Latest / Don Talk - Conversations with Mike Turner / Manhood, Relationships, and Trauma

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Manhood, Relationships, and Trauma · Don Talk - Conversations with Mike Turner

• Don Talk: Welcome everybody to Don Talk. This is our first episode. We're gonna bring in you the real truth, the real ⁓ emotions. We're just be real. Just tell you like it is, you know? Yeah, that's it. So, so that I think that's about, you know, that's about right, Mike. So let's just get into it, man. You know, you know, you know me and my questions. So here's, here's a question of the day for the, you know, for this podcast. If your significant cheated on, significant other cheated on you, would you want to know? Let me be clear. Let me be more, let me be more exact. If Welcome everybody to our first episode of Don Talk. We have some technical difficulties with the video, so you got some AI generated photos of us overlaid on top of voices. So bear with us as we try to get everything working correctly, but hope you enjoy the episode. If you do, make sure you click and subscribe so you get updates and alerts every time we drop a new episode weekly and our... ⁓ Mmm. your girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, whomever it is, right? If they cheated on you, would you want them to tell you? Or would you even tell them? intro videos leading up to the episodes coming for that week. Bear with us. ⁓ Enjoy the That's that's a burner. That's a, that's a burner. I have some personal experiences behind this. So ⁓ I have made some mistakes before. I'll it that way. And initially when it happened, I didn't say anything, but then it began to eat me up inside to the point where I had to say something. That's me. Show stopper, baby. Yeah, it is. Okay. ⁓ Mm-hmm. Now, would I want them to say something to me? I don't know. ⁓ Wait, wait, wait, so you're telling me that just because you were feeling bad, you wanted to get that spirit out of you. You wanted to get that negative energy out of you. But you know that energy goes to the next person. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Mmm. You feel better, but how does that other person feel now? Sometimes you gotta take care of yourself. So you're telling, that is a selfish and selfless that you just made, right? But in this situation, to make yourself feel better about what's going on within you, you decided to tell, I remember OG mama told me, I ain't gonna say her name, but grandmama, she said, if you cheat on your girlfriend or wife, You keep that demon to yourself and you live with that devil. You live with it because to them, to them, they have a faithful partner. Why can't you just let them think that way? You just want to feel better about what you did wrong. Mmm. Mmm. Yeah. But you know, I hear that. So the question is, how did we grow up to make us shape us in this way to, I think there's a root cause to everything, right? There's something that I don't think people just inherently cheat or make mistakes or mess around, however you want to say it. I don't think that. I think we are living off of past, ⁓ Yeah, Mm-hmm. Okay. trauma, undealt with trauma. It's not excuse. I'm not, not justifying anything. I think we, we, we live off unheld, undealt with, unhealed trauma that causes us to react in certain ways and do things in certain ways. I think getting to that is what I definitely want to talk about because there's a story that I've uncovered. ⁓ huh. Okay. for me to understand why I've acted and done certain things that I've done. ⁓ now I'm interested in the story that you uncovered, man. What? You can't just say that at night. I just got to skip over it. hey, hey. I know, so now that just goes back to my name is Michael. I'm born in Inglewood, California. You know, ⁓ me and you grew up together. I think we probably met at six, seven years old and something like that. At birth, we could be, I just don't remember that far back. So. I say we made that bird, but I don't know. We grew up in a church. We probably stayed five minutes from each other. I'm 48 right now. How old are you? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think about it. So here's one of the underlying things that people are going to see in and throughout the series of us talking. Me and Duron have known each other for 40 plus years. We don't know jack about each other. When you talk about get down to the nitty gritty of that, I have a friend who always be like, ⁓ you hung out with Sean and the rhyme. Like, what's going on in life? I don't know. Uh, 47, I believe. I believe I'm 47. You ⁓ like, do you mean? You don't know what y'all talk about. We just hung out. We just kicked it. But it's like, I think we have to get beyond that. And this is, this is one of the purposes behind that. We got to get beyond just hanging out. Men need other men to talk to. Men need other men, other men to be able to, ⁓ unload their, what's going on in their life so they can help. Because we, we're, we bottle so much in. That's it, kick it. Mm-hmm. that we, that erupts in so many different ways and we don't understand it. So that's what we're here to do, all right? One of the things we're here to do. So. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so back to the question real quick that started it all, right? You said you would want to know if you're significant other cheat on you? ⁓ okay. Well. ⁓ huh, yeah. I don't know if I wanted to know. don't know. I don't know, because I don't want to, like you said, I don't want to destroy the image of who this person is that I love. And I just hope that she's remorseful enough that she wouldn't do it again. And she could keep it. I don't know. We're going to talk about this. That's what we're going to talk about. That's what we're to talk about. So we grew up in a church, right? And I think that... Mmm. There you go. So why can't you be that way for her? Right? The church, and I'm using church as a general statement, the church in my eyes has misled us. They taught, I believe that they taught us how to hate more than they did love. Now I just want to clarify, Michael didn't say God misled us. He ⁓ said church. Okay. Just want to be clear with that. Yes. The church, the man-made church, the man's interpretation of the word and what they started leading and preaching, the four walls they built and what they started leading. ⁓ Yeah, we were, or back there acting a fool. So, they, ⁓ okay, that's a different story. Let's talk about that later. Yeah. Right, no, you're right. So. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we would just sleep half the time, you know, that's something. Touching on legs, but I ain't gonna say nothing else. But we were teenagers, man. It was girls next to us. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. So we grew up together, I think it was about high school that we started calling ourselves the Dimes, right? We don't get to what that means, but I want to answer your question. I was a virgin until I was 20. And that's a whole other story of how I lost my virginity. I think that person lied to me that saying they was a virgin and I wanted to lose my virginity with another virgin and they weren't a virgin. Mm-hmm. Okay. They claimed they told me they wasn't, but they, no, that's not the story I remember. That's a whole other story. See, this is the past trauma that we deal with. So you lied to take my purity away from me. gonna it. Okay No, they lie to make themselves feel better, just like you did. Right? Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. Yeah. So my first, I ain't gonna say my first, the first recollection of me, I guess trauma, trauma, trauma experience with with a female is I was, I was a virgin dating a girl in high school and I have people coming to me like, Michael, congratulations. I'm like, what? ⁓ so-so is pregnant. Congratulations. Cheers? So I'm like, I'm a virgin, I know it. My girlfriend knows it. But yet, everybody's congratulating me on her being pregnant. nah, I was not the baby daddy. I was the baby papa. So I think that was one of the first things that was like, Like, this is life. I was the baby daddy. You that's one, you could say that's one thing I never dealt with. You know, just, ⁓ moved on, tucked it in inside and moved on. Right. Yeah, I would say I can, I can pinpoint the exact street. mean, if I go back there, I can't, it seems, if I go back there, I know the street where it was. I can't think in my head, but I knew where I was and I was 13 years old. I remember this like, ⁓ man, I remember this. It broke my heart so bad, 13 years old and there was this girl. pretty girl, her name was Ken Kesey. I'm gonna say her name, Ken Kesey, right? That's a hood name if it ain't. Look, look, man. So she, you know, this was my first I thought girlfriend because she said she liked me and I liked her and you know, I was 13 and I was just like, all right, cool, I got me a girlfriend, right? I would say about two or three days later, while walking her home, Mmm, ⁓ She about to blow you up after this. We're almost at her house. She tells me she likes my best friend. Now to a 13 year old who never had a girl, right? Mind you, I grew up around the Don's. Like y'all had beauty queens all day, right? No, but you did. I mean, to be real, like you guys, mean, as far as growing up, you guys, you know, had like pretty women that was always just next to you guys. Mmm. Hold up, let's not spread all the business like this. Right? From my brother, your brother, know, brothers that I'm not gonna mention. But it wasn't nothing like we playing games and we sleeping with these women. I mean, we were 13 years old. We weren't doing nothing but liking girls. But from that day forward, man, I told myself I would never let another girl do that to me. And that's what's so crazy is because I think that kind of there's a mixture of how I grew up, right? How we grew up. I remember I broke up with my first love because the church told me how she wanted to live her life wasn't right. And I'm like, I look back at that mess now and I'm like, how dumb. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But that girl's so happy with her life. I'm not saying I would regret anything, but it's just like. The Bible talks about, there's two things that the Bible says I live on today. Love the Lord with all your heart, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. Above these two, there are no greater commandments. And this is Christ himself saying this, but yet I haven't been to a church that preaches those two things. They wanna preach every other rule. Hmm. Hmm. and don't do this, don't hang out with this, don't do this personal, but teach me how to love the Lord my God with all my heart, and soul and teach me, you know. So are you putting it on these churches, the reasons why you feel the way you feel right now? No, I'm saying this is a part of how I grew up and that being instilled in me. So now I have ⁓ my quote unquote first love not being the godly person that the church told me I need to be with. And then I just kind of tore us apart, right? And then I find another girlfriend and that's the one that ended up, you know, having a, you know, getting pregnant while we together and I'm still a virgin. Yeah. Mmm, okay. So my whole high school experience is girls trying to get, trying to be the person that took Michael's virginity. You know, so that's, that's, and then once they saw that they couldn't do it, then they would leave me alone. So that created a subconsciously, I think it ended up creating an importance of sex, but like if I do not produce sexually, then I'm not a desired individual. Hmm because they got to a point of they want it, want it, want it, then they saw they couldn't get it and they disappear. So I feel like that's just a part of like recognizing the things that I went through as a child, as a young adult and how that's making me react to certain things today. I think that's just part of it, understanding that. So yeah, like, and then when I actually lost my virginity, it's like a virgin is not gonna be telling you to go faster, go harder. I'm sitting here like, it don't make no sense. Are you a virgin? I'm supposed to go faster? This ain't hurting. ⁓ Yeah. So it's like, you know, I got, I don't know how and why, but all these circumstances just, you know, built up a level of like, okay, not really understanding where, you know, where or how I'm supposed to feel and treat women. And I think, and I will say this, and I know I'm jumping around. The kicker, here's the kicker. And I don't if I ever told you this. had a, when I was, you know, my daughter, I have a daughter, she's 25, raised her as a single parent. And we'll get into that in another episode. But this is, I realized this literally in the past two weeks, maybe even longer. I was in a relationship and my daughter was five, six at the time. And she had a brain aneurysm that burst. And it was, I had a great relationship. The girl I was with knew Taylor, she was helping me out whenever she could. I was at Purdue, she was in Indianapolis. ⁓ And Taylor, the one true love that I have, which is my daughter, the thought of losing her, she had a brain aneurysm that burst, passed out at school. Had to have open brain surgery was in it was hospitalized. I got the age of six like I remember in the hospital I Think day two in the hospital. I had a I'm in a great relationship But the thought of losing someone I loved Triggered something like I'd never want to be in that position to lose something. I love So what did I do? No them. broke up with her right then and there. I can't do this no more. And it was again, like you said earlier, It crushed her at the time, but I went in protection mode. I got to protect me because I almost lost the most important thing in my life. And no one at that point in time taught me how to deal with these emotions and feelings to properly engage with your partner, your friends, and stuff like that, to deal with it properly. So the only thing I knew what to do was to retreat, cut everything off, and protect the one, know, protect. myself and my feelings. And I broke up with her at the hospital. She's there to support me and help me out and help me get through this pain that I'm experiencing and help me there for my daughter. And I broke up with her. And like that was that I think that was a point where I don't know if I've truly got over that fact, right? That point right there where can I allow someone to come in and love? love unconditionally and love openly to receive love without fear of losing it. Because that's always in my head to lose it. ⁓ it's the same goes with my, I've had a career in a track injury. Like I was four time big 10 champion, two time All-American in a triple jump. Still hold the school record in triple jump. ⁓ That's right. I my senior year just placed third in NCAAs and go on practicing for outdoor season. I was doing long jump pop ups. Came down wrong. Hyper-sensitive knee, tore a blood vessel, severed nerve, career ruined. Tore ACL, PCL, LCL, the whole nine. you put everything you have into something and lose it like that, the trauma and fear of putting all into something again and losing it, it's still there. And I'm working on that now. ⁓ those are triggers. Things come up to where not justifying anything. Things come up to where, you know, unless you've dealt with those in healed, which I'm still learning how to do, then those triggers allow you to act out in certain ways that's not healthy for you and others around you. Do you know why it's good to recognize your triggers? Now tell me why. Because once you recognize the triggers, you know what to do before they come. But tell me about that, like what you mean? Right? Well, let's say one of your triggers is, can you give me one of your triggers? Just something that you know. Trigger it like this, that's a good example. Put my all into something knowing that the past has told me that if I put my all in something, I'm going to lose it. ⁓ Okay. So putting your all into something, loving something, other than your daughter's is there, you can't do it, That's gonna be your love forever, even when you die, that's gonna be your love, right? So that's why you feel it's like a forever connection. You can't lose that, right? You're not gonna drop her, right? Because you can't, because she's a part of you, right? But let's say something else, you put your all into a new job. Yeah. But you're going to be afraid to because now you're thinking, OK, one day they may fire me. ⁓ One day they may. Yeah, by saying, by which has happened, by just trying to help out and get fired. Make the place a better place. By just trying to help out, you know you get fired. So before you even try to apply, you already know that these things may come up, right? And that's when you start to reflect, right? That's when you start to say, ⁓ well, Mike, yeah, it is a possibility that the company may go down, right? It is a possibility that they may lay you off, but you have to see your big picture. Look at the big picture, right? Your big picture is not staying at this job. Your big picture is getting there, getting what you need to do, you know, before they can let you go and prepare for your next step. See, what most people do is they know, they don't know their next step, but they know their step after the next step. You think about it. No, not skipping the step, but just recognizing the step. So we skip it a step. after the step you just made. So if you made the step to work for an ⁓ organization, you know that eventually you're gonna do something else, like one of the dons, right? He knows that he's not gonna be at a certain place at a certain time. So he get what he needs to do and he moves on. He knows, but the thing is, I mean, he made some, I wonder what are we talking about? He made some cool moves. It's almost like, like he sees the bigger picture. Right? So I think it's important that we see the bigger picture, you know, in this situation, right? Let's go for relationships. Right? It's a strong possibility that that next girl may leave you. Strong possibility. You know, y'all may just grow apart, right? But what's your next step? Mm-hmm. Are you putting everything into her? Are you everything into that relationship? You're not going to, why? fear. Because of fear. Is that fair to anybody? Nope, ain't fair to me, ain't fair to that person, that individual. Not fair at all, no. All right, so look at the big picture. You've been in a relationship before, feel good? Unlimited sex when you want it? Unlimited loving when you want it? It better be, right? I would say just looking at the bigger picture and kind of see the other side of the coin. I always have this coin with me. I always have this coin with me. It's upstairs. Mm-hmm. It better be. You have the hairs and the tails, right? Most of us, we only look at the side of the coin that scares us. Right? We only pay attention to that side of the coin that scares us, but we forget there's another side of the coin that we forget to look at. Mm-hmm. We need to start seeing both sides of the coin because the worst case scenario, looking at both sides of the coin, we're not so, happy, but we're not so, sad. What are we? We're balanced. You come up with a lot of knowledge. Why is this? What what what do you who are you right here right now? I am a father. I'm a Don. I'm a gentleman. I am a professional. I'm a lot of things. I don't really say that I'm one thing. I like to be the most interesting man in the universe. I like to be the, like most people want to, no, no, most people want to be. Is this a commercial? Look, most people want to be the richest and that's fine. Do your thing. Most people want to be the sexiest. Most people want to be the strongest, the biggest. I like to be the most interesting person, right? Knowing like why? Because you get to being an interesting person. That means you talk to a lot of interesting people. You're an interesting person, right? You're telling me from where I came from. I came from LA, Crenshaw and Florence. Yes, Boys in the Hoods, one of my favorite movies. You know what I'm saying, right? Grew up. grew up in the streets. wasn't of them, but I was sure around them and protecting myself. Right. But I, but in my lifetime, I've met so many interesting people, you know, and I want to continue to do that. I want to continue to have these interesting conversations. Man, just hearing your story. There's a lot. We've been friends for 47 years, right? There's a lot we still don't know about each other. Right. I don't even know what you do for a living, to be honest. You don't? ⁓ there's a lot we gonna learn about each other doing this podcast. I'll tell you, ⁓ it's gonna be fun. Right? Exactly, exactly. But I do want to answer the question that I posed in the beginning. And no, I don't want to know. I'm married. I don't want to know when my wife cheated on me. And I would not tell her if I cheated on her. I'll be completely honest. Mm-hmm. So she could. So she could be out there slapping skins right now. You don't wanna know. To me, I have a faithful wife. No, I don't. For what? For what? Okay, here's the scenario I'll take to my head. Let's say she tells me, right? Worst case scenario, we get a divorce or we try to work it out and we get divorced, right? She gonna go on and have a happy life with her other husband while I'm having relationship issues because, ⁓ I'm sorry, I'm having trust issues with the woman that I'm trying to be with because my wife, well, my ex-wife cheated on me. ⁓ huh. Mm. That's not fair. That's not right. don't me personally. I don't want to go through that. Right. I want to know in my mind and this is what I a lot of people. What for? Why do you want to know? And then some people say, what if they're sleeping with a lot of people and then they may have a disease and things like that? Now, when you have a habitual cheer, then that's a totally different story. But at the same time. If the person is coming back and they're treating you right and you know that in your mind, you know that they're being faithful to you. I'm not saying this right. Let's be clear. I'm not saying this right, but what good is it for me to know? two totally different ways. Yeah, I'm not, I'm, man, Mike, I'm not trying to know this. Like I've been married for going on six, six, 17 years. So your wife could have had 17 different partners and won a year and you don't want to know. ⁓ No, I don't. Now, now if she get caught, that's a different, I don't know what switch is gonna come on in me. You know what I mean? But I am, see the thing is I can believe that I can decide to believe that she has multiple lovers out there. She's doing multiple things, but I choose. It's like we choose to believe in God. We choose to believe in God, right? Belief is pretty much not knowing. You don't really know 100%, right? So I'm choosing to believe that I have a faithful wife that loves me, that loves my children. That's what I choose to believe. Now, if she showed me something otherwise, then obviously that's a different story. What if asks you if you've been unfaithful? If I cheat on it If she asked me, she has asked me, I told her no, I'm not gonna tell her. You gonna continue to lie to her? You trying to catch me or something? But who says I'm lying? But I've been completely faithful, by the way. Yeah. My whole point is well first of all I work from home. We both work from home. We can't really you know No, no no no and that's and that's fine because I've heard a lot of this and a lot of people say man Why you wanna know why don't you want to know what for man until you until you are at the marriage status that I'm in? Then I'm letting you know ⁓ what You could have lunch meetings. Let me stop. I'm not trying to put it. So what? So... So what brought you to point, to that realization? You didn't just come up with this as a 47 year old man. What childhood experiences brought you to come to this realization? Because there's a root cause to you feeling this way. No. Well, there's a history of like some infidelity in my family. You know what saying? And I don't wanna live that way. It's a little bit. You know, look, let me remind that there is, this is I'm looking for. There is a rumor of infidelity in my family, right? There's rumor because personally I've never seen it. There is? I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Let me drink on that. me sip on that. That's a good way to put it. Mm-hmm. Personally, I've never caught it, but we hear it. man, ⁓ a lot of people in my family got drugged through the mud. You know what saying? And I just don't want to be in that situation. And that's why I don't need to know. All I need to know is that my wife is happy, which when I ask her, she says, yeah, so I choose to believe her. Mm-hmm. And most people would say, you're dealing with, you're in, what's the word I'm looking for? I can't really think about it. Not doubt, but denial, yeah. ⁓ you're in denial. Denial, okay. No, but that's why I disagree with, okay. I stand corrected, Da-da. Yeah. Is it denial if you don't want to know? Like, I don't know that's not denial. Just denial is you not believing what you were told. She told you she cheated, like, nah, you didn't. She, you know what she did ask me. She said, have you ever cheated on me? I said, Now it's up to her whether believe nothing. What if I said so cool? Yeah, I did. Now you don't know whether I'm lying or not. Now it's up to you to choose to believe what I said or not. I'm not playing that. I'm not playing that game. ⁓ Like I said, well, every year I'm married, my husband's stock goes up. You know what saying? So I look at marriage like some good stuff, right? Because everybody can't do it. Everybody can't, go ahead. So, no, sorry, I get excited to ask questions and dive in. I don't wanna keep interrupting you. So that brings us to another question. You may have answered the question, and I'll answer it too. Did you have a good foundation, visual foundation of what a marriage was growing up? it I would say my grandparents, you know, my grandparents, you know, they passed away, they were married for, I think it was like 65 years. So I looked at them as, okay, that's what a marriage is supposed to be like, you know, on the outside, but I was on the outside looking in and not knowing that there were other things going on, you know, as far as just random marriage stuff. Like if you've been in relationship, there's things going on in your relationship that, And nobody knows. But just looking at them as a kid, I thought my grandparents was the coolest married couple ever, man. And I said, I'ma have that. So that's, I do everything I can to make sure that I make it through those years. Yeah, so. So your grandparents, but your parents, the answer is? My parents, they show me what I need to do better. If that makes sense, right? And we can, that's another one, but absolutely. My parents weren't married. know, I think, you my dad didn't marry twice. You know what saying? My mom married twice. Yeah, twice as well, right? I didn't look at them as like, okay, they're the ideal married couple. You know, I didn't do that. When they first got married, as far as my dad and Paulette was, know, ⁓ when I seen them, said, ⁓ man, it's about to be some trouble in a good way because they were both beasts. They were like in the prime of their minister, ministry type thing. So when I looked at them, was, I was excited. I was like, Ooh, they about to tear it down. So when I looked at them, I looked at them as two people, two married people who couldn't be messed with. And that's how me and my wife are. Yeah. Right. We two people, yeah, we nice and all. but try to mess with us. We ain't gonna hurt you. But what I mean is we're so connected and we have this relationship that it's hard to kind of break that bond. No, the prime years of them two was some good old times. Good old, good old times. Good old times. Good old times, man. But what about you, I guess the question I want to know is, how are you managing everything that's going on right now with you? With your experiences, with how you grew up and the influences that certain relationships had on I'm uncovering a lot of stuff I didn't know had an effect on me, I'll put that way. And I'll give you a prime example. ⁓ My mom passed away in December 2020. She was the positive voice. Whenever I was down and out, my mom was the one that lifted me out of it, right? Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Everybody knows and knows that that's who she was. So it's like I talked to her all the time. She got me through it blah blah blah. And my father still alive. And there's another thing that I realized and I haven't even talked to him about this because I don't know how. And this is this is what we'll talk about here in a minute. One of the biggest effects or traumatic experiences I've had is. Him. Not being present when I needed him most. ⁓ My parents were together until my mom passed away. ⁓ Over 55 years, I think they were married. ⁓ ⁓ wow. Wait, but he was there all the time. What do mean present? Like he, every time I went there, he was there. Okay. I guess I'm about to tell you. my father was a disciplinary. He was the ultimate provider. We never went without what we needed. Did we have what we wanted? No, it five of us. That's five, five, you you couldn't get everything you wanted. I understand that part. Here's the thing that I'm dealing with. I was a multi-sport athlete in high school. ⁓ Got you, Yeah. Yeah. Right? played basketball, ran track, played baseball growing up. ⁓ So when got to high school, baseball and track were going on at same time, so I had to pick one. it ended up being basketball and track, two different seasons. ⁓ And then I, at the time, I was that guy, loved basketball, it was my favorite sport. Favorite sport to this day, ⁓ loved basketball. I wasn't good at it. Not for like a team standard. I was a Coric All-American though when I was at Purdue. You couldn't stop us at the Coric. Like I was a Coric All-American. But in high school, I was that guy that's a minute left in a game. We up by 20, put Turner in. I was that guy, right? But I loved basketball. So I think my father wanted me to be a basketball player. Okay? because I think that was his favorite sport and he wanted us, I felt like he wanted us to live through his shoes, like what he couldn't do. So after my junior year, I decided to stop playing basketball because at the time, this is 94 at the time, colleges looked at you during your junior year to see if you were in the position to offer a scholarship your senior year. So you were set. I didn't have any scholarship offers. But I had such a vast improvement in track and field that I needed to focus 100 % on that. So I stopped playing basketball. And when I told my father, I'm going to stop playing basketball to concentrate on track because that's what's going best for me, I wanted to earn a scholarship so they didn't have to worry about me going to school. He said I was making the biggest mistake of my life. Okay. And then up until that point, he was at every sporting event I ever had. He was there in the stands, coaching from afar, giving that positive affirmation, hardcore, you should have done this better. Like it was, you know, it was good. Up until I said I didn't want to play basketball anymore, I wanted to concentrate on track. My whole senior year, my recollection, key word, I do not recall him being at one single event my senior year. Mm-hmm. So now, here's part of what I'm dealing with. Based on a decision that I made, which I felt was best for me, I lost ⁓ the support that I yearned for and desired. And now that has, I'm realizing over the past year, I've realized how much of an effect that has had on me in doubting myself, working hard to receive the praise, like being a performer to receive the comfort and love that I desire and yearn for. And that's a traumatic experience that I'm still trying to deal with and if you want to say heal from and learn how not to let that lead in fear. Because ultimately that's a fear-based thing. Like if I make this decision, is this person going to leave me? What would you tell you that if you could? I don't know. That's where my last therapist had me write a letter to him and not necessarily to turn it to give it to him, but to write it to get the emotions of it out. And then I had another therapist say, like, you don't tell him what you feel unless you have a reason for it. And I don't know why I would tell him this experience other than for him to be hurt. Hello. from what he put me through. ⁓ Let's say I was your dad. Let's say I was your dad, right? And they probably did. It's called like, it's an empty chair type thing. But let's say I was your dad, right? Oh, you haven't? Okay, okay. Okay, let me tell you. Wait, wait, hold on. Let me, let's try it. Cause you know, if daddy's out there, I'm just curious. I'm just curious, right? I'm your dad. I'm sitting there. You call ring and ring. Hey pops, what's going on? And I don't know your pops 100 cause Yeah, I haven't done this exercise before, so I don't know how well it's gonna go. ⁓ no, because I don't know why. I don't have a why. to me, your pops was more, he was just like silent but deadly, to be honest. Like I was scared of your dad for a minute, cause he never said nothing and he would just walk past and I'm like, I don't know if he was gonna hit me in the face when he walked past because I did something stupid, right? So I don't, don't, cause when he booked y'all, I thought I was gonna get one too. You know, when I seen the spoon come out or the, I was like, ⁓ man, I'm shaking my boots. I think he was most scary to my dad. I'm sitting here like, but look. So I'm your dad, right? What it say? And you you gave me a call. Let's try this. I mean, you can take out what you want to take out, but I'm just curious, all right? Let's try this. Doesn't hurt. Cool? Cool? All right, that's all I ask. All right, so all I'm gonna do is, I wish I could put your dad's face on me. I think I wish AI could put your dad's face on me, but it can't, right? You know? I'll try. I'll try. Yeah. So you call me up like, hey, okay. And he talks to like, hey, how you doing, man? doing good. I haven't heard from you in a while. What's up? That man's just been working. And we're good. We'll be right now. At home, after a long day of work, just trying to relax. to why'd you call? ⁓ I called you? I'm just checking in on you, trying to see what's going on. Making sure you good. Mm-hmm. You call me. I'm good, this good, this you know, you sit in here. Life on TV. All right, cool. All right, cool. Just wanted to call and check in on you, so I'll chat with you later. Okay, so you're avoiding. I don't have a desire to say anything else. I'm not talking about no desire. Who cares about the desire? But it's the need to say something, not the desire to say something. You need to tell them something. was leading me. Why do I need... Why? Why do you need to, okay, it's almost like, you know, we talked about in the beginning, ⁓ why does she need, no, why do you say something? Because there's a certain spirit in you that needs to get out. Where there's certain, there's a certain energy. I don't like to say, I like to use energy, right? There's a certain energy that needs to be removed from you, right? And that energy can only be removed if you let it out, speak it out. For example, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I tell you this, most people don't know, it's all on the same thing. The same relationship you have with your pops, I have similar with my mom. It's strange, very strange. A lot of people don't know that. I'm not talking about Paulette, you know, that's like my other mom, I'm about my biological mom, right? She lived out here for like three years, three point something years, almost three and a half years. And we didn't really get along until year... the last part of before she left. Because there are things that although I'm expecting her to say, I'm sorry, I'm expecting her to say all this stuff, but she can never say, I'm sorry enough to me. Because there's gonna be always something that I feel she could have done better. What do want me to say, Mike? What do you want me to say, Mike? I don't know what you want me to say. It's not what you want him to say, it's what you need to say. And what you need to say... Go ahead, sorry. But here's the difference now. So in my mind, this is how my mind works. The difference between me telling my partner what I did. was I had to set myself free to be the person I meant to be. And I know I needed to say that and tell her the truth because she's asked me so many times and I've lied to her. I felt like I was lying to her and I had to tell her the truth. So she asked me again and she was like, oh, if you've ever cheated on me, now's the time to tell me so we could reconcile and move forward, blah, blah, blah. Like just out of nowhere. Okay. Okay. And I was like, all right, now's the time. Because I've been going on this journey of trying to be a better me. And it happens at a time where like, all right, this is the time. So I had to say something. So I knew the why there. I do not know the why to tell my father. I don't. Yeah. And that's okay. That's okay. ⁓ then I guess what stuck in me is that I had one counselor tell me, until you know why, then you don't need to tell them. Okay, I would say counselors are like ⁓ fitness trainers, right? You know, everyone, they all have their separate techniques, but they still go off the same theories, right? ⁓ I would say, say something to him just so you can release that. That's it. You don't, it's like not, and when I say release that, we're talking about, like I said, Mm-hmm. We're talking about, you know, the disappointment you have for him not coming to your game, right? The fact that you say you don't feel like you are enough, right? Right now, it's not released. So in order for it to be released, you have to go to the source to release it. He doesn't have to say, I'm sorry. You don't have to say none of that. As a matter of fact, you ever heard that saying that, you know, apology is not for Forgiveness is not for the other person is for yourself. You ever heard that now now this is rhetorical, but do you actually believe that? Right a lot of people really understand how to forgive themselves Right. It is it is a process right when you forgive yourself Okay, I'll give you an example. What do you like examples? Okay, so there is so much that you know, like I said myself and my mom you thought much of that talk about my mom, right? that I just was angry at her. I was upset, I was hurt, but I was still my mama. You know what saying? Regardless, you know, you're have that love thing, but you still kind of like, the emotion is almost like having a temper tantrum, right? So what I had to do was I had to say, I had to ask for forgiveness for myself because I gave so much energy into being upset with her. I gave so much energy into thinking about all the things she's done wrong to me. So when I say, I just wanna say that I'm sorry, I wasn't speaking to her. I was speaking to the version of myself that I see inside of her. That's who I was speaking to. Now the old me would have said, you know, like I wanted a response. I don't need a response because I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the version of you that I see. I'm talking to the version of you that I see myself in. And once you see that, once you see yourself in your dad, right? Once you see that your dad has done the best that he can as a father. Regardless of how you think it was your dad, you know, we can't do perfect all the time Right. I'm not saying that what he did was okay, whatever he did was I'm not saying that but what I'm saying is once you start to see that he did the best that he could do Not saying it was good, but I'm gonna say it was bad either and You see yourself as a father, right? How many times do you blame yourself for something that that you can have done better? with your daughter. All the time. You cannot apologize enough, can we? We can't, we can't, right? So Taylor one day is gonna come to you and say, dad, why wasn't I in math class? If you put me in the math tutor, I would have been this. They're gonna come up with something, right? So what you're doing is you're asking for forgiveness for you, And I know it sounds like, eh, but once you do it, All the time. All the time. Yeah, but what am I forgiven myself for? for being angry, for being, I'm sorry, that's wrong, for feeling like you are not enough. Forgiving yourself for not loving wholeheartedly. Forgiving yourself for self-sabotage because you felt that you wasn't enough. Forgiving yourself for all of that and a lot of things like you said before, it stems from that moment. Will it work? You haven't even tried it yet. So how do you know? Because in my mind, I only want to say it to make him angry, to upset him. That's why I haven't said nothing. Because it's not to forgive myself, it's to make him angry and for him to feel the pain that I felt. Mmm. How do know he doesn't? We don't know. We don't know what our kids are feeling. We don't know. He'll probably do it and he'll say, because all you're gonna, you're gonna tell them what you tell them, but then you're gonna be like, man, I should have told him this too. I should have told him this too. Dang it, I should have said this too. Right, so it's never gonna be enough. And the thing is, you don't want him to pass away and you haven't forgiven yourself. Because I know I don't like doing stuff over the phone. I can't stand doing stuff over the phone. I need to see the face of the person. I need to feel their energy. So if you're gonna say anything else, say do that to an imperson. That's a nice flight right there. that's a nice flight of thought and once you get on there, I think that it'll be a life changer for you. But like I said, we don't know unless that's why there's there's different, you know, ways of doing things and you keep doing them until they work for you. But you don't say, well, I'm not going to do that. Like then you're not involved in it. Then you're that you're that you're that client that we just say, well, why don't you do this? And you just saying, ⁓ because of this and because of that, I'm talking to you as a, you know, as a friend, you know what saying? We don't know if that's going to work. But at least you can give it a try. But like I said, the reason why I say that because I had to do that. And how did it turn out for you? It turned it, you know, it felt like it felt like we started all over again. I promise you, man. Like it felt like. At first it was just like, it was weird because now they know and I said some, that is a nasty thing, man. did like what you got. ain't that, that, that. That is so lightweight, man. Okay. I'll tell you, I'll tell you one thing that I said. I think one thing I said, I s I look, I said that. I it. lightweight. ⁓ I don't, I said, I don't need a mom right now. I said, that time has passed. I'm almost like a boys in the hood moment. Like that time has passed. I want to get to know you as a person. Now, as soon as I started to get to know her as a person, I understood where our relationship was going to be. See, right now you see your dad as a dad, which yeah, but try to see him as a regular person. That's a person who is not in like, you know, how would you treat him? And that's, that's myself and my mom's relationship from then on. She's still my mom, she still gave birth to me, and I'm grateful for that. But as a person, there's some challenges there. Are you gonna make me do it? Nobody else has been able to make me do it, but now I see the light. If you're do it, do that doing it in person. Don't do that, I mean, whenever you have time, but doing it over the phone is so, it's a cowardly way. It's coward. And that's the thing, when am I gonna have time to get from, not even time, time and money to get to California and have this conversation in the house that I don't wanna go back into because that's the house that my mom, that we grew up in and it ain't the same with my mom not being there. Yeah. When it happened. You know what I hate the most? I hate being afraid of something. So I do it. I hate it being, I hated public, I was afraid of public speaking. I said, I can't stand this power over me. So I have to do it. So if there's something that you're afraid of, that's when it's time to really stand up and be the gentleman that you are. and do what Adan is supposed to do. Gotcha. Since that's what you said, we read all this and we said all that. Now we gotta step up. I step up and do it. Yeah. Wasn't expecting this conversation to go this way. Yeah. You ⁓ I just wanna say, I just wanna say I love that sweater you got on, man. What's that, Actively Black? Man, that's a nice sweater. I gotta get on with that. That's sharp, that's sharp. It look warm too. But it did, and that's what we're here for. That's what we're here for. There you go. Actually black. There you go. I'm gonna tell you right now, I am not, are not, this is not a paid sponsorship, but I will say Lanny, Lanny Smith, the owner, this is the best gear I've ever put on. I mean, I'm not even saying, it's not even a paid sponsorship. I just, when they came out and my sister's the one that introduced me to it, I got one of their hoodies. As soon as I put that sucker on, I was like, woo. Yeah. I think I got every color hoodie they got in the Panera. So all you're going to see me in is actively black on these podcasts. so you know, I'm a black owned business. Great, great product. I love this stuff. So yeah, thank you, brother. Thank you, man. I'm going to rep my people the best I can. I'm going rep my people in the gear. I'm going to rep my people in drinks. Yeah, man. It's sorry man, that's nice man. There you go, there you go. Oh, I'm going to be embarrassed. with the uncle nearest, know, so I'm gonna do what I can to rep my people. That's important to me now to rep my people. yeah. So speaking of that, we never really talked about what Don meant, right? Don talk. It's Don talk for a reason. We called ourselves Don's growing up. Like during that time, we was growing up in church. Me, you, your brother, my next door neighbor, Sean, and there was a couple other folks, but that was the core. The four of us was the core, right? Stephen, Stephen, yeah. And it started with the core of us though, the four of us, because we was all together. We added Steve, who else? Because I'm not in it. Because I'm away at school and I ain't in it. I'm still mad at that to this day. Mm-hmm. you forgot about Steve. Yeah, Steve. Yeah, yeah, it did. It did. I'm not gonna bring up that picture. I know, I know, got, we got to the time to do that. traumatic experience I gotta get over. ⁓ but you got, hey, but you, hey, you're the only one who got the full scholarship though. You got the full scholarship. but all y'all musicians except for me, how did that work out? ⁓ no, man. ⁓ no. Hey! Get them pencils and start... But yeah, you're absolutely right. And I still wish I could play something. Still can't play nothing. Now, what does Don, what does, tell me, what does Don, where did it start, what does it mean to you? Well, at that time, honestly, it meant being a gentleman, because we were into ladies around that time, right? But we were a different group of guys. We didn't, all of us, I mean, we weren't doing much or nothing with women, but we just would treat them right. know I mean? We knew how to talk to them, and we just kind of prided ourselves on getting them. What did it mean at that time? Let's start. What did it mean at that time? getting ladies, right? And I'd like to point out we were young and that was the time we were in. So being a... I was a virgin. So when he say getting them, I don't know what he talking about. I thought, you know, if we got girls' number, that was equivalent to us having sex. Like, ⁓ we got they numbers, that we had sex, right? You know what I'm Right? But, man. the landline number that we had to write down on a piece of paper and take home and call them from a landline. you Being the Downs was just taking pride in ourselves, taking pride in who we are as brothers, as connection, because we were always together. We always hung out with each other, had big ups to big brother, your big brother, man, because he was kind of driving us a lot of places because he was the only one that could drive at the time. ⁓ But like I said, taking pride in ourselves, in ⁓ our educations, in what we what we did to make the little money on the side that we're trying to make. And so being the Don, that's what it was all about, ⁓ being respectful, even to the law. I mean, being respectful to our elders. And as we got older, it kind of morphed into, go ahead, Don. Well, kind of morphed it. I'll reiterate what you said, too. Like, growing up, it was about, you know, the Don came from the Latin term, Don, the Hispanic, Mexican individuals that were very well respected, highly educated, like... high value people in the community. And we took that on like, that's who we are. We, like you said, we treating the ladies right. We dressing nice. We upheld ourselves to be respectful gentlemen. And that has morphed into understanding that how we were taught to be the men or lack thereof growing up is not necessarily who we need to be today. So being a Don today is like, I know some people don't like the word ⁓ vulnerable, but being open, you know. opening up, breaking the barriers of who and what we weren't taught to be. We weren't to be men distinguished to... ⁓ Absolutely. dive into the emotions of what we're going through. Mm-hmm. how to deal with those emotions, how to talk to my friends about you. Like I said, me and you are going to find out more about each other during this podcast than we've ever known. But we should have been doing this a long time ago. You know, when you and Sean came to Boston and we hung out, we just hung out, had a good time. Like, and I remember at the time, my fiance would be like, what's up? So what's going on? Like, does Durant got any kids? I don't know. Absolutely. Peace. ⁓ I know you had kids, like, how old are they? I don't know. It's like, but it was just being around your brother to know, and this was two years ago, so from, I would say from two years ago to now, I've grown emotionally leaps and bounds. I am figuring out how to deal with what I've been holding up inside for so long. Yeah. I think that's I feel like that's more of what it done like taking what you're feeling and developing it and use it in the right way so it doesn't hurt you and those and those around you. You know and that's that's the journey that we're on and that's what we want to every day every day individuals. We just want to share our stories because we've been through a lot and people are going to learn more and more of what we've been through. about you. Absolutely. and the stories that we have just to talk and help one another. know, because like I said, I was a single parent. Raised my daughter, she was one and a half. Now she's 25. We talked about the traumatic experience of her and her brain aneurysm. I've been down to the lowest of lows crying at night, not knowing how I'm going to provide for her. You know, so it's like, these are stories that you don't know about that I probably haven't shared with a lot of people. A lot of people do not know I raised my daughter by myself. There's a lot of people that don't know that. So ⁓ that's my girl. So it's like, I've always wanted to help people and the start of me helping people is telling them a story. Yeah. and this podcast, getting us out there, us just talking like men, sharing our feelings, sharing our emotions, sharing our stories, and uncovering what that means and how do we navigate these emotions and feelings in the right way so it's not holding us back, but let's live free. And that's Mm-hmm. And I'm glad you brought that up, being a single dad, when people talk about single dads, my dad, for a while, he raised us by himself before he got remarried, right? And when people talk about single dads, or dads being deadbeats or all that, I take that personally, type of stuff. Yeah, pisses me off. It's pissing me off, that's why now I work with dads in the community. I actually wrote a children book, Daddy's Brain book, which demonstrates father engagement. It shows how we can be more engaged with our children. And there's nothing... Say that one more time, because we're to put a link below in there so you can check that out. Okay, ⁓ the book is called Daddy's Green Book. It's a children's book. ⁓ It's good for first time dads or anyone who wants to increase engagement with their children. And what it does is not saying that, hey, if you read this, you know, you'll be the best dad. No, it's pretty much saying that these are things that dad has been doing for years. Now we know what it means. dads, when we parent, sometimes we don't even know. We just, you know, like, reading to our children or pretending with our children or wrestling with our children. All of that as far as research, there's research behind that that says that doing things like that ⁓ improves child's ⁓ academics, their behavior. know what mean? things like that, we do so much that we don't know about. And I just want to make sure that as we start parenting on purpose. So the things that you're already doing, all Daddy's Green Book does is highlights it. That's it. So thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, I think that's, yeah, I love that because I think we grew up in an age where your value was based on what you provided. And I think we still struggle with a little bit of that today, in this day and age. You know, we date and there's a good sector of women out there that still look at you as what are you, how are you gonna make their life easier? Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Right? That's all they were like, what are you bringing to the table to make their lives easier? And I think men are starting to understand like, yeah, like I would love to make your life easier, but what are you doing to bring peace into the household and to help me be the best person I can be? And I think that's what we're in this phase where you, there's a, I'll say there's a battle, internal, external of me and realizing like, Both people are the prize. And think both people, individuals have to approach each other like they're the prize, not what you're gonna do for me. Absolutely. Yeah. to show me your value, but listen, if you see somebody that's visually pleasing and you like them, like they're the prize, and that goes both ways. So you have to approach those situations like that, like they are the prize. And I think that's one of the things that I know that you talk about and I want people to realize that we're more than just providers. And I think we have to, I know we have to realize that because what happens if you lose your job? I've seen and heard so many people of men that lose a job and their certificate disappears because they weren't really there for them as an individual. They were there for what they did for them. So. And yeah, absolutely right. And I think like in upcoming podcasts, I think we're gonna really kind of dig deep in that. ⁓ Yeah, man, that's that's Don Talk. Don't talk, we gonna just talk about it all. Our goal is to be open and honest. We don't wanna sugarcoat anything. We're not here to be disrespectful to anybody. Not here to downplay anybody, demean any particular group. We wanna uplift. We wanna uplift through our life experiences and help people be the best version of themselves that they are capable of being by bringing light to things that they've hidden for so long. you So that's our goal. That's what we want to achieve. We're going to have some fun in the process. You know, I envision one of us crying at some point in time during this podcast, like, but you know, that's, that's releasing and being living in your true self. There's nothing wrong with that. Two for too long. We've been taught to don't cry, be a man. Like what, does that mean? And we're going to dive more into that. Like, really. It doesn't make sense nowadays. You have a lot of individuals that are trying to break those stereotypes of what it is to be a man. And we just want to do our part to help those out and make sure that we're telling our stories and helping out who we can. That's down top. There you go right there. So, yep, so if that's it, yep, stay tuned next week for the next episode. Until then, we'll see ya. Yes, sir.