygrasping what was being told to
me. But certainly, as I gotolder, became a professional.
It's all true when I look at,for example, the statistics of
any professional athlete, theaverage across sports, they're
in their sport as a professionalfor five years. Maybe there's
(21:03):
some who are clearly 1520 butthat's an aberration. So the
short lived nature of theiropportunity is really important.
So you gotta capitalize on whatthey have to do, and so you
can't take any of this with you.So what else are you going to
(21:24):
do? And I often refer to mygrowing up years heard a quote
who I think is attributable toMark Twain, but I don't know.
But essentially, the quote is,the two most important days in a
person's life are the daythey're born and the day they
find out why. And so it's thepurpose that has influenced how
(21:49):
I approach players. Yeah, youcan hoop phenomenally, and
you're going to be enhanced mefor it. You love it. You've been
loving it ever since you weresix years old out in your urban
playground, even without a ball,but believing you had one making
that game line each I didn'thear in the fan just call your
name. So you've had this in yoursort of DNA for years, and long
(22:14):
after you finish, you're goingto remember all these pleasant
memories. But life goes on afterthe fans stopped sharing, and
what are you going to do aboutall of that? You will always be
a person. You will never be aHooper. You hoop phenomenal.
You'll be a phenomenalphilanthropist and business
person. But you're not abusinessman. You're a person
(22:39):
before a performer, in thatcase, business. And so I really
elevate everything as personal,your personal decisions, nuanced
ways that you think aboutthings, nuanced approaches and
strategies that you developed,taken from many sources. But I
(22:59):
also point out, I often askathletes, how many fingerprints
do you have on your finger?They'll look at me like, Why do
you talk? I say, yeah, just howmany? And they had 10. Say, Now,
which one of those 10 isidentical to anybody in the
world? And answer is, of course,none. And I said, you know that
(23:22):
really means, the day you wereborn, they broke the mold. You
can't be like anybody else, andthey can never, ever be like
you. And when you really getthat into your DNA, you really
have the freedom to discover theinnate talents a genius that you
were given. Now that's contrary,because everybody wants you to
(23:45):
be like Mike and be likesomeone, so, etc, etc. So,
because we want to be good, weand honored and valued and
visible, we follow the rules,but as long as you follow those
rules, which aren't bad rules,because it gives you something
to aspire to and good rolemodeling all of that you're
(24:06):
missing the opportunity todiscover the innate genius of
superpowers you were beginning,as evidenced by your
fingerprints nobody else islike. So I use all of that in my
work, as he said, explainingthat their personhood is no
accident the pain and sufferingthat they've had to endure in
(24:28):
some of it, it absolutelypositively feels like life
happened to them. Ultimately,when the athletes begin to
discover it's like, yeah, lifehappened to me, but maybe it
also happened for me, because itawakened me to a new reality, a
new way of thinking, a newstrategy, a new way to edit
(24:50):
where I'm headed. And so I workin those spaces really
illuminating the person, becausethat's what's going to be the
consistent thing i. Until theyget called home.
Dr. Raquel Martin (25:03):
Yeah, I've always felt that when working
with pretty high achievingpeople, a lot of times,
individuals get linked on thisparticular career. And I've
always felt it to be morehelpful just for your your well
being as someone who believes inidentifying your values and
living according to thosevalues, that it makes more sense
to align with the mission,because your mission can can
(25:27):
very much change. Well, yourmission will be the benchmark of
who you are, and you can be in adifferent role, but your mission
is still the same, right? Likemy mission is to contribute to
the longevity of the blackcommunity through mental health
and well being. I can do that asa professor. I can do that as a
scientist. I can do that throughmy own lineage as a mother. I
(25:49):
can do that as an author,because I'm just going to alter
the role that I'm in to fit thatmission. And I've always felt
that the mission aspect of itmakes more sense, and as someone
who more so believes in like, avalue driven life, which helps
me out a lot, because if it's itmakes decision making easier. If
it doesn't align with my values,it's going to be a smooth No.
(26:13):
And if it does, and it's notridiculously inconvenient, it's
an easy yes. And I'm able toalso make sure that the people
around me and the environmentsaround me are according to that
too, because it's not onlyimportant for me to know what my
values are, but when I seerelationships starting to break
down or sever or become moredifficult, you have to reassess,
(26:36):
like, is this person around mestill aligned with the values
that I have. Have I evolved?Have my values evolved? But I
think when we think about it interms of relationship and a
mission, like you mentioned,instead of just like that one
role, I really think it helpshiccups, like with so many
conversations lately, I've beenhaving people about grief and
(26:58):
relationships. You mentioned theaspect of needing silence at
times, which can be really hard,especially for people who you
know they're good at their jobs,they're still humans. They they
just they get paid handsomely.They're they've lost their
anonymity, and that silencepiece can be a lot more
difficult, especially withsocial media like, um, you know
(27:18):
you walk somewhere and someoneknows you before you know you or
they know the perception of you,and that really gets in the way
of like, mental health and wellbeing like, just, I just want to
go to target,
Unknown (27:31):
yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, you know, you say
something very important. Wereleased a study a couple years
ago by FIFPro, Fi, F, P, R O,the W, MBA and the mbpa, and
what's called Social Mediaabuse. You can look up look at
it online, but the gist of it isthat social media, relative to
(27:52):
elite athletes, is abusive. Andwhen you look at the category of
LGBT, African Americans are thetargets of a huge amount of that
abuse. And it gets to the pointof even with these games, and
where the audience is playing ongames and using essentially
(28:13):
avatars as their players, wellthat translates sometimes going
to an actual live game at anarena talking to this player
like he's an avatar. He's nothuman, and that does take a toll
on athletes, and so when we,when I mentioned earlier, being
(28:34):
silent, you are going to hearthe noise and all of these
distractions. But somewhere inthere, particularly when it's
guided, there's some healing orsome truth or some things that
merit exploration that can drownout all of that noise and
(28:56):
contamination. But it has to bedone, I think, skillfully, but
players have to be taught how tolaunch that journey, because,
again, they can't get lost inbeing silent. All of that
tsunami wave of craziness sortof floods them, and they just
avoid it. The silence is oftenguided and reflected. Because I
(29:18):
often say also, a person willnever see their reflection in
running water. It is only whenthe water is still but a
reflected image begin to emerge.And so stillness and being
silent allows it to come up, butwhat comes up is all the noise
on top of some of the healingenergy. And it's practice. It
(29:38):
takes practice to learn how tohave the healing energy emerge
higher than some of theknowledge
Dr. Raquel Martin (29:46):
I can I can only imagine, this is totally
off topic, but I can onlyimagine, like, what it's like in
your classrooms or in sessions.Like it makes perfect sense that
you enjoy Tai Chi, like you'rejust very, very sooth. Me like
voice, which I always feel likeI don't have a I remember going
in school, and they're talkingabout a therapeutic tone, and
(30:08):
I'm just like, I don't think, Idon't think I had,
Unknown (30:17):
well, you know my tagline and going through
college, but it gave me thistagline. It's called still bill,
and that's what still peopleget. Get me, it's, that's just
how I roll, because it's, it'sjust part of my nature, I guess,
yeah,
Dr. Raquel Martin (30:32):
and mine, I would what is my I don't think
mine would be still like, I
Unknown (30:37):
think it's exciting.
Dr. Raquel Martin (30:39):
Yes, I get excited about anything black,
mental health, just passion,persistence. My mom once said,
you are persistent andrelentless. Like, I truly pray
for people who say no to youbecause to you, that's a maybe,
my goodness, Raquel, and I'mlike, Absolutely,
Unknown (30:56):
and it's, it's a blessing, and it's a strength.
It's a real strength, becauseyou're modeling, yeah, the world
has its challenges, but youdon't have to let those
challenges get inside of you.And so you are really modeling
joy and passion for what you do,and that's important,
Dr. Raquel Martin (31:19):
I think so, because as someone who works in
this realm and tries to focus onmental health and social
justice, one thing that helps meis that there's no way to 100%
know the future. You work withpeople and they're in this realm
and they're dealing withoppression and bias and
stereotypes, and of course, youget exhausted and and you get
this aspect of internalizedoppression. And I always say
(31:42):
that, like, it starts asinjected oppression. First. It's
not like we're going past allthese positive messages and then
we reach for the one negativeone. No, we have to make it a
point to to focus on thesethings. And I'm like, you don't
there's no way to 100% know thefuture. There's no way for me to
100% know that it's going to getworse. There's no way to 100%
know that this aspect ofoppression is going to last
(32:03):
forever. All I know is what Ican control, what I can put out
into the world and kind of gofrom there. And it's not the
aspect of blind optimism, ifanything, that's more realistic,
because it's it's unrealistic tothink you can, you can predict
the future.
Unknown (32:21):
Exactly in fact that you say that. And I tell my
students all the time, how manyof you in here have ever, ever,
ever initiated anything, arelationship or whatever? And
certainly everybody raises theirhands, and people raise too, and
I'll say, give me some examples.And they all do, they're excited
(32:43):
about this. And then I say, Ilook at them all. And I said,
No, what if I were to invite youto consider, God forbid you
believe what I say, what if Iwere to invite you to consider,
that is not humanly possible,not humanly possible to initiate
anything. They'll look at melike, What are you talking and I
(33:08):
and I say, maybe like you are toDoctor Mark right now. I say,
Well, every thought that you'veever had, every feeling that
you've ever experienced, andevery behavior that you've ever
executed, 100% of the time is inresponse to something that has
already occurred. Your passionand excitement and creativity
(33:33):
and strategic playing in termsof the realm of mental health of
the black community, youinitiated a lot of things this
group, you talked about a lot atone level, at another,
fundamental level, also ourresponses to what you saw was
not there and desperatelyneeded. I say all that to say
(33:57):
because we are always prided andtalked about it, reinforce and
acknowledge for what we do andbe proactive and initiate stuff.
It robs us of reallyunderstanding what I believe is
a fundamental truth. We don'tget a good lesson and exercise
in daily practice in ourrespondent skills. Everybody
(34:20):
says it's not how many times youget knocked down, it's how many
times you get up well, but theydon't go deeper. And what does
that really mean? You onlycontrol that you have. People
have a little to no control overa lot that goes on, but they
have 100% control over how theyrespond to the challenges that
(34:40):
the world presents. And there'sthree basic responses. Cognitive
responses are how people thinkand process what's going on.
Affective responses, thefeelings that come forth as a
result of what's going on, andbehavioral responses, either
doing something or doingnothing, those are all respond.
Skills and so reallyemphasizing, how can you respond
(35:04):
to XYZ challenge, both positivechallenge, but also something
that's very demanding andoverwhelming. The bottom line
is, you have control over howyou respond, so you're right
predicting the future. You don'tknow what's going to happen. You
don't, and there's zero way todo it. I don't got mixed
(35:24):
equations or logarithms you putin there. You can't do it. It's
just not going to happen. So whybeat your head and try to do
focus on your respondent skillsand things will improve
substantially.
Dr. Raquel Martin (35:40):
Yeah. I've always felt like, you know, one
of the things that working withpatients is sometimes they try
to, you know, we can't controlwhat our body perceives as a
threat. We can only control ourresponse to it. And sometimes
people will come into session.They're like, No, I don't want
my body, I don't want it to beperceived as a threat. Because
(36:01):
if it's not perceived as athreat, perceived as a threat, I
don't have to work on myresponse. And I'm like, but you
can't control you can't you knowyou're sometimes your body picks
up stuff that you a memory thatyou're not even cognizant of.
But you know, and your olfactorysenses pick something up like
you can't control what your bodyperceives as a threat. You can
only control how you respond tothat. It's kind of like so many
(36:23):
people talk about boundaries,and a lot of people get it
wrong, and because boundariesguide your behavior, rules
attempt to dictate someoneelse's so when someone is just
like, oh, that person violatedmy boundary and I said, Oh,
that's not possible, the onlyperson who could violate your
boundary is you. Boundaries areliterally always going to be
(36:43):
within your control, becauseit's always what you can
control. You can only controlyourself. Now, you may have
given someone a rule that theyviolated, like, okay, but rules
aren't going to be as powerfulbecause you can never, you can't
fully control. I have two kids.I can't, my goodness, you know,
I try to work on emotionalregulation. I try to work on
(37:04):
them understanding values andguiding their own behavior.
Because I know for a fact Ican't listen. I need them to
have an inherent, you know,guiding principles within
themselves, so they choose howthey move themselves. But like
anyone who's a parent, I'm like,how are those rules working out
for you, I saw a clip of yourecently on social media with it
(37:24):
was from the APA page. I don'tknow if it was recent. Time is
i? My kids are young, so I canbarely remember what I did
yesterday or today. But you, youused a really good analogy of
the aspect of dreaming, like interms of athletes as dreamers.
And I really gravitated to thisfor many reasons. One, as
someone who focuses on blackmental health, one of the
(37:46):
biggest concerns I have is,like, dehumanization. You talked
about this briefly, about like,the aspect of dehumanization
using these avatars. Anddehumanization that happens with
black people all the time. It'sembedded in the history we've
never been rehumanized, and thatdehumanization and
adultification, because a lot ofpeople come in young, takes away
freedoms, like the freedom todream. So I gravitated to it
(38:11):
because of that. But also I likethe fact that you mentioned just
the and I think I'm probablygoing to include a clip, because
it was a very good clip. I sawit on my face, but talking about
the aspect of rediscovering yourchild, like freedom and
creativity as important, even ashigh performing adults, you said
(38:32):
something like, you know, you'venever met an athlete who didn't
really envision this aspect ofit being the NBA when they were
playing, when they were young,when they were dribbling,
dribbling on urban playgrounds.They they use that dream, and it
inherently propelled them. Soyou mentioned that dreaming is
like it's just so important. Howdo you encourage elite athletes,
(38:56):
or anyone for that matter,because you're also a professor,
you also lead summits on thesekind of things. How do you
encourage them to reconnect withthat sense of what I think is
like uninhibited creativity andjoy amidst the pressures of
their profession?
Unknown (39:14):
Well, a principle that that guides one of the
principles of several, thatguides me doing responding to
what you're asking. I don'tendorse the notion personally,
of teaching athletes or mystudents or patients I used to
have. I don't endorse the notionof reconnection, because
(39:36):
reconnection assumes that theyhave disconnected and there's
nothing there. I endorse thenotion of this rediscovering
that which already exists. Thenatural talent to dream is again
we see it as kids, starting withplaying house and playing
(39:57):
whatever we play as games, as.Kids, that's dreaming. When I
get to be an adult, here's whatI want to do. Little girl
playing with her dolls, or guys,whatever they're doing, that's
dreaming. And then when they getold enough to really get well,
maybe I can who? Maybe I can do,X, Y and Z, they dream even
more. But what happens as we getinto the world, in our
(40:21):
elementary schools, in ourcommunities, become more
literate about what's really theinfluences are really impacting
our lives. We are incentivized,silently, in some cases, not so
slightly, to squash the dreams.Declare a major when you're a
junior in college. Well, thatmakes some sense, because you
(40:43):
gotta get focused and, you know,whatever. But when you declare a
major, you close that door oneverything else, and you're you
sort of quietly incentivized tonot dreams. I remind players and
students, let's dream again. Oneof the exercises I do in class.
(41:04):
I tell students, if I, rightnow, wrote you a check for an
amount of money that will lastyou and your next generation for
the rest of their lives, youdon't to pay rent, mortgages,
car notes, vacate. You don't paytuitions ain't nothing. You have
(41:25):
a zillion, gazillion dollarsright this second, verifiable.
What would you do the rest ofyour life? Do you know over half
of my students say they would becounselors and therapists. They
go do philanthropy, that theytravel the world and serve
others and with these big, grandways. So I conclude with, you're
(41:49):
living now in a practical world,and I certainly support what
you're doing. But don't everlose sight of that. That dream
is always a part of you, so muchso you can't get rid of so much.
So sometimes, when you aresleeping and dreaming, what are
you doing? Dreaming about thefuture, dreaming about where you
(42:13):
can go. And so dream, it is apart. So I don't use the word
disconnection at all. I use wordrediscover. And I get that from
if I have a bottle of water andthis is full, it's not a trick
question, and I turn over thisglass, and all the water falls
(42:37):
out onto the floor, and now theglass is verifiably empty and
the floor is soaking wet. If Iwere to ask you, Dr Martin, why
is the floor now wet, the firstanswer going to get me is wrong,
because you can say, well, youpour the water out on the floor.
(42:58):
I say I did, and the water'swet, and your second answer will
be wrong. You say, Well, becausethere's gravity and there is,
there's still the wrong answer.See, in order for the floor to
be wet, there had to be liquidin the bottle in the first
place. Because if there was noliquid at the bottom, and I did
this, what was going to come outnothing, because there's nothing
(43:20):
there. So anytime somethingcomes out of something
knowledge, wisdom and an idea, agenius, a vision, it has, to me,
it's already in there. You justhaven't put yourself around the
appropriate stimuli to releasethat which is already there. So
(43:42):
it goes back to a fundamentalpremise that I also have, which
diverges substantially frompsychology. We are all taught in
psychology, probably even as anundergrad, this notion of tabula
rasa, that when the baby isborn, comes out as a blank
slate, Taylor Ross is Latin forblank slate, and that the idea
(44:05):
of life and development is thatas a kid grows older, he or she
is given facts, figures, data,stuff to put into them so that
they begin to fill up. And whenthey get to be about 18 to 20,
they sort of have enough stuffin there to begin making some
(44:27):
adult decisions about careersand relationships. But the gist
of all developmental psychologyis, as you get to be 3040, 5060,
you get to go up and up and youfill in the gaps and get wiser.
Everybody believes that. I don'tbelieve that whatsoever, because
when I really started to examinethat fundamental premise, I mean
(44:53):
really drill down what thatnotion promises you, not
suggests or hints. Promise. Itpromises you at no point in your
life will you ever be fooled.Promises you so you are the
proverbial cat chasing yourtail, feeling bad I'm not good
(45:14):
enough. I'm not whatever enough,because you're forced to compare
to others and see that's aEurocentric way of framing what
we're doing now, what I'vestudied, again, Eastern other
philosophies. Fully two thirdsof the world believe something
very different. They believethat when you are born, you have
(45:36):
everything you need in life as aresult of going through the same
socialization, parents, family,community, church, spirit, the
media, etc, the same things.Those are environments that
stimulate out of you, that whichyou already have, and when you
(45:58):
believe and when I believe thatnotion, every step along the
way, you just have to discoverthe essence of who you are. See,
we have developed languages.Fill in the gaps, plug in the
hole, come up to speed, and allof that assumes, okay, let's
work harder. Let's pullourselves up from our bootstraps
(46:20):
and get it together with thatassumes you got boots on in the
first place too late. So that'sa separate argument. But the
fact is, anything comes out ofanybody or anything has to mean
it's already there. And so I usethat as a fundamental premise. I
so I don't reconnect withanything. How are you listening
rediscover the dream, and nowthat your career is winded down
(46:42):
as a professional, let'senvision the next 20 years and
the plus that you had when youwere six. You didn't have the
emotional intelligence orcognitive sophistication to
really do great things. Nowyou're 20 years down the road.
You have 20 years more wisdomwith the same level of freedom
(47:04):
to dream and believe and seethat what you want to do. So
some athlete and the students,obviously, it's a doctor, Peter
said, I could do any damn thingI want to do. I said,
Absolutely. So that's how I do.You know, it's part of human
(47:27):
it's not a basketball thing,it's not a student thing, it's
human thing. But we've not beenincentivized to dream, to be
kids, to be curious, and I'masking you to reconnect. Now,
the facts are, you don't haveto, because you already, by all
markers of success, areexceeding expectations of
(47:50):
success. So why fix somethingthat's not broke? So you don't
have have to do it, but if youhave achieved this level of
success, Karen Ron, that kind ofbag and stuff and contamination,
it's scary to think how far youwould go if you found a place to
(48:10):
lay down that burden and beginhealing and move forward,
absolutely scared. So maybethat's what your real issues.
You're afraid of discoveringyour innate genius intelligence.
Dr. Raquel Martin (48:26):
Well, I think that's a that's an amazing
prompt to to end on if I everheard Dr Parham. Thank you so
much for coming to this show. Ireally wanted to focus on the
integration of black mentalhealth and sports. I watch
sports, but not as much as myhusband, but I've gotten more
(48:46):
and more interested over theyears, the more I delve into
focusing on black mental health.And I'm like, I'm always saying
I'm going to be where the blackpeople are, and I'm like, Well,
how am I not learning more aboutthe aspect of all of the mental
wellness and education that youguys are doing with within the
sport. So I really appreciateyou coming on the show. Do you
do social media? I was gonna, Ialways say, tell the people
(49:08):
where to find you. No. Well,they could catch you on the
stage. You do summits and stufflike that. Do you have any kind
of Summit coming up soon? Not
Unknown (49:18):
I, actually, I just did, actually, I was in Harlem,
actually, two weeks ago. Thereis a program. Dr Sydney
Hankerson was a psychiatrist.Was hosting the second annual
hope in Harlem Summit. So I wasasked to be a speaker there. You
can probably look at look it upalready. I was also asked to
(49:38):
speak. I'm on the governor herein California, the Governor's
Advisory Council on PhysicalFitness and mental wellness and
the California des had a hearingon Play, sport and movement.
Something you should also lookup. It's a concept authored by
Renata simrel, another AfricanAmerican female C. CEO of La 84
(50:03):
foundation, the foundation thatwas birthed after the 84
Olympics. She's authored thenotion of play sport movement,
and you really should look herup and look more about her
message. But anyway, we had ahearing at SoFi stadium, and I
was asked to be a panel on theimportance of getting kids into
(50:26):
recess, physical activity,structured competitions, you
know, early on in their life,because the data are not good.
In some places they don't haverecess. In some places they
don't have mandatory physicaleducation. And it's we're losing
something that missedopportunity. So I have those
(50:46):
sorts of things. I've done anumber of podcasts, but I don't
have my own social media forvarious reasons that I won't go
into, but you were able to trackme down. So,
Dr. Raquel Martin (50:57):
oh yeah, listen as every time people like
how do you how did you find me?I'm a scientist. I research for
a living. Okay, like I willfind, and I always say people
who don't have social media,probably the healthiest people.
I use it as a vessel to providefree cycle education and do
stuff like this. But I'm alsoaware that there are some people
(51:18):
who I'm like, Well, the way youuse it. It's not the way I use
it. I think it would be helpfulif you logged off for a little
bit and help you so but thankyou so much for coming on the
show. Everyone. Thanks forlistening as a reminder, be kind
to yourself. Two steps forwardand one step back is still one
step forward. That is just math.And have a good rest of your
day. You.
Steve, Hello everyone, and welcome to Mind
your mental just a reminder thatthis podcast is not meant to be
a substitute for a relationshipwith a licensed mental health
professional. I know they arehard to find, and I get that I
have a bunch of resources on mywebsite if you need them, but I
am not your clinician. I am apsychologist, but I am not your
(00:21):
psychologist. So if you need anyspecific help, please look for
the help of a licensed mentalhealth professional. Learn all
you can learn from the podcast.Enjoy the episode. Once again,
we have Dr William Parham, well,how do you prefer to be
referred? Because sometimes yousign your your messages, Dr P,
Unknown (00:37):
a lot of people call me. Dr P, out or whatever. It's
been going on for 20 years. Sookay, just don't call me
Dr. Raquel Martin (00:48):
no. Well, I will. I will not okay. One of my
questions is the NP, the nbpa,mental health and wellness
program, was launched inresponse to the increasing
demand for mental healthresources. So how have you seen
the mental health needs ofprofessional athletes evolve
since the the program'sinception? And I think it was
2018 it
Unknown (01:07):
was 2018 It was launched. It was announced in
May of 2018 and I would want toback up a little bit some
context middle of the wellnessof elite athletes, and in this
case, basketball players. Hasbeen necessary from the
inception of basketball. This isnot anything new. Fast forward
(01:32):
just a little bit. The very logoof the NBA is a silhouette of
Jerry West, now deceased. Godrest his soul. Beautiful Man.
But if you read his book, hismemoir entitled west on West, my
Charmed, tormented life, he's asurvivor of abuse. He's very
(01:56):
candid about that. Had nottalked about it while he was
alive. I did have a coupleconversations with him about
that, as well as many otherthings, but the very logo of the
NBA is saying you are a person,not just a performer. There have
been many other players who wedon't have a long time ago, is
about 50 or 60 that have madepublic news for years, but it's
(02:21):
been sort of very sporadic forthe most part. It's been a good
system, and still is a goodsystem. But what was happening
at around 215, 16, there are anumber of players coming out in
volume and very public abouttheir very concerning struggles
with mental health and wellness.Kevin Love, Demar DeRose. Demar
(02:45):
Rosen Kelly, Uber, a few others,even a couple of coaches. And so
it was the concentration in asmall period of time where the
Players Association, which isthe union, basically, and that's
very, very different than theNBA. We can get into that later,
maybe, but we had to listen tothe voice of the players, or
(03:06):
they did at the time, and sothey got together and said, We
have to have a mental health andwellness program. Because of my
long term association with theleague, they had asked me to
apply. I applied and wasselected as the founding
director of the program, andI've been in that role since
2018 I think the needs are with.The players are as they have
(03:30):
been all along, at one level, alot of pressure because of the
stigma mental health andwellness. We don't the world is
not sort of given permission totalk about it. And if you're
celebrity, if you're AfricanAmerican, if you're male, if
you're a whole bunch of otherthings, we all are essentially
incentivized to say nothing.Don't air the family linen, keep
(03:52):
everything secret. And becausemany of these transgressions
happen when we're sub 10 yearsof age, we sort of want to be
good boys and girls anddaughters and sons and students
and athletes, etc, and so wefollow the code of silence, and
we accept and we distinguishourselves, not only in athletics
(04:16):
and academics, in our careersand relationships. We're pillars
of the community in ourspiritual practice, in our
community involvement,leadership, I should say, civic
leadership. And so there's theevidence on the surface that all
is well, and we got past all ofthat stuff. And it's not until
(04:36):
things happen like COVID Well,the world was shut down, and
people couldn't go to work,couldn't go to restaurants,
couldn't go to the gym, couldn'tgo get your nails and toes done,
couldn't go to the show,couldn't go anywhere. And they
realized that, well, our abilityto go do those various and
sundry things actually had twopurposes, not one. We went there
(05:01):
and felt satisfied, emotionally,nerved, successful,
accomplished, free from thedaily grind, etc. That's a huge
benefit. We learned that thebiggest benefit, however, was we
didn't have to focus in on ourpain and all of that past Trump
and so when COVID hit, andthose, literally, all those
(05:25):
options were shut down, the onlyroom we had is a space between
our ears. And that's when westarted to think and recall. And
it got overwhelming. So I sayall that to say a lot of players
are carrying around a lot ofstuff, despite what it looks
like on the surface. But also,there are a lot of players. This
(05:48):
is the last point I'll make. Alot of players in mental health
and wellness is not just whenyou're mentally ill or
struggling. We actually seemental health and wellness are
from on a continuum from one to10. And for example, players
that are from, let's say, eightto 10, they're actually doing
substantially well as athlete,as a husband or spouse or
(06:11):
partner, as a business person,as a person who's in
philanthropy and doing quitewell, who's a good parent, good
civic minded person, literallyeverything is going on, and
they're very hopeful. Have goodsense of agency. There are those
from four to seven who are doingbasically well. That may be an
area or two in which theystruggle a little bit more. And
(06:33):
then there's those on a one tothree who are struggling more
mightily, let's say and so ourgoals and our program is to
really address wherever you areon the continuum. It's not about
obtaining good mental health andwellness. It's how do you
maintain it? So we use bothgoals. But anyway, the needs are
the same as they wereaccentuated a little bit by
(06:55):
things like COVID social media.The latest report, actually by
the US Surgeon General that wasreleased in December of 2023 the
title of which is loneliness andisolation. The essential theory
there concept is, despite theenormous, fabulous, creative,
(07:17):
ingenious advantages andcommunication, the world is
still struggling with lonelinessand isolation at epidemic
proportions, globally, not justdomestically. And so that's an
added context for today'sathlete that we haven't yet got
(07:38):
our head wrapped around. And thelast thing that we haven't
really understood is artificialintelligence. That's going to be
another context. But anyway, Igo on, I get too excited about
all this, but the need hasalways been there. It's still
there. We're doing our best torespond to all the needs that
are have emerged and but we'llbe emerging, so we're trying to
(08:02):
get ahead of it done, and sowe're having fun doing it all.
Dr. Raquel Martin (08:05):
Hey, everyone, just a reminder that
mind, your mental is not just apodcast, it is also a amazing
community. If I do say somyself, it's phenomenal. I mean,
you get more access to me. Whatmore could you want in this
life? So if you want to join thecommunity, if you're not already
on the community, go to mysocial media. My social media is
(08:26):
the same Raquel Martin, PhD, andDM me the word community, so you
can get details on joining thisamazing, flipping community. You
get more access to me. Y'alllike, I'm a delight. All right.
All right. Hope to see youthere. Yeah, I love that aspect
of having fun with it. I wantedto hone in on I like the fact
that you mentioned that youthink of understanding mental
(08:50):
health as a continuum. And Ithink previously, because I try
to like research everyone reallywell, you've talked about
reframing mental health asmental wealth. How do you guide
athletes through the process ofunderstanding mental health as a
continuum, so that it helps toshift the mindset in and outside
of sports,
Unknown (09:10):
my approach has been to really capitalize on sort of
three approaches. One is to notuse words that we as
professionals have been taught,but the language of pathology.
See psychology in its history,borrowed heavily for medicine,
and medicine, historically, wasrooted in the science of
pathology, which is the study ofdisease. So a lot of the early
(09:31):
concepts, formulations,conceptions within the field of
psychology were rooted in what'swrong with you. And so I'm very
intentional in not using a lotof that pathologizing language
as an example words like antisocial dysfunction versus I tend
(09:53):
to not want to use those sortsof words, anxieties,
depressions. Uh, I tend not to,again, use words like that,
unless I really need to. I usewords, for example, like self
protection. If somebody isdistance and avoiding, there's
nothing wrong with them, someexperience has occurred in their
(10:16):
life and that their avoidance istheir self protective response
so that they don't get hurtagain, so people's experiences
not using it again, pathologizelanguage. But also, secondly, an
additive to that, I realizedsomething I mentioned earlier is
(10:38):
before the tape started rolling,if people, people come to me,
athletes come to me. Sometimesthe first time they ever see me,
they may have heard red, butthey don't really experience me
yet. They got along without meall these years. So I really
underscore what I mentionedearlier, when I listened to my
(10:58):
clients long enough they wouldtell me what's wrong with them
when I listen to them just alittle bit longer, they will
tell me what I can do to makethem feel better. So I really
pride myself on listening totheir story, because when they I
listen to their story, they havea decision about what they want
to say, how far they want to gowith their story. Am I really
(11:21):
the person they want to say evenmore about the story to? And so
they're making all thosedecisions. And so I think I'm
very good at listening. In fact,one of our one of my elders,
taught us long time ago. If youlook at the word listen and ask
people, What does that reallymean? Most people will give you
(11:41):
a reasonable definition. Ourelders taught us this. The key
to maximizing what those sixletters spell is hidden in those
six letters. You see, if youmove those letters around and
you come up with the wordsilent, the best way to listen
then, is to be silent. The bestway to listen to yourself, the
(12:05):
best way to listen to othersthat you are providing services
to, is to listen. They will tellyou everything you need to know.
So at best, we are facilitators,and I see myself as a
facilitator. The third thingthat I get to is, actually
there's four. The third thingis, when it's appropriate, I see
(12:28):
players talking about somepretty painful memories, and I
really listen to what they'resaying and listen to the story
part. But what I'm listening towith my second ear is how they
responded to it. I help themdiscover that some of their
(12:51):
source of their superpowerreally comes from not what
happened to them, but how theyresponded to so the pain was a
portal to them finding theirpurpose. So I, again, I like to
reframe that and related tothat, where do you want to go?
(13:12):
You were six years old when thisthing happened. Now you're 26
people live until 90, so youhave all this time left 26 years
of knowledge. How can you parlaythat into something the last
thing? Because they are in anindustry where they are paid
handsome it's important to getpeople to pay attention. So I
(13:34):
use the concept of wealth interms of mental health and
mental health that gets theirattention. They realize they can
tap into their wellness fundsanytime they want to. So their
confidence, motivation, selfesteem, all of that sense of
agency, all of those aredeposits that we are innately
(13:57):
gifted with and we don't oftencall upon, but you can go to
that. ATM, anytime you wish. SoI speak like that. We talk like
that with examples that come outof their own life. And when
those dots connect, it makes abig difference. In fact, last
thing I'll say, many athletesand people and patients I used
to work with have what we allknow are light bulb moments of
(14:20):
insight. Ah, now I get it. Dr, PWell, I say, you know, if you,
if you were to tell me that, DrMartin, I'd say, you know, it's
interesting. You say you had alight bulb moment of insight.
And I might go over to the walland cut my lights off in the
office and say, Is it darkerhere? And use it, of course, and
I cut the switch back on, andI'll say, is it light now you
(14:43):
just say, Yeah, I would ask you,why is there light now in the
room, and your first two answersare going to be wrong. First
chance, well, well, I say thatnot because I'm arrogant,
because this is what people do,yeah. And the first answer, most
people come up. With, well, dr,P, you got this wind trip, and I
(15:04):
did. It's still the wronganswer. So then your puzzle,
when you talk, oh, I know whatyou're trying to get at. There's
electrical current and there isbut that also is the wrong
answer. So now you're reallypuzzled. Now when I tell you
what the real answer is, youknow what your unit Your
(15:25):
response will be, duh. Why areyou going to do? Because you
already knew See, in order fortheir light to be now in the
room, the light bulb had to bealready plugged into the sock
that if you removed all thelight bulbs, and you still flick
the switch up and you can verifyelectrical current method of the
home you're still going to be inthe dark. So light bulb moments
(15:48):
of insight have to me that youare already pre wired with that
genius. But because of all thefog and noise in our lives, we
don't often get access to it. Sodaily meditation, being silent,
being reflective. There's aportal to which to let some of
that genius emerge.
Dr. Raquel Martin (16:08):
Yeah, and I can, I can see that you said,
like, very many salient things.But one of the biggest things
is, I always tell my studentsand people I'm working with,
like, don't, don't use a $20word when, like, you know, a $1
word will, do you know, like it,just like nobody likes to be
talked to like that. Andhonestly, it was one of the
biggest things that bugged meduring my PhD program. I would
(16:31):
be like, you expect me to youexpect me to talk to my patient
like this. Like this is, this iswhat you think is going to help,
especially someone whospecializes, and always wanted
to specialize in black mentalhealth. You expect that to
resonate with people that looklike me. You expect me to say,
well, the cognitive dissonancewithin you, I'm like they've
(16:51):
already it's already hard enoughto bring black people to mental
health like in the first place.But then you want me to sound
like an encyclopedia and expectthem to open up to me. That's
absurd, right? But
Unknown (17:04):
see, that's the arrogance of the professional of
our history, and it's thepromotion of the status quo,
yeah. And so I say that to saybecause one of the things that
has influenced me is I'vedeviated from a lot of what I've
trained to do. Not deviated, butcertainly have accentuated it.
As a person who's beeninterested in martial arts for a
(17:26):
long time took up Kung Fu andnow Tai Chi, there's a whole
different philosophy thatemerges. And when I compare the
contrast in these thoughts,what's African philosophies? I
began to say, well, there aredifferent ways of looking at
things, and it's like everycrisis, for example, at one
(17:47):
level is an opportunity. Soanyway, I see all that to say, I
think we have to thinkexpansively and do what you do.
Well, those big $20 words arenot going to go over in some
communities. And so how do youfind not only $1 worth but one
that is more efficient andunderstood and captures the
(18:08):
attention of the people you're apurportedly wanting to serve?
Yeah,
Dr. Raquel Martin (18:13):
I think efficiency is incredibly
important, and even just beingconcise. So when I'm teaching my
students and you're a professoras well, I mentioned, like, you
will never get a paper overthree pages for me, because I
don't understand why you need somuch to share that thought. And
one thing that I've also noticedin working, I mean, and this is
(18:33):
a aspect of the time and payinequities and health
inequalities, we don't have thatmuch time, you know, like we
don't. It's amazing if I get apatient that looks like me who
can come in every single week,but if they can't, I not only
have to use this 50 minutes, butI have to give you some skills
and techniques and maybe someprompts and some things that can
(18:55):
carry you over to the next timeI see you. Right? It's important
to be concise. You know? It'simportant to be able to break
things down. Because when I wasin training, since I worked with
children as well, the thoughtprocess was, if you can't
explain that term to a four yearold, you don't get it. And I've
had patients as young as fourwhere I've had to talk about the
(19:17):
integration of feelings andthoughts and behaviors, the the
aspect of fairness and just itlike you. If you don't, if you
can't break it down to a fouryear old, you don't grasp it
right,
Unknown (19:28):
right? You're intellectualizing and, again,
promoting status goal. Andthat's just, there's for me,
there's no place for that sortof fake promise that you're
going to be better because youare really participating in
keeping them stuck.
Dr. Raquel Martin (19:44):
Your leadership emphasizes treating
the player as a person first andthe athletes second. How has
this philosophy shaped the wayyou approach mental health and
wellness in high performanceenvironments?
Unknown (19:55):
It has shaped it fundamentally, actually, I was
told again, many, many yearsago. Probably, when I was a
teen, you can't take a U haul toheaven, and we are at a memorial
service that elder was telling,you know, as we provide, you
know, you go to theseprofessions, these the
procession from the church tothe cemetery. How many times
(20:19):
have you seen a U haul trailerattached to the hearse. And
obviously we thought was a sillyquestion, but the answer is,
nobody ever does, but where itwas going with it. You can't
take a U haul to heaven. So ifthat's true, which is code for
it is, then what the heck areyou on earth for? What is your
purpose? What is your plan? Andso early on, I started to really
(20:43):
think about that, not fullygrasping what was being told to
me. But certainly, as I gotolder, became a professional.
It's all true when I look at,for example, the statistics of
any professional athlete, theaverage across sports, they're
in their sport as a professionalfor five years. Maybe there's
(21:03):
some who are clearly 1520 butthat's an aberration. So the
short lived nature of theiropportunity is really important.
So you gotta capitalize on whatthey have to do, and so you
can't take any of this with you.So what else are you going to
(21:24):
do? And I often refer to mygrowing up years heard a quote
who I think is attributable toMark Twain, but I don't know.
But essentially, the quote is,the two most important days in a
person's life are the daythey're born and the day they
find out why. And so it's thepurpose that has influenced how
(21:49):
I approach players. Yeah, youcan hoop phenomenally, and
you're going to be enhanced mefor it. You love it. You've been
loving it ever since you weresix years old out in your urban
playground, even without a ball,but believing you had one making
that game line each I didn'thear in the fan just call your
name. So you've had this in yoursort of DNA for years, and long
(22:14):
after you finish, you're goingto remember all these pleasant
memories. But life goes on afterthe fans stopped sharing, and
what are you going to do aboutall of that? You will always be
a person. You will never be aHooper. You hoop phenomenal.
You'll be a phenomenalphilanthropist and business
person. But you're not abusinessman. You're a person
(22:39):
before a performer, in thatcase, business. And so I really
elevate everything as personal,your personal decisions, nuanced
ways that you think aboutthings, nuanced approaches and
strategies that you developed,taken from many sources. But I
(22:59):
also point out, I often askathletes, how many fingerprints
do you have on your finger?They'll look at me like, Why do
you talk? I say, yeah, just howmany? And they had 10. Say, Now,
which one of those 10 isidentical to anybody in the
world? And answer is, of course,none. And I said, you know that
(23:22):
really means, the day you wereborn, they broke the mold. You
can't be like anybody else, andthey can never, ever be like
you. And when you really getthat into your DNA, you really
have the freedom to discover theinnate talents a genius that you
were given. Now that's contrary,because everybody wants you to
(23:45):
be like Mike and be likesomeone, so, etc, etc. So,
because we want to be good, weand honored and valued and
visible, we follow the rules,but as long as you follow those
rules, which aren't bad rules,because it gives you something
to aspire to and good rolemodeling all of that you're
(24:06):
missing the opportunity todiscover the innate genius of
superpowers you were beginning,as evidenced by your
fingerprints nobody else islike. So I use all of that in my
work, as he said, explainingthat their personhood is no
accident the pain and sufferingthat they've had to endure in
(24:28):
some of it, it absolutelypositively feels like life
happened to them. Ultimately,when the athletes begin to
discover it's like, yeah, lifehappened to me, but maybe it
also happened for me, because itawakened me to a new reality, a
new way of thinking, a newstrategy, a new way to edit
(24:50):
where I'm headed. And so I workin those spaces really
illuminating the person, becausethat's what's going to be the
consistent thing i. Until theyget called home.
Dr. Raquel Martin (25:03):
Yeah, I've always felt that when working
with pretty high achievingpeople, a lot of times,
individuals get linked on thisparticular career. And I've
always felt it to be morehelpful just for your your well
being as someone who believes inidentifying your values and
living according to thosevalues, that it makes more sense
to align with the mission,because your mission can can
(25:27):
very much change. Well, yourmission will be the benchmark of
who you are, and you can be in adifferent role, but your mission
is still the same, right? Likemy mission is to contribute to
the longevity of the blackcommunity through mental health
and well being. I can do that asa professor. I can do that as a
scientist. I can do that throughmy own lineage as a mother. I
(25:49):
can do that as an author,because I'm just going to alter
the role that I'm in to fit thatmission. And I've always felt
that the mission aspect of itmakes more sense, and as someone
who more so believes in like, avalue driven life, which helps
me out a lot, because if it's itmakes decision making easier. If
it doesn't align with my values,it's going to be a smooth No.
(26:13):
And if it does, and it's notridiculously inconvenient, it's
an easy yes. And I'm able toalso make sure that the people
around me and the environmentsaround me are according to that
too, because it's not onlyimportant for me to know what my
values are, but when I seerelationships starting to break
down or sever or become moredifficult, you have to reassess,
(26:36):
like, is this person around mestill aligned with the values
that I have. Have I evolved?Have my values evolved? But I
think when we think about it interms of relationship and a
mission, like you mentioned,instead of just like that one
role, I really think it helpshiccups, like with so many
conversations lately, I've beenhaving people about grief and
(26:58):
relationships. You mentioned theaspect of needing silence at
times, which can be really hard,especially for people who you
know they're good at their jobs,they're still humans. They they
just they get paid handsomely.They're they've lost their
anonymity, and that silencepiece can be a lot more
difficult, especially withsocial media like, um, you know
(27:18):
you walk somewhere and someoneknows you before you know you or
they know the perception of you,and that really gets in the way
of like, mental health and wellbeing like, just, I just want to
go to target,
Unknown (27:31):
yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, you know, you say
something very important. Wereleased a study a couple years
ago by FIFPro, Fi, F, P, R O,the W, MBA and the mbpa, and
what's called Social Mediaabuse. You can look up look at
it online, but the gist of it isthat social media, relative to
(27:52):
elite athletes, is abusive. Andwhen you look at the category of
LGBT, African Americans are thetargets of a huge amount of that
abuse. And it gets to the pointof even with these games, and
where the audience is playing ongames and using essentially
(28:13):
avatars as their players, wellthat translates sometimes going
to an actual live game at anarena talking to this player
like he's an avatar. He's nothuman, and that does take a toll
on athletes, and so when we,when I mentioned earlier, being
(28:34):
silent, you are going to hearthe noise and all of these
distractions. But somewhere inthere, particularly when it's
guided, there's some healing orsome truth or some things that
merit exploration that can drownout all of that noise and
(28:56):
contamination. But it has to bedone, I think, skillfully, but
players have to be taught how tolaunch that journey, because,
again, they can't get lost inbeing silent. All of that
tsunami wave of craziness sortof floods them, and they just
avoid it. The silence is oftenguided and reflected. Because I
(29:18):
often say also, a person willnever see their reflection in
running water. It is only whenthe water is still but a
reflected image begin to emerge.And so stillness and being
silent allows it to come up, butwhat comes up is all the noise
on top of some of the healingenergy. And it's practice. It
(29:38):
takes practice to learn how tohave the healing energy emerge
higher than some of theknowledge
Dr. Raquel Martin (29:46):
I can I can only imagine, this is totally
off topic, but I can onlyimagine, like, what it's like in
your classrooms or in sessions.Like it makes perfect sense that
you enjoy Tai Chi, like you'rejust very, very sooth. Me like
voice, which I always feel likeI don't have a I remember going
in school, and they're talkingabout a therapeutic tone, and
(30:08):
I'm just like, I don't think, Idon't think I had,
Unknown (30:17):
well, you know my tagline and going through
college, but it gave me thistagline. It's called still bill,
and that's what still peopleget. Get me, it's, that's just
how I roll, because it's, it'sjust part of my nature, I guess,
yeah,
Dr. Raquel Martin (30:32):
and mine, I would what is my I don't think
mine would be still like, I
Unknown (30:37):
think it's exciting.
Dr. Raquel Martin (30:39):
Yes, I get excited about anything black,
mental health, just passion,persistence. My mom once said,
you are persistent andrelentless. Like, I truly pray
for people who say no to youbecause to you, that's a maybe,
my goodness, Raquel, and I'mlike, Absolutely,
Unknown (30:56):
and it's, it's a blessing, and it's a strength.
It's a real strength, becauseyou're modeling, yeah, the world
has its challenges, but youdon't have to let those
challenges get inside of you.And so you are really modeling
joy and passion for what you do,and that's important,
Dr. Raquel Martin (31:19):
I think so, because as someone who works in
this realm and tries to focus onmental health and social
justice, one thing that helps meis that there's no way to 100%
know the future. You work withpeople and they're in this realm
and they're dealing withoppression and bias and
stereotypes, and of course, youget exhausted and and you get
this aspect of internalizedoppression. And I always say
(31:42):
that, like, it starts asinjected oppression. First. It's
not like we're going past allthese positive messages and then
we reach for the one negativeone. No, we have to make it a
point to to focus on thesethings. And I'm like, you don't
there's no way to 100% know thefuture. There's no way for me to
100% know that it's going to getworse. There's no way to 100%
know that this aspect ofoppression is going to last
(32:03):
forever. All I know is what Ican control, what I can put out
into the world and kind of gofrom there. And it's not the
aspect of blind optimism, ifanything, that's more realistic,
because it's it's unrealistic tothink you can, you can predict
the future.
Unknown (32:21):
Exactly in fact that you say that. And I tell my
students all the time, how manyof you in here have ever, ever,
ever initiated anything, arelationship or whatever? And
certainly everybody raises theirhands, and people raise too, and
I'll say, give me some examples.And they all do, they're excited
(32:43):
about this. And then I say, Ilook at them all. And I said,
No, what if I were to invite youto consider, God forbid you
believe what I say, what if Iwere to invite you to consider,
that is not humanly possible,not humanly possible to initiate
anything. They'll look at melike, What are you talking and I
(33:08):
and I say, maybe like you are toDoctor Mark right now. I say,
Well, every thought that you'veever had, every feeling that
you've ever experienced, andevery behavior that you've ever
executed, 100% of the time is inresponse to something that has
already occurred. Your passionand excitement and creativity
(33:33):
and strategic playing in termsof the realm of mental health of
the black community, youinitiated a lot of things this
group, you talked about a lot atone level, at another,
fundamental level, also ourresponses to what you saw was
not there and desperatelyneeded. I say all that to say
(33:57):
because we are always prided andtalked about it, reinforce and
acknowledge for what we do andbe proactive and initiate stuff.
It robs us of reallyunderstanding what I believe is
a fundamental truth. We don'tget a good lesson and exercise
in daily practice in ourrespondent skills. Everybody
(34:20):
says it's not how many times youget knocked down, it's how many
times you get up well, but theydon't go deeper. And what does
that really mean? You onlycontrol that you have. People
have a little to no control overa lot that goes on, but they
have 100% control over how theyrespond to the challenges that
(34:40):
the world presents. And there'sthree basic responses. Cognitive
responses are how people thinkand process what's going on.
Affective responses, thefeelings that come forth as a
result of what's going on, andbehavioral responses, either
doing something or doingnothing, those are all respond.
Skills and so reallyemphasizing, how can you respond
(35:04):
to XYZ challenge, both positivechallenge, but also something
that's very demanding andoverwhelming. The bottom line
is, you have control over howyou respond, so you're right
predicting the future. You don'tknow what's going to happen. You
don't, and there's zero way todo it. I don't got mixed
(35:24):
equations or logarithms you putin there. You can't do it. It's
just not going to happen. So whybeat your head and try to do
focus on your respondent skillsand things will improve
substantially.
Dr. Raquel Martin (35:40):
Yeah. I've always felt like, you know, one
of the things that working withpatients is sometimes they try
to, you know, we can't controlwhat our body perceives as a
threat. We can only control ourresponse to it. And sometimes
people will come into session.They're like, No, I don't want
my body, I don't want it to beperceived as a threat. Because
(36:01):
if it's not perceived as athreat, perceived as a threat, I
don't have to work on myresponse. And I'm like, but you
can't control you can't you knowyou're sometimes your body picks
up stuff that you a memory thatyou're not even cognizant of.
But you know, and your olfactorysenses pick something up like
you can't control what your bodyperceives as a threat. You can
only control how you respond tothat. It's kind of like so many
(36:23):
people talk about boundaries,and a lot of people get it
wrong, and because boundariesguide your behavior, rules
attempt to dictate someoneelse's so when someone is just
like, oh, that person violatedmy boundary and I said, Oh,
that's not possible, the onlyperson who could violate your
boundary is you. Boundaries areliterally always going to be
(36:43):
within your control, becauseit's always what you can
control. You can only controlyourself. Now, you may have
given someone a rule that theyviolated, like, okay, but rules
aren't going to be as powerfulbecause you can never, you can't
fully control. I have two kids.I can't, my goodness, you know,
I try to work on emotionalregulation. I try to work on
(37:04):
them understanding values andguiding their own behavior.
Because I know for a fact Ican't listen. I need them to
have an inherent, you know,guiding principles within
themselves, so they choose howthey move themselves. But like
anyone who's a parent, I'm like,how are those rules working out
for you, I saw a clip of yourecently on social media with it
(37:24):
was from the APA page. I don'tknow if it was recent. Time is
i? My kids are young, so I canbarely remember what I did
yesterday or today. But you, youused a really good analogy of
the aspect of dreaming, like interms of athletes as dreamers.
And I really gravitated to thisfor many reasons. One, as
someone who focuses on blackmental health, one of the
(37:46):
biggest concerns I have is,like, dehumanization. You talked
about this briefly, about like,the aspect of dehumanization
using these avatars. Anddehumanization that happens with
black people all the time. It'sembedded in the history we've
never been rehumanized, and thatdehumanization and
adultification, because a lot ofpeople come in young, takes away
freedoms, like the freedom todream. So I gravitated to it
(38:11):
because of that. But also I likethe fact that you mentioned just
the and I think I'm probablygoing to include a clip, because
it was a very good clip. I sawit on my face, but talking about
the aspect of rediscovering yourchild, like freedom and
creativity as important, even ashigh performing adults, you said
(38:32):
something like, you know, you'venever met an athlete who didn't
really envision this aspect ofit being the NBA when they were
playing, when they were young,when they were dribbling,
dribbling on urban playgrounds.They they use that dream, and it
inherently propelled them. Soyou mentioned that dreaming is
like it's just so important. Howdo you encourage elite athletes,
(38:56):
or anyone for that matter,because you're also a professor,
you also lead summits on thesekind of things. How do you
encourage them to reconnect withthat sense of what I think is
like uninhibited creativity andjoy amidst the pressures of
their profession?
Unknown (39:14):
Well, a principle that that guides one of the
principles of several, thatguides me doing responding to
what you're asking. I don'tendorse the notion personally,
of teaching athletes or mystudents or patients I used to
have. I don't endorse the notionof reconnection, because
(39:36):
reconnection assumes that theyhave disconnected and there's
nothing there. I endorse thenotion of this rediscovering
that which already exists. Thenatural talent to dream is again
we see it as kids, starting withplaying house and playing
(39:57):
whatever we play as games, as.Kids, that's dreaming. When I
get to be an adult, here's whatI want to do. Little girl
playing with her dolls, or guys,whatever they're doing, that's
dreaming. And then when they getold enough to really get well,
maybe I can who? Maybe I can do,X, Y and Z, they dream even
more. But what happens as we getinto the world, in our
(40:21):
elementary schools, in ourcommunities, become more
literate about what's really theinfluences are really impacting
our lives. We are incentivized,silently, in some cases, not so
slightly, to squash the dreams.Declare a major when you're a
junior in college. Well, thatmakes some sense, because you
(40:43):
gotta get focused and, you know,whatever. But when you declare a
major, you close that door oneverything else, and you're you
sort of quietly incentivized tonot dreams. I remind players and
students, let's dream again. Oneof the exercises I do in class.
(41:04):
I tell students, if I, rightnow, wrote you a check for an
amount of money that will lastyou and your next generation for
the rest of their lives, youdon't to pay rent, mortgages,
car notes, vacate. You don't paytuitions ain't nothing. You have
(41:25):
a zillion, gazillion dollarsright this second, verifiable.
What would you do the rest ofyour life? Do you know over half
of my students say they would becounselors and therapists. They
go do philanthropy, that theytravel the world and serve
others and with these big, grandways. So I conclude with, you're
(41:49):
living now in a practical world,and I certainly support what
you're doing. But don't everlose sight of that. That dream
is always a part of you, so muchso you can't get rid of so much.
So sometimes, when you aresleeping and dreaming, what are
you doing? Dreaming about thefuture, dreaming about where you
(42:13):
can go. And so dream, it is apart. So I don't use the word
disconnection at all. I use wordrediscover. And I get that from
if I have a bottle of water andthis is full, it's not a trick
question, and I turn over thisglass, and all the water falls
(42:37):
out onto the floor, and now theglass is verifiably empty and
the floor is soaking wet. If Iwere to ask you, Dr Martin, why
is the floor now wet, the firstanswer going to get me is wrong,
because you can say, well, youpour the water out on the floor.
(42:58):
I say I did, and the water'swet, and your second answer will
be wrong. You say, Well, becausethere's gravity and there is,
there's still the wrong answer.See, in order for the floor to
be wet, there had to be liquidin the bottle in the first
place. Because if there was noliquid at the bottom, and I did
this, what was going to come outnothing, because there's nothing
(43:20):
there. So anytime somethingcomes out of something
knowledge, wisdom and an idea, agenius, a vision, it has, to me,
it's already in there. You justhaven't put yourself around the
appropriate stimuli to releasethat which is already there. So
(43:42):
it goes back to a fundamentalpremise that I also have, which
diverges substantially frompsychology. We are all taught in
psychology, probably even as anundergrad, this notion of tabula
rasa, that when the baby isborn, comes out as a blank
slate, Taylor Ross is Latin forblank slate, and that the idea
(44:05):
of life and development is thatas a kid grows older, he or she
is given facts, figures, data,stuff to put into them so that
they begin to fill up. And whenthey get to be about 18 to 20,
they sort of have enough stuffin there to begin making some
(44:27):
adult decisions about careersand relationships. But the gist
of all developmental psychologyis, as you get to be 3040, 5060,
you get to go up and up and youfill in the gaps and get wiser.
Everybody believes that. I don'tbelieve that whatsoever, because
when I really started to examinethat fundamental premise, I mean
(44:53):
really drill down what thatnotion promises you, not
suggests or hints. Promise. Itpromises you at no point in your
life will you ever be fooled.Promises you so you are the
proverbial cat chasing yourtail, feeling bad I'm not good
(45:14):
enough. I'm not whatever enough,because you're forced to compare
to others and see that's aEurocentric way of framing what
we're doing now, what I'vestudied, again, Eastern other
philosophies. Fully two thirdsof the world believe something
very different. They believethat when you are born, you have
(45:36):
everything you need in life as aresult of going through the same
socialization, parents, family,community, church, spirit, the
media, etc, the same things.Those are environments that
stimulate out of you, that whichyou already have, and when you
(45:58):
believe and when I believe thatnotion, every step along the
way, you just have to discoverthe essence of who you are. See,
we have developed languages.Fill in the gaps, plug in the
hole, come up to speed, and allof that assumes, okay, let's
work harder. Let's pullourselves up from our bootstraps
(46:20):
and get it together with thatassumes you got boots on in the
first place too late. So that'sa separate argument. But the
fact is, anything comes out ofanybody or anything has to mean
it's already there. And so I usethat as a fundamental premise. I
so I don't reconnect withanything. How are you listening
rediscover the dream, and nowthat your career is winded down
(46:42):
as a professional, let'senvision the next 20 years and
the plus that you had when youwere six. You didn't have the
emotional intelligence orcognitive sophistication to
really do great things. Nowyou're 20 years down the road.
You have 20 years more wisdomwith the same level of freedom
(47:04):
to dream and believe and seethat what you want to do. So
some athlete and the students,obviously, it's a doctor, Peter
said, I could do any damn thingI want to do. I said,
Absolutely. So that's how I do.You know, it's part of human
(47:27):
it's not a basketball thing,it's not a student thing, it's
human thing. But we've not beenincentivized to dream, to be
kids, to be curious, and I'masking you to reconnect. Now,
the facts are, you don't haveto, because you already, by all
markers of success, areexceeding expectations of
(47:50):
success. So why fix somethingthat's not broke? So you don't
have have to do it, but if youhave achieved this level of
success, Karen Ron, that kind ofbag and stuff and contamination,
it's scary to think how far youwould go if you found a place to
(48:10):
lay down that burden and beginhealing and move forward,
absolutely scared. So maybethat's what your real issues.
You're afraid of discoveringyour innate genius intelligence.
Dr. Raquel Martin (48:26):
Well, I think that's a that's an amazing
prompt to to end on if I everheard Dr Parham. Thank you so
much for coming to this show. Ireally wanted to focus on the
integration of black mentalhealth and sports. I watch
sports, but not as much as myhusband, but I've gotten more
(48:46):
and more interested over theyears, the more I delve into
focusing on black mental health.And I'm like, I'm always saying
I'm going to be where the blackpeople are, and I'm like, Well,
how am I not learning more aboutthe aspect of all of the mental
wellness and education that youguys are doing with within the
sport. So I really appreciateyou coming on the show. Do you
do social media? I was gonna, Ialways say, tell the people
(49:08):
where to find you. No. Well,they could catch you on the
stage. You do summits and stufflike that. Do you have any kind
of Summit coming up soon? Not
Unknown (49:18):
I, actually, I just did, actually, I was in Harlem,
actually, two weeks ago. Thereis a program. Dr Sydney
Hankerson was a psychiatrist.Was hosting the second annual
hope in Harlem Summit. So I wasasked to be a speaker there. You
can probably look at look it upalready. I was also asked to
(49:38):
speak. I'm on the governor herein California, the Governor's
Advisory Council on PhysicalFitness and mental wellness and
the California des had a hearingon Play, sport and movement.
Something you should also lookup. It's a concept authored by
Renata simrel, another AfricanAmerican female C. CEO of La 84
(50:03):
foundation, the foundation thatwas birthed after the 84
Olympics. She's authored thenotion of play sport movement,
and you really should look herup and look more about her
message. But anyway, we had ahearing at SoFi stadium, and I
was asked to be a panel on theimportance of getting kids into
(50:26):
recess, physical activity,structured competitions, you
know, early on in their life,because the data are not good.
In some places they don't haverecess. In some places they
don't have mandatory physicaleducation. And it's we're losing
something that missedopportunity. So I have those
(50:46):
sorts of things. I've done anumber of podcasts, but I don't
have my own social media forvarious reasons that I won't go
into, but you were able to trackme down. So,
Dr. Raquel Martin (50:57):
oh yeah, listen as every time people like
how do you how did you find me?I'm a scientist. I research for
a living. Okay, like I willfind, and I always say people
who don't have social media,probably the healthiest people.
I use it as a vessel to providefree cycle education and do
stuff like this. But I'm alsoaware that there are some people
(51:18):
who I'm like, Well, the way youuse it. It's not the way I use
it. I think it would be helpfulif you logged off for a little
bit and help you so but thankyou so much for coming on the
show. Everyone. Thanks forlistening as a reminder, be kind
to yourself. Two steps forwardand one step back is still one
step forward. That is just math.And have a good rest of your
day. You.
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