Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 12: How Much Should You Care? Ft. Crissle West

Transcript

EP 12: How Much Should You Care? Ft. Crissle West · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is ki Ganes.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, we talk
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: about what it actually takes become a full comprehensive man.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: A what's up to? Another episode? Was up to?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I ain't know what I was about to intro apart
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: the book myself a speech.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Let's try out again? Ay, what's up? This is? Hey?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Man? Keep this saying I don't even know what I'm introing.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I was about to intro four different things.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: What's up? Welcome to another episode of Learning the Hard Way.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: My name is Kiir Gaines. I'm your favorite therapist.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: I'm a podcast host, I'm an author, I'm a son,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I'm a dad, I'm a husband, and I'm a person
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: who really wants to see people in the world do better. Because, Man,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: if you've been on the internet lately, we are not well.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: And the crazy thing about not being well is that
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: people who are not well don't always know that they're
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: not well. So they go to the internet and talk
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: about other people who are not well and don't know
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: that they're talking about themselves. Today, I have a very
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: special guess. If you saw the title, you know exactly
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: who I'm talking to But before we get into that,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: let's do some house cleaning real quick, because I heard
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: house cleaning. Housekeeping, Nah, house cleaning, it's spring. I heard
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: a Dave Chappelle joke one time where he said he
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: was talking about all the things that are happening in
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: the world, talking all the crises, talking about famine, talking
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: about war, and he said, man, it's not possible to
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: give an f about everything. And you know, you know, Dave,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: he might tell you a joke, but they never tell
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: you a lie. It really started informing the way I
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: think about care, and I want you to think about
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: it for a second.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Just in your life. Think about the people you care about.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Perhaps you have a significant other, Perhaps you have parents
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: or in law. You got little cousins, you got big cousins.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Taking another step, perhaps you listen to a podcast and
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: you really feeling the host. You care about them, care
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: about their well being. You got people you follow on
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: social media that you care about. You have an extended
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: family that you possibly care about. All of these folks,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: let's spread it out a little bit more. If you
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: watch the news, there are things happening in countries that
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: you might care about. That things happening with groups of
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: people that may or may not look like you that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: you care about. It's a lot of care going around,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: and sometimes we feel guilty because we can't extend the
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: same amount of care to everything that's going on. And
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I want you to think how much care may be
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: too much. Being an impath doesn't mean that you're a
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: bottomless bucket of care, and it doesn't mean that you
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: don't have bandwid. There are some things, whether you're comfortable
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: singing it or not, that you just may not care
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: that much about and don't want to talk about that today.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Because me being a therapy I think sometimes folks expect
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: me to care about everything. I go to a party
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: sometimes and I end up talking to somebody. You know,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: they gonna hit you. I live in DC, so they
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: definitely gonna hit you with the oh what do you do?
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: And I take a deep breath I'm a therapist and
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: they go, oh okay, And I don't know what about
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: that says tell me all your problems, but people just
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: get the dumping on me and stop telling me.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: All of they bees wax.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Which I appreciate you feeling that safe with me, but hey,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I'm a therapist.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I am not your therapist, and respectfully, I do not care.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I hope it goes well for you, But I got
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: these three people that live in the house with me,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: who lives and livelihoods I'm responsible for, and they take
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: up all my caring bandwidth.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: I have nothing else for the world. I wish you
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: the best, but I do not care.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Now there was a part of me that used to
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: feel bad about that, but not anymore.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Guess who I didn't name yet.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: So I wanted to invite somebody else who has walk
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: the path of being clinically trained, in the path of
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: and getting all the education that I got to become
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: a therapist, and somebody who's been public facing for a
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: very long time, who's very vocal and very well respected
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: and speaks their mind. It seems to care a lot,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: maybe not about how you feel about how much they care,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: but they have an opinion, and opinions are to me
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: indicative of care. So I want to jump into that,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: and I'm gonna jump into this episode, and I'm gonna
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: do so with all the care I can muster, and
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: my little body in this moment, let's get it all right.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: So my guest today is a media personality and a
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: cultural critic. She is the co host of The Read
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: and the host of Crystal's Couch. I said the name
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: that your name is in the title, and that Joy
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Sell It's job.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: But can you please introduce yourself to the fine people
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: out there? Of course, Hi everyone, I'm Crystal. I have
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: a couple of podcasts. I have a master's degree in
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: mental health counseling, but I have not gone through licensure.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: I am not a therapist and I've been in therapy
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: for seven or eight years now. So yeah, it was
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: actually going to therapy that inspired me to become a therapist.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: You go to grad school?
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, these these distinctions are important.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: No shy a prying, Okay, I'm being very clear about
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: what I got and what I.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Don't listen is we put it all out on the
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: table so you can know.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: So it a no mistaken. But you going through grad.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: School, that's that's serious and people don't understand how hard
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: that is.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Yes, I will never get another degree
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: that requires a practicum or internship. Oh never again. One
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: thousand again, so much. It was fifteen hundred hours in
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: New York to get that degree. On top of you know,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: in the papers and studying and mock sessions in class
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: and just there. It was so much work and it
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: was worth it for sure, Like I learned so much.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: But I can't say that I would ever do that again.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I cannot say that I would. No.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: No, when people when I graduated, people were like, oh,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: you need to get your PhD. They got enough black
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: men with their PhD. And I was like, I will
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: not be adding to that, and now I will be.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: One less black woman without a PhD. Bab, I'm simply
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: not doing that. It was too much.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I remember my internship because my mom. My mom was
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: a victim of sexual abuse, so I grew up understanding
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: very much like she didn't hold nothing back. She's like, hey,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: I can't wake up and see you in my room,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: so you need to knock me.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Like that. So that was kind of on my mind always.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: When I got my internship, they asked me what group
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to work with. I said, I don't
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: think I can work with people who committed crimes of
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: sexual violence. I'mna have a bias. I can't work with them.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: They said, okay, first group. Guess what they put me in.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, someone who had committed sexual assault only five of
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: them work or was this like a I did a
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: men's group. I was the co My boss, who was
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: the head of the agency, was a man, and he
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: he hosted a men's group every week, and he was like,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: you know, y'all need y'all hours, y'all better come get
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: in on this group. And so I was privy to
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: hearing men's inside thoughts, you know, things I would not
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: normally hear from a diverse group of men every week.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: And it was eye opening, to say the very least.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I was Sometimes I wondered, like, do y'all know what
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: you're talking about is a crime? Like do you know
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: that the way you're casually talking about how you treated
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: this woman? They're like, that's technically illegal, Like do you
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: know that? So I can just about imagine how challenging
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: that was for you, right, Yeah, it was crazy.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: And I said and I listened, and sometimes I asked
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: people to repeat themselves. And I think the thing that
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: caught me off, God, was just a diversity between being
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: disingenuously apologetic on one side, and on the other side
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: of that gradient was almost being boastful.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the part that made me want to throw hands.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I ain't gonna hold you.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know. The thing about doing therapy, being on
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: that side of therapy is that clients will trigger the
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: fuck out of you or the hell out of you. Na,
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: we passed the great spirit. You can cuts. The clients
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: will poke you in your deepest places and you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: be completely unaware of that. And as a therapist you
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: have to be the one who is mindful of like, oof,
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: what's the difference between my gut reaction to this and
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: what in the therapeutic space is best for the client?
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Like not putting me or my experiences into it, but
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: at the same time drawing on what I know in
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: my own experiences. It's a delicate dance. That's why when
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: people say why do you need therapy? You could just
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: talk to a friend. Friends do not approach conversations with
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: you in this way. Okay, they do not. They're not
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: that much thought into it.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Your friends are so glad to lie to you, to
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: make you feel comfortable or not push you to grow.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: It feels like they're pushing you to grow, but nah,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: not all the way. And you got some good training,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: because that's exactly it. When people ask me about being
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: a therapist, and they ask me about my biases and
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: things I believe they'll say because I'm not.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: A huge I don't know if I ever said it
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: on the podcast.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not the biggest proponent of marriage because I don't
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: think people marry for the right reasons will make the
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: right decisions. People, How are you going to be counseling
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: couples and you don't believe in marriage because it doesn't
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: matter what I believe. This counseling session isn't about me
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: or fully, so I gotta take my opinion out of it.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: And it took a lot to get there. It took
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: a lot to get there. And the first thing I
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: do is I check my biases at the door. I
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: know I got biases, and I gotta I gotta confront
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: them directly right off top or else they're going to
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: leak into the entire therapeutic alliance and you ain't gonna
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: get helped, Bro, You're gonna end up listening to me
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: talk about my experiences fifteen minutes at the end of
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the session.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: And that ain't it. And that's not what therapy is.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: It's not what therapy is supposed to be. But I mean,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: I before I started grad school, I definitely was like, oh, no,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: men deserve rights. Men don't deserve rights. They don't deserve
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: clean air or water, much less a woman by their side.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: And then I did couples counseling change. Well, so yes,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: that was a.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Long ass soul. But please because it as a man.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's being on the internet. It feels incredibly hopeless
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: in the daylight of us having humanity, because the worst
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: of us are so loud, so boastful, and so proud
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: of how shitty they are, So like, what change, if anything,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: give me?
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: You know, going to grad school really makes you realize
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: that everybody been through something and you have no idea
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: when you sit down next to somebody on the train,
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: for example, what type of shit they've been through to
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: make it to the train on that day. So my
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: understanding of like, you know, I just don't use blanket
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: statements like that anymore, like all men or trash or
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: automatically break up with him or things like that. I
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: have come to realize the nuance in life. I've come
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: to really appreciate the gray area, and I really do
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: believe in the human ability to change. I have to
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: believe in it because I've done it, so I extend
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: that same grace, empathy, understanding, etc. To other people, including men.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: And I have worked in internship. I worked with a
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: couple of different couples alongside my supervisor for couples counseling,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: and there were times where Crystal thought, oh my God,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: break off with his loser ass nigga, are you kidding?
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: But you know, the therapist had a completely different approach.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: We're like, Okay, well, let's see what the Godman's got
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: to say about you got to pull out that to
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: pull out John got Man, you know, and and and
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: you know, talking to my supervisor, talking to my professors
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that at school. So I don't automatically
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: have this uugh men our garbage kind of mentality. But
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: I see a lot of ways that patriarchy has warped
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: men's and men in particular everybody, but men in particular's
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: understanding of humanity and and the way that others deserve
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: to be treated. Things like that, you know, and and
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: and also grad school really tied in for me how
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: much capitalism is a problem in so much absolutely, I'm like,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: oh my god, people coming to therapy, it's like yeah,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: you need therapy, but you need you need secure housing,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: you need secure food, You need to know that you're
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: you have a safe daycare or childcare for your children,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: like you need things to anxietally in addition to a
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: safe space to work through you know what you have
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: going on mentally, and all of those things are connected.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: So my empathy and understanding have really grown. I used
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: to be very black and white. You said this, you suck,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: You're a shitty person, blah blah blah. Definitely not anything
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: like that anymore. We can hope, y'all. Let's type it
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: up for having hope. It's possible. You know, it's a
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: glimmer of hope out there for us. It's a lot
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: of work to grow up though, Yeah, it is.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: And also, I think from my side, just from the
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: male experience, it's a lot of work to not automatically
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: discount when women do feel that way and understand that
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: it does come from a place that's legitimate, and you
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: gotta validate that. I had a tendency definitely before grad school,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: whenever I would hear, you know, men as shit culture
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: to hyper emphasize my own experience or think that because
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't do a certain thing that I represent in
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: it a larger group of men than I actually do.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And it's a nuanced conference. It's so much to it.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: The internet is not the place for nuances, and.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: It's not unfortunate. Don't bring that shit there, no, because
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: people don't have the attention spends for it. It's like
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: sometimes people are like, oh, talk about this, talk about
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: that baby. That would be a ten minute TikTok if
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: I were to really get into it. Sure y'all are
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: not tuned in for that. Y'all want to hear the quick,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: snappy one liners and the little takeaways that you can
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: go repost and stuff like that. You don't want to
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: sit here and listen to like a little mini lecture.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: And I don't blame you. But the real answer, or
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: my real perspective is a lot more nuanced than what
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: you think it is. Very few things for me are
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: boiled down into like hard yes or hard no.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah so but yeah, that's but your ass perspective. Do
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: you find a lot of people rock like you do?
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Or do you think people are more dichotomists than they thinking?
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I don't. I don't think they are, but I
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: think if you talk to people about it, they start
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: to see what you're saying. Like the people who have
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: been listening to the read since the very beginning are like, oh,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: that bitch has changed. She has changed. My God, the
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: way she used to talk about herself, the way she
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: talk used to talk about others, the way she used
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: to address the listener letters, everything is different. So they know.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: The people who have been listening for years and years,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: they're like, yeah, I've heard it. I heard the difference
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: when you start going to therapy, and then I heard
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: the difference when you started going to grad school. So
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: it's like when you can show people in that way
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: that it is possible to evolve, or even if you
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: can just sit down and talk to people like sometimes
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: people have such a hard line stance on something, it's
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: like they don't even know that another possibility exists. And
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: that's something that grad school definitely opened me up to,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: is like, sure, have your beliefs, but question them and
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: really question them, Like, don't go looking for confirmation biases,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: information to back up what you already believe. Go looking
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: trying to disprove what you think you know absolutely. I
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: called it that terrogate in your own thoughts. Yeah, yes,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: it's I think it's so important because you either learned
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: something you didn't know or you strengthen your own argument.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, you gotta have some bravery to
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: do that, because in order to interrogate your immediate thoughts,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: you gotta be comfortable with the idea that one you
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: may be wrong.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: You gotta be.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Able to accept the fact that you're wrong, and three
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: be able to do something productive with the fact that
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: you're wrong instead of just self loathing NBA yourself for
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: not being perfect off the jump, Yes, but you said
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: something I want to kick back to real quick. You said,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: people who've been listening to the read, which y'all been
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: a power for what thirteen years?
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. Those people don't get past five episodes.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: You're right, don't.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: From the outside looking at and it sounds like you're
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: just talking to him, like boy, it's allowed more to
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: it than that.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: I didn't know until I started doing it to this level.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: You said, people could tell the difference between when you
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: first started that level of maturation, when you started going
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: to therapy, and then when you started getting your education.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I know that people who've been listening to me for
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: this long will see the same Because it started off
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I think it's more evident in my content than anything.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: It started off with me just doing family content. I
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: was a family YouTuber, and then I had a video
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: go viral just encouraging men to go to therapy because that's.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: The time that I was going to therapy.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: And then I was probably talking more about my marriage
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: and how I felt about becoming married and the concept.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Of being a family man.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: And then once I actually became a therapist, my content
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: really changed because I'm talking about like, hey, look, here's
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: five things I didn't know before I got married. And
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: it's not a way to land bass women or denigrate
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: or talk down on anybody. It's giving people honest, step
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: by step instruction of what to think about before you
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and bark on this journey. So between you being just
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: flat out boss or rhymes kicking the door down like
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: the kool Aid Man, between that starting school and then
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: being a therapist, what do you think the three changes
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: were that people would be able to see.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Oh man, Well, I mean, if you go back to
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: twenty thirteen when we first started the show, you're going
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: to hear unhealed me. You're gonna hear. You know. I
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: think if I go back and listen to those episodes,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I will probably still agree with a lot of what
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I said. It's more of the way I think that
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: I would talk to people and the way that I
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: was so rigid in my thinking. Yeah, for sure, and
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: very much like if people rode in and they're like, uh,
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: my boyfriend only brought me six roses for my birthday
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: and he knows I wanted twelve, and I'd be like,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: break up with him, you know, Like lore that is
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: tresd one person. It sticks out in my mind. I
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: remember they were writing in about their mother and they
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: said something about their mother the way she had treated them,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: and it was forrific treatment. And I just remember saying, girl,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I am so sorry, but your mama's a fucking hooret
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, stuff like that where I'm like,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: now that I've been to school, I would address that differently.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: But I'm also sure that there's you know, thirteen years ago,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: there were a lot of opinions I had that I
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: would listen to now and be like, yuck, what the
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: hell was I thinking? You know, And that's because I
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: was just coming into this very new Space podcasting was
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: nothing like it is now, and you know, it was
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: just me and my friends shooting the shit, and you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: I just wasn't thinking about anything that deeply. So that's
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: probably the first six or seven years of the show.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: And then I went through a domestic violence incident and
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: that sent me to therapy, and working with my therapist
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: was such a profound experience that Ladys has helped me
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: change my life and it meant so much to me
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: that I was like, I need to know how you
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: do this. Like it's obviously not voodoo, it's not magic,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: it's science, but I need to understand how you did this.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: And so I mean, I told her I got heard.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: She didn't. It wasn't like, yes, I allow you to
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: go to grad school. But I told her, you know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: I this has been a crazy experience, Like I want
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: to learn this, I want to understand it, and she
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: was like, go do it. So I think once I
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: went to therapy, people could tell the difference in like,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe me just having a little more empathy
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: for certain situations than I used to, or being a
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: little bit more careful with my words. And then since
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: becoming since finishing or starting grad school. I think that
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: has all just been ratcheted up. My understanding of things
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: goes much deeper now than it ever did before. So
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: it's not just you know, I'm not just looking at
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: Chris Brown's behavior. I'm examining how Chris Brown got to
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: this point the.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Contextual without exenerating you from wrong, will conrating without making
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: excuse right, But how do we get here?
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: And how do we stay here?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: You hype man, you hype and me. I love, I'm serious.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: I love when people want to growth trajectory like that
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: because we think that when we sometimes ask why, and
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of times the conversation about black men is
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: where I start from, And I say, we cannot have
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: a conversation about black men what's wrang with black men
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: until we have a conversation about what happened to black boys? Yep,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: you can't, or you're not having a whole You're not
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: having a whole or honest conversation. And I think sometimes
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: when we look at whatever the why is, we feel
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: like we're giving the why permission for whatever the.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Bad behavior is. Like, Nah, I'm not giving the permission.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I'm investigating the motivation behind it so I can better
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: understand where it comes from.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: People confuse a reason for an excuse all the time
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: like that, and it's like, we don't even let little
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: boys be little boys, especially black ones. We are putting
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: our vision of masculinity and what it means to be
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: a man onto them at such a young age. So
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: it's like a lot of men's behavior. I'm like, I
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: know why you act like this because you were literally
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: trained to act. You were literally conditioned into behaving this
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: very way, and if you didn't, you were shunned or
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: made fun of by the people you valued the most,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: or maybe rejected by the people you love the most,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: things like that. So, like, I fully I get it.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Does that mean it's okay for you to go around,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: you know, grabbing women's asses or you know, committing all
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: forms of assault and things of that nature, being disrespectful
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: and things like that. No, but I understand how you
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: got here, And I think that is what's so important
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: about therapy, is that you don't go in to be
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: like Tiss Tiss. It's more like I can. There's the
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: empathy for the younger version of you who had their
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: heart broken at such a young age. That is what
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: was so present for me and all the clients I
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: worked with during my time in grad school.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Not so much you can see yourself, But is it
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: that you can kind of reference back to when you
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: were like at that point of your life, or is
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: it that you just have more empathy for that tender
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: spot and need development.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Well, no, it's so right. It's not really so much
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: about me. It's more about like, let's say, for example,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: I have a client who wants to break up with
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: this man. He's just doing her wrong over and over,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: but she keeps going back. Okay, Immediately, I'm not like, oh,
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: why you won't just get your shit together. I'm like
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: the little girl who was desperate for somebody to love
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: her and accept her just as she is, who just
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: wants to feel that. That's the person who keeps going
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: back to that man, hoping that this time it's gonna
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: be different. So I have so much empathy for that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: That's the person I'm working with.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the hardest part for me as a therapist,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: it's saying, like, damn, you're trying to feel that gap
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: that feels supposed that gap is supposed to be filled
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: with warm soup and it's being filled with concrete.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And I can't tell you what to do.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I cannot, And you can't even rush the process. Yo,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: you can. And people be like, why therapists won't just
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: say it to me straight because you will be scared
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: out your mind and you will never come back. It'll
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: be too much. You do not want a therapist to
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: read you down after three sessions. I promise you don't.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: It don't feel good and don't. And when I think
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: back at it, my therapist must have clocked so much
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: shit about me immediately. But she also knew it is
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: going to take that girl time to unravel these deeply
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: held beliefs that she's had since childhood. We gotta start
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: with the presenting problem. But let me tell you right
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: now that that relationship that ended in domestic violence, that
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: is not your biggest problem. Oh no, that's not the startup.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Oh maybe I was over that man within six months
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: and I still had years more left to go. And
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: that became more clear to me throughout therapy. I was like, well,
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: I thought I was coming because of this terrible relationship,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: but this is about my parents. Yeah, it man.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Always when we get to the root I'll be telling
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: people all the time what you come in here for.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and what you think you coming in here for?
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Two different things?
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, are you open to the process, And they'll say yeah,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: and then we'll just start pulling that that little cord
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: staining out of the ground. You think, I'm gonna give
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: it three tugs and get to the root and be
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: like here it goes. No no talking for years. Yes, yeah,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: it's down there deep.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Because you have to meet the client where they are.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: And if you try to challenge too much too quickly, yeah,
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: you're gonna throw people off. Like if she had tried
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: to tell me from the beginning. Girl, your mother was
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: emotionally neglectful. Your father was emotionally abusive. You've picked up
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: a lot all the bullshit along the way that is
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: deeply embedded than you, and that's why you're miserable as shit.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: I would have been like that, you don't know who
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: you're talking to, you know, like that, like, who the
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: fuck are you talking to? I love damn you, like
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: I would have fully gone into all of that and
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: so you. But I but now that I know the
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: things I know, I'm like, girl, I know you clocked
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: it immediately because I clocked it immediately with so many
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: of my clients.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: You can see it.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: You can see it.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: I mean as soon as people walk through the door
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: and start talking. Yeah, but it's not time.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: It's not time a baby.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: When a baby is born, a baby can't crawl or
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: walk or anything. And if you gave a new born
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: baby the ability to walk, the body will fold.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Under the weak.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It needs to develop more. You need more time to
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: cook and mature. Yes, before you get to the place
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: I need you to get.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: And if you try to rush it, you will mess
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: something up. Like those of you who beat your two
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: year olds because they not potty trained.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Oh that's.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: You. You're not. You're you're going to give this child issues.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: In another way, it's listen, you'll be surprised, even things
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: like bed wedding. This, this is so much that goes
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: back to the way you were treated for wedding the
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: bed as a kid. That will affect you and your
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: dog absolutely. And if I tell you that in a
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: second session, you're gonna look at me like I got a.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Head growing up exactly exactly. You know.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Seeing people's stuff reminds me of this, I not reminds
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: me of this.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Idea.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: But it just brings me back to this thing that happens.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: And this happened ever since I became a therapist, and
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: I want to know just what you're training, you going
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: to school and all that. If you notice it too.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: When I tell people I'm a therapist.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Shit, oh gets weird. Shit gets weird.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Women get weird around me, And there's really specific way
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: where they get curious and they want to ask a
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: million questions or start talking about.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Their bad relationships. You see, if we.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Can co diagnose, I can see that. And men get
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: weird in a way where they get apprehensive, like, oh,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: maybe out and told him a little bit too much.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: He see me now, Yeah, it affects everything.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: When I'm talking to people, people think I'm reading them.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: And it's like, baby, I promise you I'm not doing
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: anywhere I definitely did in grad school. Now, I just lie.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: I learned quickly to just lie, just lie, just lie.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: I remember one time I was in Antiga for my
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: friend's birthday. I'm like, you know, I'm on vacation, this
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: the end of the semester. I'm stually relaxing, ch'all. Somebody
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: told the cab driver that I was a therapist the
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: entire rod to the resort. This man is like, well
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: it started with my first wife, and I'm like, oh, nobody.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: I actually I'm on vacation. I'm literally supposed to be
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: clacking out what you mean? I don't so. Yes, people,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: I definitely have had that experience of like people sort
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: of immediately start just trauma dumping just everything that's ever
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: happened to them. They'll just unleash it at you and
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: you're like, whoa, I'm not ready for that. Or at
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: parties or stuff like that, they'd be like, oh, are
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: you analyzing me right now? Like, no, sweetie, apps, that's
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: work drinking. I do not care. I'm not and i'm not.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: You really think I'm about to get that invested in you.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: I don't even know your name. No, I'm not psychoanalyzing you.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: No. People always think I'm analyzing them and it's and
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: not always ask them like do you.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Do work when you leave work? Right?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I don't like it.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I don't do that right.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: No, I'm listening to what you're saying, please continue, right,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: and when it gets too awkward, I just do the iverage.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, I just gotta go. Yeah, it's not it's
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: not you, it's me, it's you. But I'm right, it's you,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: it is you. It's also I don't want to be here.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: I don't want to be in this dynamic right now.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: I'm not your therapist just because I am a therapist.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Like that. You said that during your intro. I'm like,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: you really have to hammer that point home to keeping
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: in social statics, like, bro, no, I'm not analyzing. Now.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: You might say something where you tell on yourself, but
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: that doesn't mean I'm psychoanalyzing you. Does that happen to you?
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Somebody say something? Oh? Yeah, Well I'm like, oh, you
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: have no empathy. That's interesting.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Oh you're actually the antagonist this, Yeah, refuse to see it.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: Yep. Just the other day, my friend hit the group
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: chat and she said the text message. She was like,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: I asked him if he wanted kids, and you know,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: he just his response made me feel like he was
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: just mad because he feel like I was calling him gay.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: And so she attaches this screenshot and I read through
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, well, girl, I didn't read into that,
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: but you know, I don't know that man, so maybe.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: And then she came back this morning and was like, yeah,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: I misread it. That was my bad. I'm like, yeah, girl,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: so that happens. That happens too where it's like I
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: but I know her. So I'm like, I know what
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: you have been through to make you have your guard
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: up so high and you distrust every little thing a
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: man does, and you looking for a reason for it
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: to not work out. So I know where you came from.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: But then you said the screenshot of a man being like, no,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: I don't have any children. I've dated when with kids.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: I love kids. I wouldn't mind be the stepdad, but
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: I no longer want to have biological children. I'm like that,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: nothing about that sounds like he's annoyed or that he
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: thinks you're calling him gay sweetie. I don't know where
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: you got that.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: That's and that's that's a hard thing when you already
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: have like certain schemas in your mind. You have an
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: idea how you think this person is going to respond,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: and you look at their response through the lens of
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: whatever your expectation is, and that can go good or bad,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: because it could be, Oh, I expect you to say
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: something negative, and when you say something neutral, eh, close
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: enough to negative. I'm willing to assume it is or
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: you know how they say you don't have to lie
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: to somebody who likes you, because if they like you enough,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: they a lot to themselves. Yeah, so every one of
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: them things. I've seen Bro send me some stuff in
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: the group chat like yeah, she feeling me.
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm not getting feeling you. I don't see that.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's like you you want to read romance or
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: flirtation into something where it's not there, like, unfortunately, I'm
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: just being nice to you. And because of grad school,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: I look people in the eye. And that was the
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: first thing we did on the first day in my
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: first class. We paired up and practiced looking at each
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: other in the eyes. Yes, because so many people are
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable with it. And so I have found that men
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: especially think because I look them in the eyes and
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: smile when I'm talking, they think I'm flirting, and it's like,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: I I'm just communicating like a human being. This is
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: not me trying to get with you, you know.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: To be fair, some of us are undertouched under law.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, and I get it, I do,
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: I get it, But I'm I'm being a nice person
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: that's to touch.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Grasp more and be out here talking to people in
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: real life so that we can understand these human characteristics yes,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: and aren't indicative of anything more than what they are, right.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, we're so used to reading into
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: things that may not be there, especially if you spend
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of time online. Then you know, people are
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: just always trying to look between the lines, and and
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: and you know you said this, but did you really
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: mean this? And again, because nuance is not a place
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: that social media does not really have the space for that,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: a lot of people trim things down or flatten them
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: out so that they don't even fully express themselves, and
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: so it's open to other people's interpretation. That's why when
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I talk, I try to be very specific with the
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: words that I use and make sure that they convey
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: exactly what I'm trying to communicate, because I want you
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: to when you go back and listen to it again,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: I want you to know that I was deliberate with
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: the words that I chose. I wasn't just out here
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: running my mouth. I meant what I said, and I
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: was intentional with the words that I used.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I think that one of the I think that one
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: of the most unspoken self care practices is allowing people
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: to be wrong about you and not feeling the need
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: to correct them all the time. Yes, when it comes
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: to care and you being intentional about your message because
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: your words they carry different because you got such a
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: large audience.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Go so I.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: So when you like, when you talk, if people misinterpret
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: what you say, is it something that you care deeply
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: about or is it more do you care about setting
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: the record strate or do you say, Hey, that's your
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: interpretation of me of what I said.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: I've made it clear enough.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: I can't make it no clear that belongs to you,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: not me, Like, how do you care about that?
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: It's situational. It used to really piss me off because
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: I'm like, how is this being misconstrued when I said
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: what I meant? But I had to take a step
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: back and be like, people are going to You may
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: use the words intentionally, but people hear it through their
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: own mind, their scope of language, their experiences, and they
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: filter it into whatever in their own minds, And so
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: I just have to say what I meant to say
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: and then let it go. But if multiple people or
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: several thousands of people are all coming to the same
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: wrong conclusion, about what I said. Sometimes I will then
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: go back and be like, no, let me be very
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: clear about it, like I perhaps I wasn't as clear
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: as I thought I was before, but this is you know,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: if I'm not. If I don't regret it, then I'm
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: not going to apologize, but I'm happy to clear it
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: up since more than one of you is not understanding
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: what was being said. Yeah.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: One of my grad school professors called that the tail theory. Yeah,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: I wrote about it in my book.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: It says, if one person says.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: You have a tail, it might be a lie.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, three people say you have a tail, it might
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: be a conspiracy. If five people say you have a tail,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean that you have a tail. But damn it,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: you might as well take a look behind you, might
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: as well look might as well look behind you.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: And this has happened to me before. I'm not sure
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: how deep y'all want to get into that, but there
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: have been times that I've had to go back and
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: replay exactly what was said, like, am am I tweak it,
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: or and I go back and listen, I'm like, no,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: I said, I was intentional with what I said, but
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: you all think it means something that it doesn't you're
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: interpreting it through whatever lens you have, or maybe for
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: some people it's like, well that was mean, that was harsh.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'll give you that. Yeah, correct, it was
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: mean and harsh, but the words that I chose were
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: very deliberate. Yeah.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: If you go on the internet, you say, man, I
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: really love on just people like so oh just fuck apples.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Huh yeah, who said that. I didn't say that. No,
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: you clearly said that. Everyone knows. Oh you speak for
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: everyone now, yeah, and now you said it, Yeah, fuck apples.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I said it. Less fucking fight about it, see, And
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: that's why I'm different. I'd be like, you know what,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: you got it bro? Oh yeah No. At this point,
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: I let things go if if I have to, If
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: I have explained to myself twice and you still are
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: mad about it at this point, God blessed. That is
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: your journey for you to work through. Shout out to
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: your commitment to understand misunderstand, because I could not be
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: any clearer.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Na, it's so clarity ain't clear. Apparently you can. You
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: can say something and people will take the interpretation and
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: they will fly over the moon with it. You're living
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: in an attention economy. Even threads. I love threads is great.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: It's what Twitter was before. For Twitter just became a
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: vast wasteland. Na I deactivated my account. It was too much.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: It's too much. But even on threads, sometimes you'll see
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: people just they'll they'll post things that are like an
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: inflammatory and just to get the reaction. They don't respond,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: they don't follow up. They're getting the reaction. But being
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: on the Internet, I learned if you get a large audience,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: so you get a lot of attention and it doesn't
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: culminate into a project or a point of sale, you're
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: not getting anything of that.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: But eyeballs, yep, don't.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I don't. I don't understand. Well for some people, that's enough.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: For some people, the validation from social media doesn't exist
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: in their real lives.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: So maybe that's the thing. They don't transition to me
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: into real life like these people don't.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: And it doesn't for them either. But getting that feedback,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: getting all those messages, those likes, those reposts, even having
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: people argue with them is a level of engagement that
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: they're not getting somewhere else. That's why I'm like people
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: who rage bait just to rage bait. I don't want
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: to diagnose you, but I think you may be lonely.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: I don't want to diagnose you, but take this diagnosious.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: I think you may be really lonely in your personal life.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: If you going online and saying stuff just to get
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: people to say something to you, you just want people
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: to react, like my god, you get nothing outside of this.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I can see how part of that can be a
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: validating experience.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: I think so. I think you know, some people just
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: want the interaction and they don't care if it's negative
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: or positive. Actually, very deeply about what I say. It's
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: just that, especially when it comes to mental health stuff,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: psychology and things along those lines. If you don't like it,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: that is fine with me. You don't have to like it.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: But if my opinion is backed up by research, then
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: you just gonna have to not like it.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Don't get me into science and research.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Once I took a research class, I realized when people
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: online say, man, I researched.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: It, know you didn't. You looked on Google? Right? That
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: is not for page of Google results. Maybe if you
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: don't log into that library, you don't understand the standard deviation.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Let's say, oh that statistics class marginal propensity like statistics
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: is his own research, is his own science. It really is.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: And you I have to have somebody interpret that for
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: me because I don't. My brain doesn't understand it. It's
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: not something that I'm just good at.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: I see, I see it's crazy. I mean, I baby.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: I would log into the library system, looks up to that,
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: click peer reviewed articles only, and just spend all day. Yeah.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Oh man, yeah, back.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Shout out to everybody in grad school, man, shout out
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: to y'all, because let me tell you something. I've been
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: free since June first, twenty for you. Supreme ghetto through
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: supreme ghetto. Oh rock.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I had a new born at the time. Oh yeah,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: I was about to propose to my girl. It was
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: just oh man, we was buying a new house.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: That boy was going. Oh so you decided to do
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: every major life change at once. Yeah.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going for punishment if you haven't noticed.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: That's too nice. No, it was, it was, yeah, it was.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: I didn't do anything but the read because I was
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: so careful. I took my studies so seriously, and so
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: I did not tell anybody in grad school who I
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: really was. I kept this side of my life completely private.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Bruce Wayne in It through Grass absolutely was. And every
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: semester one black person would come tap me on the
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: shoulder and be like, oh, but and then at graduation
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: one girl was like, oh my god. I was like,
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: can you please just let me walk across the state
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: before you post this? Just let me walk, please. I
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: just want one last minute of privacy. But you know,
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: I kept all of this a complete secret from grad
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: school because I didn't want anybody thinking that I was
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: there to for entertainment purposes. You know, I was there
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: to learn, and I wanted to take it just too seriously,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: and so I didn't do anything other than recording the
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: read for the whole two and a half years I
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: was in grad school. And that was enough.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: It's a lot. It's a lot.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: It is so grad school is oh my.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: God, Oh we're gonna have an episode we go ham
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: on grad School's talk about.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: I almost missed the sacred event because of grad school. Yes,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: you yes. And I didn't know that I was meeting
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: her that weekend. But you know, beyond I met, she
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: does kind of just flow. I knew that ship, she
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: kind of knew. She did kind of glides. She just
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: and she doesn't. She just appears and then you just
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: you smell like yeah you You turn around and there
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: she is. But yeah. I got the call on Friday,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: like come to LA for this sacred event, and I
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: was like, I got an in person presentation for my
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: internship class. We scheduled this weeks ago and that lady
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: told us if you miss your week to present, you
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: will get a zero. And this is something you need
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: for the class, right, this is my whole case conceptualization
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: that I had to present to the classes. You got
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: triggered as soon as I said case conceptual It's so
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: much work. They are intense a case conceptualization ideally for
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: people who don't break it down for the people please
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: it is. It is. It is a document about a
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: client that is so thorough that you could theoretically give
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: it to another clinician and they would be able to
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: pick up in continuing your care or they would know
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: enough about you to be able to do that. So
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: it's a very intense thing. And and I had to
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: present mine along with audio recording from a session, and
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: you know, then your classmates critique it, and it's just
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: a whole huge thing. So I was like, tell Beyonce.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: I you know, tell Sacred I love them. I'm excited
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: for the launch, but mama got a thing on money
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: that she cannot miss and they were like, you pack
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: your things, you you need to come to Los Angeles.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: Take the Red Eye Sunday night, but you need to
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: come to LA And so I did, and it was
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: very worth it, but I was exhausted. That means you
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: take to feel seri I do. I do. Yes, No,
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: I absolutely took it so seriously. Private client privacy and
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: things like that was just I We had one person
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: in our internship who just all of a sudden stopped
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: coming to class and then at the end of the semester,
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: my professor was like, yeah, uh, that person got removed
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: from their internship placement because they violated client privacy and
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: so they got kicked out of not just their internship,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: with the entire program. Yeah, we was losing people like
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: the hunt. Yeah, they don't play. I'm like, I don't
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: know why y'all thought they were playing with you. But
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: because I had years of being a client, I knew
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: what to expect. Yeah, so, and lots of times when
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: I felt like I didn't know what to say, I
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: would think, what would my theoris and I looked. I
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: chunneled that lady a lot. I did.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: One of my homies hit me up and he was
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: talking about he felt bad. He said, my cousin just
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: called me. My cousin want a whole bunch of money,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: and I know all he going to do is get
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: how on my money?
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Man?
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: And I feel like I need to give it to him.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: He making me feel bad, And I was like, yeah,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: you feel bad because you feel a sense of duty
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: and obligation to him, But you don't owe him anything,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: especially if you know giving something to him is going
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: to ultimately hurt you.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: It is not your job to take care of that
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: adult person.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: And I gave him that advice, I think partially selfishly
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: because it was hard for me to follow that up.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: I'm an only child, at least on my mama's side.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: You know how that game, you know, and so I
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: think being selfish isn't super hard for me. But there
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: are times where I gotta really decide how much to
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: care in my relationships.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Or when to lean in.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: When to lean out with your relationships. Just think about
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: personal relationships, friendships, whatever. Do you struggle with that, Like
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: how much to give and be there and hey, I
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: sit with you. I want to help be your rock
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: versus a big homie.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: Hmmm teas and p's yeah.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: You gotta figure that out. I'll be here for you
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: the whole way and not hand overhand.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, well, that's something that therapy has really helped me with.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: It was one of those longer term issues that I
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: had that didn't get uncovered until after I had gotten
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: past the X.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Right, So, like I said, I've been in therapy for
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: seven or eight years. So one of the things that
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: we really have gotten me to a much better place
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: of is letting other people have their shit for I
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: used to want to fix whatever, and the more you
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: seem to be hurting or in distress or in crisis,
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: the more I wanted to just give of myself and
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: just let you know that if nobody else is here,
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: I'll always be here. And so much of that, you know,
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: it's like that is a well intentioned feeling, but it
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: comes at the expense of my own feelings, my own needs,
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: And so so many times I was ignoring people who
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: have or I was ignoring the fact that people had
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: mistreated me miss you know, misused me. People who had
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: done things that were so hurtful are harmful to me
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: multiple times, and I would excuse it with, oh, but
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: I know they have this going on. I know they
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: have such and such mental illness. I know this person
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: really struggles blah blah blah. You know. It's what that
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: was really doing was teaching myself, reinforcing to myself that
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: what I need, what I want, what I deserve doesn't
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: matter as much as what somebody else may need or want.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: And thankfully now I'm at a much healthier place. I've
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: apologized to some friends that I know I was wrong
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: in certain dynamics where it's like, damn, I have one
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: friend who's shorter than me. I'm only five to three,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: so almost everybody's told me. But I've one friend who's
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: four eleven. We've been friends since high school, and you know,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: for the past twenty years, I've been like, yeah, short ass,
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: y'all a little bitty ass. Oh And she had mentioned before,
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: like maybe eight ten years ago, how much she hates
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: that people are always bringing up that she's short. And
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: I was like, not so sensitive, short ass, you know
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: something like that, oh man, And so yeah, I know,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: I know, I cringe at it now, but when But
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: when I think about it, when I was young and
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: my feelings were her, people said, yo, sensitive ass, get over.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, you can't take a joke. Oh we
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: can't even talk to you, damn. So that's very much.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: I turned my feelings off at a young age, and
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: I turned into that person. Yeah, And as much as
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: I loved my friend, I was definitely like, yep, yo,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: little short ass. And so I remember it was New
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Year's Eve twenty nineteen. We were in DC getting ready
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: to go out, you know, and we were in the
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: back of the uber and I was like, girl, I
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: just have to apologize to you because that was so
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: shitty of me, and I, you know, I'm sorry that
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I was just so rotten, Like I'm so sorry that
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: I did that and I will never do that again.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: She was like, I really appreciate you saying that, you know.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: So I've had to have conversations like that with friends
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: where it's like I did not realize that I was
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: letting my pain out onto this relationship and you didn't
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: deserve that. But I think even bigger for me has
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: been I have boundaries now between me and the people
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: that I care about and so I'm here for you absolutely,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, But I'm here for you
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: to my own capacity. I don't over extend anymore. I
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: have to take care of me. I have to be
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: my number one priority because I'm not anybody else's number
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: one priority, and I'm not supposed to be because I'm
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: an autonomous adult.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Oh you're talking now. You sound like a grown ass
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: person for real. I used to be upset with myself
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: because sometimes I felt like I needed.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: To be over capacity, more so for my.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Family than friends.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: And remember I said something to somebody in counseling early
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: on in my career, and I said, you know, you're
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: angry at yourself for not being able to do more
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: than you could do, But if there's an eight ounce cup,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: are you pissed off with the cup for spilling after
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: it gets past eight ounces? And I was like, the
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: was ah damn, yep, ah damn. That applied to me too,
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: and it's very difficult. It's very difficult so to kind
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: of keep myself from overflowing and over committing. I've been
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: doing kind of what you've been doing. I've been retroactively apologizing.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: I got a homie who told me something I said
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: in high school and like humiliated them.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: I never knew. And he said that, do you know,
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: dudes with feelings, it could be a little weird.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: So he found a brave moment. He was like, yeah,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: I was really humiliated by that, And I said, bro, and.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: He kind of moved past it. He hit the gas
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and kept out.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: He was uncomfortable, so he was like, Litsten.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he just mentioned he's gonna throw it out there,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: just so I knew it kind of moving. And this
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: is twenty years after, and I said, Bro, I am
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: so sorry. I had no I did that made you
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: feel that way. I would never do that on purpose. See,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: if I would have known that early, I would apologize.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: If you didn't say anything, I would have never known.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: He was like, it's cool. It's like nah, Bro, like sincetly,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. It's like, thank you, man, I appreciate that. Yeah,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: it's like yeah, okay, a.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: No, yeah, you have to be in that place where
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: you can examine yourself and say, damn, I was wrong,
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Like you didn't have to have the intention of hurting
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: them to have hurt them, and so I I genuinely apologize,
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: like I and even with me, Like my friend had
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: mentioned that she was tired of people making fun of
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: her for being short, and I dismissed her feelings like
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: they didn't matter the fact that she's still friends with me.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: I'm like, girl, thank you right, So, yeah, it's you.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: You get to that place thankfully. Well, if you put
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: in the words I was going to say, some people
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: get you, yeah, but you you sort of You have
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: to have those boundaries, like I wrote in an ethics
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: paper once that you know, even therapists can't were from
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: an empty cup. Therapists are not unending wells of empathy
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: and understanding and all this. Like you see a therapist
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: at the fucking club, baby, let her be. Let it
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: be at the club. They are not in you know,
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: doctor such and such, you know them letters after their
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: name don't matter right now.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Let the people's being man.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody needs that time to themselves, just to recharge.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: Like nobody's on all the time, you know, or it's
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: not a reasonable expectation that they should be.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: When I was in grad school, we had this class
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: called group therapy, and.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: All of the first group therapies beast I loved group therapy.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: It was my favorite class.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, because the way our class was designed
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: was it was a gigantic therapy session throughout the school.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yep yeah.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: And we thought we were going in there to teach
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: everybody else how to deal with.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: They shit, you know, teach us how to deal with us.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: And I was like, I don't like that, but I
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: learned so much from it.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: In one of things my professor shout out to doctor Ottawan.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: One of the first things she said was when you
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: walk into a group and you do group therapy, you
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: gotta norm the crowd, you gotta norm the group.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: And I take that to social media. I norm my audience.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: So I just told folks on my threads, I said, Hey,
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: if y'all see me at g Ho, which is a
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: North Carolina A and T's homecoming, If y'all see me
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: at Geho arguing with the bruhs omega sit fight, that's
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: my frat.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: Y'all see me at g.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: Ho arguing with the bruhs with a cookout, police stack,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: three things high and my shirt off.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: Leave me alone. I'm having the time of my life. Gone,
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: your brother, I'm off that omega oil right now on
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: top fee.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: I'm a little I'm a little old for the oil
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm same.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: I ain't had that since my twenties.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: I can't my digestive track a doing, though that's a
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: young person's game.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: I'm bet on that. But I don't ever want people to.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: Put me in a place because I'm online and I
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: talk about therapy where you think I'm perfect, right, and
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: you think I should automatically care about maintaining the image
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: of being perfect because I ain't never going to break
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: my neck falling off of a man.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: To why ain't put myself.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: On literally and I am. I understand that I may
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: be elevated in your eyes, and I appreciate that to
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: a certain extent, but please don't have me on such
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: a high pedalsal that I don't look human anymore. Yeah,
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: just please don't. Because I'm a human. I will mess
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: things up. I will not all like you may meet
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: me and come across thinking or leave that situation thinking, damn,
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: she was kind of rude, and it's like maybe I was.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: Maybe I was just high and trying to enjoy my night,
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: like a million things could be going on because I'm
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: just another girl, Like I'm just a one person on
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: this planet. Of billions of people. And yes, I'm very
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: grateful for my experience in therapy. I'm very grateful for
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: grad school. I would not take any of that back,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: even though it was so hard, and I wouldn't do
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: it again. I also wouldn't take it back, you know,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: the things that I've learned in the place that I'm
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: in now. But that's that's why I'm at a point
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: of I can't give. If I can't give past capacity
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: for my closest loved ones, then I definitely can't do
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: it for fans. I can only and it's never my
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: intention to be rude or anything like that, but I
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: can't give you what I don't have either. You may
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: have just come across me on the worst day, and
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: I'm allowed that, and I'm allowed that.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Somebody on thread said I said something that upset on
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: the like care you really disappointed me as a therapist.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: You really disappointed me, And I responded, yeah, I'm going
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: to do that a lot.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: To do that. Oh yes, a lot of people were
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: disappointing me for what I said about CARDIV when she
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: announced her pregnancy by Stephan Diggs, and I'm like, yeah,
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: you can be disappointed in me. I actually don't need
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: you to approve of that. How big was that response?
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: Much larger than I could have ever anticipated? It was.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it was. I was one of those
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: times where I went back and relisted and like I'm tweaking,
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: or like I don't So I think part of it is,
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: you know, Cardie's very beloved. Anything that feels critical towards her,
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: people are gonna kind of have their their their guards
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: up in the clause out. But a lot of it
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: is also poking people in a very sensitive place because
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about emotional maturity and most of you have
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: at least one emotionally immature parent, And if you're really
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: honest with yourselves, you know that that's true. And so
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: you know, you may be taking what I said and
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: applying it to your own life, your own situation, or
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: whatever else. Again, some people just thought it was rude,
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: which I'll give you that it was not. You know,
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: you're right, it was not kindly worded at all, But
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: that's the show. The show is called the Read. It's
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: not meant to be kind, So I mean, it's just isn't.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: So you know, that was one of those situations where
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm happy to go back and expound on
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: why I care so deeply because my research projects all
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: throughout grad school were about emotional maturity in parents and
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: also how emotional mistreatment affects children. I was going to
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: ask you if that I swell, if that response was
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: motivated by something you saw. Yes, well, yes, so yes,
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: oh god yes. And it's also partly because I know
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: what it's like to have experienced emotional abuse and neglect,
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: both of them from both parents, but one being more
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: dominant in one and the other being more dominant in
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: the other. So I have firsthand experience what that's like.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: But also I've read the research. Baby, it's not just
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: me like this is a As far as I'm concerned,
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: this is one of the top mental health issues that
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: is plaguing the world. The fact that people are not
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: examining why they do the things they do. They are
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: not they are not sensitive to the ways that they
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: are hurting their children for whatever reason. A lot of
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: people just had kids because oopsie, doopsy, or it's what
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: you're supposed to do, or whatever else, and they have
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: in their minds this idea of what their child should
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: be or how they want to raise their kid and
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: that's not inherently wrong, but there will come a problem
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: if you don't allow your children the space to be
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: the individuals that they are. Yeah, and so, but that
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: takes a certain amount of maturity to be able to
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: look at yourself and say, damn, I was projecting my
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: shit onto you, or I wasn't allowing you to be
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: a little black boy who likes rainbows or wants to
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: play with cooking utensils, or you know, is playing barbies
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: with his sister or whatever, like, I didn't allow you
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: the space to do that because of my very narrow
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: and limited idea of what a boy was supposed to
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: do or what a girl is supposed to do, etcetera, etcetera.
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: So I all of my research projects were around emotional
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: abuse and neglect, and it is such a massive problem.
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've read Adult Children of Emotionally
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: Immature Parents by doctor Lindsay C. Gibson. I feel like
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: it's like a therapist. It's one of the therapists were
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: all right, but when you when you spot emotional immaturity
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: and you see how it is passed on to children,
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: and then you read about how kids who grow up
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: being emotionally mistreated have higher have rates of PTSD that
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: are right up there with combat veterans and survivors of
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: sexual assault, higher rates of depression anxiety. As when you
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: look at the research and you see how profound the
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: effect is. It just for me, I it was like,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: if I don't do nothing else, I want you all
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: to understand how much your children deserve for you to
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: examine your own choices, your own beliefs, your own behaviors,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: and be accountable for them. Yeah. Man, And I think
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: in our.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Society, especially if you start talking about anything in the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: area of motherhood, I think there's always going to be
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: a specific reaction. If there is a person who is
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: collectively admired or I don't know the word that I'm
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: looking for, but people want to kind of either be
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: like or be that person. You get a specific response
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: if it's at the intersection of I can imagine that
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: being a lot. Yeah, did you ever because I know
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: about the original comment, but like when you had to
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: go back and explain yourself further, was it from did
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: you like nah, like I studied this shit like this
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: is like I.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Know what I'm talking about here? Or was it kind
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: of just like, hey.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: You you could be upset with what I said, but
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: I said what I said, yeah, or was it a
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: little bit of it?
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: It was a little bit of both. It was I
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: see the challer upset. Wow, wasn't really anticipate. I was
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: not anticipating that kind of response because I had spoken
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: similarly about countless men on the show who have haphazardly
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: brought children into this world.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's been a big topic of a.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: Conversation, and I have talked about that endlessly on the read.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: So that's why I was like, there's a few different
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: things that are at work here that are causing this
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: level of reaction. And some of it is, you know,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: Carti's beloved, and so people don't want to hear that
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: about their faith, and I get that, you know, I
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: used to feel that strongly about people and react that
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: way too. But it was definitely very much like at first,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: I went back and listened to the segment to make
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: sure that I didn't say anything I didn't mean, and
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: then I was like, you know, unfortunately, grad school has
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: really cemented to me how important it is that parents
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: have their shit together. And I'm not even criticizing y'all
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: in the capitalist sense, because I know you don't make
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: enough money. Like I know, times are hard and you're
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: not paid what you deserve, and you don't have enough
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: time off with your kids, and the budget can only
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: stretch so far. I'm not even criticizing y'all about that shit,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: because a lot of that is outside of your control.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about the things that are within your control.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about examining your self. Look at how you
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: talk to yourself, Look how you talk to your children,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: look at how you treat your children. Do your children
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: have are their emotions safe with you? Or are they
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: walking on eggshells around you?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: When I want to say about ten years ago, I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: sat in on Child and Family Services.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: Court hearings oh Man for.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: Four days oh Man.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: And I always say, if you can sit in on
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Child and Family Services court heerings wherever you are, it
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: will destroy your faith in humanity. The things that people
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: do to children. And not saying that anybody that we're
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: talking about or we're referencing, did anything to this, No, no, no,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: I'm just putting that out there, but it just shows
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: you what children go through. And I think one of
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: the things that my experience and therapy is taught me
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: because I try to be careful the way that I
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: talk about people's like not the way that I talk
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: about people's parenting, but when I'm talking about parenting, because
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: once defenses go up, people wannt listening to me anymore.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: You're right about that, I'm telling you, you are right
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: about it, like all on one feels swoop. And so
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: when I'm when I'm saying it and also creating content
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: for a wild crystal, what I realized, real rap, let
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: me move my mic because it's falling down. When what
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: I learned is if I could present a problem to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: different ways. If I say, you know the people in
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: your life have done bad things to you and they
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: need to rethink their.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: Approach, that's a million views.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: If I say there's a likelihood that you have done
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: bad things to people unintentionally, you need to rethink your approach,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: that's one hundred views. Because it's one thing to give
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: somebody this satisfaction that they've been victimized and validate that
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: side of they lived experience.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: But it's another thing to say, hey, your intentions might
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: have taken off from the runway as something well meaning,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: but they landed as something harmful. Perhaps we should look
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: at at that. I don't want to look at that.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: What you mean, I could possibly be wrong?
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Why would I be wrong? That's not what I meant. No,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: I know that's not what you meant. But that was
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: the impact of what you did. Well, I don't understand.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: How could it be? And then it's a fight at
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: that point. So when it comes like the child and
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: family services and the things that happen to people, I
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: learned that when folks react, sometimes they're reacting through their
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: experience and when they understand, but they don't always know
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: the depth of what's out there. And when folks come
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: in a therapy sometimes I could take all them experiences.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been in a field long enough where
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: I've worked with the child that's been abused and the
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: mom who was the.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: Abuser and the daddy who went to jail at an
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: early age and she ended up.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: With a dude that didn't mean her or her child will.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: And you see the entire continuum. And when folks come in,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: when they start talking, I can kind of see how
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: these things that happen in them in childhood play out.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: And it's so hard for me not to give them.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: Like how we said earlier, it's hard not to kind
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: of tell people what to do in therapy.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: And you see the end of the story.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: It's so hard to see an adult who's in therapy
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: because their parent was well meaning and their parent did
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: the best that they could. But doing the best that
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: you can is not the same as meeting the moment, yes,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: and not blame you. I'm a parent that don't meet
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: the moment all the time, and I'm not going to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: You also don't have to need that man. Man, they
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: don't need you to get it right every time. That standard,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: And it's an a possible message to permeate because folks
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: will say, well, I'm a good parent, and I always
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: say about whose standard it's The quality of your parenthood
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: is not going to be measured by how well you
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: think you did. It's going to be measured by how
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: well that child thinks you did as they become an adult.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: Me and my wife be talking shit all the time
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: with one of our kids, like, man, I'm not the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: parent the filling that gap. I'll do my best. We'll
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: talk about the rest of therapy. Yeah, I'm going to
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: be in a therapy session in fifteen years. I would
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: just have to be open to talking about it because
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: what that what that child needs. I don't have the
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: bandwidth to provide. And I can't lie to myself about it.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah I can't. You can't, I can't. I mean I can, well,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: but that's going to create more problem. It is.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: And that's the difference between spending your tires and moving forward. Yes,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: and I can. I got the curse of working in
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: this fielding. I can feel that I hate it.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: Well, you said something so interesting about you know, you
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: frame one thing like, oh your parents did you wrong?
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: Way more views you mighty hear something wrong? Way fewer
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: views people. That defensiveness that comes up for me when
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: when people react that way to the suggestion that they
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: might be wrong, and it's immediately oh no, I had
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: good intentions, this, I this, and they're scrambling for ways
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: that they could be right. To me, that's indicative of
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: somebody who when you were wrong in your formative years,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: that was me with harsh, harsh punishment or maybe reactions
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: that were not proportionate to what you did wrong. Because
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: that level of the you don't see that level of defensiveness,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: and people who were gently or age appropriately corrected for
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: things that, you know, missteps, things like that. A lot
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: of us, and I'm speaking to black people, a lot
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: of us were held to adult standards as.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: Sure, especially in the eighties and nineties.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, because all the therapeutic language wasn't part
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: of the soul, not at all.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: And you know, white people was going to therapy in
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: the fifties and sixties and seventies, but we mostly were not.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: So you know, we definitely a lot of us were
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: eight years old expected to perform like we were thirty two.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: And it's like, I'm literally just a child, though you
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: mad at me because I was fisiting in my seat,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: or you know, I picked up the hem of my dress,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: or I you know, you told me to do something
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: and I didn't immediately do it. Like I'm actually literally
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: a child, like I'm growing up.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: And it's really hard, and especially in clinical settings, especially
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: when I work with black men, when we talk about
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: ass weapons, ooo, men and kids that got beat and
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: then they attached that action to something that they did
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: to deserve it or they somehow attach it to And
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: I know it's going to ruffle your feathers if you're
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: listening to this. Just hear me out. Just hear me out,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: Just hear me out. They attach it to some like
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: well this my parents had to do that in order
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: to get me to this behavioral space. Shaq talks about
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: it all the time, and it breaks my heart when
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: he talks about like he gave his father a championship
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: trophy and he just put it away to go give me
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: another one, and he's like, yeah, it made me a competitor.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: I'm like, for everything it gave you, it makes me wonder,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: what the fuck did it take away from you? Doctor
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: rock Hill Martin shout out to doctor Oh, that's my home.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: That's the home.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: I talked to her almost every day, Doctor Martin.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: She has a post where she says, there's never a child,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: never a time when adult hits the child where it's
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: not about the adult losing control. And when I get
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: these men in therapy sometimes a lot it be women too,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: but I work with a lot of men who are
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: open about this, and when I get them in therapy,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: always asks what's the difference. How do you know the
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: difference between you getting your ass whoop because you did
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: something wrong and you get in your ass whoop because
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: your parents was frustrated because the world took a lot
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: away from them and you were a reminder of their failures,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: and you were the easiest person in the house to
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: take the anger out on who couldn't respond and react.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: How can you tell the difference where this one end
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: and the other begins? And you will never know? No,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, especially as children, they are literally stuck in
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: that dynamic. They have no rights, they have no power.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: They abuse has to be so extreme for kids to
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: be taken out the home, especially emotional abuse in the
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: black Please, it's like unheard of, it's so rare. It's intangible,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: all right. And that's the thing. It's not bruises and stuff.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: It's not kids acting sexual you know, at an early
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: age or something like that. So it's not even something
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: where other people who work closely with children, teachers and
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: day care provider stuff like that. It's not even something
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: that they can usually pick up on or detect. But
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: you know, you you were, you were treated that way.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: At what costs? Yeah, at what costs? And that is
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: so many of the greats who you know, I mean,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: the Michael Jackson movie is out now, and it's like
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: we all know how Joe Jackson did them kids, and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: people will still say, but it was worth it. Look
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: at Michael, Yeah, look at Michael dead at fifty one
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: from a drug overdose.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: Bro, I know the means don't the means don't justify
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: the end. It's one video where who is who's the
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: youngest Randy? I think, yeah, one of them. He just
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: I mean he was getting he was getting busy on
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: stage and you can see.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Them whispering each other like he high, and it's yeah,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: he looked.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: That boy was cool and with an environment that did
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: not work for his mind and body.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: Hey, and you know, Joe Jackson is an extreme example,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: but so many of us were held to impossible standards
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: as children and trying to get us to understand that.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: Like I used to say, and I used to be
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: one of those people that say, like, it's no such
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: thing as a child that don't deserve an ass whipping.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: I used to say that all the time, like you
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: did something, now, damn it, you did something, and it's
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: like merely merely disobeying is not necessarily grounds for getting
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: your ass speed.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: No, being a child who was quirky or yeah, who
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: was inquisitive, I had questions or who dared feel something
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: different than their parents.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, and to point that out. So much of the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: times I got in trouble was because I was like, oh,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: but you said this, but he doing that? How come?
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: And it's like go to the right, and it's like, well, damn,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: I thought you you raised me to be smart and
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: ask questions, but you didn't want me to turn that
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: on you. So it's like yikes, lohm. And But anyway,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: children end up internalizing a lot of that. And again
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: this is why so much of what I talk about,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to get people to think like, ooh, damn,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: that sounds like me or I had a similar experience.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: And maybe once you can't do anything without awareness, No,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: once you have the awareness that something's off or there's
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: something you can be looking at differently. Like a lot
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: of people got mad at me for the things I
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: said about Cardi, even though they were exactly the same
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: as things I've said about so many other men. But anyway,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of people got mad, But a lot of
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: people also said, damn, damn. Maybe that's me, not all
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: of it, but maybe part of that is me. Yeah,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: And maybe that hurts because that's my parenting and you
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: know the baby's here. Now. I'm not suggesting you do
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: anything to for the child to no longer be here.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: I'm suggesting you take a look at yourself so that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: you don't pass on the things that were passed on
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: to you that aren't good for your child's development. You
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: mad at your baby a lot of the times for
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: things that are developmentally appropriate. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: One of the biggest issues in child and parenting is
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: that we don't understand the development. We don't fundamentally understand
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: the developmental needs of our child.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, correct included my four year old.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: Sometimes she get to see daddy, my my I talked
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: about on the previous episode, Daddy, my arms don't work.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: Can you see me something?
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: It's four years old of eating dinner and she daddy,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: can you wait me? And she got her hands and
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: then on the ground her ass in And now I
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: got to stop eating my my Tilapia, she's.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: A younger one like.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: She cute.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, because a baby's fine baby for whom. But it's like,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: you know, people get mad at their teenagers for wanting
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: to dye their hair, or wear different clothes or hang
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: out with their friends. Baby at that age they are
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: finding themselves. That's what they're supposed to do. I know,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: I know. Just remind me of that. Yeah, right, it's
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: different when you're in it. I'm sure it is. It's
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: one thing looking at the ghetto.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: You can look at good times bigger.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: That's so real. I have empathy for parents, but not
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: to the point where I but my first priority is
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: always children. Yeah, it is because you chose them.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: I know, man, I know, I know. Me and my
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: wife talk about it all the time, like, damn, these
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: kids annoying. But they did not ask to be here.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: They literally didn't. And I mean, have you met kids, Yeah,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: annoying is part of it. Listen, it's part of it. Listen.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: Kids can boy, they habitual line step man. Oh yeah,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: And that's the point. They gotta test things out. They
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: gotta see what's real. They gotta you know, sometimes you
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: gotta face the consequences natural consequences of your behavior, but
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: you also have to guide them, you know, and keep
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: them from doing things that will cause them serious bodily harm.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: And especially with toddler's toddlers want to they have no
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: respect for their own well being.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: I stopped my daughter from being concussed, so many times she.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: Was upsetting with me. She sucking on remotes and showing
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: them out. You can't tear you on tea and toys.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: I want you to make it to five. They don't
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: respect their own life.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: So, if you heard Crystal, there's developmentally appropriate ways to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: gently guide your child back. You don't have to. If
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: you spare the rod, you don't spoil the child. You
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: appropriately developed the child. There are different ways to go
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: about that thing, all right. So if this episode hit,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: if it resonated with you in any kind of way,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: if you are a person who's been carrying stuff that
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: ain't yours, if you're a person that's been handed baggage
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: that you ain't want to carry, and all of a
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: sudden it transferred from that person to you, I want
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: to hear from you. I want to hear your thoughts.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: I want to hear what a har moment you stumbled
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: a punt. If a light bulb went off during this episode, man,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: tell me about it. If something me and Crystal said
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: you disagree with, tell me about that too, because I'm
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: not beyond being disagreed with. I think that's how you
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: have amazing discussions and conversations. So I want you to
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: bring it to the community. Follow us at ig on
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: ig rather at learn the hard Waypod that's Learned the
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: hard Waypod, and leave me a voice note. You can
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: DM me and you can leave me a voice note,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: or you can go to the website www dot learnthhardwaypod
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: dot com and there's a feature on my little website
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: where you can leave me a little voice note and
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: say what you got to say. We'd love to hear
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: from you. You know, we built this community brick by brick,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: brick break and you are part of this community. You
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: wanted the bricks shout out to the Carter. Not everybody
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: gonna get that reference, I think, but if you know,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: you know, so, yes, leave me a note. I would
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: love to hear from you, and we will do an
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: episode where I answer all of your questions. We'll take
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: a couple of them and we will just boom boom
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: boom right here right here on the pod. So send
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: me a voice note, leave me a message, let me
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: know what you think, let me know what you're discovering.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: So thank you for rocking with us on this episode.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: And if we didn't say anything that was clear, I
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: want you to be clear on this caring is not
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: the issue.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: It's not an issue that you care. It's an amazing
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: thing that.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: You give a damn.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: However, if you're carrying past your capacity, or if you
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: care to the point where it takes away from you
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: to give something to someone else, that's where there may
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: be a problem. Not saying there's a fire, all saying
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: as I smell smoke, I want to think my breath.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: My guess, Crystal, I'm gonna send my crest.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I so rarely share my
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: space with men voluntarily, so they sent me your info.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: I was like, let me look this man up. But
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: I passed the five check. You did? You did type
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: it off for pass you the five check? Yeah, and
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: I think we need you know. I'm sure you get
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: this a lot. But more black men who have been
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: through this sort of therapy journey, who know what it's
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: like to be a therapist and are talking to other
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: men because so many men simply won't hear me because
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: I'm a woman. Yeah, So I really appreciate when black
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: men have some sense and they spread that most themselves.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: So thank you for having me. I received that.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: I appreciate the love, and I appreciate the love from
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: y'all too. Thank you for tuning in. Shout out to
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: my guest Chrystal. Can we can they find you and stuff?
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: So you can find me at the Read every week
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: on all podcast Everybody we don't know about the Read.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: Also Christmas Couch, which is my little advice show where
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: I get to go into the big advice show, big
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: advice show. Well I call it my little baby, but
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: I you know, it was something for me to do
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: with this degree other than get licensed. I'm like, hy
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: therapists don't give advice, but I do know, so hit
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: me up at Crystal's couch if you have a question
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: that you want to ask me on the show. But yeah,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: this was This was such a treat. Now, this was amazing.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: I could talk to you for four hours, Cilly. We
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: could have kept going.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: And my producer is telling me, I wait, over time,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: are ready to go to be in the corner doing
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: like this.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: So that's all for us today. Y'all.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: Take care, take care of yourself, take care of the
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: spaces around you, and make sure that the spaces around
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: you are taking care of you too.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: Till next time.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: Job well done.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: We out learn the hard Way as a production of
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts I'm Your Host care Gaines. We're produced by
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: Courtney Deans and Cason Alexander.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: Ashley. J.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: Hobbs is our senior producer.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Will Packer, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: Alex Balden, and Carla will Maris