Walking into Dr. Renita Newton’s office is unlike walking into other counseling centers. There is a couch, but there are also shelves of sound bowls, a gong, dim lighting and a mellow playlist. “I want people to feel at peace when they walk in,” she said. The tranquil environment transcends the chaos of life—so much so that you would never guess the work it took for Dr. Newton to triumph over her own trauma to help others do the same.
No stranger to hardship, Newton took on the role of her siblings’ caregiver after her father was incarcerated and following the loss of her mother at age 14. Though trauma, grief and an emphasis on survival marked childhood, curiosity and advocacy for herself and her siblings carried her through adolescence and beyond. It propelled her into an ambitious journey to becoming a first-generation college graduate, and now a clinical mental health practitioner with a Ph.D. “We were all like crabs in a barrel,” she said about her home life. “I was the crab that got out.”
Often told to be quiet and sit down, Newton got into “good trouble,” as she calls it, when questioning life’s inequities. Not one to stay silent and accept a negative situation, Newton’s unfailing advocacy remains at the core of who she is today. “I want to be a beacon of hope for others even though I was silenced as a child,” she said.
As a teen, Newton discovered educational programs as an opportunity to escape the trauma permeating her home, but college never crossed her mind as a possibility until a school counselor encouraged her to chase a dream that felt bigger than her. Fast forward 13 years of education, multiple degrees and various professional endeavors, and that tenacious teen who would skip the bus to attend after-school clubs and forego dinner to ensure her siblings ate is now Dr. Renita Newton with a whole new set of ambitions.
Until she started the doctoral program at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC), Newton’s anthem was hard work. “For me, as a person of color, I struggled with the cultural work ethic of, ‘Do do do do, even if you’re tired, keep going,’” she said. “But what about light work?”
In her doctoral dissertation, she posed the question: If students explored six mindful interventions, would they be less stressed? The study, which focused on African American doctoral students, found that practicing deep breathing and actual rest was not the antithesis of hard work but rather the gateway to coping and ultimately succeeding. The overwhelming majority of students in the study saw success.
In December of 2023, Newton graduated from the counseling education doctoral program at TAMUCC with the prestigious Outstanding Islander Graduate award. Her colleagues noted her compassionate advocacy; inclusion for community members who regularly experience disparities in access to quality care as part of her research; and the contribution of her talents to successfully acquire a grant for the university’s inaugural Wellness Expo as deserving attributes. Her time as a counseling professional and adjunct faculty member at the University Counseling Center also reflects these principles.
Through her body of research and now with her new private practice, Bound 2 Rize—which concentrates on mending clinical mental health and sound bath meditation—Newton is changing the narrative of what it means to tend to our mental and emotional health.
“I am very big on inclusivity and bringing experiences to historically marginalized communities,” she said. She emphasized that self-discovery journeys, coping skills, breath work and practicing mindfulness as a whole are not just activities reserved for white men and women going on expensive meditation retreats. She’s determined to make mental health prioritization the norm for everyone.
“We have 60,000 thoughts a day and they aren’t all pretty,” Newton said. “I see this [her practice] being a multifaceted entity where individuals can come and get what they need to be their most confident, freed and worthy self,” she said. “I would love to be a tiny part of a movement toward whole body healing, where people become healthy and whole, where souls are glowing and energy is transformed from sadness into power.”
Newton skews toward the curious, always moving forward in a journey to self-actualization, discovery and healing. However, her superpower lies in the research and years of clinical experience resulting in a multi-faceted approach. She obtained a sound healing certification through Divine Global People and has the clinical expertise to process with clients afterward, rather than letting them go. Though she isn’t doing intake in a clinical sense, Newton’s credentials allow her to take more of a trauma-informed approach. Through this unique perspective, she finds that clients’ learning is liberated, which opens the door to healing.
Though Newton would not have escaped “the barrel” without the drive to push through barriers and the resilience to pursue education, she found curiosity about self-discovery and healing as the key to unlocking the power to do this work to its highest potential. It’s not all grit and repression, it’s not just pushing through hardship, it’s being set free from it where true healing can happen. “We are self-actualizing, we are elevating ourselves and our frequency to its highest potential,” she said.
From those early adolescent years advocating for herself and her siblings to forging a career path at the intersection of clinical mental health and mindfulness, Newton’s always been a catalyst for change. In fact, one of her next goals is to partner with neurologists to research the effects of sound bath meditation on brain waves.
She pokes holes in what is accepted as the norm and dares to imagine a world in which true healing can happen, regardless of how deep the personal wounds are. Newton is on a never-ending journey toward healing and, instead of curiosity birthed from repression and inequity as the drive, she’s living in the reality that she deserves to take up space, be heard and create a launch pad for others to do the same.
