We all deal with burdens, we all deal with judgment, we all deal with stress and juggling partnership, parenthood life in general. But it’s more intense on a broad stage where everybody’s looking at you. NBA Basketball Player Russell Westbrook and his wife, Marriage & Family Therapist Nina Westbrook, know that all too well. During Black Love Summit’s Weight Of The World Panel, Russell and Nina talked with “Black Love Doc” alum and therapist Kier Gaines about how they remain unbothered.
Russell said in response to Kier’s question of what does bother him, as Westbrook has been said to be unbothered by most criticism. Nina’s response of how she deals with judgment detailed an experience where her son was met with negative feedback about his father at school of all places.
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“I think that our situation is very unique, and so we are constantly having to think about certain things that so many people might not have to think about. For example, we had an incident. My son just started kindergarten, which was stressful enough as is. Everyone made a big deal, oh, your son is going to kindergarten. Are you prepared? I’m like, I feel like he’s going to be fine. That did not happen. One of the kids in the class said something to him that was about his dad. He ran up to me after school screaming such and such, said this. And I was like, okay, we’ll talk about it when we get in the car, and I literally was so upset. I wanted to obviously get into it, but I felt like having to protect my kid in a way that he saw that what was said is not going to impact or affect us in this way. I went through my process as much as I could before we got in the car to explain to him what had happened in a way for him to understand and let him know that these things aren’t true. We’ll talk about what is true and that he doesn’t have any reason to believe these things.”
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When sharing how they’ve managed to stay together for over 16 years (as the couple has been dating since they were 18) and how they navigate their own times of personal conflict, while Russel shared that he’s learned to listen more, Nina says not reacting out of emotion has been something that’s truly helped the couple.
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“We’ve been together for a very long time. We started dating when we were 18. When we were 18, there was nothing that I wasn’t going to say. I grew up in a family that was very vocal, I will call them spirited debates almost daily. That was the way of life. Whereas Russell comes from an extremely different background. So, I was all for spirited debates; Russell was here for nothing (no debates.) I think that as we’ve grown and matured, learned, explored and gotten to know each other better, I think it’s really good we know each other really well. But that’s evolved into the current day, not without trials and tribulation, but through a lot of growth, communication, and just effort and work to a more balanced give and take between when is it a good time to talk about these important topics or different things that are coming up. We rarely get to discuss something in a moment anyways, our life is very chaotic and there’s always so much going on, which also gives us the opportunity to do a little bit of, self-reflection, to see how we really feel about something and that makes it so that we’re a little less emotionally reactive. By the time we have time to sit down and talk things through, it’s a much more calm, productive conversation.”
As the long-time couple discussed their emotions, Russell credited therapy for helping him understand his emotions better and how Nina being a therapist, has benefitted him.
“Nina has helped me tremendously to be more open to therapy. Growing up in the inner city, therapy was never something that we were offered but being able to be open to it has been beneficial. I do therapy now weekly, just for me personally to express and communicate different things that I’m going through. But I’d never would have been open to that if it wasn’t for Nina and her ability to be able to help me and talk to me through so many different situations and be vulnerable, and talk through my feelings and emotions. Basketball was the only way I was able to get all my emotions out. I can scream and run and do all this stuff. And then when I had kids, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t bringing what I have at work back to Nina and the kids.”
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