What we’re getting wrong about mental health with RaQuel Hopkins

0:00The biggest barrier to capacity, it isn't stress, it isn't adversity, it's avoidance. It's like life doesn't shrink us. Our refusal to face life is what shrinks us. Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

0:32My guest today is therapist Raquel Hopkins. When I first started seeing her posts on Instagram, I was struck by how her wisdom on mental health challenged much of what's become popular in the zeitgeist. It was clear to me that her keen practical advice was adding a lot of value to the conversation, and I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Raquel works full-time in HR, but not long ago, she went from 3 ,000 followers to nearly half a million in just a few months. I wanted to kick off by asking her about her view of mental health, and I loved her perspective. I see it as a system, no different from like your laptop.

1:07And it's a system that you want to actively update as you evolve, as you transition in life. Because the way that I think about it, if we're constantly protecting, not necessarily mental health, but if I'm protecting how I think, feel, and behave, then I'm not creating enough space for me to evolve. So you call yourself a capacity expert, which I think is such a great term. Where did this come from? Yeah, I made it up, Adam. Like, where? Why? How? You hear so many people say, oh, I don't have the capacity. I don't have the capacity. But I was like, capacity is not about volume. It's not about weight.

1:43It's about what can you produce. And when we start thinking about what we can produce, I think it aligns with a lot of the things that you talk about, Adam, which is, are we producing wisdom? Is it personal responsibility? Is it consistency where your integrity shows up? And that's why I started referring to myself as the capacity expert. I love it. I guess I'm struck by how different this is from the way that a lot of people talk about mental health. What do you think our culture is getting wrong about building mental health? I don't think that we're getting it wrong because a lot of people are now talking about mental health openly.

2:20They'll talk about their struggles openly. I think we have just, the pendulum has swung too far and we need to bring it back to the center. I think that we have over course corrected, right? We've told people to acknowledge mental health, protect your mental health, and in the process, we've forgotten about human development. I loved when you said, I'm just going to read this to you. You said, we didn't just encourage self-awareness. We turned every feeling into a diagnosis. And instead of using mental health language as a tool, we've started using it as a shield. Talk to me about that. We have.

2:59We have. Adam, I speak to it from several different angles. Like I still work in the field of HR and I can't tell you how difficult the profession has become because people now have this language. Not only do you have people that now have this language, but you have HR professionals, for example, that are not equipped to deal with and or respond when the language is being presented to them. So in my case, I feel more empowered to respond to people that are navigating challenges and figuring out how best to empower people. But for other people, the word mental health is almost like a safe word, like an icky word.

3:37So if I say mental health, that means that the only thing that people expect is empathy. Empathy is not coupled with accountability. And as I started to see more of that, I was like, oh my gosh, we have to change this. We have to find the balance. If a person has anxiety, what you hear is, I have anxiety. So we've started to even internalize the labels. No, it's I live with anxiety. And because I live with anxiety, then this means that I may have to navigate life in this manner. And I think that that is the piece that has gotten lost, which is why I say that people use it as a shield. It's like, no, don't talk to me because I'm having a bad day or my mental health is not right.

4:17And I'm like, well, what does that mean? Like, what exactly does that mean? Because maybe I feel the same way and maybe I know, you know, something that I don't know. So that's where that statement came from, because you hear a lot of the language. People can name everything. People can name everything and not carry anything. Oh, that's profound. So they're using their labels as a crutch. Yes. Yes. So you also spoke to this when you said that mental health is not about comfort. It's about capacity. Say more. I think that there's a balance, right? And the two distinctions that I make, it's coping versus capacity.

4:57When most people today, we teach people how to cope. And what I'm saying is it's not enough anymore with the modern day demands that are presented. So we do need to rely more on this capacity framework, getting back to a place of developing people versus just giving them tools. For example, if I use boundaries, for example, I'm not anti-boundaries, but I also see how if people don't utilize boundaries in the most effective way, then we also don't build a foundation of self-trust. So when I say that mental health is not about comfort and it's more about capacity, it's not about helping people feel better.

5:36It's like, how do I help you become a better person as you navigate difficult conversations, relationships, new roles, new titles, new positions? And I think that that's what people think, because when you hear the word mental health, what people hear is almost like this icky word or this thing that you have to tiptoe around. And if mental health becomes this delicate thing, almost like glass, right? It's like, all right, it is about comfort, right? But no, that glass may get shattered at times to where you feel like your world is on fire. You've been fairly critical in this vein of people overusing terms like trauma and triggers.

6:16The thing that gets me with trauma is trauma is subjective. And I know people don't like to hear that, but I'm also a big believer in personal responsibility and accountability. There are these life transitions that we have started to pathologize that has blurred the lines between what are normal life stressors that we tend to experience because it's just a part of the human experience versus these situations where they're truly harmful. And I think that when you can't make the distinction between like growth and a real threat, you never really can get to a place where your nervous system is truly regulated because you're always on guard.

7:06Or you have, I always say like the biggest barrier to capacity, it isn't stress, it isn't adversity or even trauma. It's avoidance. Like life doesn't shrink us. Our refusal to face life is what shrinks us. Wow. And I wish that more people understood that or were open to accepting that. That's profound. That is such a brilliant observation. Thank you. I think I'm going to take the external validation that I'm getting here. I mean, I think that is the message the world needs to hear. Avoidance, it is the biggest barrier to growth. And I think it hides today too. It hides in a lot of language, right?

7:49A lot of coping language. I was looking at like these developmental stages like survival and then it's stability and then it's strength and then it's like stewardship. Right. And it's not a linear thing. It's circular. We continue to go through those processes or those stages as we continue to be faced with different challenges or growth opportunities. Most people want to get out of survival. Right. Most people want to get out of survival. And then when we enter that stage of stability, it's like, oh, I'm OK. And we want to settle in that place. And when we settle in that place, we close ourselves out to growth or facing life as it is or not prepare when all these external factors start presenting themselves to us.

8:34I like to say I'm a fan of Brene Brown and she's more about like getting you into the arena. I'm like, once you're in the arena, can you stay in the arena? Yes.

8:48Okay, I want to talk a little bit about avoidance. So trigger warnings have become, I'm actually amazed at how popular they are. We see them all over TV. We see them on campus at universities. And I think you've been appropriately critical of them. Talk to me about what you don't like about that, because it seems like it's an excuse to avoid if you see a trigger warning. Well, one of the first thing that comes to my mind is life doesn't come with trigger warnings. That's the uncertainty that comes with building and expanding your capacity. When I see people introducing these trigger warnings, I think that sometimes the intent is to express vulnerability, to share, to create connection.

9:35but I also think that these trigger warnings or trauma labels, whatever we're referring to, it also has become a part of people's personality. I mean, even when you hear people like say, I'm so burnt out, like burnout has created its own sense of community now. And I say this from an HR standpoint, organizations have a responsibility to provide resources to make sure that employees can thrive, but it's a partnership. And I think when we talk about empathy, it's difficult for a lot of people to figure out the balance between caring and what is mine to actually carry. And that's where I see a lot of leaders that struggle because no one wants to be seen as less empathetic or not empathetic today.

10:21But because a lot of us don't have the background, for example, in mental health, we don't know how to navigate those spaces. So I think that because I do have the background, I may come across as less empathetic to trigger warnings, for example, because it's information and I appreciate the information, but it's not always something that I have to react and or respond to. I loved how you said life doesn't come with trigger warnings. And I guess I would add, if it did, they don't even appear to be effective. There was a recent meta-analysis. It was 24 studies, about 7 ,000 people, showing that when you give an alert that upsetting content is coming, people don't feel less distress after they engage with the content.

11:09and they don't learn more from it either. And they actually feel more anxious because they basically now felt the anxiety twice. There's the alarm beforehand and then there's the distressing content during. And so if we're trying to promote mental health, it seems that the best thing to do is to make support available afterward, not to sound the alarm upfront. Exactly, because then you're creating alarms on both ends, especially if you're talking about a trigger, right? Because it happens on both ends when we're in conversation with other people. Yeah, I don't want to do that. That's a reasonable thing to try to minimize.

11:49Now, to the example you gave of someone going and getting a diagnosis, I think this speaks to what we were talking about earlier where people are using labels as a shield or a crutch. And I've been so surprised at how often people do this. Almost anything I post, people say, well, that doesn't apply to me. I have ADHD. That's not relevant to me because of my attachment style. How dare you not account for and like fill in the blank. How dare you? Yeah. And I'm like, look, first of all, I'm speaking about research that applies to most of the people most of the time. Yeah. You might be an outlier, but that doesn't negate the trend.

12:30The trend is still worth sharing and discussing, isn't it? What's going on here? I think that we have lost the plot again, right? A diagnosis is information, it's understanding, it gives you context. That's it. Like, it's just context. It says that if you live with ADHD, maybe you're going to have to have better systems in place for yourself. We have all of these labels, we have all of this language, we have all of this terminology today. And a lot of people are taking what's universal or common and or normal for different groups and community. And they're adding these additional layers because the need to be seen has taken on a life of itself.

13:22And I'm a big believer in acknowledging and validating because I think, I mean, in any relationship or any community, you have to acknowledge and validate people, right? But when it becomes the thing that robs you of your potential, your destiny, this label now has a ceiling. I am anti that. I will never root for that. I will never. And I know that never is a very strong word, but I will never root for that. You shouldn't. I think validation shouldn't be a goal. It should be a byproduct of pursuing more meaningful goals. Yes. So I think this is so clear, even in the way that you've built your profile.

14:03As you said, you didn't set out to go viral. You weren't trying to build an audience. You had something meaningful to share. And you've done that so beautifully. The validation has come. But if you were after the validation, I don't think you would have gotten it. I don't think so either. I never started out with celebrating likes or anything. I think I had in February like 3 ,000 followers. I used to celebrate like 100 days of consistently posting, right? It felt good to know that I could show up consistently about something that I was passionate about, that was a reflection of what my values are.

14:41So to know that when I finally decided to be more courageous and not water down the messaging anymore, that the validation came, but it came internally first before anything. That's such a clever way to mark milestones, is to celebrate growth and progress or contribution, as opposed to, I think so many people are trying to measure their success by how many likes they collect, as opposed to how many lives they enrich. Yes, yes. And that's what matters to me. You have to learn to internally validate yourself. And that's what capacity is, too. It's learning how to develop a person's inner world as well.

15:25And I think that that's probably one of my gifts. I'm really good at listening to people's language to really figure out where they're stuck. So it's almost like I know what to acknowledge and validate. And I also know what not to acknowledge and validate. Well, it's something I wish more people knew and understood. and it's also something that we all need help with sometimes because it's really easy to get caught up in the tangible measures and focus on what's most visible, which often is the validation. And then pretty soon we're stuck in what Jenny Crocker originally called the costly pursuit of self-esteem, where it's almost like a vicious cycle, where I'm actually thinking about the Lord of the Rings here.

16:11Okay, like you're after this external thing that is the object of your attention and desire. And once you get your precious, it doesn't make the craving go away. It just feeds the beast. And you continue needing more and more approval and validation to get the same dopamine kick afterward. And you're kind of left empty inside. Yes. It makes me think about Eric Erickson's model. I love his model. It's not linear. I know that he starts off with trust versus mistrust. and then it's your caregivers. But I'm like, no, it just switches. You have to learn to trust your own journey, but we all get to that place of generativity versus the stagnation.

16:54And usually in order to get there, you have chased the external validation. I mean, if I go back to how I've gotten here, I was like, all right, well, I look very successful on paper, but something is missing. I feel like something is missing in my life. And as I just threw spaghetti at the wall. I mean, I've found my thing, but it wasn't because I was looking for people to acknowledge and praise. Even with now being viral and having so many people, about three weeks ago, I kept feeling like this extreme sense of sadness. And I was like, where is this coming from? Where is this coming from? And I realized that I started feeling drain, not necessarily because of negativity, but just the energy that comes back from social media.

17:44I started recognizing that I started posting consistently and creating content based off of the feedback that I was giving and something just didn't feel right. So I was like, okay, now you need to go back and reassess, right? Because that's part of having capacity to what you continue to produce. And I was like, the goal a year ago was a promise that I made to myself. I'm going to continue to post content, whether people like it or not. Today, I'm here. I can adjust. You don't have to post every single day because that was more of a promise and a commitment that I made to myself. Can you continue to show up when no one is really clapping for you?

18:21Now everybody is clapping for you. Can you dial it back? Wow. It's interesting to hear you talk about, I guess, it sounds like you're describing audience capture where you start to shift what you post based on what your followers respond positively to. And over time, there's a risk that you lose sight of your own principles and also that you become sort of either a caricature of yourself or you start to get typecast a little bit. And my reaction to this has been sometimes to deliberately post things that I know people are not going to like, but that I feel strongly about. I just did this. I posted some new research I read on astrology.

19:03I saw that. You saw that. I knew exactly what was coming. I know there is a subset of my audience that is unwilling to have rational dialogue about the fact that the positions of the sun, the moon, and the stars, when you were born, have no bearing on anything that happens in your head or your life. And the evidence is very clear on this, but there's a group of people who like other content I create that will just not have it. And I started to feel like, is astrology, you know, the most important thing? No. But is it an example of a failure of critical thinking and people being unwilling to consider evidence that challenges their core beliefs?

19:42Yes. And this is the kind of thing I would normally share. I share evidence that I think is accurate regardless of how people are going to feel about it. And so when I read this, the impulse I had not to share it was the one that I felt like I needed to ignore. And just as a matter of principle, I needed to do it. So I'd just love to get your reaction to this. Am I poking the bear too much? Some people actually commented that they think every once in a while, I'm just trying to rage bait people or create engagement via comments. I'm like, no, it hurts me to see all these people failing at the thing that I care about teaching, which is critical thinking and open-mindedness and an appreciation of evidence.

20:23I don't want to do this, but I feel it's the right thing to do. So I would love your advice as an expert. How should I think about this? No, I resonate with that because I also too appreciate critical thinking, right? And if people are going to just call me controversial, that's fine because the goal is to make sure that people are still critically thinking for themselves. I really like your framing of this because I don't want anyone to think that I'm a professional debunker or that I'm someone who deliberately courts controversy. It's actually the opposite. My natural instinct is to avoid controversy.

20:58And part of how I try to keep growing is to try to be courageous in those moments and say, yeah, I read this evidence and I think it's worth sharing and I need to challenge myself to put it out there even though I know some people are gonna get upset by it and that it might touch a nerve. My job is not to manage your emotions. My job is to share quality information. Yep. You took a stand on a topic that I would not have touched with a 10-foot pole. I cannot even imagine speaking about it. And you captured everything I could have and would have said about it and much more, far better than I ever could have.

21:39And I want to ask you about it. So your post was called, Your Pain is Not Unique. I hate to be the one to tell you, but somebody has. So your pain is not unique. It's not special. It's not exclusive. It is not proof that the world is harder for you than it is for everyone else. It's just pain. And pain is part of being human. Yes, your story matters. Yes, what you've been through shaped you. But be careful not to build your identity around your wounds because the moment that you start believing your pain makes you different, you'll start protecting that pain instead of healing from it. Yes. That was one of my favorite posts, if I'm being honest.

22:19Mine too. Where did this one come from? Personal experiences, right? Like if I go back to my era of victimhood, you could have not told me that my pain was not unique. And I just hope that with me creating that content or like calling that up, like your pain is not unique and or special. Maybe it is special and unique to you. I didn't say that in a video. It is. But however, it's not special and unique to all of the other people around you. And that's a hard truth to hear. In that video, you said, be careful not to build your identity around your wounds. Why? If you build your identity around your wounds, your worldviews are filtered through your wounds and never really through the growth that can happen.

23:11If it's all about your wounds, anything that I say to you is gonna be filtered through pain. And if it's always filtered through pain, it makes it very difficult for you to hear anything else. And if we think about how we can develop cognitively or just neuroplasticity, you're already shutting those very things down because you're more attached to your wounds than you are to growth. Yeah, I mean, that captures it so well. You said you went through a phase of victimhood. Oh, yeah. How did you get from there to here? I have some really honest people in my life where they will call me out on my stuff.

23:53But I've always been the type of person that will talk about what I'm struggling with. And until I find the right person that can support me, I don't let it die. Sounds like you have a great challenge network. I'm curious, what did they say to you? Did somebody say, stop seeing yourself as a victim? No, we don't use the word victim. But I remember the first person that comes to my mind, I used to call my mother-in-law when I was struggling. I used to always call her and just like venting about all of the things. And she was like, if you want something else, then just change it. Like, stop complaining.

24:28You've been complaining for a while. Just change it. And I remember hearing her say that, and I was like, she's right. And my husband, he's really honest, too. And I think it's the thing, like, if you don't like it, then change it. And that just stuck with me. When I went to this coaching program, one of the foundational principles that they introduce us to, the greatest freedom is the freedom of choice. And I used to always think about, in what ways am I not exercising my choice?

24:59All right, let's do a lightning round. You ready for this? I'm ready. What's the worst mental health advice that you see people give or get regularly? You need to protect your mental health. I think that that is bad advice. So what's your alternative advice then? If it's not, protect your mental health. What is it? Exercise your mental health. What's something you've rethought or changed your mind about lately? What comes to my mind is my own personal journey. that I have to figure out everything now that the world is saying that life has changed. They're saying you're a celebrity now. And I'm like, I don't have to respond to all that's happening today.

25:38I think an older version of me would have gotten wrapped up in like FOMO, like capitalized on the opportunities that are presenting themselves. And I'm like, if it's really not for me, then it will not be for me. And that has offered me a sense of freedom and peace to continue to just like be true to myself. That is wisdom that I have rarely heard among people who follow the path that you've gone down. What is a hot take or an unpopular opinion that you feel passionate about? Fresh on my mind today is the labels that we put in front of the word mental health. Like there's no such thing as black mental health.

26:19There's no such thing as a woman's mental health. There's no such thing as men's mental health. It's mental health. The labels just give us context. Like, I don't think that you need those additional identifiers in front of mental health for people to know that you may navigate the world differently. Wow. Powerful. Who are your dream dinner party guests, alive or dead? um thomas soul dr joseph white who's a psychologist renee brown what's the question you have for me what is one thing that is unpopular that you have not shared with the masses yet oh no you're trying to get me canceled requel is that what's happening right now?

27:12Kind of, kind of. You know what? I'll give you one. And this, this maybe is a challenge for you. It was actually a challenge for me too. I think there's a growing body of evidence to suggest that most post-traumatic growth is imaginary, not real. That people say things made them better because they want to eliminate cognitive dissonance and rationalize their suffering, kind of like someone who went through sorority or fraternity hazing. But the growth is not always manifested in shifts in their, at least visible shifts in their thinking, feeling, and action. And I don't know where to put the number, but my read of the latest evidence is that it's possible that only 10 or 20 % of claimed post-traumatic growth is observable by people around us.

28:06And that doesn't mean the growth isn't happening, but I don't know. What's your reaction to that? So I was feeling some dissonance in here as I was listening to it, but I started thinking about this whole coping versus capacity and just a really basic example came to my mind, right? When I think of the person that is now successful, they're living life on their own terms, but they're always needing these breaks from life. They haven't necessarily incorporated it into their overall well-being, but yet they feel like they have grown beyond their trauma, but they're still in survival. But because they have stability, they think that something has really changed.

28:51Yes. So I would actually agree with that. And here I thought you were going to have some compelling pushback. No, because if capacity is about what you produce, I think that the producing is in the wisdom, the consistency, the sustainability, right? And a lot of people are still struggling today despite the help, the information, the language that they have. And I've actually observed it a lot. So interesting. So I guess where that leaves me is to say, when somebody tells you about a really hard experience and says, I'm glad I went through it because it made me the following. My reaction is you don't have to be glad that you went through it.

29:39You can learn something from it. It's the integration, Adam. Yeah. It's how you integrate that experience into your life. because can I share something with you? Please. So I lost my mom to an overdose when I was 11 years old. And it was just really hard for me. I had a lot of bitterness, anger. I went through a lot of different phases. And you won't catch me saying that I'm glad that I had that experience, that I lost my mother. What I am grateful for is that I can now see myself in her. So when I became a mom and I realized that I had the ability to cause harm, even to my own children, I was like, whoa, like it hit me like a ton of bricks.

30:24It was like, oh, wow. So you're no different from your mom. And that created this connection to where I really felt like it was no longer about I needed to go through these things or her death really challenged me to be a better person. Because truth told, I did not become a better person until I realized that my crap stinks, too, or has the ability to stink. And that's how I started to integrate my experiences. And now I have this connection with her that I've never had before because I don't think I'm any better than her. And I used to think that. Wow. First of all, thank you for sharing. I'm sorry for your loss.

31:01So sorry for your loss. Thank you. Secondly, I think you're pointing to something that I've tried to remind people of, but I never realized it was connected to this idea of post-traumatic growth, which is people conflate wisdom and experience all the time. And I just want to say over and over again, Wisdom does not come from experience. It comes from reflecting on experience and then changing your actions in response to that reflection. And so many people think that, well, just because I went through this, therefore I am different. No, that's the beginning of change. It's not the end. Yep. And it takes time too, because those reflections don't always hit you immediately.

31:49Like I say that mine took 20 plus years. Wow. And having that discomfort for 20 plus years, I would say in the middle of that, all of that has produced what you see today, going back to the capacity concept, right? Well, I don't want to say I'm glad it happened then, but I am very glad that you went through the growth after it to be in a position to drop all this wisdom on us. Well, thank you. Okay, last question for you before I let you go. What's your most important advice for helping people build capacity? To have grace with yourself, recognizing that we're going to go through these seasons of transition and change, and you have to be open to developing.

32:39The goal is not to arrive at this final destination, but to keep yourself open to evolving and evolution. But it requires grace. Well, you are my favorite voice on mental health. I've learned so much from your work, and I really can't wait to read the book and watch the TED Talk and all of the other great things that I hope are right around the corner. Thank you. Thank you. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by TED with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glazer. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winnick, and our fact checker is Paul Durbin.

33:25Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Hilash, Banban Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivong, and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Hsu and Allison Leighton Brown.

33:40What do you think is the most important skill that HR leaders need to develop? Flexibility and adaptability. Nope, can I change it? Yeah, look at you rethinking on the spot in real time. I'm like, nope, can I change it?