Nina Westbrook Is Spreading ‘Positive Realness’
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“Kevin said something really funny,” Nina Westbrook — a marriage and family therapist — said of comedian-actor Kevin Hart. He’s like, ‘Listen, your podcast is going to be great, because I’m here and I’m on it.’”
The mother of three and wife of the Los Angeles Clippers’ Russell Westbrook tapped Hart to kick off the first episode of her podcast, “The Relationship Chronicles With Nina Westbrook.” Available on Spotify and Apple, the program’s other guests include her husband, actress Gabrielle Union, chef Sophia Roe, clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula and author-intimacy expert Shan Boodram.
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“I was always very hesitant about launching or doing a podcast,” said Westbrook. “I feel like a lot of the common feedback you get is that it’s very oversaturated, and ‘Is that really something that you want to be spending so much time on?’ A couple of years went by and I was like, I feel I’m in a really good place right now where I have a very unique perspective and a very different voice to share. I feel almost kind of a responsibility to be able to share and spread positive realness, relatability when it comes to the true ins and outs of our human experiences. I felt like it was just a good time to share and try to use the podcast as a way to connect all of us through experiences and storytelling.”
Westbrook attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where she studied English and psychology before pursuing a Master of Arts in clinical psychology with a specialization in marriage and family therapy. She went on to launch Bene by Nina, an online mental health and wellness community, and create “Do Tell!,” a conversation card game designed “to inspire growth and connection.” She’s also behind children’s apparel company Mini Brook.
“When people hear relationships they automatically skip to romantic relationships, but as a marriage and family therapist, the scope of my work typically is to figure out how one is operating and how they are fitting into the relationships in their lives,” she said. “We could be talking about our relationship with food. We could be talking about our relationship with money, our relationship with ourselves. And then of course, the more obvious, romantic partners, friendships and family members. But we’re basically connected to everything around us, and we do share relationships with all of the things around us.”
Surprisingly, Westbrook considers herself “an introvert” — but the podcast has been the perfect outlet.
“I’m not very extroverted,” she went on. “So, having conversations for me is a little bit more tricky than it may come off. I like to be in my house. I’m a little bit of a hermit. So a podcast for me has been almost transformative, because it has really given me a space to be comfortable.”
Growing up in Southern California, Westbrook was in an environment where she wanted to be of service, she explained of her career choice.
“I always wanted to be helpful,” she said. “I also grew up with this mindset of fairness and justice as being at the forefront of everything that I do so that naturally made me a pretty non-biased listener.”
She continued, “I can see any side or both sides of anything — as long as we’re not talking about myself and my personal relationships,” she laughed. “I’m pretty good about being a neutral person. And so naturally, everyone in my life would always come to me with all of their drama, and with all of their questions or hardships, or whatever triumphs. Whatever it is that they had going on in their lives, for whatever reason, they felt safe coming to me with that information. And that felt good.”
On the episode “Becoming a Grown Ass Man With Kevin Hart,” the actor and founder of Help from the Hart Charity shares thoughts on how he finds family outside of the traditional model (“The older you get, you start to realize…who makes me better, and who am I helping become better? Where is my energy best used?”); opportunity (“When I’m in those rooms around powerful people…if I just start talking and don’t allow these people to give me the gems and information they have, what am I taking from them, what am I taking and applying?”); and fatherhood (“There is an assumption that dad is the last to know. I have to pry information out of everybody….But you have to look at it from both sides, teenagers move fast…”)
“Look at the energy…” Westbrook says, as Hart admits he is getting “hot” talking about being out of the family-plans loop. “Would anyone be nervous or scared to come to you?” she asks.
“That’s why it makes me so upset,” Hart says. “Because they have no reason not to. You’ve created the safe environment….You are asking for it,” says Westbrook.
She hopes that listeners of her podcast gain insight, “that they take away that they are not alone in their experiences, they’re not alone in their challenges in their relationships.”
She added, “My thought is that the quickest way to build connections with other people is through vulnerability. And that means that we have to share experiences. We have to share stories with each other because you never know how many people you’re going to impact.”
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