Bright Lights: Mike de la Rocha Redefines Healing and Masculinity

Mike de la Rocha might be speaking at a prestigious book festival one day, and the next he may be cofacilitating a healing circle with men who lost their homes during the Los Angeles fires.  

“Everything I do is rooted in love,” he says. 

In every facet of his career—and his life—de la Rocha seeks authentic connection. That’s true in his role as CEO of Revolve Impact, the creative agency he cofounded in 2014, and when he’s performing on stages like those at TEDx and SXSW; sharing the spotlight with artists like Jon Batiste and Ben Harper; or drawing inspiration from changemakers he’s worked with over the years, including performer John Legend, activist Dolores Huerta, and the late singer Harry Belafonte. 

In June 2025, de la Rocha added another title to his already impressive résumé: published author. His memoir, Sacred Lessons: Teaching My Father How to Love, explores the struggle men face in connecting with themselves and others and gives them tools to grow personally and to build meaningful and authentic relationships.

His efforts haven’t gone unrecognized. De la Rocha is on GOOD Magazine’s list of the top 100 people reshaping the world. He’s received the AFL-CIO’s Justice, Peace, and Freedom Award and the Shorty Social Good Award for Social Justice, and he was lauded as a trailblazing innovator by Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Breaking the Silence

Sacred Lessons began as a tribute to his father, written in his father’s voice, but publishers wanted more of de la Rocha. “I was hiding behind my father’s voice,” he says. “I was afraid to do the deep grief work. I didn’t want to dig into my own pain.”  

Therapy and spiritual practices helped him not only write the book that got published, but also heal from years of emotional shutdown and the effects of employing various unhealthy survival tactics in navigating racism and the patriarchy. As he was writing, de la Rocha saw how silence and emotional suppression had affected both of them.

“We didn’t know how to ask for help,” he says. “We were raised in a society that told men not to cry or express anything soft. That kind of conditioning is deadly.” De la Rocha believes the “weight of patriarchy” contributed to his father’s early death. “If he would’ve had the vocabulary to ask for help … he might still be alive today,” he notes.

He hopes Sacred Lessons normalizes men asking for help. 

Cultural Foundations

Born outside Los Angeles and raised in Ventura, California, de la Rocha says he learned early that “our role is to use our gifts in service to others.” His late father, a community college professor, was a leader in the Chicano and civil rights movements. His mother, who is of Mexican descent, has spent more than 50 years working at Head Start, a federal preschool program for low-income families.  

“I grew up going to United Farm Worker rallies and pickets,” he says. “I was always rooted in education and knowledge of self and culture.” Still, he struggled with belonging. When he started attending the mostly white Catholic school his mother paid for by working multiple jobs, he had difficulty with English because Spanish was his first language.  

“None of the kids would play with me, and they used to call me E.T.,” de la Rocha says, referencing the alien from the 1982 film. “I still feel the pain from those moments. A lot of the things I’m trying to heal now are the ways that I learned to survive in those younger years.” 

When his parents learned what was happening at school, they decided to speak only English to him at home. Speaking Spanish was reserved for visits to his grandparents’ house in East Los Angeles. 

“Healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it takes place in community. Much of what we seek is already present in our own cultural roots and ancestral practices.”

“One world was predominately middle class and white,” he remembers, “and the other was working class and brown. It was this clash of cultures.” To navigate those divides, de la Rocha learned to code switch—the practice of shifting language, behavior, or appearance depending on the social setting. To fit in, he changed his name from Michael to Mike and even dyed his brown hair blond. 

In school, he says he “gravitated toward the misfits—the marginalized or forgotten—because I understood that experience.” He skateboarded, surfed, and joined a punk rock band.  

When he went off to UCLA at age 17, he dreamed of becoming a rock star. But in college, his definition of service and how he could contribute expanded. He was mentored by activists like the late Tom Hayden, punk guitarist Wayne Kramer, and Belafonte, who funded de la Rocha’s early performances abroad. The writings of Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Gloria Anzaldúa “gave me language and context,” de la Rocha adds. 

Over time, his cultural roots became a source of healing. “We’re all indigenous to some part of the world, and there are cultural practices that Mother Earth teaches us to help us process pain, trauma, and anger,” he says. “I’m still processing.” 

From Policy to Purpose

De la Rocha earned a bachelor’s degree in American literature and Chicano studies from UCLA and a master’s in cross-cultural conflict and resolution from California State University, Dominguez Hills. At 23, he became the youngest person hired by the City of Los Angeles’ Human Relations Commission.  

He spent nearly a decade working for local city government and an elected official, learning how policy gets made and passed. He then moved to statewide advocacy, helping lead a landmark criminal justice reform campaign. “I really started to intentionally integrate culture, art, and music around amplifying and moving people to action,” he recalls. 

His wife was the one who suggested they start Revolve Impact in 2014. “We didn’t see a creative agency run by directly impacted folks, so we created one,” de la Rocha says.  

The agency has led several campaigns for justice, including running the communications and community engagement for the largest bailout in U.S. history (which freed 105 women and children from Rikers Island), helping launch John Legend’s Free America initiative, and managing Athletes for Impact, a national network of athlete activists.

Revolve Impact, he says, is at the heart of much of what he does, including running communications for Tepito Coffee, a community-centered coffee shop in Pasadena. 

Sacred Mornings

Writing his book became a spiritual practice. De la Rocha carved out time in the early morning hours to pray, meditate, and write. “What was a delightful surprise was the power of that ritual of writing,” he says. “It allowed me to tap into something outside of myself. It was my story, but I was so open and vulnerable that it felt like my dad was speaking through me.” 

When the writing became emotionally difficult, monarch butterflies would often appear—gentle nudges, he believes, from his father to move through fear and go deeper. Even now, he says, “When I see one, it’s like he’s telling me, ‘Keep going.’”

De la Rocha sees the work as multigenerational. “I believe I’m healing for myself, my son, and for my father,” he says. 

He hopes readers learn that “healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it takes place in community. Much of what we seek is already present in our own cultural roots and ancestral practices; reconnecting with those traditions can be deeply restorative. And healing in nature alongside others accelerates and amplifies our individual and collective healing. 

“When we spend time outside, away from our phones and with others, it helps regulate our nervous systems and reminds us we’re not alone in facing life’s challenges.” 

This article appeared in the September/October 2025 of Spirituality & Health: A Unity Publication^®. Subscribe now.