Latest / UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth / EP 40 - When Trauma Becomes Your Identity

Transcript

EP 40 - When Trauma Becomes Your Identity · UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth

0:00
What if the thing you've been hiding your whole life, the pain
0:03
you never named, the trauma that you never spoke about, is
0:06
actually the place that God wants to meet you today?
0:10
Today's conversation is raw, honest, and necessary.
0:14
This isn't about relieving pain. It's about reclaiming identity.
0:24
Welcome to Unmasked, where we take off the filters and get
0:26
real about faith, failure, and finding freedom.
0:29
I'm your host, Wesley Farnsworth, a dad, veteran,
0:33
author, and a man who's learned that God does his best work in
0:36
the middle of our mess. Each episode will have honest
0:39
conversations with people who walk through addiction, pain, or
0:42
doubt, and with pastors, leaders, and everyday believers
0:46
who are learning to live and lead authentically.
0:50
So take a breath, pull up a chair, and let's get real.
0:54
This is UNMASK Today on Unmasked, my guest is someone
1:03
who knows what it means to survive in silence and what it
1:07
costs to stay there. I'm joined by Lawyer Johnson, an
1:12
author, entrepreneur, trauma advocate, and a voice for men
1:16
who were taught that in silence. That and a voice who were taught
1:21
that silence equals strength. Lawyer's story includes
1:25
childhood abuse, incarceration, and years of unaddressed pain
1:29
that quietly shaped his identity and decisions.
1:33
But it doesn't end there. Through faith, self-awareness,
1:36
and hard inner work, he began reclaiming who he truly is.
1:41
Not defined by trauma, but transformed through it.
1:46
This is a conversation about healing without hype, faith
1:50
without performance, and the courage that it takes to
1:54
confront what we buried. Lawyer, thank you so much for
1:58
joining us and on Mass. I'm excited to have you and to
2:02
to dive into your story. Thank you for having me on,
2:05
Wesley. Absolutely.
2:07
It's my, my, totally my pleasure.
2:10
You know, Lawyer, your story begins with childhood trauma.
2:14
Without going into graphic detail, of course, can you tell
2:17
us a little bit about what happened and how did that early
2:20
pain begin shaping the way that you saw yourself in the world?
2:24
I saw myself. I saw myself as a energetic kid.
2:32
You know, my childhood was amazing.
2:36
When I tell you it was amazing. My mother, she spared no expense
2:40
when it came to us. When I tell you I had every
2:46
flavor cereal in our pantry, I mean from the fruity Luke's to
2:51
the Apple Jacks. I I had everything.
2:53
I had all the TV dinners, all the pot pies.
2:56
I was just a happy go lucky kid. I love Michael Jackson.
3:02
The Jackson fives. They came with Jack.
3:06
When Michael Jackson came out with the Ben soundtrack for Ben,
3:10
I played it into it. No, it I couldn't play it
3:13
anymore. I love John Wayne.
3:15
As a kid, I was just so fascinated about being a Army
3:21
man. Army man.
3:22
That's all I could think about. Just because I used to watch
3:25
John Wayne. I I just wanted to be in the
3:27
Army. I wanted to be a soldier and to
3:30
help me along that path, my mother will buy me a bucket full
3:34
of army men and I'll put them all on the floor and put them in
3:37
different angles as they would shoot me in and have the, you
3:40
know, the Wrangler Jeep out. You know, my childhood was
3:44
amazing and the block that I live on was amazing and my next
3:48
door neighbors were amazing. And I had a, a close friend
3:53
growing up and we love Michael Jackson as well.
3:58
And we were just so passionate about what we was doing as a
4:01
child. We would just throw concerts,
4:04
you know, in front of our family and friends outside on our stoop
4:08
in upstate Newburgh, NY. And we'll try to be the Jackson
4:11
5. So just to put you in that frame
4:14
of mind where my head was at as a little kid, you know,
4:18
everything was so innocent. So one day it's just it was an
4:22
average Saturday morning. I get up, I watch space ghosts
4:26
and I watch the just the leaves. It's a normal Saturday.
4:29
I go outside on the I sit on the stool, wait for my friends to
4:32
come out and my my next door neighbor, which is my, my
4:38
sister's best friend, uncle. He, he offered me some cookies
4:43
to go down into his basement to help him move something.
4:46
And it turned out to be a trap for him to sexually abuse me.
4:50
So you know, I'm a 7 year old child.
4:53
You know, when you when you that young, you that vulnerable, you
4:57
don't even, you look at the world in a through a different
5:00
lens of just the world just being a trustful place to be in.
5:06
You don't even think about the unknown.
5:08
So when this incident happened to me, I can remember this guy
5:13
threatening me like, you know, if you tell somebody I'm going
5:16
to hurt you, you know, I'm going to hurt your family and me going
5:19
home. I couldn't even process it
5:22
because my mind was so undeveloped.
5:24
I just, I just didn't understand it.
5:27
And you know, even though something like that happened, I
5:30
knew it was wrong because my, the inside of my body was
5:33
telling me it was wrong and my mental was telling me it was
5:36
wrong. So me going home, I thought if
5:40
I, if I was to tell my mother what happened to me, that she
5:44
was going to be mad at me for some reason.
5:46
So I live with that for, you know, 40 plus years.
5:51
I hid that pain. I hid in silence and and that
5:57
moment there basically changed the trajectory of my life.
6:07
I can imagine how something like that would would change your
6:11
life. I mean, that's just how did that
6:14
shape the way that you saw yourself in the world?
6:20
I saw myself, myself as a scary little kid.
6:24
I saw myself as I wasn't going to let that happen to me again.
6:28
It made me very skittish, if I can use that word, very
6:34
skittish, hyper aware of my surroundings and it, and it kind
6:46
of put something inside me that poured out into my everyday
6:54
life. Like, you know, 'cause it's like
6:57
you develop a, a response to combat.
7:05
Not ever having that happen to you, the more right I, I didn't
7:09
have anybody to tell them like all this anger that I had inside
7:12
me, I didn't have anyone to vent that too.
7:15
So it poured out into like in the classroom, you know, me
7:18
being disruptive for attention, me being aggressive towards
7:22
other students, me being defiant, always defiant.
7:27
Never ever trusting any male figure that wasn't a part of my
7:32
family. If they wasn't, if they were not
7:34
a part of my immediate family like my uncle or my cousins, I
7:40
didn't want anybody touching me, standing behind me.
7:45
Those are the effects that I had once that happened to me.
7:53
I I don't think anybody can blame you there.
7:57
That's some that's a big thing that happened.
8:00
Big, big trauma there. You know you.
8:02
I mentioned in your introduction that you're an author and you
8:06
titled your book My Pain is My Identity.
8:10
Yes. What does that phrase mean, and
8:14
how did that pain quietly become a part of how you defined
8:19
yourself? That pain basically became my
8:26
identity because that trauma created that pain and it kind of
8:35
mold me into that pain. Like everything, my pains is my
8:40
identity. Like when, when, when I was
8:44
hustling, like in the streets of Brooklyn, you know, my hyper
8:48
awareness and my defiancy and I'm gonna make money at any
8:53
cost. That was that was the pain.
8:55
No defining who I was. My pain is my identity.
8:58
Or when I got into a relationship with somebody and I
9:02
had all these trust issues because of that pain.
9:04
That pain was my identity of me not trusting anyone.
9:09
Me landing in a jail cell. That pain, that was my identity.
9:14
Like that pain of I'm gonna not, I'm not gonna let anybody hurt
9:19
me. I'm not gonna let anybody tell
9:21
me what to do. I'm not scared of anything.
9:24
What can I possibly scared of, be scared of?
9:26
Once when at 7 years old, somebody took something away
9:30
from me that didn't belong to him.
9:32
That was something that God gave to me and, and, and and that
9:36
just took me off the rails. And that was a part of that pain
9:40
that created the identity of Gloria Johnson.
9:44
But then you still have to. I can't say all bad came out of
9:48
that pain because the pain is what developed me into who I am.
9:52
That pain that I went through also created my lens to see
9:57
little those life in a different perspective, especially when it
10:00
came to kids. That pain made me see the range
10:06
of protection that I needed to provide for them, even if they
10:09
weren't my kids. Like the day.
10:11
Like you know, I, I have grandkids and when I take them
10:14
to the park, I'm always focused on where they're at at all
10:21
times. I'm always looking for somebody
10:23
that resembles or act the way that my abuser did.
10:30
So that pain is just gave me a different lens of hyper
10:33
awareness and, and gave and it has given me that that antenna
10:38
to Alert me with certain things are out of place.
10:41
Like I remember one time I was in the park and this older guy
10:45
was just taking pictures of this younger dude and I younger kid
10:48
and I, I went up to him. I'm like, do you know this guy?
10:50
And he kind of frowned at me, but I didn't know the guy was
10:54
his father. He just had an older father.
10:56
But it's just my hyper awareness that comes from that pain of
11:00
seven years old that I had to always be in protective mode.
11:03
Even if, even if I'm not protecting me, I'm, I'm still
11:06
that pain has driven me to protect others.
11:10
So that's why I, I, I titled that my pain is my identity
11:15
because that pain made me aggressive.
11:17
That pain made me hyper awareness.
11:19
And it also pushed me in places where it made me understand that
11:26
if you don't, if you don't protect kids.
11:30
If you don't protect kids, I want to use the correct word.
11:33
If you don't, if you don't protect kids honesty, someone
11:39
would do something to them to make them perceive the world in
11:44
a whole different light. Yeah, I I agree completely.
11:50
And I love that you went up to that person in the park and and
11:54
just checked in and said, hey, do you know that?
11:55
I mean, that's something honestly, I don't think many
11:58
people would do. But it's so simple steps like
12:01
that that it's something that's tangible and really not that
12:07
hard to do to help protect kids. But most of us, we would just be
12:12
like, Oh well, you know, we would just assume that they
12:14
know. So I'm hats off to you for being
12:16
able to do that and. And I'm like that all the time.
12:19
Like it's like even it bothers me and I hate to say this, it
12:23
really bothers me from driving down the street and I see little
12:27
girls and little boys riding on a scooter and it's late at
12:31
night. It's it always bring me back to
12:35
the seven-year old. It always, it always bring me
12:38
back to the adult person that's the parent and understand what
12:42
can happen to a vulnerable little kid.
12:44
And I always, I always tell my wife, like, why would somebody
12:47
just let their kid ride around this time of night?
12:50
They like 13 years old, 12 years old.
12:52
Why would you let your your kid walk to the bus stop by
12:55
themselves and not monitor him? So I'm always in that space of
13:00
protection, even though that pain, all the pain that I have
13:04
gone through through my life from 7 years old to now, it
13:09
created something in me like I just explained of that, that
13:14
awareness of, of protection. Yeah, absolutely.
13:20
And I love that you're not, you're not sitting in silence
13:26
about everything. You know, 'cause I think
13:28
especially as men, we tend to suffer in silence, especially
13:32
around issues of things like abuse or emotional trauma.
13:35
Why do you think silence is so common among men, and what does
13:40
it cost us? First of all, men, we are taught
13:45
to be strong right? And no matter what happens.
13:50
I know for a fact, like in the African American community, we
13:55
are taught to be strong, we are taught to absorb pain and we are
13:58
taught to move on without showing emotions.
14:01
And, and I think that society has done a horrible job with
14:07
confusing vulnerability as a weakness when vulnerability is
14:11
like the highest form of strength.
14:13
And for us, we need to change the cultural narrative that
14:18
surrounds male sexual trauma, whereas we could start having
14:22
these dialogues and start talking to people to get them to
14:26
understand that what you went through as a child shouldn't
14:33
stop you from voicing your opinion to help other people
14:37
that are experiencing the same thing that you are experiencing.
14:41
So it's just, it's just a macho thing.
14:44
It's a macho thing because people are scared 'cause people
14:47
think dumb if they speak up their vulnerability counter
14:55
outcasting from people perceptions of them.
15:03
I think that's one of the key, the key things that people look
15:06
at vulnerability as they confuse vulnerability as a weakness when
15:10
it's it's basically a strength. What was your second question?
15:15
I know you had a second. Yeah, no, how, how does the
15:18
vulnerability or the silence, I should say why, Why?
15:23
Why is the silence common? And then what does it cost us as
15:27
men by staying silent, basically.
15:34
It can cost you everything. It can cost you a good, it can
15:36
cost you. It can cost you a good
15:38
relationship with your spouse. It can cost you a good
15:42
relationship with your kids. It can cost you a cost you your
15:46
relationship with friends because you're being silenced.
15:49
Because when you are silent, that mean that you are embodying
15:54
all the pain without getting help.
15:56
You shouldn't be silenced. I think once you start getting
16:00
help and you start understanding how trauma works, then you free
16:05
yourself and you start getting out here.
16:08
You start speaking your truth to help others.
16:10
So silence. It kills men.
16:14
But telling the truth is what's going to free you.
16:20
IA 100% agree with that. You know, this show is called
16:23
unmasked because there's just something so powerful about
16:27
taking off the mask and is saying, hey, I'm not OK, here's
16:32
what's happened to me. Here's what's been done to me.
16:34
Here's so here's what I've done because I say time and time
16:37
again, and I'll say it here, you know, it doesn't matter what
16:40
you've done, doesn't matter what's been done to you.
16:42
It doesn't matter how you were brought up.
16:43
It doesn't have to define who you are today.
16:46
And when you stay in silence, that's exactly what you're
16:48
letting it do. You're letting it define you.
16:51
And so when you stay in silence, you allow it to continue to show
16:57
up in your life. So how did unresolved trauma
17:00
show up for you later in your life, especially in things like
17:05
survival behaviors or or destructive patterns and
17:08
eventually your incarceration? I know you mentioned how it
17:12
shows up to you in like the park when you're out with the
17:13
grandkids, but what about the other areas of your life?
17:21
It shows, like I was saying, it shows up in and relationships
17:26
because you try so hard to not live without that trauma and you
17:33
and you try so hard. You tried to so hard to trust.
17:40
So like when you in a, when you in a relationship and you're
17:46
trying to give somebody your all, but it's still a, a, a part
17:50
of you still hurt. That's still in that closet of I
17:56
don't want to trust that 100% because I trust that 100% before
18:00
and it, it hurt me. So even though it's a different
18:04
trust, it's still trust. So that's how it shows up in,
18:08
you know, in your everyday life. Shows up in my everyday life is,
18:13
is like when I'm, I'm out, like I'm out to one of my kids
18:17
football game and I know who I am as a person.
18:23
Sometimes you can walk. You could be walking and you see
18:27
somebody, they just mean mugging you like for no reason.
18:31
But you know who? I know who I am because I come
18:34
from the streets. Listen, I have done things I
18:37
shouldn't have have done in the past, but that trauma sometimes
18:45
question who I am as a person and I have.
18:48
I have to kind of shut it down. Like we're not in that space
18:51
anymore, 'cause the old me, the old me, the old me is be like,
18:56
what is he looking at? Like why are you looking at me
18:58
like that? You think you tough, I'm tougher
19:00
than you, right? So that's the part that shows
19:03
up, that the trauma, the trauma shows up in your life and you
19:06
gotta be like, gotta knock that ego down.
19:08
You know, you, you had to really knock it down.
19:11
So also the trauma shows up, it shows up with, you know,
19:20
sometimes you know, even as an entrepreneur, it shows up.
19:24
You, you, you try to do your best and everything you try to
19:27
do like when you, when you're doing business with anyone.
19:31
I have a remodeling company and also I'm also a licensed
19:34
electrician. So sometimes, you know, the
19:40
anger that comes from the trauma they'll try to spill out,
19:44
especially when you're trying to go back and forth with somebody,
19:47
like just explain something. I, I was doing a remodel for
19:50
this guy. You know, I didn't know that he
19:54
was going to be one of those those clients that's going to
19:57
always question everything you do and always try to undo what
20:02
you're doing. And I came into this particular
20:05
circumstance whereas I was wiring up something and this
20:09
guy. Unwired everything and punch a
20:11
hole through the wall. So I'm like, I had, I had to
20:16
like kind of like not let the trauma spill in with the anger.
20:20
I had to kind of like take a deep breath and I like you, you,
20:24
you got this under control lawyer.
20:25
And I had to go back and talk to guy, like, listen in a humble
20:30
manner. Listen, you hired me to do this
20:32
job. If you feel like I can't do this
20:35
job, I will walk away from this job and you can hire someone
20:38
else to do this job. That's when, you know, I
20:43
realized that that trauma was spilling in with along with the
20:49
pain at that certain moment. You know, that's when it showed
20:53
up. But I had to kind of like kill
20:55
it by looking at the Hue version of Lawyer Johnson and be like,
20:59
listen, I don't know what's going on, but here is the
21:04
solution. Like the old Lawyer Johnson
21:07
wouldn't be no solution. It'd just be the trauma pain
21:09
reaction. But now it's the trauma pain.
21:13
Let's resolve it and move on. And like far as incarceration,
21:22
the pain spilled out a couple of times and, and probably maybe
21:27
like one time when I was incarcerated and I was in the
21:30
kitchen and at this time I was trying to work for the governor
21:35
because in North Carolina they have a, it's called the Governor
21:39
mansion. If you, if you selected to go to
21:41
the governor's mansion, they would like cut half your time,
21:45
they cut half your time off. So I, I would select to go and I
21:49
was just being like the Good Samaritan.
21:52
I was on my PS and QS. They're like, listen, I'm, I'm
21:54
trying to get into this program, get like 30 to 35 days cut off
21:59
my sentence and I can get home early to my family.
22:02
And I remember this one incident where I was working in the
22:05
kitchen and the guy that ran the kitchen and he was very
22:08
specific. I do not want you giving no
22:10
inmates extra food. So while we serving on the line,
22:15
this guy, he's serving people extra food.
22:18
I'm the Baker. I'm not giving anybody any extra
22:21
anything because that's what the guy said in the kitchen.
22:25
So he's looking at me. Oh, he, he'll sell out.
22:28
He don't want to give you no extra biscuit, man forget him.
22:31
So now the trauma spills, the pain for the trauma spills back
22:36
in. He's questioning my manhood.
22:38
You know what you going to do, lawyer, the traumatized lawyer?
22:41
What you going to do? Are you going to fight this dude
22:43
right now because he disrespected you?
22:45
And for that brief second, I zoned out.
22:49
That's when that trauma has spilled in.
22:51
I, I zoned out and I wanted to fight this guy and I want to
22:55
hurt him because he disrespected me and I couldn't stand for it
23:00
anymore. The trauma of the pain was
23:02
telling me, man, if you don't let anybody disrespect you, you
23:05
know, who is this guy? You know, you need to respect,
23:08
you know, you need to protect your honor and make people
23:10
respect you. That's when that pain, no, it
23:15
took over. And luckily I had a good guy
23:17
around me and he grabbed me by my shoulders and he shook me.
23:22
He like lawyer, 'cause I was gone.
23:25
I was already, I was already gone.
23:27
He was like lawyer, forget him. You were pointing at the man.
23:30
Forget that dude, man. He's not worth it.
23:34
Lawyer, let it go. He's not worth it.
23:37
And I finally come. I finally calm myself down and I
23:42
walked away from the situation. But that was one of the that was
23:46
that was like one of those times that that trauma of pain showed
23:50
up. And luckily that guy was around
23:53
me to kind of like, you know, talk me off the edge because,
23:56
you know, he helped me out a lot.
23:59
Yeah, you had community there with you talked you down.
24:02
I I say time and time again, community is so important and
24:06
that's a good example. Well.
24:09
Hey, quick pause here. You know, if if you're listening
24:12
today and there's something that we've talked about already in
24:14
this first part that's speaking to you, share the episode with
24:17
somebody else that you think needs to hear this.
24:19
Seriously. It's it's how the conversations
24:21
like this get started. You never know what that message
24:25
might do for the person that you thought of as you were listening
24:28
to this conversation. So just take a moment and share
24:31
it with them and help start the change for somebody else.
24:36
OK, Well, I don't want to keep, I don't want to stop.
24:39
Like, there's just so much. Information.
24:41
Here. So let's let's just keep going
24:43
and jump into this. So lawyer, what was a moment or
24:46
a season when you realized that surviving wasn't enough anymore
24:52
and healing had to begin? And what changed when that
24:57
realization took place? My wife.
25:03
My wife, she would see me sometimes like special when I
25:09
was writing my book and I will kind of drift off because no
25:15
matter what trauma you have gone through or you're going through
25:18
it always, it'll always take over when you when you don't
25:24
realize it's taking over because it's a it's a eternal hurt that
25:28
lives inside you. And they just continue to like
25:31
repost itself in your mind and you and you and you and you
25:36
can't really recognize it, but other people around you can
25:39
recognize it. I knew that I had to change in
25:43
order for my relationship to survive.
25:45
My wife, she is a very good person.
25:48
And the thing that that was kind of, I won't say taking our
25:55
relationship is that I start having these outbursts.
25:59
You know, I want to argue all the time and and every time
26:02
something will happen up, I want to run right 'cause that's
26:06
that's all I would do was run, you know, run away from the
26:08
pain. And then she was like, you know
26:12
what? I think that you need to go to
26:16
counseling, not for you, but for me to understand you more.
26:24
And just for her to even say something like that made me
26:28
realize that, you know, this is an individual that is standing
26:34
beside you. She's not going to go for all
26:38
that BS you talking about you that you're going to run.
26:40
No, we're not running anymore. You're going to stand still.
26:44
You're going to start healing, you're going to start pushing
26:47
through. So we went to counseling.
26:49
She started understanding me better.
26:51
I started understanding myself better.
26:54
I started reading books on no on trauma, started understanding me
27:01
better and I knew at that moment I had to make a decision to
27:08
change my ways and start being someone that was better for the
27:15
individual that I was with and the old me that didn't
27:22
understand that or try to heal from a this from a decided
27:28
moment in his life. I will always go back to the
27:32
pain or the trauma like all my past relationship.
27:36
Anytime somebody say something to me, my trauma or pain will
27:40
always take over the relationship.
27:42
You know I will say hurtful things, they will say hurtful
27:44
things and I didn't. I wasn't the father that I was
27:48
supposed to be. Not that I was abusive, but I
27:51
was just wasn't present. I put work over the kids because
27:55
I had to provide for my family. And I think that defining moment
28:00
with my wife realizing that I was drifting off and I was still
28:04
dealing with my trauma and I kept running away from healing,
28:09
that was a decided moment. Like I, I need to change.
28:11
I need to change for myself. I need to change for the people
28:16
around me. I need to change for the people
28:19
that need me to change to help them for further their their
28:24
lives by putting out my book. So that was a defining for me
28:28
that I need to stop surviving and start living for myself and
28:35
to help other people around me. So during all this changing
28:44
that's taken place, you're in counseling, you're, you know,
28:47
you, you've made this decision that something has to change for
28:51
not only for others, but for yourself more importantly.
28:54
And I think that's an important differentiation there to make is
28:56
started for other people. When your wife said, Hey, let's
28:59
go so that I can understand you better.
29:01
But then you realized, hey, something needs to change, not
29:03
only for them, but for me to be able to become the best person
29:06
myself. And I and I love that.
29:09
So in all of this changing, how did face play a role in all of
29:14
this with your healing and and becoming not just performative,
29:18
but something that you wore on the outside?
29:24
Oh, faith, help me to be disciplined.
29:29
It it helped me to understand that it's someone over me that's
29:33
way powerful than I am and he's in control at all times.
29:39
I, I, I figured that out early on because I, I, I will try to
29:45
do certain things that other people could do and get it, get
29:49
away with it. But every time I do something
29:52
done, he'll punish me. Like he'll punish me like, Nope,
29:55
this is where you need to be at. And I would not have it any
29:59
other way. And, and I knew what me get.
30:01
I knew when I married my wife that I had to be 100% committed
30:08
to her, to my family, to my purpose, because I know that
30:13
God, when he punish, he, he going to punish you, especially
30:16
when he, when he, when he give you a task to complete in life,
30:21
it's not going to be any deviation.
30:22
And that's when I realized that, you know, my faith is what's
30:29
going to push me through because I have to be disciplined.
30:34
I had to be firm in my convictions and I cannot, I
30:38
cannot align my purpose with anyone's purpose if it doesn't
30:43
align with God or helping people or it doesn't have anything with
30:47
trauma. So my faith grounded me.
30:52
I know that when when I go to night or when I know when I wake
30:56
up in the morning, I got to pray to him.
30:58
I know before I go to bed, I got to pray to him.
31:01
I know even when I feel bad inside and sometime I had evil
31:06
thoughts. I know that Satan trying to, you
31:09
know, make me do some other than what he's that he wants me to
31:12
do. And I just got to go back and I
31:15
got to pray, pray to God and he helps me out.
31:18
It's times when I feel like business is slow.
31:24
I don't get discouraged. I just called on God and I tell
31:28
you, he shows up in a matter of seconds, minutes, hours, days.
31:33
He shows up for me and the reason why I say that he shows
31:36
up for me cuz I am staying disciplined.
31:39
I am staying firm in my convictions.
31:41
I'm not going outside of my bubble of faith.
31:45
And that's, that is the thing that keeps me going.
31:49
That is the thing that keeps my blessings coming in.
31:52
My faith is the thing that keeps me protected at all times and I
31:57
and I feel it. It's not like I'm, I actually
32:01
feel like I am in a secure bubble of faith because I don't
32:06
hear the noise. I don't hear the noise Every,
32:09
every individual that was not good for me in my past.
32:13
They're not in my life anymore. And and that's for a reason,
32:16
because God don't want them around me.
32:18
He just, he just gave he just he has given me my my marching
32:23
papers. I know what I supposed to be
32:25
doing. I know how I supposed to execute
32:28
it, and I realized through my faith that it's not.
32:32
It's not about me, it's not about me.
32:35
It's not about me. It's about me helping other
32:38
people. It's about me leaving a
32:41
reference point for the world so people can look back later on
32:45
that's behind me and they be like, oh, this is what he did to
32:49
get him to the next stage of his life and how he he dealt with
32:53
his trauma. He lived through it and all that
32:55
just come through me, being firm in my convictions and
32:59
acknowledging God, loving God and not aligning my purpose with
33:03
anything other than God. So lawyer, when when you talk
33:07
about healing, you know, what does it really look like in a
33:12
daily life? Not to not the highlight reel
33:16
version, right? Everybody could say, oh, you
33:18
know, it says, you know, what does healing look like in the
33:22
hard, unseen work? Staying busy, being honest with
33:29
yourself, healing is a killing is a everyday process of reading
33:41
the things that I do read as you as you heard my dogs.
33:47
That's that's a part of like that's a good thing for me is my
33:50
dogs because dogs to me, I think they are angels because they
33:56
connect with you. They can feel your pain.
33:59
They sad when you're sad. So that's, that's one of my
34:03
things of healing is like surrounding around, surrounding
34:07
myself around my dog. So I'm, I have 5 dogs and all of
34:10
them love me in a different way. I have one that no sleeps with
34:14
me at night, my wife and I in the bed at night.
34:17
Also. I have one that he's a small
34:21
dog, but he's I call him the love dog.
34:24
He loves on everyone. He he has 0 malice in his heart.
34:28
He loves everyone just looking at them.
34:34
Loving a person unconditionally makes me look at the world in a
34:39
totally different way and not beat up on myself so much.
34:43
No matter what I'm going through, I know that a part of
34:48
my healing is giving out love without strings attached.
34:53
I have to love people for who they are.
34:57
Healing for me is not judging anyone.
35:00
Definitely not judging anyone because they circumstances
35:04
because I understand trauma. I definitely understand trauma.
35:09
Like I wake up every day and I thank God for letting me heal in
35:18
a different manner. And my different manner is just
35:21
keeping my hands occupied by becoming an electrician and
35:25
being a general contractor, being involved with my, my
35:30
grandkids, like taking them to the movies, to the park, doing
35:33
everything that they want to do, watch the basketball games.
35:36
I'm answering them questions, just being president around
35:39
them. And when I say giving me that
35:42
device of loving and that helping me and that helping me
35:47
push through my pants, it's, it's a lot of people that's out
35:51
there that didn't make it through and their devices is
35:56
drugs and no alcohol or could be physical abuse towards their,
36:01
you know, their loved ones. And I just think God just gave
36:09
me a different way of healing. The thing that I'm healing from
36:13
now is sharing my book like taking my taking a vulnerability
36:18
and putting it into a book and not being scared because I know
36:21
God told me it's all right. It's not about you, it's not
36:24
about you, It's not about you. It's not about you.
36:26
It's about the people that you can help Me writing that book,
36:30
me put my life in that book, me telling everybody like, don't
36:35
you worry about people attacking you.
36:37
Just put me in front of you. Let them attack me.
36:41
Don't even worry about them. Let everybody whatever mean
36:43
thing they have to say about a person being sexually abused.
36:47
And I will be the advocate for all of that.
36:51
I I will take on all the pain, all the bullets they're going to
36:54
shoot. I'll stand in front of that for
36:56
you because I know at the end of the day, you need something to
37:01
attach to to let you know that you can make it to the other
37:05
side. So that's the part of my healing
37:08
is helping other people, being vulnerable, understanding,
37:12
looking at how the lesser fortunate are they appreciate
37:19
life more than some people that have everything formed.
37:22
Just just understanding that you know, there is more than life
37:30
than just you. And Becca's kind of sum
37:33
everything up in that, in that question that you asked me.
37:38
Yeah, and I love that you're that you're the advocate, right?
37:41
You're the person there that's like, hey, and I don't know
37:44
what's going on in your life, but I'm not letting what you're
37:47
doing right now define you, right?
37:49
Because I think that's something that's a lot of us can do is
37:52
man, that person's acting that way or, or we're out on the road
37:55
and that man, that person just cut me off, you know, and we
37:58
automatically assume the worst about them.
38:00
But we don't know what's going on in their life.
38:02
We don't know, you know, where, where they're on their way to or
38:05
where they just left or we don't know anything about them.
38:08
And I think it's just especially with the way societies say it's
38:12
really easy to jump to the negative side of things.
38:15
Instead of just taking them in and being, hey, let's show a
38:19
little bit of grace and just allow them that because we don't
38:22
know what's going on right now in their life and just kind of
38:26
checking ourselves because of something that we all need to
38:29
do. You know, today you're an
38:31
author, you're an entrepreneur, you're an advocate, but you're
38:35
an electrician. You're all these roles.
38:37
There's a lot of stuff going on. How did you begin the process?
38:41
How did you begin turning that pain into purpose without
38:47
skipping all of the work in between?
38:52
That's a good question. How do I turn that pain into
38:54
purpose? I turn that pain into purpose
38:56
because I didn't want to be the victim anymore.
39:04
I just didn't want to. I just didn't want to be.
39:06
I didn't want to be the victim of you can't succeed, right?
39:11
Because most time people look at your past and you got to
39:18
understand that your past only explains who you are, but it
39:24
doesn't define you are. And I had the ability to not
39:30
monetize my pain but process it. Process it into, I want to be
39:36
greater than the trauma that I have gone through in my life.
39:43
I wanted to prove to myself that I am great in my own essence.
39:52
I wanted to prove to my peers that your vision of me will
39:57
never define me when they label you as something that you're
40:00
not. Always put in my mind that I I
40:04
had to win. So I, I had to, I really had to
40:10
take my pain and turn it into purpose just to prove to myself
40:14
who I knew that I'll always be. And I was just.
40:18
Someone special. And when I go back to my
40:20
childhood, I always wanted to be a singer from Michael Jackson.
40:24
I always wanted to be a soldier by watching John Wayne.
40:28
I wanted to be a fireman. And it just kind of me being
40:34
where I'm at now kind of validate that I was going to be
40:38
what I was going to be regardless of the, the situation
40:41
that happened to me. Because when I was younger, I
40:45
was already on that road. And it was kind of, I ain't
40:49
going to say kind of, it was kind of derail.
40:56
And it, it gave me like what a 40 year gap, right?
40:59
And I had to come back onto the same path.
41:02
And I had to turn that pain into a purpose, a purpose of an
41:06
entrepreneur, the purpose of an author of the purpose of an
41:11
advocate for child sexual abuse. The purpose of that you can live
41:21
with your pain and your pain don't have to define you.
41:25
The purpose of I'm never going to give up.
41:29
I just have to believe. And I I need to constantly have
41:32
faith in God that He's going to pull me and weather me through
41:35
the storm. I love that.
41:39
And then you said something there that I say quite
41:41
frequently is, you know, when you, when you think about
41:46
healing, there's a, a point when in your healing process that you
41:53
have to realize that, yeah, this happened to me and yeah, it
41:56
sucks, right? Or, yeah, I was addicted to this
42:00
or that, but I'm no longer right.
42:04
And it sucked when I was in it, but I now I'm not that person.
42:08
You can't change your past. It's a part of you.
42:11
It's a part of your story. It's a part of who you are
42:14
today. But like you said, it doesn't
42:16
have to define who you are today.
42:18
You use it to help now connect you connect with other people
42:22
and help them when they're in maybe the same place or you can
42:26
see them heading down that same Rd. that you were in.
42:29
And I love that you're doing that.
42:30
And you're, you're not letting your past define you, but you're
42:34
saying, hey, yeah, it's there. Like I can't hide it.
42:36
It's a part of me. And now I'm just going to use it
42:39
to try and help other people. And that's so important.
42:42
And so with with that in mind, if you could speak directly to
42:48
somebody that's listening today, right now, in this moment, and
42:52
they feel like their past disqualifies them from their
42:56
future, what would you want them to know?
43:00
That your past doesn't define you.
43:02
You, what you do, what you're doing in real time and in the
43:07
near future is what's going to define you.
43:10
Your past does not define you. It does not eliminate you from
43:13
being great. You just have to keep pushing
43:16
on. Like like I was saying earlier,
43:18
you know, yo-yo, your past only explains you like he explains
43:24
that. Listen, he was seven years old.
43:26
You know, he was sexually abused at 7 years old.
43:30
He didn't know how to deal with his trauma.
43:31
He was always mad at himself. He his mind was undeveloped to
43:36
communicate what was going on with him.
43:38
So all of the anger inside of him spilled out into into the
43:42
classrooms. It it, it poured out into the
43:45
him hustling in the streets. It poured, it poured out in his
43:49
relationship, even poured out to the point that he he was
43:52
incarcerated for five years, but he came out ready to know,
43:56
become a trailblazing and, and better himself.
43:59
And this guy, he also, he became a comedian.
44:03
He worked for a Fortune 500 company.
44:05
You know, he retired from that company.
44:07
He started two companies, you know, a contracting company,
44:11
electrical trade company. He became a author.
44:15
He got married to a dentist. That's no, she she is one of the
44:21
main factors in in his life that, you know, pushes him up
44:25
and keep him going and tell him that he can be whatever he want
44:28
to be. And what's the silver lining at
44:30
the end that that past didn't define, you know, it just
44:37
explained you. But what you're doing now is
44:39
what's going to define who you are at the end.
44:41
So someone tried to the director your movie, but you just
44:50
repurpose the movie, you became the director of it and you
44:54
became the writer of it. And at the end of the day, you
44:58
are the 1 going to end the movie.
45:01
And that's how I look at my life.
45:02
You know, somebody started the movie, but I'm going to I'm
45:04
going to write the end of the story because I'm not going to
45:07
let my past define me. And everybody that's looking at
45:11
this new video, your past only explains you.
45:17
It does not find you. The only person that gets to end
45:21
your story and put a sweet ending on the end is you.
45:25
And once you realize that, that's when you start taking the
45:30
proper steps to become better and you.
45:33
And then one of the keys to that is always putting God first.
45:37
Always put God first in anything that you're doing and don't get
45:41
scared because when you get you have to, you have to understand
45:44
this. When you ask God for something
45:47
like you say, God, I want to be a millionaire, right?
45:50
I want to be a millionaire God. Don't ask God for something that
45:54
you not equipped to handle, because when you tell him you
45:57
want to want to become a millionaire and you continue to
46:00
you and you continue to be firm in your convictions.
46:03
You going to have to deal with all the adjustments he's going
46:06
to make in your life, like he going to remove people that
46:08
don't supposed to be in your life.
46:10
If you he's going to strip, he going to strip you down to the
46:14
bare minimum because the foundation that you was built on
46:17
is not going to it's not going to stabilize where you're going
46:20
at. So you're going to bring it all
46:21
way deck down and you can go back to the brick and mortar.
46:24
But I guarantee you when he start building you back up and
46:28
that foundation is strong and you still keep going up and he
46:32
start building the building, you go look around.
46:33
It's going to get quiet because what you asked God for now you
46:37
asked him. I want to become a millionaire.
46:40
He's going to clear, listen, he's going to clear everything
46:42
out around it could be your relationship who with your wife
46:46
or your husband, the ones that they don't really have your best
46:50
interests at heart. He's going to remove all those
46:53
individuals out of your life, friends that don't mean no good
46:56
to you. He's going to remove them all
46:58
out of your life in order for you to stand on your own and be
47:01
great in your own way. So your past does not define
47:07
you. It only explains who you are.
47:09
You're the one that's going to end your story.
47:11
You're the one that's going to get the sweet touch at the end
47:14
with the silver lining. So just make sure I took this is
47:18
just my perspective. Put God first.
47:21
Never let you let just let your past explain you, but don't let
47:25
it define you. Keep pushing through.
47:29
Love that man. I love it so much like I just I
47:33
was going to ask you what's a step that that they can take,
47:35
because that's something I always like to leave my guests
47:37
with. This is an action step and I
47:39
love that you put you said put God first because and I can I
47:44
can hear the people now, man, he can do what man, I am asking to
47:47
become a millionaire. I like that I like this
47:52
relationship too much. I ain't asking that.
47:55
So if you could speak now to last question that this is.
47:58
What I want to? Oh man, I want you to take a
48:02
minute and think about this last question for a second.
48:04
If you could speak to the version of yourself who was
48:07
still trapped in silence, what would you say to that version of
48:13
yourself? I tell the version of that stuff
48:16
that you strong, that you will beast, that you're resilient,
48:21
you have mental fortitude. Men can stop you, you God
48:25
fearing. You're not scared of death.
48:27
The only thing that scare you is the punishment from God and you
48:30
have to keep pushing through and let the world know that you were
48:33
here and that you're a vessel for God to, you know, speak your
48:37
truth. That's what I tell you.
48:40
I tell them you you going to be OK, Just you got a weather.
48:43
It's going to be a it's going to be a bad storm, but trust me,
48:48
you going to be as strong, you going to be strong enough to get
48:50
through that storm. And I guarantee you when you get
48:52
to the other side, it's going to be a bag full of blessings
48:55
waiting from you for God. You just have to stay in your
48:58
bubble of faith and keep pushing through.
49:01
You going to have to stay firm in your convictions and don't
49:04
deviate to anyone. No, no, no, that what God is
49:11
communicating for you is for you.
49:14
It's strictly for you. And don't you know, people can
49:17
tell you what to do, but you know exactly in your heart and
49:20
you know All in all your dreams and all the messages that God
49:24
sent you, you know exactly what you're supposed to do.
49:27
And I guarantee you, long as you stick to the strip and you know,
49:32
and you push forth and you put God first and you tell you talk
49:36
to him every day, I guarantee you you're going to get to where
49:40
you're supposed to be. But you have to weather that
49:42
storm. That's why I tell no, the old
49:44
words to me, man, like, listen, I'm not going to tell you it's
49:47
not it's going to be sweet. It's going to be a lot of pain.
49:52
But I tell you this, God do not place a burden on anyone that
49:57
they cannot bear. And if he give you that gift for
50:01
you to become a vessel for him, only thing you have to do is
50:04
keep on walking and walking and walking.
50:06
And I guarantee you will you see that yellow brick, brick.
50:09
No one's ever going to no one can ever question you.
50:12
What can they say about you? No one can ever question you.
50:15
When you whenever, when people look behind you, they can Blake,
50:17
they're going to give up. They're like, what I'm going to
50:20
say about them or what I'm going to say about her.
50:22
This, this individual has gone through hell.
50:24
What can I possibly say about it?
50:27
And that's going to be the silver lining.
50:30
That's the that's what I tell the old word to be made.
50:32
Listen, in order to get to the sweet spot in life, you're going
50:37
to have to go through hell. You don't have to make a lot of
50:39
sacrifices and you're going to be in awkward situations, but it
50:43
doesn't matter long as you put God first.
50:48
I, I couldn't say it any better myself.
50:51
I love it. Well, lawyer, I appreciate you
50:53
so much being here on Unmasked today and sharing your story
50:57
with the audience. It's been a real honor to have
51:00
you with us. Thank you for having me on.
51:02
For those that are out there and they're man, I want to know more
51:05
about lawyer. Where can they find you online?
51:08
Where where can they find your book?
51:10
Tell tell me a little bit about. About it.
51:12
Well, you if you go on Amazon, Rana, if you go on Amazon right
51:16
now, just just type my pain is my identity and you'll see my
51:19
book up there by lawyer Johnson. Or you can get it on Barnes and
51:23
Nobles. You can get it on I audio on on
51:27
Amazon Google books, get my book on bonds and all my Amazon
51:34
Google Play. You can even go to my website.
51:37
If you get to my website itslawyer.johnson@motivationalwings.com.
51:41
I mean you can purchase the book offline.
51:43
I'll sign it for you autographed copy send it to you.
51:46
I mean you can also follow me on Facebook at lawyer Johnson 2000.
51:50
You can find you can find me on TikTok at lawyer Johnson
51:54
official. You can also find me on
51:56
Instagram at Lawyer Johnson 6 so you can it's easy to get in
52:00
contact with me so if you have any questions, be sure to reach
52:04
out to me. I'm not no doctor or anything
52:07
like that, but I can direct you to some individuals that can
52:10
help you. Like I'm affiliated with NAMI
52:12
National Alliance and Milton Mental Illness.
52:15
I'm a presenter for them advocating for people with
52:18
mental illness and they have a lot of resources that you can
52:22
use and and kind of help you along your way when you're
52:26
dealing with your trauma. So that's how you can get in
52:28
contact with me. Make sure y'all purchase that
52:30
book. My pain is my identity.
52:32
Right now I'm at 210 reviews on Amazon.
52:37
I did real good. I didn't, I didn't expect a lot
52:40
of people to even I knew that people would buy the book, but
52:43
because I did the pre-orders and when, when they open the
52:48
floodgates and I saw the numbers for the pre-order that like,
52:50
wow, this book really resonate with people and I have had so
52:56
many people DM me and me and it was like this book is
52:59
incredible. Thank you.
53:01
So you know, thank all your individuals that's going to buy
53:04
my book in the near future. I appreciate it.
53:07
Spread the word. I hope that my life story can
53:10
change and create your life story so you can help other
53:13
people with your life story to continue to grow in life.
53:19
A lawyer, congratulations on your book and and the success
53:22
and the ten reviews on Amazon. As an author myself, that's not
53:26
an easy thing to do. You know, I've got I've sold
53:29
books, but I'm sitting at 1 review.
53:31
So I understand that journey. So congratulations on all of
53:34
that. And for the listeners out there,
53:36
if you want to find find lawyer, check the show notes, whatever
53:41
platform you're listening. I'll provide links to his book
53:45
and him on social media that you can be able to use to quickly
53:48
and easily find him and more about him and his journey
53:52
because we just barely scratched the surface today here in here
53:56
in this episode. Well, thanks for joining me
54:04
today on Unmasked. And again, huge thanks to Lawyer
54:06
for joining today and being so open and honest and unmasked
54:11
with us. If something in this episode
54:13
spoke to you, don't let it stop with you.
54:15
Share it with one person that God put on your heart while you
54:18
were listening. You never know where the
54:20
breakthrough might start with a simple message from you.
54:24
If you want more encouragement or what information on having me
54:27
speak at your church or events, or you're interested in working
54:30
with me one-on-one, find out more information at
54:33
wesleyfarnsworth.com. And make sure that you join the
54:36
Unmasked community by connecting with me on social media so that
54:39
we can keep walking this journey together.
54:42
Until next time. Remember that grace is greater
54:46
than your past and freedom begins the moment that you
54:49
choose to live unmasked. God bless you.