✊🏾Show Your Support. Donate Today!
Rooted and Rising
R&R is where mental health, storytelling, and real life collide. Hosted by Dr. Carmela Maxell—author, licensed clinician, professor, and mental health advocate—each episode is an honest, unfiltered conversation with yourself and the world. Expect clinical insight delivered without jargon, personal stories that don't ask permission, and the kind of truth that healers, creatives, survivors, and seekers have been waiting to hear out loud. For those carrying too much. For the therapists who need therapy. For the writers who bleed on the page. For anyone rooted in something real and still rising.
“I Don’t Need Another Life Lesson”: When Life Be Lifein’ and Throws Curveballs
Have you ever had one of those weeks where life seems to look at everything already on your plate and say, “You know what? She has room for more.” The meetings multiply. The emails won’t stop. The kids suddenly remember something they needed yesterday. The Keurig betrays you. Your calendar looks li...
SUNDAY SEEDS OF THOUGHT: Solving For X When You Don't Know WHY
It’s Sunday. The week hasn’t even started yet. So why have you already rehearsed Monday’s conversation, worried about Tuesday’s meeting, predicted Wednesday’s disappointment, and somehow arrived at Friday emotionally exhausted? In this Sunday Seeds of Thought, Dr. Carmela Maxell explores the differe...
Nobody Knows What They’re Doing: The Myth of the Fully Functioning Adult
At some point, you look around for the responsible adult in the room and realize— Oh shit. It’s you. In this episode of Rooted & Rising , Dr. Carmela Maxell takes on one of adulthood’s biggest scams: the idea that everyone else somehow has life figured out. From careers, parenting, relationships, b...
SUNDAY SEEDS OF THOUGHT: You Don’t Have to Earn Your Bed
You Don’t Have to Earn Your Bed. What if rest wasn’t something you had to earn? We tell ourselves we’ll slow down after the work is finished, the emails are answered, the house is clean, everyone else is taken care of, and the never-ending list is finally complete. But what happens when “everything”...
What Love Never Looks Like: Domestic Violence, Interpersonal Violence, and the Courage to Heal
What happens when something that looks like love slowly becomes control, fear, isolation, or harm? In this deeply personal episode of Rooted & Rising with Dr. Carmela Maxell , Dr. Carmela Maxell sits down with author, entrepreneur, advocate, and domestic violence survivor Rita J. Cartwright for an ...
SUNDAY SEEDS OF THOUGHT: Don’t Forget Your Lunch… or Your Limits
Sunday night has a way of turning into a full mental rehearsal for the week ahead. The calendar. The meetings. The school drop-offs. The appointments. The errands. The lunches. The things you promised you would remember. The things you already know you are probably going to forget. And somewhere in ...
MIDNIGHT REFLECTION: I Miss When the Future Felt Far Away
There was a time when tomorrow felt distant. Like there would always be enough time to figure things out later. Lately, though, the future can feel uncomfortably close. In this Midnight Reflection of Rooted & Rising , Dr. Carmela Maxell explores the quiet fear that comes from living with constant u...
Aging With Dignity: Mental Health, Autonomy & the People Our Systems Overlook
Aging With Dignity: Mental Health, Autonomy & the People Our Systems Overlook Airing September 1, 2026 What does it really mean to care for people as they age—not simply keeping them safe, but protecting their dignity, autonomy, identity, and right to continue directing their own lives? In this epis...
SUNDAY SEEDS OF THOUGHT: The World Doesn’t Stop When Yours Does
What happens when something changes your life—but Tuesday is still Tuesday? The emails keep coming. The bills are still due. People still need things from you. And somehow, while part of you is trying to understand what just happened, the rest of the world keeps moving. In this deeply personal Sunda...
Looking in the Mirror: Self-Reflection, Accountability, and the Systems That Shape Us
What if changing the systems around us requires us to first examine the systems within us? In this powerful episode of Rooted & Rising , Dr. Carmela Maxell sits down with educator, scholar, therapist, veteran, and advocate Dr. Jeremy Hollander for an unfiltered conversation about systemic ineq...