Episode 0: Wilma Mae Basta Story

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As womxn of color, we do not live in a world that is designed to foster our journeys toward mental health. It is up to us to make our own wellbeing toolkits and this is not easy, but this is the problem that this show aims to solve! This is the Healing Home podcast hosted by Wilma Mae Basta, and the intention behind this show is to help all womxn of color to discover and create their own wellness journeys. We explore a myriad of healing tools and modalities ranging from psychotherapeutic to the spiritual, all for womxn of color! Wilma is the founder of DRK Beauty, a wellbeing and mental health digital platform that helps womxn of color discover and craft their own wellbeing journey. In this episode, Wilma helps listeners get to know her a little better, telling the story of her own life and how it led her to a breakdown followed by a path of discovery that resulted in her wellness platform as well as this show. We hear about Wilma’s parents, upbringing in America, and experiences of feeling othered by both white and Black communities, and what happened later after she moved to Europe where she felt she was not constantly read through the lens of being Black. She talks about how this was soothing but also meant she didn’t have to do some important inner work. Wilma explains that eventually everything culminated in a sense of crumbling but it was this that encouraged her to go on the inner journey that led to this amazing show. So make sure to join us today and in the episodes that follow, so that we can move forward to a place of strength and love in a less than friendly world as womxn of color, together.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing the show and the aim to help women of color create a mental wellness toolkit.
• Host Wilma Mae tells the story of her path to mental wellness leading to founding DRK Beauty.
• The story of Wilma’s parents’ personalities and careers and how they met and fell in love.
• Moving to a predominantly white area but living in a multicultural apartment block.
• Wilma’s memories of feeling othered by both Black and white communities.
• How Wilma finally felt she belonged when she went to France on exchange in junior year.
• The changes Wilma experienced from the culture in France and how she understood why she didn’t fit in before.
• How Wilma moved to NYC to study at NYU and experienced the rough scene of the '80s.
• Moving to London to study, meeting her husband, and how Wilma ended up staying 30 years.
• How Wilma excelled in her career and built a family while not feeling much racism.
• Not doing much inner work and then not being able to make sense of a crumbling marriage.
• Getting married to a second husband and diving into a new marriage that began to fail quickly.
• Experiencing a breakdown and how this was the beginning of Wilma’s mental health journey.
• The lack of mental health tools for women of color and how Wilma’s journey led to her starting this podcast.
• The happy marriage Wilma is still in thanks to the work her husband and her have done internally.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Wilma Mae Basta on Instagram

Wilma Mae Basta Email

DRK Beauty
Stanley Branche

PennState University

NYU

Malcolm X

Dr. Mar