Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 1: The Hidden Cost of Being the Man Everyone Needs You to Be

Transcript

EP 1: The Hidden Cost of Being the Man Everyone Needs You to Be · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

0:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is Kiri Ganes.
0:09
Speaker 1: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, we talk
0:12
Speaker 1: about what it actually takes become a full comprehensive man.
0:17
Speaker 1: Welcome to the very first episode of my brand new podcast,
0:21
Speaker 1: Learn the Hard Way. My name is kier Gaines. I'm
0:24
Speaker 1: a husband, a father, I'm a licensed therapist, I'm a
0:28
Speaker 1: professional speaker. I'm a lover of the people. I'm a boy.
0:31
Speaker 1: I grew up fighting and cussing and throwing rocks and
0:34
Speaker 1: scraping my knee and playing outside. And I'm a man
0:37
Speaker 1: who learned far too many lessons in life the hard way,
0:41
Speaker 1: and that's okay. It's not always a bad thing. And
0:44
Speaker 1: by rocking with me through this show, one thing we're
0:46
Speaker 1: gonna do is we're gonna turn those lessons into something
0:50
Speaker 1: very meaningful. We're gonna allow her to inform what we
0:52
Speaker 1: do moving forward. It's gonna make us better, it's gonna
0:55
Speaker 1: make us stronger. But before we even get into all that,
0:59
Speaker 1: back in the day, back in the gap, as they
1:02
Speaker 1: say in Texas, and my grandma Church used to be
1:04
Speaker 1: this lady named Miss Eloise, Miss Eloise Man. She reads
1:08
Speaker 1: so damn slow. It don't make no sense, like, hey,
1:11
Speaker 1: show today we're going to talk about like she was
1:15
Speaker 1: one of them. But she always did this thing when
1:17
Speaker 1: she welcomed everybody into the church where she just does
1:21
Speaker 1: like housekeeping, and she just sets the tone. So let
1:25
Speaker 1: me set the tone for this part. Because a lot
1:28
Speaker 1: of y'all may know me from social media. We get
1:31
Speaker 1: forty million people watching my page a month, and thank
1:34
Speaker 1: you if you follow. A lot of y'all may know
1:36
Speaker 1: me from maybe somewhere on TV. A lot of y'all
1:39
Speaker 1: may know me because you might owe me money or
1:40
Speaker 1: something like that. And that's okay. I forgive y'all still
1:43
Speaker 1: want my bread, but I forgive you for that. But
1:45
Speaker 1: some of y'all never met me before, and this is
1:47
Speaker 1: the first time we interact, and so I want to
1:49
Speaker 1: let you know what this space is learn the hard way.
1:53
Speaker 1: Even though this is a podcast that does talk about
1:55
Speaker 1: men's mental health, most specifically black men's mental health. I
1:59
Speaker 1: want you to know that if you're not a man
2:02
Speaker 1: and you find yourself in this space, you welcome here.
2:05
Speaker 1: You welcome here, absolutely, come learn with us. Man. Why
2:08
Speaker 1: not if you're not a black man, you will welcome here.
2:12
Speaker 1: Come here, Come learn, Come be a part of the community.
2:15
Speaker 1: Come jib with us. Let's get better together. You know,
2:18
Speaker 1: if you are a black man who say man therapy
2:20
Speaker 1: some bullshit, I challenge that. But you welcome here, bro.
2:26
Speaker 1: You welcome. Whether you wake up in the morning and
2:28
Speaker 1: you do a little bit of yoga and you greet
2:31
Speaker 1: the sun, or whether you wake up in the morning,
2:32
Speaker 1: you sit on your toilet, you light a blunt and
2:34
Speaker 1: you scroll through TikTok for two hours, you welcome here.
2:38
Speaker 1: That's what this space is, man. We are going to
2:41
Speaker 1: have honest conversations about things that it's not really safe
2:44
Speaker 1: to have honest conversations about out in the world. Because
2:48
Speaker 1: the purpose is for us to talk through it, get
2:51
Speaker 1: through it and not only be better, but get better,
2:55
Speaker 1: and not only get better, but feel better, not only
2:58
Speaker 1: feel better, but live better. And we can't do that
3:01
Speaker 1: if we were keeping all the good conversations in our pockets,
3:05
Speaker 1: if we not talking about something because it makes us uncomfortable.
3:09
Speaker 2: I don't care.
3:10
Speaker 1: I'm putting it out there. We're gonna talk about it,
3:13
Speaker 1: we're gonna explore it, we're gonna ask questions, and we're
3:15
Speaker 1: gonna move through life differently because that's what all of
3:18
Speaker 1: this is about. So welcome, welcome to learn the hard way.
3:21
Speaker 1: Clap it up for yourself, for y'all gonna learn a
3:28
Speaker 1: lot about me throughout this prior, prior, prior. Now, keep
3:31
Speaker 1: that in, keep the mistake in. I want to say
3:34
Speaker 1: prodcasts because it's a mix of a process in a podcast.
3:37
Speaker 1: One of the things y'all gonna learn about me. Man,
3:39
Speaker 1: I'm unapologetically human. A lot of folks come in on
3:42
Speaker 1: some guruve type shit like they know everything, they got
3:45
Speaker 1: all they shit together. My shit is not altogether, it's
3:48
Speaker 1: not I make many mistakes. I feel miserably sometimes as
3:52
Speaker 1: a husband, I feel miserably as a father, I feel
3:55
Speaker 1: miserably as a businessman. But I don't allow those mistakes
3:59
Speaker 1: to define me, and you shouldn't either. If I knew everything,
4:03
Speaker 1: there would be no need to learn anything new. So
4:07
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for being on this journey and
4:08
Speaker 1: self discovery. Man, you're not doing me a favor. You
4:11
Speaker 1: really benefiting yourself by being here and capturing all of
4:14
Speaker 1: this good shit. So good on you. I like that.
4:16
Speaker 1: Look at you doing better and stuff you all right
4:20
Speaker 1: for today's episode, we have a lot to talk about.
4:22
Speaker 1: I want to get into it and get it with
4:24
Speaker 1: no further delay. Let's go. So today's episode. One of
4:29
Speaker 1: the things I want to talk about today, or the
4:31
Speaker 1: main thing that I want to talk about today. It's
4:33
Speaker 1: something that you see on your timeline. Often. You hear
4:37
Speaker 1: people talk about it. You hear people judge folks about it,
4:40
Speaker 1: but we don't really get into the minutia of it.
4:44
Speaker 1: And that's masking. I myself have been guilty of masking.
4:48
Speaker 1: You hear people talk about people pleasing, people pleaseing, know you,
4:51
Speaker 1: fake you, masking. It's so much deeper than that, y'all.
4:54
Speaker 1: It's so much deeper than the idea of pretending to
4:58
Speaker 1: be somebody that you're not. It's not that. Let me
5:01
Speaker 1: give you an example. So, before I started doing social
5:05
Speaker 1: media full time, during the content creating and influencing and
5:08
Speaker 1: all of that asfar, I was a therapist. Even before
5:11
Speaker 1: I was a personal trainer. Back in the day, I
5:13
Speaker 1: used to be an educator and I worked in schools.
5:15
Speaker 1: I worked in schools with kids that had some real
5:17
Speaker 1: big challenges man, behavioral, economic challenges, you name it. These
5:21
Speaker 1: kids just had a lot of barriers in between where
5:23
Speaker 1: they were and where they wanted to be and my
5:25
Speaker 1: goal was to help eliminate the barriers, and I did
5:28
Speaker 1: my absolute best, failed a lot, but I helped a
5:31
Speaker 1: lot of people too. And after I worked in the school,
5:35
Speaker 1: I worked for like. I worked at the state level
5:38
Speaker 1: of education. I worked at Well to Be like the
5:40
Speaker 1: corporate office of education, and I worked at special education.
5:43
Speaker 1: And it was y'all, this was my first job. When
5:45
Speaker 1: I was working in the school, I was making thirty
5:47
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars a year. It wasn't that long ago.
5:50
Speaker 1: I was barely paying my bills. I was doing the
5:52
Speaker 1: work of the lord. But I was a brokeman. Do
5:55
Speaker 1: you understand I was making no money. I made so
5:59
Speaker 1: little money teaching that I used to. I had like
6:05
Speaker 1: ten dollars in my account and I just overdraft that
6:07
Speaker 1: joint to fill up my tank because I know I'll
6:09
Speaker 1: get paid the next day. It's like, look, I ain't
6:11
Speaker 1: got enough money in my account to feel my tank,
6:13
Speaker 1: but they're not gonna stop excellon you feel me. So
6:16
Speaker 1: I was struggling. This was my first job. When I
6:19
Speaker 1: worked in big education, where I made six figures and
6:22
Speaker 1: I had a baby on the way. It was just
6:23
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on me to perform. So I
6:26
Speaker 1: get the job and it's good and it's great. And
6:28
Speaker 1: when I get there, I realized something. I kind of
6:32
Speaker 1: feel like they do. They did me a favor by
6:34
Speaker 1: hiring me. I ain't gonna hold you. I was in
6:36
Speaker 1: that joint not being the person who I am, but
6:41
Speaker 1: I kind of shifted into the person who I thought
6:43
Speaker 1: they wanted me to be. Does that make any sense.
6:46
Speaker 1: I was around people who had more education than me.
6:48
Speaker 1: I was around a lot of white people who I
6:50
Speaker 1: haven't worked with a lot of white people before, and
6:52
Speaker 1: these were like super educated, liberal white people who just
6:55
Speaker 1: had a lot of words. And my first meeting there,
6:58
Speaker 1: I feel like it was going a million in myuse
7:00
Speaker 1: per hour. I had no idea what was going on.
7:03
Speaker 1: I was smart, but I jumped in the water that
7:06
Speaker 1: my body wasn't acclimated to and man, I just got
7:11
Speaker 1: in that joint. Next thing, I know, I'm not talking
7:13
Speaker 1: like this. I'm like, yeah, well, if you if you
7:15
Speaker 1: look at the projections from last season, what you will
7:18
Speaker 1: find is that the the ROI and the synergy really
7:22
Speaker 1: coalesces to the ethos of the apron For you, what
7:26
Speaker 1: is that? What is that that you're doing? And it
7:30
Speaker 1: was a form of masking. And why was I masking? Well,
7:34
Speaker 1: I was masking because I'm from the projects. I'm from
7:36
Speaker 1: the projects of DC, and this is how I talk.
7:39
Speaker 1: I was cold switching and I was masking, and I
7:43
Speaker 1: was cold switching and masking because I felt like me
7:45
Speaker 1: the authentic media. Yeah, what's up, bro? Oh yeah, oh
7:48
Speaker 1: that's cool for sure. Yeah all that whoo woo woo.
7:51
Speaker 1: I felt like that wasn't acceptable in that place. And
7:55
Speaker 1: my masking and my cold switching was a self protective
7:58
Speaker 1: mechanism to make sure that I didn't fumble that bag
8:02
Speaker 1: because I was making six figures for the first time.
8:04
Speaker 1: So one thing I want to talk about in this
8:06
Speaker 1: episode that's not just this idea of masking and coach,
8:09
Speaker 1: which in how is somehow a betrayal to your authentic self,
8:12
Speaker 1: because that's bullshit, that's not true. I want to talk
8:15
Speaker 1: about why you do it. I want to talk about
8:17
Speaker 1: when you do it. I want to talk about why
8:19
Speaker 1: it helps you. I want to talk about why it
8:22
Speaker 1: doesn't help you and some of the things you need
8:24
Speaker 1: to look look out for. And I also want to
8:26
Speaker 1: talk you through it. What now on social media, we
8:30
Speaker 1: always talk about the problem we're good at highlighting the problem, man. Yeah,
8:34
Speaker 1: what we need to do is and blah blah blah
8:36
Speaker 1: blah blah, and we just spinning the problem around. We're
8:38
Speaker 1: spinning it around, and we don't come to any reasonable,
8:42
Speaker 1: actionable solution. And I want to stop that right here,
8:44
Speaker 1: right here. So let's jump into that, all right. So
8:48
Speaker 1: let's back up a little bit. Let's define masking and coasts,
8:52
Speaker 1: which in plainly so that you understand, because just judging
8:55
Speaker 1: something don't teach anybody how to navigate through it. You
8:58
Speaker 1: just make people feel worse about something they can't change.
9:01
Speaker 1: So masking is when someone hides how they really feel, think,
9:04
Speaker 1: or naturally act in order to fit in, feel accepted,
9:08
Speaker 1: or avoid judgment. So it's the way that you're oriented
9:11
Speaker 1: towards society so that you can fit in and be
9:14
Speaker 1: accepted and be a part of the herd. Because as
9:17
Speaker 1: much as we are individuals and individualistic and all that
9:21
Speaker 1: is cool and fine, kind of the basis the Bailey Wick.
9:25
Speaker 1: The central theme of humanity is community. And when you
9:28
Speaker 1: get kicked out of the pack, you know, the wolf
9:30
Speaker 1: that gets kicked out of the pack has a lower
9:32
Speaker 1: chance of survival. That's not just wolf mentality. That's any civilization,
9:36
Speaker 1: any society where group membership is a central theme, and
9:40
Speaker 1: humanity is like that, group membership is important. Think about
9:42
Speaker 1: all the different groups you belong to all right now.
9:46
Speaker 1: An example of like masking is is smiling and saying
9:51
Speaker 1: I'm good when you're actually overwhelmed. If you're a parent
9:54
Speaker 1: or newly ORed, you understand that very well. If you
9:58
Speaker 1: are a teenager, as a parent that loves you very much,
10:02
Speaker 1: and they love you so much that they feel everything
10:05
Speaker 1: you feel, and it ain't about your feelings no more,
10:07
Speaker 1: it's about them feeling like a bad parent, you learn
10:09
Speaker 1: how to go I'm fine. A lot of us mass
10:13
Speaker 1: that way, and we're not doing it because we're on
10:15
Speaker 1: some self betrayal humiliation ritual. We do it because we
10:19
Speaker 1: think that we're protecting ourselves in a moment, even when
10:22
Speaker 1: we're not.
10:23
Speaker 2: So.
10:23
Speaker 1: A simple way to say that it's just masking is
10:26
Speaker 1: when you cover up yourself, your true feelings and your
10:30
Speaker 1: true thoughts and sometimes even your true ambitions in order
10:34
Speaker 1: to not shake the table or ruffle feathers. It Really
10:37
Speaker 1: masking helps you go along to get along, which gets
10:40
Speaker 1: a bad rep. But when you're part of a group,
10:42
Speaker 1: whether you got coworkers, whether you're married, whether you got
10:45
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of rambunctious siblings and y'all trying to
10:47
Speaker 1: put together this dysfunctional Lass family reunion. Going along to
10:51
Speaker 1: get along kind of kind of helps things. It helps
10:53
Speaker 1: the process move. So it's not always a bad thing,
10:56
Speaker 1: but anything that you do in access can be a
10:58
Speaker 1: bad thing. Colde switching is different. Colde switching is when
11:02
Speaker 1: you change the way that you speak, act or dress,
11:05
Speaker 1: especially where you present yourself, and all of that is
11:08
Speaker 1: depending on who you are around. So with me, I
11:12
Speaker 1: do colde switch. I cold switch a lot like it's
11:15
Speaker 1: I promise myself I wouldn't do this on this podcast,
11:18
Speaker 1: I find myself doing it when I do content. Sometimes
11:21
Speaker 1: my essay has become a little bit sharper. You see,
11:24
Speaker 1: I won't say shopper. Shopper is how I talk. That's
11:26
Speaker 1: my DC accent. But if I'm doing brand content and
11:29
Speaker 1: these people are paying me a good amount of money
11:31
Speaker 1: to represent this fortune five hundred company, I might say
11:34
Speaker 1: sharper faster, smarter instead of shopper faster, smarter, harder. It's
11:42
Speaker 1: I know who my audience is, and it is an
11:45
Speaker 1: acceptability thing because in my mind I have a complex
11:49
Speaker 1: from growing up and living in the projects that people
11:51
Speaker 1: think you're not as smart when you don't speak a
11:54
Speaker 1: certain way. And that's something I constantly got a battle
11:57
Speaker 1: in my head all the time, all the time. Is
12:00
Speaker 1: not something I'm over something I'm constantly butting my head
12:02
Speaker 1: up against. Why because the world reinforces that idea every day.
12:06
Speaker 1: One and two, my coach is not the dominant coach,
12:09
Speaker 1: and the dominant culture typically has all the power, and
12:12
Speaker 1: with all the power comes all the access to economic
12:15
Speaker 1: resources aka money. You got all the money, and you
12:21
Speaker 1: don't want the people who control the resources to think
12:24
Speaker 1: that you're not worthy of the resources. So what do
12:26
Speaker 1: you do? You switch the cold. But also, I'm a
12:29
Speaker 1: licensed professional. I know everybody on social media given mental
12:33
Speaker 1: health advice. First off, they don't know what they're talking about,
12:37
Speaker 1: Like be careful with who you listen to. But also,
12:39
Speaker 1: I'm a licensed professional. I've done hours and hours and
12:42
Speaker 1: spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on education and training
12:46
Speaker 1: in order to be able to do this, not just
12:49
Speaker 1: all some bro science, but actually know what I'm doing
12:51
Speaker 1: and have the skill set and feel confident in what
12:54
Speaker 1: I'm doing and that approach. So I got an answer
12:57
Speaker 1: to a governing body. I can't just say anything anywhere
13:00
Speaker 1: I want, and sometimes when I'm around them, I do.
13:02
Speaker 1: Coldes Witch therapists have a way that we talk to
13:04
Speaker 1: each other when we're around each other. For sure, I
13:06
Speaker 1: want you to think about whatever field you work in,
13:08
Speaker 1: whether it's it or construction or wherever you at. Think
13:12
Speaker 1: about the way you talk with your colleagues versus the
13:14
Speaker 1: way you talk with your homies. I'm different when I'm
13:17
Speaker 1: on the PS five and we in the game and
13:19
Speaker 1: I'm playing Madden with somebody, I talk cas shit. It's
13:23
Speaker 1: a totally different way of talking than when I talk
13:25
Speaker 1: to my wife. I talk to my wife different than
13:28
Speaker 1: I talk to my children. I talk to my children
13:30
Speaker 1: different than I talk to the producers for this podcast
13:33
Speaker 1: you're listening to. You have to switch, not who you
13:37
Speaker 1: are necessarily, because you're not switching who you are. Who
13:39
Speaker 1: you are is very you know, you exist on the spectrum.
13:43
Speaker 1: You're not just You're never just one thing. So I
13:47
Speaker 1: don't want you to look at it like you're changing
13:49
Speaker 1: who you are. You're changing how you approach shit. That's
13:52
Speaker 1: very different. You're being mindful of who you're talking to,
13:56
Speaker 1: how they interpret you, and what this interaction may do
13:59
Speaker 1: for your future opportunities, whether they be romantic, whether they
14:02
Speaker 1: be economic. Think about it like this, how do you
14:04
Speaker 1: talk to somebody on the first date versus how you
14:07
Speaker 1: talk to them once y'all been in a relationship for
14:09
Speaker 1: three years. It's different, right, There's familiarity, there's a different
14:14
Speaker 1: level of self esteem that you approach it with. It's different.
14:18
Speaker 1: You're switching codes for different crowds, and it's kind of
14:22
Speaker 1: like the way I like to look at is you're
14:24
Speaker 1: switching different tools for different applications. I got a hammer,
14:28
Speaker 1: and that hammer will help me nail in these pictures
14:31
Speaker 1: behind my head that's hanging on my wall. Hammer ain't
14:33
Speaker 1: gonna do shit if my screen on my computer goes out,
14:38
Speaker 1: you feel me. I got a socket wrench, and if
14:40
Speaker 1: I need to tighten the training wheels on my daughter's bike,
14:43
Speaker 1: that socket wrench is very useful. Socket wrench is gonna
14:46
Speaker 1: do too much if I got a screw that comes
14:49
Speaker 1: loosing one of their toys. It's different tools for different applications.
14:54
Speaker 1: Something to think about. So that's one thing that I
14:57
Speaker 1: want everybody to know when we talk about these terms,
15:01
Speaker 1: they're not just a way to diminish the way you
15:04
Speaker 1: show up in the world. Nah, they are a way
15:06
Speaker 1: to define the different ways that you show up in
15:08
Speaker 1: the world. And shout out to everybody who ain't used
15:11
Speaker 1: to men talking like this, like, welcome to the pod, homie.
15:13
Speaker 1: This what we do. I told job I was gonna
15:15
Speaker 1: get to it. And this is the first few minutes
15:17
Speaker 1: of the episode. Let's let's dive deep into this because
15:20
Speaker 1: I really want to help folks understand how this can
15:23
Speaker 1: be beneficial to you. But what here? What the hell
15:26
Speaker 1: does all of this mean? What does it mean for me? Damn?
15:30
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked. Let's jump into that. When we
15:33
Speaker 1: talk about code switching, then we talk about mask and
15:35
Speaker 1: we often talk about words. But if you know anything
15:39
Speaker 1: about psychology, you know that a vast majority of the
15:43
Speaker 1: way we communicate is nonverbal. Think about it. When you
15:46
Speaker 1: walk into the room with somebody, before they say a
15:49
Speaker 1: single word, you're looking at the demeanor on their face.
15:52
Speaker 1: A lot of people use the term energy. I don't
15:54
Speaker 1: use energy so much. I use signals. You know, or
15:59
Speaker 1: you know, he had a very good energy about them.
16:01
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's signals. It's demeanor, it's small indicators that they
16:05
Speaker 1: given their posture or in their facial expression, in the
16:09
Speaker 1: way that they use words, and the way that they
16:12
Speaker 1: use jokes, and the way that they can feel themselves
16:14
Speaker 1: around the room. A person that walks up to you
16:17
Speaker 1: and say hey, what's up, and Hey, I'm Barack Obama
16:19
Speaker 1: and has the good, firm handshake and a nice smile,
16:23
Speaker 1: they give a different power presence. Some would say energy.
16:26
Speaker 1: I would say presence. They giving you different signals as
16:28
Speaker 1: to how they operate. For somebody who's slumped in the chair,
16:33
Speaker 1: you know, talking softly and not not really making eye contact,
16:38
Speaker 1: they're going to give you different signals. You're going to
16:40
Speaker 1: make assumptions about this person based on those things. So
16:44
Speaker 1: code switching isn't just about the verbal It's also about
16:47
Speaker 1: the non verbal signals that we give, how people interpret them,
16:51
Speaker 1: and how they use those interpretations to define how they
16:55
Speaker 1: perceive us. And talking about all of this, we were
16:58
Speaker 1: talking about the way that you use human the way
17:01
Speaker 1: that you use jokes, the way that you carry your
17:03
Speaker 1: confidence around, all of that. All of that is a
17:07
Speaker 1: form of manipulating how you show up in order to
17:10
Speaker 1: either code switch or mask or hide or tuck something away,
17:14
Speaker 1: or maybe put something out in the open so people
17:16
Speaker 1: don't see the more sensitive thing that you're hiding in
17:19
Speaker 1: the back, you know. But it also comes with some
17:23
Speaker 1: downfalls that I want to talk about. So one of
17:26
Speaker 1: the things that I like to do with people when
17:28
Speaker 1: we're in a therapy session is when we talk about
17:32
Speaker 1: the positives or something, or when we define as something,
17:34
Speaker 1: I also want you to name was hard about it.
17:37
Speaker 1: I think humans have a natural aversion to talking about
17:41
Speaker 1: the hard part of something. You know, nah, I'm good,
17:44
Speaker 1: everything good, or I'm gonna be good. You know, you
17:46
Speaker 1: project the goodness of the future instead of accepting the
17:49
Speaker 1: badness of the reality because that feels better. You know,
17:52
Speaker 1: accepting the badness of the reality feels hopeless sometimes, but
17:55
Speaker 1: when you talk about what could be good about it,
17:56
Speaker 1: it gives you something to look forward to. And one
17:59
Speaker 1: of the things I tell people when we're in a
18:01
Speaker 1: session and I'm trying to remind them to be present,
18:04
Speaker 1: is I want you to name the fatiguing part of
18:07
Speaker 1: what's going on, what is making you tied, what is
18:11
Speaker 1: wearing you down. Because one of my favorite books, Atomic Habits,
18:15
Speaker 1: James clar says, you don't rise to the level of
18:18
Speaker 1: your talents, you fall to the level of your systems.
18:20
Speaker 1: You'll probably hear me use that quote a million times
18:22
Speaker 1: because I think it's a bar. But you're always going
18:25
Speaker 1: to fall to your default mode. And your default mode
18:28
Speaker 1: usually turns on when you're fatigued. One thing about code
18:32
Speaker 1: switching and about masking is it fatigues you. Now. People
18:37
Speaker 1: The problem is people don't always feel like it's making
18:40
Speaker 1: you tire. You don't always feel the exhaustion because it's like,
18:44
Speaker 1: now I use this a lot of times too. It's
18:45
Speaker 1: like when you got a million apps up in your phone.
18:47
Speaker 1: It's not obviously drained in your battery, right, but in
18:51
Speaker 1: a way on the background it is. You don't see it,
18:55
Speaker 1: and it's not very it's not super super od, but
19:00
Speaker 1: it's still there and it's still affecting you in a way.
19:03
Speaker 1: Whether you feel it or not, it's affecting you. So
19:07
Speaker 1: when we talk about the fatigue, it's the constant having
19:11
Speaker 1: to be mindful of your own presentation. You know, if
19:14
Speaker 1: you walk in and your battery level is on three,
19:17
Speaker 1: you know you ain't got it today. I just said,
19:19
Speaker 1: man ain't I don't feel like doing too much, but
19:21
Speaker 1: you know that you have to mask that fatigue because
19:24
Speaker 1: everyone starts asking, man, what's wrong with you? You're not
19:26
Speaker 1: like yourself. They used to be being perky and hey,
19:29
Speaker 1: life of the party. You know what I'm saying, What
19:31
Speaker 1: do you do? You start masking and you start hey,
19:34
Speaker 1: jumping into the road that everybody expects me to be in.
19:37
Speaker 1: Expect me to be this and the confident and smarten.
19:41
Speaker 1: If you a dad, you understand protect the provider right.
19:45
Speaker 1: If you a mom, got the woo who you understand
19:48
Speaker 1: having to be all the things that everybody all the
19:50
Speaker 1: time you have to mask. That is exhausting, whether you
19:56
Speaker 1: admit it to yourself or not, but it is an
20:00
Speaker 1: exhaustion that you learn to live with. It's the joint
20:07
Speaker 1: I use all the time is if if the room
20:11
Speaker 1: you sit in there stinks, stay with me. Stay with me.
20:16
Speaker 1: If the room you're in stinks. You don't really know
20:20
Speaker 1: how bad the room smells until you have a chance
20:23
Speaker 1: to leave the room, not have any of that violate
20:26
Speaker 1: in your nostrils, and then come back into the room.
20:30
Speaker 1: You haven't been on vacation and you ain't take the
20:31
Speaker 1: trash out you know, you can get used to the
20:36
Speaker 1: smell of a room, you can get used to it.
20:39
Speaker 1: But when you go and you experience something that gives
20:41
Speaker 1: you a rest and reprieve from that experience, when you
20:45
Speaker 1: come back, the reality that experience is all up in
20:48
Speaker 1: your face and you can't ignore it. And it's the
20:51
Speaker 1: same with the mask. And the problem is you get
20:53
Speaker 1: so used to it, you get so used to hiding
20:56
Speaker 1: and tucking away your feelings that you don't you don't
20:59
Speaker 1: get that rest and reprief if you don't get to
21:01
Speaker 1: walk out of the room and breathe fresh air and
21:03
Speaker 1: then come back and realize how bad it stinks, and
21:06
Speaker 1: how bad it stinks in one of these scenarios is
21:10
Speaker 1: equitable to how exhausting, how fatiguing it could be to
21:13
Speaker 1: always put up this mask, to always have to cover
21:18
Speaker 1: your true and authentic emotions with this presentation of something
21:24
Speaker 1: that is not We always talk about being your authentic self,
21:27
Speaker 1: and sometimes masking is the definition of not being your
21:31
Speaker 1: authentic self. Not because you don't love yourself, not because
21:35
Speaker 1: you are a weak, pathetic person. It ain't none of that.
21:38
Speaker 1: It's nothing like that. You're masking because you feel it's
21:42
Speaker 1: necessary to get shit done. And when you're right, you're right.
21:48
Speaker 1: Maybe you're right, maybe it is necessary to get shit done.
21:52
Speaker 1: But what if you're not. What if you're wrong. What
21:58
Speaker 1: if that was helping you in one part of your
22:00
Speaker 1: life for a very long time and you have outgrown
22:04
Speaker 1: that moment in your life and now it's not helping you,
22:07
Speaker 1: and your brain has not done a good job of
22:10
Speaker 1: adjusting to the change. Your brain is still protecting you
22:13
Speaker 1: in that way, even though it's not necessary anymore. Do
22:16
Speaker 1: you know what it's called when you have behaviors and
22:19
Speaker 1: proclivities and mechanisms that you are demonstrating every day that
22:24
Speaker 1: are no longer helpful and that are doing the opposite
22:27
Speaker 1: of helping you. It's called harm. It's called harm. So
22:36
Speaker 1: let's move into this and eventually kind of talk about
22:38
Speaker 1: how to be aware of when we may be being
22:42
Speaker 1: harmful with ourselves, may be being maybe being harmful, maybe
22:45
Speaker 1: being yeah I said that right, when we may be
22:48
Speaker 1: being harmful to ourselves, and let's talk about what we
22:51
Speaker 1: can actually do about it. So masking. Masking is less
23:03
Speaker 1: of an individual quirk or like some anomaly or something
23:07
Speaker 1: like that. It's a pattern of behavior that you repeat
23:10
Speaker 1: constantly and consistently throughout time. I think of my personal
23:15
Speaker 1: experience of being a black man in corporate America and
23:20
Speaker 1: being told this feels like a flex But it's not
23:24
Speaker 1: being told that you're articulate. I've been in rooms with
23:27
Speaker 1: people and it ain't just can I keep it a
23:30
Speaker 1: buckety with y'all. It's not just like white people. It's
23:34
Speaker 1: not that it'll be so safe and feel so fun
23:37
Speaker 1: to just be like it's just them, But it's not.
23:39
Speaker 1: I've been in the room with other black people and
23:41
Speaker 1: they say things like, oh, you're so articulate, and it's
23:46
Speaker 1: it's meant. I understand how it's meant. It has good intentions. Man,
23:51
Speaker 1: Some of the worst shit has ever happened in the
23:53
Speaker 1: world is falling on good intentions. So intentions don't mean
23:56
Speaker 1: much to me, but it's intended to be a compliment
24:00
Speaker 1: to me. But I always think, well, what did you
24:02
Speaker 1: think I was gonna be? What did you expect? Are
24:08
Speaker 1: you saying that because you're surprised versus whatever your bias
24:12
Speaker 1: told you I was supposed to be. And that's always
24:16
Speaker 1: a hard thing to shake. But when it comes to
24:20
Speaker 1: that reward system of someone pointing out, oh, you're articulate.
24:23
Speaker 1: Oh you're so smart. Oh you're so articulate, Oh you're
24:27
Speaker 1: so insert whatever compliment is being thrown my way, you know,
24:33
Speaker 1: me just having experience of a black man, sometimes compliments
24:36
Speaker 1: are hard to come by. People aren't just out here
24:40
Speaker 1: just telling you you're amazing for no reason. I know
24:43
Speaker 1: that's not a popular thought from outside of black man's experience,
24:47
Speaker 1: and I received that. I accept that. But I'm telling you,
24:50
Speaker 1: living in this body for forty years, living in this experience,
24:54
Speaker 1: you don't just get compliments like that. And there can
24:57
Speaker 1: be a silent reward system. They can be a silent
25:01
Speaker 1: reward system for your assimilation. And I know that's tough
25:05
Speaker 1: to I know that's tough to take because assimilation never
25:08
Speaker 1: it never sounds good in a cultural context. It just don't.
25:12
Speaker 1: But when people are telling you that you are good,
25:15
Speaker 1: and they are giving you praise, and they're giving you
25:18
Speaker 1: flattering remarks, and they're telling you that you're easy to
25:21
Speaker 1: work with, and they're telling you like, oh, you know,
25:24
Speaker 1: I don't like working with you, you like you like working
25:28
Speaker 1: with me. When I'm out on the streets, people think
25:32
Speaker 1: I'm threatening when I stand too close to people. They
25:35
Speaker 1: get uncomfortable. I have to always be aware of where
25:37
Speaker 1: my body is and what my body's doing, and who
25:39
Speaker 1: my body may be offended. And if I spread my
25:42
Speaker 1: legs too much because my hips feel weird when I
25:45
Speaker 1: close my legs like this, then I'm demonstrating some type
25:47
Speaker 1: of power that's threatening the people. Or if I have
25:50
Speaker 1: a good idea and I speak out a turn, now
25:52
Speaker 1: I'm talking over people and I can't I can't curse
25:56
Speaker 1: because now I'm ignorant. It's just so many rules to
25:58
Speaker 1: being a black boy, many things you can't do, and
26:02
Speaker 1: before you're perceived to be a threat, so many things
26:05
Speaker 1: you can't do. For you to tell me I'm not
26:07
Speaker 1: any of those things in this space, Wow, that's what's up.
26:12
Speaker 1: But uh huh, uh huh, there's a problem. The problem
26:17
Speaker 1: is you're not seeing me. You're seeing this specific presentation
26:20
Speaker 1: of me that I'm putting out in the world because
26:24
Speaker 1: I'm afraid for you to see me for real. I
26:27
Speaker 1: don't think the real meat would get that praise, because
26:29
Speaker 1: the real meat don't get that praise out in the world.
26:32
Speaker 1: So now not only does this assimilation feel good, I
26:36
Speaker 1: have a reward system and it goes like this, I assimilate,
26:40
Speaker 1: I demonstrate and display these little sets of behaviors. Right here,
26:44
Speaker 1: I get told I'm doing a good job. It feels
26:47
Speaker 1: avoid where. I don't get that in my life. When
26:49
Speaker 1: I do things that are outside of my wheelhouse, I
26:51
Speaker 1: get told as I should. You know, I don't get
26:54
Speaker 1: told that I'm Oh, thank you for that. Wow, that
26:57
Speaker 1: feels good when you do that. It's good to have
26:59
Speaker 1: you around. We need you, You're useful, you're valuable. I
27:02
Speaker 1: don't get that out in the world. I get told
27:05
Speaker 1: as I should, so that reward system encourages me to
27:08
Speaker 1: continue that behavior. More simulation, more masking, more affirmation. Boom
27:15
Speaker 1: boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom.
27:19
Speaker 1: Circle of life. It's a cycle, cyclical, and it keeps going.
27:24
Speaker 1: And that can be a cycle that you're stuck in
27:27
Speaker 1: for long enough for you to forget in some ways
27:29
Speaker 1: who you are and forget how you operate, or allow
27:33
Speaker 1: things to slide. When the microaggressions or people are being
27:37
Speaker 1: offensive to you, you're like, ah, you know, I got
27:39
Speaker 1: a good thing going. I ain't gonna mess that up.
27:41
Speaker 1: Remember I talked about going along to get along. You
27:44
Speaker 1: can end up doing that, and that becomes a betrayal
27:47
Speaker 1: to yourself. When you are masking and the praise reward
27:54
Speaker 1: system feels so good that you're afraid to interrupt it,
27:57
Speaker 1: even though it's not helping you anymore, even though it's
28:00
Speaker 1: hurting you, even though you're being undermined. You might be
28:02
Speaker 1: overlooked for promotions, you might not. You might be in
28:04
Speaker 1: a place. I talk to black men all the time, man,
28:08
Speaker 1: black men and Hispanic men too, because I don't feel
28:11
Speaker 1: like they get talked about enough in the mental health space.
28:13
Speaker 1: They're really neglected. But I talk to these men all
28:16
Speaker 1: the time, and you be surprised the offen they say. Man,
28:18
Speaker 1: I don't even feel like myself at work. It's a
28:20
Speaker 1: whole genre TikTok talking about it. How you are at work?
28:24
Speaker 1: You know you hurry, guys, I got the quarter said hey, hey, hey,
28:27
Speaker 1: good day to day. High Let's crush Let's crush Q four. Yeah,
28:31
Speaker 1: And then you get in your car you listen to Tupac.
28:34
Speaker 1: You have to be two different people in order to
28:36
Speaker 1: survive in one singular world, two different existences, two different understandings,
28:40
Speaker 1: two different approaches. One person. What happens when those two
28:45
Speaker 1: sides don't agree with each other no more. Bruh. What
28:47
Speaker 1: happens when they become water and oil and not just
28:50
Speaker 1: like chocolate powder, And that's quick meaning they don't blend together,
28:54
Speaker 1: They fight each other, they weep, they separate. What type
28:58
Speaker 1: of conflict does that create? And a man mind when
29:01
Speaker 1: the person that he is naturally gets constantly, constantly fed
29:06
Speaker 1: and introduced to and reinforce the idea that who you are,
29:11
Speaker 1: who you are naturally, how your soul grows out of
29:14
Speaker 1: your spirit is not enough. I don't even want you
29:18
Speaker 1: to answer that. I just I think that's just something
29:20
Speaker 1: to sit with for a minute, because I think all
29:23
Speaker 1: of us can relate to that in some way, no
29:26
Speaker 1: matter who you are, how you identify, how you show up,
29:29
Speaker 1: all that you've been there before. She you probably there
29:35
Speaker 1: right now. And it's nothing to be embarrassed of. It's
29:40
Speaker 1: nothing to be ashamed of. But what it is, it
29:43
Speaker 1: is something to be aware of. Just piggybacking off of that,
29:46
Speaker 1: I want to take a moment to expand the convo
29:48
Speaker 1: a little bit and talk about w Eb the Boys.
29:51
Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all ever heard of w Eb
29:54
Speaker 1: the Boys. He was this amazing Black thought leader and
29:57
Speaker 1: activist who has some really fascinating ideas about how black
30:04
Speaker 1: people should move in the world. But he also had
30:07
Speaker 1: some really good takes on black perspective. And one thing
30:11
Speaker 1: he talked about was what he coined a double consciousness.
30:16
Speaker 1: And what double consciousness is is knowing who you are,
30:20
Speaker 1: but having to be constantly mindful and having to constantly
30:25
Speaker 1: monitor how people out in the world receive you. You get
30:31
Speaker 1: what they're saying, like, double consciousness is who you are,
30:33
Speaker 1: that's one consciousness, and also being conscious and conscientious of
30:37
Speaker 1: how people interpret you. And you can say I don't
30:42
Speaker 1: care what people think about me, and I ain't gonna
30:44
Speaker 1: hold you. I understand that. But that is a bit
30:47
Speaker 1: of an immature response. It is because it's you're never
30:52
Speaker 1: just going to live on the merit of who you
30:56
Speaker 1: think you are. Reputation matters, matters. What people think about
31:02
Speaker 1: you matters. It makes a difference in the way you're treated,
31:05
Speaker 1: the way you're looked at, how far you can move
31:07
Speaker 1: in the world, how your dreams come true, who wants
31:09
Speaker 1: to work with you, it matters, how safe, how safe
31:14
Speaker 1: people feel around you, dog that it matters so much
31:19
Speaker 1: so let's just for a minute take off the cloak
31:21
Speaker 1: of man, I don't care how nobody think about me,
31:24
Speaker 1: and let's put on the cloak of curiosity, like I
31:26
Speaker 1: wonder what people think about me because I think about
31:28
Speaker 1: that all the time. I wonder how I come off
31:30
Speaker 1: in the world. It's not going to change who I
31:33
Speaker 1: am in the world, how I feel about myself, but
31:35
Speaker 1: it will make me more cognizant of what I'm doing
31:40
Speaker 1: versus what I think I'm doing. Cause I be man.
31:43
Speaker 1: I'm on TV a lot, so I'll be doing interviews
31:45
Speaker 1: and shit, right, and sometimes I think I'm looking interested
31:48
Speaker 1: and my wife tells me, I got listening in booboo face.
31:51
Speaker 1: That means when I'm really listening and I'm really interested
31:54
Speaker 1: in what you're saying, it looks like I smell booboo.
31:57
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't help it. It's just something my
31:59
Speaker 1: face does. But I don't always have a double consciousness
32:02
Speaker 1: in that moment. I only have a consciousness of what
32:04
Speaker 1: I'm thinking. I don't have a consciousness of what my
32:06
Speaker 1: face is doing. So when w Ev the Boys talks
32:09
Speaker 1: about double consciousness and he talks about all black people,
32:12
Speaker 1: I like to funnel it through the idea of being
32:14
Speaker 1: a black man. Stay with me, because this is a
32:18
Speaker 1: very complicated and nuanced topic, but it doesn't get talked
32:24
Speaker 1: about enough because it is so damn complicated. And thank
32:28
Speaker 1: God for podcast and long form content because I can
32:31
Speaker 1: just cook on this joint. I can't explain everything on
32:33
Speaker 1: Instagram like this or TikTok, but here we can sparse
32:37
Speaker 1: it out and really have a rich conversation about it.
32:41
Speaker 1: So double consciousness. You know, this is always hard for
32:45
Speaker 1: me to talk about. Shit, Let's just talk about it,
32:50
Speaker 1: you know, being a black man, I always have to
32:52
Speaker 1: carry this double consciousness of speaking life into men or
32:59
Speaker 1: just being proud of being a man, being proud of
33:02
Speaker 1: being a black man, being just being proud, being proud
33:07
Speaker 1: of being a boy, just being proud of it and
33:09
Speaker 1: loving that experience. While also I always have to be
33:13
Speaker 1: conscious of the most dastardly people, the most dastardly men
33:19
Speaker 1: to have ever walked the earth, and everything they've ever
33:21
Speaker 1: done wrong to anybody. I can't ignore that, Like there's
33:26
Speaker 1: no way you could say, hey, man, I'm proud. I
33:29
Speaker 1: love being a man, I love masculinity, I love manhood,
33:32
Speaker 1: and not also and just completely avoid patriarchy. And I
33:37
Speaker 1: know a lot of men hate the word patriarchy because
33:40
Speaker 1: it's usually used as a term to describe how you
33:44
Speaker 1: may have in real life or theoretically oppressed people who
33:49
Speaker 1: you never met. Or it may be used as a
33:52
Speaker 1: term to describe how your way of life steps on
33:58
Speaker 1: the inadvertently steps on the way a life of tens
34:01
Speaker 1: of millions of people and has for a long time,
34:03
Speaker 1: or how your mindset, just when you're in a room
34:05
Speaker 1: mind and your business can be harmful to somebody a
34:08
Speaker 1: million miles away or even right across the room. And
34:12
Speaker 1: I think that the way we introduce patriarchy to men
34:15
Speaker 1: is it gets the point across. But I don't think
34:18
Speaker 1: it's well received because it comes across less like a
34:23
Speaker 1: like an idea to be perceived and more like a
34:25
Speaker 1: like a thousand mile power projectile, like look what you did,
34:28
Speaker 1: look at the system you created? Who built this? And
34:30
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, like I don't know. You know, by
34:35
Speaker 1: just existing sometimes as a man, it feels like you're
34:37
Speaker 1: wrong or bad, but like you you gotta you gotta
34:40
Speaker 1: understand what patriarchy does in the world. And I think
34:43
Speaker 1: it starts by understanding how patriarchy affects you. It ain't
34:48
Speaker 1: it ain't. It ain't good for us, man, It makes
34:50
Speaker 1: us do a whole bunch of shit. And I'll save
34:52
Speaker 1: it for another episode. That that interrupts our maturity. Man,
34:56
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I'm telling you, it's a good conversation.
34:59
Speaker 1: I just think we have it the wrong way. Either way,
35:03
Speaker 1: the double consciousness of being a black man is that
35:06
Speaker 1: the double consciousness of being a black man is just
35:09
Speaker 1: being carefree. I remember I was in a I was
35:12
Speaker 1: buying some barbecue for my family and I was in line,
35:15
Speaker 1: and apparently I was standing too close to this young
35:17
Speaker 1: woman and she, Man, she was upset that day. She's like, God, damn,
35:21
Speaker 1: you gotta stand this mother fucking close to me. And
35:24
Speaker 1: it caught me so off. God, I didn't even see her,
35:27
Speaker 1: you know. And someone say, hey, privilege of being a man,
35:29
Speaker 1: you don't see people, and you know, I accept that,
35:32
Speaker 1: but man, that comes with a lot of privilege when
35:36
Speaker 1: black man, you gotta be aware of your surroundings all
35:38
Speaker 1: the time. Because man, we talk about violence. Men are
35:42
Speaker 1: violent against men tremendously. Man. But I didn't see her.
35:46
Speaker 1: I just wasn't aware of my surroundings in a moment,
35:49
Speaker 1: and I ended up having to apologize. I was like, oh, sorry,
35:51
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that close to you, and a
35:54
Speaker 1: part of me felt violated, like, man, this lady just
35:56
Speaker 1: cussed me out. There's a million ways she could have
35:58
Speaker 1: said that, but she ask me out loudly in this
36:01
Speaker 1: store because I was standing too close to her and
36:04
Speaker 1: I didn't I wasn't aware. I just I didn't see her.
36:07
Speaker 1: I was trying to get my baby back, Ribs dog.
36:10
Speaker 1: But I had to apologize, like I'm so sorry. I
36:13
Speaker 1: have to be aware of what's going on in my
36:16
Speaker 1: world and also aware how I may be making somebody
36:20
Speaker 1: else feel unsafe, which for them is good because it
36:23
Speaker 1: allows them to feel safe and allows them to feel
36:25
Speaker 1: like there's no threat coming their way. But for me,
36:27
Speaker 1: there's like this perceived criminality that I got to put on.
36:30
Speaker 1: I got to put on the idea that you think
36:32
Speaker 1: that I'm a starker, rapist and inhibitor to feminine growth
36:39
Speaker 1: and prosperity. I have to put that on. I have
36:41
Speaker 1: to assume you think those things about me and operate
36:43
Speaker 1: in that way. And let's be clear, if I'm walking
36:46
Speaker 1: behind a woman in the street, I'm always going to
36:48
Speaker 1: slow down and let her get ten feet of the head,
36:50
Speaker 1: so you know, hey, I'm not here to hurt you.
36:51
Speaker 1: I'm just minding my business, you know. Or if it's
36:54
Speaker 1: a group of women and we walk in, they look
36:56
Speaker 1: nervous when we kind of, you know, you walking in
36:58
Speaker 1: one direction, they walk into ward you. I always be
37:02
Speaker 1: aware of just saying hi, just I gotta make sure
37:04
Speaker 1: you know I'm friendly and I'm not here to hurt you.
37:06
Speaker 1: If I'm in an elevator and it's a smaller white
37:09
Speaker 1: woman there, I always got to put on, hey, how
37:11
Speaker 1: you doing, even when I don't feel like talking that day,
37:14
Speaker 1: even when I have a bad day, because I don't
37:17
Speaker 1: want you to feel threatened enough to perceive me as
37:19
Speaker 1: something that I'm not, and because that becomes dangerous for
37:22
Speaker 1: me after a while. So I think we had a
37:24
Speaker 1: conversation about this double consciousness that men carry of being dangerous.
37:30
Speaker 1: You know. We talk about the man and the bear conversation,
37:33
Speaker 1: which I hope we get into one day because I
37:35
Speaker 1: got a really interesting perspective that I understand why women
37:38
Speaker 1: choose the bear. I get it, but from a man's perspective,
37:42
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, man, bear is a dangerous. But we're
37:45
Speaker 1: having two different conversations. It's not it's logical versus experiential,
37:51
Speaker 1: like good luck having a conversation with a black man
37:53
Speaker 1: and the police about that, and it's kind of the
37:55
Speaker 1: same thing. Let's jump into that another time. But I
37:58
Speaker 1: understand where I staying in society and I understand how
38:02
Speaker 1: people see me, But that doesn't mean it's not dehumanizing
38:05
Speaker 1: to me man And that's what web the boys was
38:08
Speaker 1: talking about. Let's jump out of manhood. Let's just talk
38:10
Speaker 1: about the black perspective. When you walk into a room.
38:13
Speaker 1: What do we always learn? You have to be twice
38:16
Speaker 1: as to get to get half as every time. You
38:21
Speaker 1: have to walk into the room with that understanding. Even
38:23
Speaker 1: though you graduated with's suma cum laude from your school,
38:26
Speaker 1: even though you're in the community all the time, even
38:29
Speaker 1: though you do all these things, there's a stereotype around
38:31
Speaker 1: your identity that you always have to contend with. You
38:35
Speaker 1: always have to hold a double consciousness of who you
38:38
Speaker 1: are versus who they think you are. That is exhausting
38:46
Speaker 1: and it's not something that you can always let go of.
38:50
Speaker 1: You have to be aware, you have to know what
38:52
Speaker 1: you're doing out in the world, because that can get
38:55
Speaker 1: tricky and sticky for you real quick. So when w
39:05
Speaker 1: Ev de Boys talks about double consciousness, I think it
39:08
Speaker 1: really got driven home to me. With the Sterling K
39:12
Speaker 1: Brown clip, I'm going to play it for y'all. He
39:15
Speaker 1: talks about a Maud Aubrey and I want y'all to
39:17
Speaker 1: listen to this, and let's let's chat about it when
39:20
Speaker 1: y'all come back. Let's let's have a little bit of
39:21
Speaker 1: a chat, all right, please the clip.
39:23
Speaker 2: If I can use the platform in such a way
39:26
Speaker 2: that people can understand something about how I experience life,
39:32
Speaker 2: then I think that's the most effective way for me. Like,
39:35
Speaker 2: I posted this thing on Instagram about a made Aubrey
39:38
Speaker 2: because we were in the middle of the pandemic and
39:42
Speaker 2: I had this sort of naive idea that like racism
39:44
Speaker 2: would stop while the world was suffering from something else,
39:48
Speaker 2: that we were all sort of banned together and like
39:51
Speaker 2: sort of like show the end result of what the
39:53
Speaker 2: greatness of humanity is. And I didn't know that you
39:55
Speaker 2: could go jogging in the midst of that and wind
39:57
Speaker 2: up dead. And and when I saw that brother, I
40:01
Speaker 2: was like this brother looks like me.
40:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I jog all the time, and I knew
40:09
Speaker 3: that there is a protective mask that I wear when
40:12
Speaker 3: I enter into mostly white spaces to put people at ease.
40:16
Speaker 1: I give him a.
40:16
Speaker 2: Smile or a chuckle or corny ass joke or whatnot,
40:20
Speaker 2: and like, Oh, he's cool, let's go. Didn't know I
40:23
Speaker 2: had to do that when I was on a fucking run.
40:27
Speaker 1: Shout out to Sterling K. Brown Man. Not only did
40:30
Speaker 1: he make me cry all the time when this as us,
40:32
Speaker 1: but he has this incredible ability to just bring and
40:36
Speaker 1: drive points home. I didn't know that I had to
40:40
Speaker 1: do that when I was on a fucking run. That's
40:45
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about when it comes to the double consciousness.
40:49
Speaker 1: I have to smile so you don't think I'm here
40:53
Speaker 1: to hurt you. And then and I go in another
40:55
Speaker 1: space on the same day, and I have to smile
41:00
Speaker 1: so that those people don't hurt me. That's a crazy
41:06
Speaker 1: limbo to exist in between. And I think that we
41:10
Speaker 1: always have to have a conversation about the harm that
41:13
Speaker 1: men do in the world. I'm always gonna be loud
41:16
Speaker 1: about that. I'm gonna meet too, counsel, you know what
41:20
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Advocating for that stuff all the time, and
41:23
Speaker 1: I think we also have to be honest about the
41:28
Speaker 1: interpretation of men and black men and what that does
41:35
Speaker 1: to there to our collective humanity, because living in this experience, man,
41:41
Speaker 1: you always got to hate how you doing it. You know,
41:45
Speaker 1: it's so funny to me that we live in a
41:47
Speaker 1: world that always promotes these these beautiful phrasings. You know,
41:52
Speaker 1: live your truth, be you unapologetically. You can't be yourself
41:58
Speaker 1: unapologetically as a black man. That's not really a reality
42:02
Speaker 1: for us. I don't know who they're talking to when
42:05
Speaker 1: they say that, but it never felt like they were
42:07
Speaker 1: talking to me. You always have to and I think
42:12
Speaker 1: this is why the proliferation of red pill content has
42:15
Speaker 1: really I don't support it. I can't stand red pill content,
42:18
Speaker 1: but I understand why it exists. It exists because in
42:22
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, the culture, the culture of our country,
42:26
Speaker 1: the culture socials, like geist, whatever however you want to
42:29
Speaker 1: label it, it kind of tells you to be apologetic
42:32
Speaker 1: for being a man, like you have to be apologetic
42:34
Speaker 1: like you, I'm a man, Sorry about fucking terrible we've
42:37
Speaker 1: been for the last thousands, thousands and thousands of years.
42:41
Speaker 1: And you can't ignore that fact, because if you ignore
42:43
Speaker 1: all the terrible shit, you turning a blind eye to
42:46
Speaker 1: something that's really important, and you can't you can't move
42:51
Speaker 1: in a world where you only looking through one eye.
42:54
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. You got no depth procession,
42:56
Speaker 1: You're not seeing everything. But also, I wonder what happens
43:00
Speaker 1: to a group of people when you constantly make them
43:05
Speaker 1: feel like their identity is wrong just by virtue of existing,
43:09
Speaker 1: and whatever pride they find in their identity is quickly
43:14
Speaker 1: denounced or is quickly doused with water in an attempt
43:19
Speaker 1: to reach some type of equity, some type of social equity.
43:23
Speaker 1: There's a good argument that our country is in the
43:25
Speaker 1: political places in right now because there are people who
43:29
Speaker 1: lean on the right side of the aisle who's been
43:31
Speaker 1: told their identity is wrong for this long, and they
43:34
Speaker 1: bote people in power that pushed that pushed the idea
43:38
Speaker 1: like hey, nah, you shouldn't be apologetic for these things,
43:41
Speaker 1: to the complete elimination of understanding what comes with that.
43:50
Speaker 1: Humanism is given take It's never all one thing. The
43:54
Speaker 1: spectrum is vast and wide, and there are a billion
43:58
Speaker 1: stops on that spectrum, and people are not always soulf
44:02
Speaker 1: aware enough to know where they fall. Double consciousness. W
44:06
Speaker 1: Eb the Boys was on some shit. That man was brilliant.
44:09
Speaker 1: So I just want you to take a moment and
44:11
Speaker 1: think of the things in your life that you have
44:13
Speaker 1: to be double conscious of. Things in your life that
44:17
Speaker 1: you have to put thought to in consideration to, even
44:20
Speaker 1: when you don't want to, even when it's not within
44:23
Speaker 1: your periphery, you don't even see it, but you gotta
44:25
Speaker 1: be conscious of it. Think about the things that people
44:28
Speaker 1: are on you about or think they'll tell you that
44:30
Speaker 1: you need to change, you need to give some consideration to,
44:33
Speaker 1: even if you disagree, and it kind of tells you
44:36
Speaker 1: where those sticking points are in life. It's kind of
44:38
Speaker 1: one of those necessary evils man, where you're like, damn,
44:41
Speaker 1: I hate that I have to do this, but I'm
44:44
Speaker 1: grateful for the awareness that it gives me, and it
44:47
Speaker 1: allows me to know where I am and what I'm
44:49
Speaker 1: doing and who is affecting. I feel like that's how
44:52
Speaker 1: you move as a conscious and comprehensive man. One of
44:55
Speaker 1: my mentors is mister Jason Wilson. He always talks about
44:59
Speaker 1: comprehensive manhood all the time and word adjacent man. That's
45:04
Speaker 1: how you become a comprehensive man, not by holding your
45:06
Speaker 1: head and being apologetic for who you are, but understanding
45:11
Speaker 1: what your maleness and what your masculinity comes with, and
45:15
Speaker 1: also making sure that you're putting the good shit out
45:18
Speaker 1: in the world that people need to see. Not just
45:19
Speaker 1: projecting it and acting like you're the good dude, because
45:22
Speaker 1: that don't do shit for nobody, including you, but actually
45:25
Speaker 1: being that person, being a safe person, being the person
45:28
Speaker 1: that people look to and who love to get advice from.
45:32
Speaker 1: And you're just beacon of light and just beacon of hope,
45:35
Speaker 1: or you just you ain't a beacon for nobody. You
45:37
Speaker 1: just minding your damn business and living a good, wholesome,
45:40
Speaker 1: healthy life. That is okay too, man, That is more
45:43
Speaker 1: than okay too. So yeah, it's a lot to think about,
45:48
Speaker 1: it's a lot to live through. But think if you
45:50
Speaker 1: approach you with curiosity, it's a worthy endeavor. Oh shew,
45:55
Speaker 1: let's move along. So this is the part of the
45:58
Speaker 1: episode where we land in the plane and now we're
46:00
Speaker 1: gonna talk about what to do about it. I wrote
46:02
Speaker 1: myself some notes so I don't go off on a tangent.
46:05
Speaker 1: And there's certain masks that men put on. I want
46:07
Speaker 1: to name a few of them, just an index in
46:09
Speaker 1: your head whether or not you notice them. There's the
46:12
Speaker 1: respectable mass. There's the non threatening mass. There's the hypercompetent mass.
46:17
Speaker 1: I'm good, I can do what I promise, I'm worthy.
46:19
Speaker 1: It's that mass. There's the emotionless mass, where your affect
46:22
Speaker 1: becomes flat and you feel like then you become what's
46:25
Speaker 1: the word nonchalant, like nothing bothers you. And then there's
46:28
Speaker 1: the guided all together mask. Once you take a second
46:31
Speaker 1: to think of which one of these you put on,
46:33
Speaker 1: because they cost you something, and I'm gonna tell you
46:35
Speaker 1: four things they cost you. They're gonna cast you anxiety.
46:38
Speaker 1: They're gonna cast you depression. They're gonna cost you rage,
46:42
Speaker 1: which is a whole nother episode to itself. And then
46:45
Speaker 1: they're gonna cost you emotional numbness. And that's a place
46:48
Speaker 1: where I find a lot of men, and a place
46:50
Speaker 1: where you've been feeling so much for so long and
46:52
Speaker 1: you don't have the words the processes to the point
46:54
Speaker 1: where you just go numb and you go flat, and brother,
46:57
Speaker 1: that is not helping you. It feels like nothing is
47:00
Speaker 1: hurting you. But when you're numb Not only does nothing
47:03
Speaker 1: hurting you, just in true it is hurting you, you
47:05
Speaker 1: just decide not to feel it. But nothing's also helping you.
47:09
Speaker 1: So you're just you're in this purgatory where you're not moving,
47:11
Speaker 1: you're not progressing, you're not always regressing, You're just kind
47:14
Speaker 1: of existing. And that's that's not living, man, that's not living.
47:18
Speaker 1: You're breathing in your conscious but I don't know if
47:20
Speaker 1: you're living. And that's no way to find joy and happiness,
47:23
Speaker 1: which I think everybody deserves in their life, including you.
47:26
Speaker 1: If you're listening, you deserve joy and happiness in your life,
47:29
Speaker 1: and you can't find it through emotional numbness. It's not possible.
47:34
Speaker 1: So there's also a loss of identity, which I talked
47:37
Speaker 1: about before, and that's losing track of who you actually are,
47:40
Speaker 1: and you lose track of your norms and your prime meridian.
47:44
Speaker 1: You find you lose your you, which is always a
47:47
Speaker 1: difficult place to be. So let's talk about the execution.
47:51
Speaker 1: What do we do with all this? This is what
47:52
Speaker 1: I talked about in the early episode, not just talking
47:54
Speaker 1: about the problem, but talking about the solution. How to care?
47:57
Speaker 1: How do I execute on this bro? How do I
47:59
Speaker 1: do it? Big bro? What are we talking about? I
48:01
Speaker 1: got you? So let's do this. Let's do a low
48:04
Speaker 1: lift execution, Let's do a medium lift, and then let's
48:07
Speaker 1: do a high lift and you can figure out where
48:08
Speaker 1: you are. You can get brave and try one. I
48:11
Speaker 1: just want to meet you where you at and not
48:13
Speaker 1: challenge you to do something you're not ready for. Let's
48:14
Speaker 1: talk about the low lift first. I want you to
48:21
Speaker 1: ask yourself where do I feel the tightest? Where do
48:23
Speaker 1: I feel the most squeezed in? This is the low lift.
48:26
Speaker 1: I want you to ask yourself where do I feel
48:28
Speaker 1: the most squeezed in? And who gets this version of me?
48:34
Speaker 1: I want you to think about who in your life
48:36
Speaker 1: gets this most edited version of you. I think that's
48:39
Speaker 1: going to give you a good idea of where you
48:40
Speaker 1: are in terms of your body. I want you to
48:46
Speaker 1: notice when your jaws clinched, When is your jaw clinch?
48:49
Speaker 1: When is your tongue cleave into the roof of your mouth?
48:51
Speaker 1: When is your shoulders always tense? Now, when your shoulders
48:55
Speaker 1: always jacked up? This this gonna require you to jump
48:57
Speaker 1: inside your body and be aware of what your body
48:59
Speaker 1: is doing. If you can do double consciousness outside, you
49:02
Speaker 1: would do double consciousness inside too. What is your body
49:05
Speaker 1: doing when you feel? Are your hips tight, your back tight,
49:09
Speaker 1: when your shoulders jacked up? Notice these things in yourself
49:12
Speaker 1: and they'll give you pretty good indicators where you may
49:14
Speaker 1: be masking. So that's the low effort Let's move to
49:17
Speaker 1: more of a medium effort solution. So for the medium lift,
49:20
Speaker 1: I want you to identify one place in your life
49:23
Speaker 1: where you can loosen or lift your mask just a
49:26
Speaker 1: little bit. Where can you be vulnerable? And I know
49:30
Speaker 1: that's a bad word with some of the homies. Where
49:32
Speaker 1: can you be a little bit more vulnerable? Is it
49:35
Speaker 1: a friend, is it a colleague, Is it a family member?
49:38
Speaker 1: Don't focus on quantity. It does not have to be
49:42
Speaker 1: four thousand people. It just has to be one person
49:45
Speaker 1: that you trust. Want you to identify where you're gonna
49:48
Speaker 1: lift that mask even just a little bit. You don't
49:49
Speaker 1: gotta take it all the way off right now. You
49:51
Speaker 1: gotta do that. Where can you lift it we can
49:54
Speaker 1: get a little bit of break from having to put
49:55
Speaker 1: that thing on. A good exercise to do here that
49:58
Speaker 1: I love to tell my clients it is practice telling
50:01
Speaker 1: the truth without over explaining yourself to say what you
50:05
Speaker 1: gotta say and let it be there. I know you
50:07
Speaker 1: feel compelled like, nah, I gotta I gotta give them
50:09
Speaker 1: the context. I gotta know you don't have to, and
50:12
Speaker 1: oftentimes they're not asking you for that. I want you
50:15
Speaker 1: to practice telling the truth, not your truth, telling the
50:19
Speaker 1: truth without over exerting yourself with a whole bunch of explanation.
50:23
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be easy, but that's why it's worth it.
50:26
Speaker 1: Practice it. You don't have to get it right, you
50:27
Speaker 1: just gotta try doing it. So now let's think of
50:31
Speaker 1: the high left, because these are more long term questions
50:33
Speaker 1: that you have to ask yourself, just reflective questions. I
50:36
Speaker 1: want you to ask yourself, is this environment that I'm
50:39
Speaker 1: in sustainable for me? You might have to get the
50:43
Speaker 1: bag now, you may have to get the money, and
50:45
Speaker 1: that may be the thing that inspires you or kind
50:50
Speaker 1: of put you in a place where you're always masking.
50:53
Speaker 1: So that's a tough thing to choose between. But you
50:55
Speaker 1: have to ask yourself, is this sustainable? Can I do
50:58
Speaker 1: this for a long period of time? Can I keep
51:00
Speaker 1: this shit up? Real talk? Also, I want you to also,
51:03
Speaker 1: I want you to ask yourself what does success cost me? Here?
51:06
Speaker 1: And it's not just a work thing. It could be
51:08
Speaker 1: any It could be in your friendships, when you showing
51:11
Speaker 1: up in your friendships in a way that's inauthentic to
51:12
Speaker 1: who you really are. What is a successful friendship by
51:16
Speaker 1: my definition, actually cost it? Is it worth it? These
51:20
Speaker 1: are more environmental structural challenges. So this isn't something I
51:26
Speaker 1: want you to traverse by yourself. I'm going to challenge
51:29
Speaker 1: you right now to go through this with a mental
51:32
Speaker 1: health license, mental health professional right a therapist or a
51:37
Speaker 1: social worker who can schedule some type of treatment plan
51:41
Speaker 1: for you and walk you along a continuum of growth
51:43
Speaker 1: where you can check in, see our stuff been working,
51:46
Speaker 1: see what's not been working, and get a good idea
51:48
Speaker 1: and have somebody to talk to while you're getting a
51:50
Speaker 1: good idea of what comes next for you and how
51:53
Speaker 1: to do next. It's one thing to have an idea
51:55
Speaker 1: of it. It's a total different thing to have a
51:57
Speaker 1: plan and execution for it. I want you to remember,
52:01
Speaker 1: if you don't take away anything else from this episode,
52:03
Speaker 1: the goal here isn't to stop cold switching. It's not
52:06
Speaker 1: the goal. The goal isn't to stop cold switching. We
52:09
Speaker 1: got two goals here. One is to be aware of
52:11
Speaker 1: when and why you cold switch, and the other goal
52:14
Speaker 1: is for you to stop disappearing. You have to stop disappear.
52:23
Speaker 1: You work best when you're here. We need you here,
52:26
Speaker 1: but most importantly, you need you here, all right, So
52:30
Speaker 1: practice these things, switch them around a little bit, and
52:33
Speaker 1: let's figure out what works for you. Real talk. This
52:35
Speaker 1: isn't impossible. It's challenging, but you can do challenging. You
52:39
Speaker 1: can't do impossible, nobody can. But you can do challenging.
52:42
Speaker 1: You do it every day. We are building this community
52:45
Speaker 1: here break by break son, and we would love to
52:48
Speaker 1: hear from you because I would like for this to
52:51
Speaker 1: be a two way conversation. If you had any thoughts,
52:54
Speaker 1: any ideas, if anything inspired you with anything, embolding you,
52:57
Speaker 1: if you disagree with me, because I love to hear
53:00
Speaker 1: people disagreeing. I think that's how we get good, good, good,
53:04
Speaker 1: real rich, real full ideas. Hit me up. That's gonna
53:08
Speaker 1: be it for us today. Thank you man. We got
53:11
Speaker 1: through the first episode to learn the hardware. That's a
53:14
Speaker 1: part that I'm really excited about. Make sure that you
53:16
Speaker 1: tune in next week for a new episode. Make sure
53:19
Speaker 1: that you leave us a review. Let us know how
53:21
Speaker 1: we did. Let it be five stars, because if you
53:23
Speaker 1: leave four, I'm gonna find out where you live and
53:25
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make up rumors and tell people bad things
53:27
Speaker 1: about you. That's just what I'm doing. I'm joking. I'm not,
53:31
Speaker 1: but i am, but I'm not. But I am, but
53:35
Speaker 1: I'm not. But when it comes to code switching, if
53:38
Speaker 1: you didn't take anything away from this episode today, I
53:41
Speaker 1: want you to really focus in on the double consciousness man,
53:44
Speaker 1: and what is doing to you, what is doing for you,
53:47
Speaker 1: but most importantly what it's doing against you. Just being
53:51
Speaker 1: aware it's ninety percent of what makes you an effective
53:55
Speaker 1: person in therapy. So yeah, take that with you. Were
54:00
Speaker 1: blessed to be here. Man. Life is good even when
54:03
Speaker 1: this ain't even when it's ain't all right. That's how
54:06
Speaker 1: I know it's time for me to go when I
54:07
Speaker 1: start using words incorrectly. Take care. Thank y'all for being head,
54:11
Speaker 1: thank you for your awareness, and I'll see you next week.
54:13
Speaker 1: Job well done. Learn the Hard Way is a production
54:17
Speaker 1: of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host here Gaines. We're produced
54:21
Speaker 1: by Courtney Deans and Cason Alexander Ashley j Hobbs is
54:24
Speaker 1: our senior producer. Our executive producers are Will Packer, Doctor
54:28
Speaker 1: Joy Harden, Bradford, Alex Balden and Carla Willmarris